URBANA, Ill. – Millions of Americans vulnerable to hunger receive support from public food assistance programs, including the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). But they also rely on private charities such as Feeding America, the umbrella organization for food banks across the country.

URBANA, Ill. – Right now, the best advice Linda Tortorelli can give the parents she and her staff serve through The Autism Program (TAP) is this: “Maintain some kind of routine the best you can, but also be forgiving of yourself.”

URBANA, Ill. – Public parks can be valuable assets for communities, but crime in the area can “lock up” that amenity value. Crime directly affects the use that people get from their local parks. If crime is reduced, the environmental value can be unlocked, a new University of Illinois study shows.

“Our research is the first to rigorously quantify this effect, which turns out to account for nearly half of the total value of parks in major U.S. cities,” says Peter Christensen, environmental economist at U of I, and one of the study’s authors.

URBANA, Ill. ­– Urban areas face increasing problems with stormwater management. Impervious surfaces on roads and buildings cause flooding, which impacts the water quality of streams, rivers and lakes. Green infrastructure, including features such as rain barrels, green roofs, rain gardens, and on-site water treatment, can provide affordable and environmentally sound ways to manage precipitation.

URBANA, Ill. – As modern societies become increasingly urban, sedentary, and screen-oriented, people are spending less time in nature. We’re also more likely than ever to suffer from mental illnesses. A new article in Science Advances links the two phenomena, suggesting that adding natural elements to urban landscapes could improve mental health.

URBANA, Ill. – The Jackie Joyner-Kersee Center has been transforming lives in East St. Louis since 2000, fulfilling its mission to instill area youth with the dream, drive, and determination to succeed in academics, athletics, and leadership. Now, having entered a formal partnership with the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences at the University of Illinois, the center can expose kids to a whole new world.

URBANA, Ill. – Conflict over resource extraction is rampant in sub-Saharan Africa, with small-scale miners violently pitted against multinational mining corporations – and the state security forces that protect them – for access. Attempts to solve the problem by imposing Western environmental systems and regulations aren’t working. But it’s not for the reasons most experts might suspect, according to a new Illinois study.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Chicago’s vacant lot-repurposing program is enhancing not just the curb appeal of blighted properties across the city, but also the culture and safety of the surrounding communities, residents said in a new study.

Chicago’s Large Lot Program allows existing property owners to buy up to two vacant residential lots on their blocks for $1 each.

URBANA, Ill. – Until the U.S. Supreme Court’s Obergefell v. Hodges decision in 2015 provided federal recognition of same-sex marriage in the United States, individual state laws varied. Some states were clear on whether or not they would recognize the marriages of same-sex couples, and others were in an uncertain flux, in some instances legalizing, then backpedaling on the decision days later. Some married couples thus faced uncertainty about whether their union would continue to be legally valid.