LOS ANGELES -- During the pandemic, the rules for school attendance with the sniffles were clear, if a bit draconian: Keep a child home from school at any sign of illness.

Since then, school policies have softened significantly. At L.A. Unified, for example, parents are directed to send their children to school if they have a mild cold or cough...Read more

SEATTLE -- Just after 6 p.m. on a brisk mid-October evening, the hum of conversation filled a physics lab at South Seattle College. Mateo Moreno-McQuarrie leaned over a small whiteboard, debating how to draw an accelerating car.

“It’s gonna be a box on wheels,” he said, grinning to the classmate seated next to him.

It had been a long day...Read more

DENVER -- The Pride Lounge at the University of Denver was a colorful conference room adorned with rainbows, LGBTQ-affirming posters and bookshelves crammed with queer literature.

Students of all backgrounds and beliefs could gather there to chat, study and build community, but the space was particularly affirming and welcoming for the campus�...Read more

Last year, I got turned down for a project I really wanted. The kind that would have been perfect for my schedule, paid well and involved people I genuinely liked working with. The email was polite, professional and yet it felt like a punch in the gut.

If you've been following along, you know I've been writing about life as a gig worker. ...Read more

I thought about titling this column "A Shrub for All Seasons." It would be kind of a verbal take off the "Man for All Seasons." But my shrub goes dormant, so I decided the best description would be "A Shrub for All Reasons." Let me explain.

My sister sent me three photos in early October and asked, "How do you like my Double Play Candy Corn ...Read more

ATLANTA — Philip Wyatt, a Buckhead hairdresser by trade, also has a side interest that is more unusual than, say, knitting or pickleball: He seeks spirit activity as the head of Georgia Paranormal Investigations.

The volunteer group solicits clients via social media and website georgiaparanormalinvestigations.net, though Wyatt isn’t even ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — Salomon Delgado is one of Santa Monica's hottest yoga instructors.

He's 93 years old.

What?

Let me reiterate: In a city obsessed with youth and brimming with lithe fitness instructors in Lululemon-wear and wireless headsets, a 24 Hour Fitness gym has a secret weapon in Delgado. The nonagenarian yogi has been teaching there for...Read more

Dear Anna,

I’ve been with my girlfriend for about a year. Things have been great overall. But lately she’s become fixated on one of her close friends, not in a romantic way — more in a spiral of comparison. Her friend is pretty, but so is my girlfriend, except when she makes self-deprecating comments about how she “could never compete�...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS -- Mary Britton remembers the distress she felt in the summer of 2019, when images of huge wildfires in Spain and Australia flared up on the internet.

The fires were made worse by climate change, studies showed. Britton, a financial analyst living in Minneapolis, responded by reducing her own carbon footprint.

She insulated her ...Read more

ST. PAUL, Minn. -- St. Paul’s Como Park Zoo announced some unhappy news Thursday morning that triggered a social media outpouring of nostalgia-tinged sadness.

It wasn’t the death of a beloved animal or the closing of a popular exhibit.

The bad news: The Mold-A-Rama machines are going to be removed.

The zoo’s four coin-operated automated...Read more

Dear Kid Whisperer,

We have a community water park that we go to multiple times per week. We usually bring at least one of my 10-year-old daughter’s friends from the neighborhood. The place is pretty big, so we ask that every hour, my daughter and her friend(s) check back with us so they can get a drink of water and some shade. This helps us ...Read more

The parkway garden sits on a commercial stretch of Glendale's Brand Boulevard. It's a modest patch of native plants, hardly visible from the road.

But this baby plot is the pride and joy of the tight-knit group of green thumbers who tend to it. They gather there every last Sunday of the month for Club Gay Gardens, a garden club catering to ...Read more

Q. My 14-year-old son saved his money and bought an e-bike at his mother’s home. The stipulation was that he always wears a helmet when riding it. Two of my friends called me recently and told me that my son has been spotted riding around the neighborhood without a helmet. They sent me pictures. His mother isn’t doing anything about it. What...Read more

Millions of children and homeowners will soon be engaging an ancient and bizarre ritual.

Children, dressed in fantastic costumes, will besiege homeowners and demand free candy. The homeowners will typically accede to their demands.

But like any complex social compact, there can be a right and a wrong way of doing it, an unspoken code of ...Read more

Pity the evil queen in "Snow White" asking the magic mirror who was the fairest of all, waiting anxiously for the reply. Today, all the queen would need to do is upload an image of herself to an AI beauty analysis app and wait 10 seconds for the results.

Beauty analysis apps score your face “plain, pretty or gorgeous,” or “attractive, ...Read more

If it feels harder to get ahead right now, that’s because it is. Many Americans are navigating a “worst-of-both-worlds” economy: a cooling job market on one side and stubborn inflation on the other.

Prices aren’t rising as rapidly as they once were when the U.S. economy roared back after the coronavirus pandemic. Yet, the largest share...Read more

If there is one thing I don’t want to get off my chest, it’s hair, which is usually ripped out by the roots when I have a medical procedure.

What I do want to get off my chest is an aortic aneurysm, which is why I recently had a CAT scan, at the end of which my chest hair was — sorry, you guessed wrong — not ripped out by the roots ...Read more

When social media first began attracting young people more than two decades ago, parents worried about whether their children were chatting with nefarious strangers.

Now, with the emergence of AI chatbots, parents should worry if their children are being seduced by equally dangerous computer programs.

The use of AI chatbots as “friends” is...Read more

The day after President Donald Trump’s administration began demolishing the East Wing of the White House to make way for a massive 90,000-square-foot ballroom, I sat in a room full of people witnessing what happens when we build, rather than tear down.

Structures. Communities. People. Imaginations.

The Chicago Public Library Foundation held ...Read more

ANOKA, Minn. -- On a chilly April morning, Travis Gienger took his first gamble of the 2025 season. The world-champion giant-pumpkin grower typically starts his seeds indoors. But this year he was out in his backyard, crawling in the dirt to sow them directly.

While some pumpkins as big as Mini Coopers are raised in climate-controlled, C02-...Read more