Dear Kid Whisperer,

I am currently struggling with one of my second-grade students who has autism. He is frequently screaming, swearing, and at times poking, lightly hitting or touching other students. I have been ignoring the behaviors when appropriate, and I have taught the other students to ignore the screaming and swearing. I also make a ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — You may have seen them passed around at the playground or park — tiny, candy-colored stickers, often bearing bright cartoony faces, hearts or flowers, meant to repel mosquitoes. Hikers and urban walkers are wearing them on socks and jacket collars; parents are tacking them onto kids’ hats and backpacks. Forget Skittles — ...Read more

Q. My ex and I have been divorced for three years. We both have new partners, and our children get along well with everyone. This year, my daughter suggested that we all have Thanksgiving together. My ex thinks it's a great idea, but my current partner isn't comfortable with it. My daughter doesn't understand why we can't all celebrate together....Read more

On a morning walk to catch the last colors of fall, we saw what appeared to be a large pile of vanilla wafers in the easement up ahead. Whoever trashed an entire box of vanilla wafers clearly has no appreciation for banana pudding.

A few steps closer, we saw that the mound was not vanilla wafers but an enormous puffball of small mushrooms. They...Read more

As a man who is not letter-perfect (I’m not number-perfect, either, and I have the bank account to prove it), I could never replace Ryan Seacrest as the host of “Wheel of Fortune.”

And my wife, Sue, who is perfectly aware of this, couldn’t replace Vanna White as the legendary letter-turner.

In fact, we couldn’t even be contestants on...Read more

BETHEL, MINN. — Looking up at the cloudy sky as 19 of his pigeons flew in a tight formation dozens of feet in the air on an October afternoon, Ma Lee recalled the first time he caught a pigeon.

That pigeon wasn’t of the same breed as the hundreds that he raises now. It was a city pigeon that he snuck up behind and caught when he was 12 ...Read more

DENVER -- Jeremy Gendelman sat his paternal grandfather down at their family’s Denver kitchen table in 2008, a camcorder trained on him, and asked a single question.

“Where were you born?”

Yakov “Yasha” Gendelman didn’t stop talking for three hours.

“I was born in 1930 in the Soviet Union,” Yasha began. “My childhood was not...Read more

CHICAGO — One of the world’s leading experts in the realm of serial killers grew up on the Northwest Side of the city and now lives in Lincoln Square. His name is John Borowski and he looks very much like a normal person and expresses himself with passion and intelligence, even though much of his working life is filled with some of the ...Read more

The Supertunia Tiara duo debuted in 2025 and in this brief amount of time has become the darling of the landscape. The love and admiration from gardeners across the country including my area of West Georgia and East Alabama has been nothing short of WOW! As much as gardeners treasure their Supertunia Vista Bubblegum petunias, Supertunia Pink ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — Walking is my salvation. Vigorous solo walks through Griffith Park are both my go-to exercise and meditations-in-motion. I regularly "walk the day off" there, or stroll around the Silver Lake reservoir after work to unwind. I don't listen to music or podcasts or even the news. Instead, I tune into my rhythmic footsteps and the ...Read more

Dear Anna,

I recently introduced my friend, let’s call her M, to a guy I’d befriended through my climbing gym about a year ago. I’d had a feeling she’d like-like him, but the rub is that he’s in a long-distance relationship. I also knew the guy friend had been struggling with his LDR, but it’s been a minute since he’s said ...Read more

A week before Americans went to the polls and flipped a historic number of U.S. House seats, U.S. Senate seats and governor seats to the Democrats, Amy Acton said human decency was on the ballot.

"Kindness is a fierce commitment to justice and seeing the humanity and the God in one another," Acton told a crowd of supporters gathered at Liberty ...Read more

FORT WORTH, Texas — Ron King loves donkeys.

It wasn’t always that way for the Arkansas-born, and partially Fort Worth-raised, former media executive. That is, until he saw a TikTok video six years ago.

King had recently been laid off from his job in print media — where he ran magazines like InStyle and Southern Living — and then COVID ...Read more

ROCKFORD, Ill. — Plumes of smoke billowed from the steep-pitched roof of a northern Illinois church one winter night after its organ caught fire during a practice session.

Everyone was evacuated from the property. No one was hurt in the Feb. 23 blaze at Christ United Methodist Church in Rockford, which firefighters quickly extinguished and ...Read more

SAN JOSE, Calif. -- Over the years, Stephanie Wallace and her twin sister, Della, have recruited extra roommates to make ends meet, first their brother, Joshua, then his girlfriend, Diana, as rent climbed to $3,700 on their two-bedroom apartment in San Jose. Still, they scrimp on groceries to pay the utilities and are planning to get rid of ...Read more

I got this question the other day:

“What’s your advice on getting back into the dating pool after a breakup? Is there a certain amount of time one should wait? Or, is it a case of getting back on the horse right after falling off? My heart was broken recently … and my friends are telling me to get back out there and date. My walls have ...Read more

CHICAGO — Nothing lasts forever but a series of events presented by the First Friday Club of Chicago has quietly reached its 41st year and continues to do what it has always done, which is offer an oasis of lively conversation, and often wisdom and wit, in this frenetic planet.

As the world has become an increasingly remote and icy place — ...Read more

What a strange world we live in that I have to make the point that adults are the heads of their households.

The evidence for the apparent need for this clarification is all around us. So many parents seem to need to be told that a family is not a group of friends who happen to be related to each other. Friends are equals; healthy friend-to-...Read more

Q: Our breakup was nasty, and I rarely talk to my child’s other parent. When we do, it’s on a court-ordered app. Lately I have been getting notifications that my ex is trying to talk to me. I don’t want to talk. He drives me crazy. How can I convince the court that my child is better off with me? What’s good ex-etiquette?

A: I ...Read more

“Sit down and take a deep breath,” the husband says, as he brings in the mail. “You’re going to love this.”

“We won the Publishers Clearing House sweepstakes!” I yell.

“No,” he says.

“It’s a check from the government saying they’re sorry they overcharged us on taxes for the past 45 years.”

“Wrong again,” he says...Read more