EDINA, Minn. -- At first glance, Wooddale Avenue looks like any other suburban street.

It carries traffic between neighborhoods, schools, churches and parks. Visitors park along its curbs. Families cross it on foot.

For cyclists, however, Wooddale represents one of the last missing links in Edina’s bike network.

And after months of public ...Read more

CHICAGO -- Children lined up in the gymnasium at Holy Family School in the North Lawndale neighborhood Monday morning, eager to tear into milk cartons and grab breakfast before another day of summer camp.

Among them were cousins Calia Brown and Alonnah Muhammad, both age 11, who are preparing to enter sixth grade. Over bananas and waffle ...Read more

Ghosting — the abrupt disappearance of someone you were seeing or taking to — is jarring. It often comes out of nowhere, and it forces you to first wonder what happened to the other person before it sinks in that they did this intentionally. In short, ghosting is cowardly, avoiding a short, difficult conversation to spare yourself being ...Read more

TAMPA, Fla. -- Walking into a video game store is something Isaiah Chavez hopes he’ll always be able to do.

In a world where buying and installing new games are mere clicks away from the comfort of his couch, Chavez, 37, prefers to drive about 15 miles from his Largo, Florida, home to a local games retailer every time he makes a purchase. ...Read more

After school cellphone bans passed many statehouses with bipartisan support in recent legislative sessions, state lawmakers are turning to legislation governing how long students should spend looking at screens.

This year, four states passed laws restricting or regulating screen time for students from childcare through fifth grade.

Iowa capped...Read more

It began as a whimsical idea that occurred to Daniel Leigh after an idyllic trip to the United States: Sell his family's five-bedroom home in England and travel the world with his wife, Lauren Vaknine, and their two children.

So he was surprised when, a few months later, Vaknine and their children, Braxton, 10, and Viva, 7, agreed to go along ...Read more

We’ve hit a rough patch over mowing the lawn this summer. The husband is temporarily sidelined with a knee injury and I cheerfully and enthusiastically (a slight exaggeration) volunteered to do the mowing.

We are now engulfed in turf wars. My mowing abilities are under intense scrutiny. The man has high standards. I call him the Sodfather.

...Read more

Q: I'm in trouble. My ex is very angry that I did not pass on a confidence that our child told me, but she asked me not to tell her dad. I want her to trust me, so I kept it a secret, but when her father found out, he hit the roof. Now he's angry and she thinks I breached her confidence. What's good ex-etiquette?

A: That's a great question ...Read more

We are living through The Era of Collective Parental Psychosis: a time whereby we have forsaken the Collective Parental Wisdom amassed by parents throughout all of human evolution to instead favor irrational and nonsensical ideas about raising kids.

This collective wisdom had been spread in the simplest, most natural and most effective way ...Read more

A young orthodontist with what I hope is good eyesight recently said I have a Hollywood smile. I didn’t want to press my luck by asking if he meant I should star in a horror movie.

So I was greatly relieved when I saw that the new retainers he made for me don’t have fangs.

I went to the Stony Brook University School of Dental Medicine ...Read more

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — The canal that flows between Fort Lauderdale resident Harry Rozelle’s house and his church is so infested with bacteria that his teenage son, Cruz, was hospitalized after swimming in it three years ago.

As he tended to his sick son, who had contracted E. coli and salmonella from the polluted waterway, Rozelle thought...Read more

RALEIGH, N.C. -- Robert Lyles has spent more than two decades raising children, but he says he is still learning what it means to be a father.

“I don’t know everything,” Lyles said.

With eight children ranging from 23 to 1-year-old, Lyles has learned that parenting looks different for every child. He joined Durham’s Nurturing Fathers ...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS -- On a recent Sunday morning, nearly 50 people in long pants and sun hats, some toting loppers, gathered beside the Mississippi River.

It was the second meeting of the Minneapolis Buckthorn Removal Singles Club, a group of mostly 20-and-30-somethings circling up for an icebreaker.

Attendees shared their dating preferences and ...Read more

The Garden Guy is dedicating this column to a fuchsia; so many of you are thinking this is a sure sign of the apocalypse. Wait ... this new fuchsia is rocking with August at the door.

The fuchsia I am talking about is Sun Pendants Hot Pink and will make its debut in 2027. My first blooms showed in April and have steadily increased in size and ...Read more

Dear Anna,

I’ve (19M) been with my girlfriend (18F) for just under four months, and things have gotten serious enough that we’re starting to talk about having sex for the first time. She’s never had sex before, and early in our relationship she told me she’d always imagined sharing that part of herself with only one person. She says if ...Read more

PHILADELPHIA -- Like many American suburbs, Abington, Pennsylvania, accidentally spent centuries building a goose paradise. Now, the feds will help the township evict the waterfowl from their ideal habitat.

Abington Township approved a contract with the U.S. Department of Agriculture on July 9 for Canada goose abatement in Alverthorpe Park, ...Read more

I have a new client, Sandy. She lives in San Francisco, she’s in her mid-60s, and she hasn’t dated in over 30 years, since before she was with her late husband. Dating has changed a lot since then.

She and I had a few pep talks about first dates — what to wear, where to meet, who should pay, and how to end a date depending on how it goes...Read more

CHICAGO — Growing up, Tanner Dane and his best-friends-turned-bandmates used to spend hours and hours jamming in his Elgin, Illinois, attic. Like any aspiring musicians, they started with covers. But it didn’t take long to cultivate their own sound: a bluesy, alternative rock, soul-inspired sort of mix.

Soon enough, they were self-producing...Read more

Q. My child’s mother recently moved in with her boyfriend, who has full custody of his three boys. Last time I picked up our son from his mother’s, I noticed suspicious bruises on his thighs and back. This is new. I don’t know if this is the result of discipline, which I absolutely do not agree with, or rough play, which is also ...Read more

When my husband was asked if he would help teach twin granddaughters how to parallel park, he immediately yelled, “Yes!” If there was a parallel parking competition, my husband could take first place — unless our son entered the competition, then he’d take first place.

Our son lived in Chicago for 10 years and none of his apartment ...Read more