A mother in California seeks her pastor's opinion on allowing her 15-year-old son to have a smart phone. The boy claims that if he can't use social media, he will have no friends. Mom is skeptical concerning the claim and afraid of other Internet experiences the youngster might be drawn to if he has a smart phone.

The pastor tells Mom that her ...Read more

CHICAGO - When Doug McConnell reaches 100 swim strokes, he thinks about his father. At 400, he thinks about his sister.

He thought about both of them this week when he swam 19,220 strokes in Lake Michigan from Evanston, Ill., to downtown Chicago to raise funds toward finding a cure for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a terminal disease ...Read more

This idea really exploded.

A gender reveal party started a massive Southern California wildfire, and now Jenna Karvunidis, the woman who began the trend, is once again asking people to stop throwing these destructive parties.

"The parties, they're ridiculous," Karvunidis told the Daily News. "And they're harmful to transgender and nonbinary ...Read more

HARTFORD, Conn. - While coronavirus pandemic restrictions have kept untold families apart this year, Jane Anderson Holmes could not wait another day after 40 years of searching for her biological siblings.

Last week she returned to Connecticut, where she grew up with her adopted parents and attended Danbury High School, to meet for the first ...Read more

CHICAGO – Homewood, Ill., residents, Deborah and Markell Thrash were married Aug. 8 on the grounds of Sinha Elegant Cuisine surrounded by 25 of their closest family and friends. DNR Events, an event planning firm in Blue Island, Ill., made their big day happen.

"We were going to get married right before the pandemic set in, in March," said ...Read more

Cheryl and Corrina Thinn were almost joined at the hip. The sisters, both members of the Navajo Nation, shared an office at Arizona's Tuba City Regional Health Care. Cheryl conducted reviews to make sure patients were receiving adequate care. Corrina was a social worker. Their desks were just inches apart.

They lived together, with their mother...Read more

Q. My husband's first wife died four years ago. I moved into his home with his two young children. Nothing has changed since the moment she passed. I'm trying to make a life for my husband and me and it's virtually impossible here. My husband says we can't afford to move, and he wants to stay here for his children, but I feel so uncomfortable. I...Read more

It seems like everyone's having trouble sleeping these days. I'm no exception, and I'm now more familiar with the wee morning hours than I ever expected to be.

In the early days of quarantine, I found myself wishing for bedtime out of sheer boredom. I sometimes crawled into bed at 9 p.m., hoping for entertaining dreams to save me from the ...Read more

"Stop the show," a grandkid says. "I have to use the bathroom."

They are watching "Jeopardy." I don't know that they've ever seen "Jeopardy" but there are seeing it now and liking it, especially the 2-year old who seems taken with 17th Century Monarchs.

"We can't stop the show because this is television," a grown-up explains.

We are at a ...Read more

As just about everyone who has lived with a child for more than two years knows, the most potentially dangerous thing one can say to a toddler is "no." That single syllable strikes deep into the core of the reptilian portion of the toddler brain, arousing a reaction that dwarfs Godzilla's most destructive rampage.

"Should I simply ignore my 2-...Read more

"Stop the show," a grandkid says. "I have to use the bathroom."

They are watching "Jeopardy." I don't know that they've ever seen "Jeopardy" but there are seeing it now and liking it, especially the 2-year old who seems taken with 17th Century Monarchs.

"We can't stop the show because this is television," a grown-up explains.

We are at a ...Read more

I love cooking - that's why I don't like packing school lunches. It's no fun making food that inevitably tastes subpar after hanging out in a brown bag for hours. Online schooling eliminates that issue but invites countless other mealtime problems, so I'm approaching "school lunch" the same way I always have: as a chore, not a joy. (And yes, I'm...Read more

The morning of Feb. 26 was like any other Wednesday for Jessica Woo. The 33-year-old mom of three nursed her 1-year-old while her two older daughters got ready for school. She washed her face, put on a little makeup, and then headed into the kitchen of her Las Vegas home to do something she does almost every day of the week: pack lunches for her...Read more

My collection of brown paper sacks, insulated lunch bags and reusable salad containers fill a drawer in my kitchen. For decades, we have carved out a little morning time to pack lunch for school and work. This fall, few of us will tote a sack lunch to an actual school or office building. Instead, we'll open the fridge a dozen times a day in ...Read more

CHICAGO -- BBQ and family reunions are to summer as fruitcake and carols are to Christmas.

The Blackwell family reunion celebrated its 112th event last weekend. Determined not to let the tradition go by the wayside due to COVID-19, Chatham resident and Chicago host Theresa Wearring held the first virtual reunion, where relatives reveled in ...Read more

AUSTIN, Texas -- For decades, Lois Villasenor had helped Latino families coping with the death of loved ones.

Recently, the East Austin funeral home she and her late husband founded in the late 1950s has been busier, as the coronavirus pandemic swept over the community it serves. The business has adopted funeral rites -- limited, masked ...Read more