A lot has happened in the first quarter of 2025. To commemorate what life is like at NIU right now, the Northern Star will be opening a time capsule sealed in April 2000 and creating a new one.  The time capsule opening and Northern Star Open House...

Video games have taken the world by storm. The first video game, “Tennis for Two,” was created in 1958 and followed by a multitude of current popular titles like “Minecraft,” “Fortnite” and more.  There are various reasons to enjoy video...

April Fools Day occurred Tuesday and is a time for people to prank or get pranked by friends and family. NIU students provided their thoughts on whether they would rather be pranked or be the pranker and what prank they would pull. Haley Heckermann,...

When my parents gave me my first cell phone, I was not thankful or excited, but resentful. Even at a young age, I had heard plenty of stories about people becoming addicted to their cell phones and being unable to live without them. However exaggerated...

A lot happens in 25 years. Twenty-five years ago, a large chunk of NIU’s student body wasn’t born. In 2000, the most played song was Faith Hill’s “Breathe,” President Bill Clinton was in the Oval Office and the world was still mildly high from...

Have you ever wondered where your local grocery store gets its meat? Chances are at least some of it comes from a factory farm. Factory farms, also known as concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs), are facilities that raise and harvest large...

In the lively, topmost layer of our lovely lithosphere – in our soils – worms and other organisms play an important ecological role. But sharing a planet with people tends to complicate their productivity. The March sky filled with a bright red...

Why did you feel it was necessary to explain the basic principles of journalism to me?  I’m asking because you’ve also just shared that journalism is not your major, and I’ve just shared it’s the discipline I’ve been studying for three years.  I...

On June 26, 2015, the Supreme Court ruled in Obergefell v. Hodges in favor of same-sex marriage in all 50 states. The fight for equality was successful for U.S. citizens as the Supreme Court decided that same-sex marriage was guaranteed in the 14th Amendment.  Now,...

MERCURY RETROGRADE IS A SUPERSTITION By: Lucy Atkinson, Opinion Columnist Astrological topics like Mercury retrograde and zodiac signs are no doubt interesting conversation starters, but they shouldn’t play a dramatic role in dictating your hopes...

The role of a free press in a democratic society is to hold those in power accountable and inform the public with factual unbiased reporting. Any media policy that seeks to control or manipulate the flow of information is a direct threat to this foundational...