PHILADELPHIA -- After the mother missed the deadline to sign up for remote schooling, she begged her son’s pediatrician to sign a letter exempting the 5-year-old from the Philadelphia School District’s mask mandate.

The child had mild asthma, and she thought a mask would make it worse. She also thought he was too young to comply with the ...Read more

BALTIMORE -- With more than two weeks of school under their belts, Baltimore-area school districts are beginning to see COVID-19 cases emerge in larger numbers — forcing hundreds of students into quarantine and prompting systems to alter plans and cancel events.

Parents have been forced to rearrange their schedules to care for kids at home. ...Read more

Swatches of fabric come to me in my mailbox every day now — a brightly patterned piece my friend saved from a trip to Senegal in her 20s; the bandana my cousin’s beloved therapy dog wore to nursing home visits; a tattered old dish cloth embroidered, “Be kind to one another.”

“I’ve been saving this piece all these years for some ...Read more

It's been a rough year for the garden. By mid-July the tally was 49-0 with rabbits, squirrels and raccoons for the win.

They grazed through petunias, lilies, sunflower starts, destroyed phlox and mowed an expanse of zinnias like a lawn tractor with zero-turn radius.

The main component of my flower garden was tufts of fur from rabbit tails. ...Read more

DETROIT -- Five years ago, Sierra Barber, was diagnosed with polycystic ovary syndrome, a hormonal imbalance that causes problems in the reproductive organs.

Her doctors, she said, told her that if she ever was able to conceive she would always have problems trying to carry a baby to full-term. At the time, Barber was just 27 years old.

And in...Read more

“I’m furious with Mother. She stole my childhood … I feel pierced because she played on my fears. I trusted what she did was best for me, but she met her own needs, not mine. She took advantage of a scared, defenseless little boy.”

That is one of the hundreds of short anecdotes that make up Larry Godwin’s unique work, "Surviving Our ...Read more

At the end of fourth grade, Olivia Ohlson-Ellis’ mom, Virginia Ohlson, was diagnosed with breast cancer. It was caught early through a mammogram, and she had a double mastectomy and chemotherapy in summer 2017 to remove the cancer that had spread to her lymph nodes.

It was that summer, at 10 years old, that Ohlson-Ellis took her aspirations ...Read more

Gabrielle Union is opening up about her journey to have her first child with Dwyane Wade, and it wasn’t an easy road at all.

In a candid essay, “The Hard Truth About My Surrogacy Journey” for Time magazine, taken from her new book, “You Got Anything Stronger?” the actress takes us back to when it all began in 2016.

After having ...Read more

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