I have received some splendid thinking-of-you gifts lately — and it's not my birthday or anything.

A paper bookmark sits on my desk with each letter of the word "Grandma" drawn in a different color. It is a large bookmark with zigzag ends and a small heart cut out of the middle. You slip the corner of the page you want to bookmark into the ...Read more

DALLAS -- When Tracy Matheson set up the soft interview room at the Mesquite, Texas, Police Department on Aug. 27, she wished she didn’t have to. The Fort Worth resident wishes the other 30 rooms she has created around Texas and the nation weren’t needed to help sexual assault survivors as they recall one of the most traumatic moments of ...Read more

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- When the pandemic hit, Tillie Day didn't understand why her daughter, who she knew only as her caregiver, couldn't visit her in the Columbus nursing home.

Deneen Day would visit her mother from afar, but Tillie couldn't connect the voice on the phone with her daughter's face at the window. Deneen tried FaceTiming her mother, ...Read more

PHILADELPHIA -- Nissah Coverdale doesn’t remember exactly what her mom said when she sat down the 11-year-old and her three siblings that day in May 2020, but the message was one that would change her life: Pop Pop had passed away.

Nissah wasn’t sure what to think or how to feel.

Sad? Confused? Angry?

Before the pandemic, Nissah, her ...Read more

NORFOLK, Va. -- About a decade ago, Tanya Weaver began to urge women at her Portsmouth, Virginia, church to get mammograms.

She’d been shocked to learn the area had one of the nation’s worst rates of breast cancer, particularly among Black women. On a shoestring budget, the 54-year-old human resources manager began helping peers who often ...Read more

CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- While people over the age of 12 are being encouraged to get vaccinated against COVID-19, one group is getting special attention from doctors and public health officials: pregnant women.

That’s because pregnant women are much less likely to be vaccinated. Only about 25% have gotten at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine ...Read more

It took me two days to watch a documentary that was an hour and 15 minutes long. I tend to lose consciousness when the action is slow and the dialogue ends. "School of Housewives" was slow, but good.

Please, do not confuse "School of Housewives" with "Housewives of Atlanta" "Beverly Hills" "New York City" or wherever else women bounce about, ...Read more

Siblings — one moment you’re best friends, the next second they’re driving you up a wall. It’s not surprising that a lot of writers find the nuanced relationship of siblinghood a rich vein to tap from. Depictions of sibling relationships in fiction are as numerous and complex as the siblings themselves, with countless reimaginings that ...Read more

COLUMBUS, Ohio – During the Great Depression era, Mary Ann Grove's grandmother welcomed homeless travelers exiting trains onto her steps in Tell City, Indiana, and fixed them a hot meal.

Her mother and sister have dedicated themselves to feeding the poor as well.

And that tradition of selflessness continues in Grove, who chalks it up to her ...Read more

CHICAGO – Months after people began sharing their stories online of experiencing abnormal menstruation following a COVID-19 vaccination, clinical research into a potential link is set to begin.

The National Institutes of Health announced this week that it awarded funding to five institutions to study whether the coronavirus vaccines are ...Read more

COLUMBIA, S.C. — As anticipated, South Carolina student assessment scores and college and career readiness ratings have taken a dive since the start of the pandemic.

The state Department of Education Wednesday released its annual school report card data, which showed drops in the percentage of students who met or exceeded expectations on end-...Read more

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — While most public schools in the Kansas City area require everyone to wear masks — to the relief of health officials and the consternation of some parents — several private schools are leaving masks optional, and say they are drawing more students as a result.

"Our enrollment is up again, which is obviously a huge ...Read more

Many mornings I check CDC pandemic stats for my state and county to weigh the facts against the hysteria. Then I check the headlines to see what blew up overnight and to see what is still standing.

We live in turbulent times: COVID-19, Afghanistan, schools opening, schools closing, rising crime. Pick one.

Or how about the housing market? A ...Read more

PHILADELPHIA — Meet Thelma Nesbitt, a water safety instructor with Philadelphia's Parks and Recreation Department by day and a nursing home nurse by night.

— Moonlighting poolside: "Nursing is very stressful. My coworkers there are like 'You're going to another job?' and I'm like 'Oh yes, I'm going to de-stress, I'm going to jump in the ...Read more

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Mikey Heine wasn't going to be able to keep attending Bridgeway Academy in Columbus, Ohio, a school that has helped him grow and develop his own sense of self.

"We were looking at withdrawing Mikey from school because I didn't make enough (money)," his mom Melissa Peppercorn said.

Mikey, 8, was diagnosed with autism at the ...Read more

Is your child OK?

It's a question parents, guardians and loved ones who care for their kids ask themselves every day. But sometimes it's hard to tell when children are in emotional distress.

COVID-19 has taken a traumatic toll on the world, and life during the pandemic has been complicated, stressful and full of complications during the the ...Read more

"Mom’s Perfect Boyfriend" (Galbadia Press) is more than a typical romance novel: it’s futuristic. Author Crystal Hemmingway imagines a near-future in which robots may be more than the machines we know — they could be personal companions.

And none too soon for our protagonist’s mother. Crystal Hemmingway (yes, the author and the main ...Read more

One good way to keep grandkids coming around is to keep cool toys around. Not expensive toys, necessarily, but interesting ones like parachutes, butterfly nets, ride toys with obnoxious sirens and horns, plastic bats and a thousand plastic balls, old buckets, assorted sizes of rakes and snow shovels, galvanized tubs and a nine-setting nozzle for...Read more

At night when I can’t sleep — which is a lot lately — I turn to recorded sounds of the sea, to rain pitter-pattering on leaves, and especially to the voices of seasoned gurus.

In the case of the wise people, it’s not so much what they are saying that lulls me back to Neverland, but the timbre of their voices. I can’t always make out ...Read more

RIVERVIEW, Fla. — As the mother of two children with special needs, María "Lalita" Tooley had to be creative to overcome the worries of the first months of the pandemic. The purpose was not to be left adrift, she said.

“Something else had to be done to get through the moment,” said Tooley, of Riverview.

A little over a year ago, the 52-...Read more