CHICAGO -- Fall is in the air. Chicago evenings have a crisp breeze. But something has been bugging Annie Andrews.

Specifically, bees and wasps and a whole lot of sneezing.

“It’s gotten to a point, like, I couldn’t stop sneezing during a shift,” said the 28-year-old restaurant server. Earlier this week, she thought, “I need to take ...Read more

Our annual family vacation on Cape Cod included all the familiar summer pleasures: climbing dunes, walking beaches, spotting seals, eating oysters, reading books we had intended to get to all year.

And a little shopping. My grandkid wanted a few small toys. My daughter stocked up on thousand-piece jigsaw puzzles at the game store in ...Read more

Dear Anna,

I'm a 28-year-old woman who's been seeing this amazing guy (31) for eight months now. We spend most weekends together, text daily and I've met some of his friends, but we've never actually had "the talk" about what we are. I’m pretty sure he's not seeing anyone else because we're together so much, and I'm pretty sure he knows I'm ...Read more

The Garden Guy fell in love with Luscious Basket Tangeglow lantana last year after seeing it in recipes at Young’s Plant Farm Annual Garden Tour in Auburn, Alabama. The colors were so incredible. Like the name suggests, it is a Tangerine that seems to be glowing. Proven winners officially call it Peach, Orange and Yellow.

You might wonder if ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — Altadena's Christmas Tree Lane Association relies on more than 100 volunteers to install its annual holiday light display and organize its free winter festival and lighting ceremony, scheduled for Dec. 6 this year.

But with the community in ruins and more than half of its volunteers displaced by the Eaton fire in January, will ...Read more

CHICAGO — A screaming comes across the sky, and the volleyball players on North Avenue Beach stop at once and instinctively duck and stare out across the sand, as if a bomb went off in the distance. A bomb, in a sense, had gone off. A bomb packed with anxieties and loathing — a scream, in fact. Followed by more screams, each one a few ...Read more

We have a selection of questions today, ranging from “feminine energy” to the sometimes dreaded “What are we?” conversation. I’m here to shed some light on, and hopefully, demystify a few common dating questions.

Q: What does it mean to be in your feminine energy?

A: I don't use language like this, so I’m not 100% sure what the ...Read more

Like a lot of people my age, there are times when I can't find my keys, or my sunglasses, or my phone.

Now and again, I'll get an idea to look something up, reach for my computer, and forget what it was.

Normal aging?

Signs of cognitive impairment?

I'm not sure, but if you have similar questions about yourself or a loved one, and you'd like ...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS — A Nazarene ministry in St. Paul‘s working-class East Side. An aging Lutheran congregation in Roseville. A nondenominational megachurch in Maple Grove.

Three vastly different churches are on the leading edge of a Minnesota experiment in treating chronic homelessness by building tiny home villages — known as Sacred Settlements...Read more

Q. I have had a drug problem for the last four years. I was arrested and have been out of the picture for years. I am now clean and sober and have begun to slowly re-enter my 5-year-old daughter’s life. Prior to that, my daughter’s father had sole custody. He has been living with his girlfriend for years and two years ago married her. My ...Read more

Dear Kid Whisperer,

I’m struggling with my kids’ summer sports schedules. I have three kids, ages 10, 12, and 15, they are in three different sports, and two of the three travel during the summer. My wife and I have not seen much of each other this summer as we have been traveling with our individual kids doing their sports. Our family has ...Read more

We used to tell our kids to act their age. Now they tell us to act our age. We try, but it’s not easy when you are 20-somethings trapped inside the bodies of seasoned citizens.

The husband spent five days last fall channeling Paul Bunyan, swinging an ax at the roots on a 60-year-old maple tree that a removal service had taken down. In ...Read more

The Michelin Guide isn’t just for restaurants. The guidebook’s anonymous, difficult-to-please investigators are also concerned about hotels – and they have some thoughts on what’s in California.

In 2024, Michelin started awarding “keys” to global hotels based on criteria like architecture, value and quality of service. Aside from ...Read more

LOS ANGELES -- "If you don't have anxiety," stand-up comedian Aparna Nancherla riffs onstage, "the way I would describe it is there's, like, an edgy improv group in your brain and it just needs a one-word suggestion to spin, like, countless scenarios that no one's comfortable with."

Nancherla's candor about this life experience is how she ...Read more

Dear Anna,

My girlfriend and I have been long distance for about a year, and one of the biggest points of tension between us is communication style. She only ever wants to text — she doesn’t like phone calls or FaceTime, even when we’re just catching up. The thing that really drives me up the wall, though, is that when we fight or need to...Read more

A scene straight out of a horror movie greeted researchers when they shined lights on a dark Georgia swamp and saw hundreds of red eyes staring back, photos show.

It happened at the Okefenokee Swamp, as the University of Georgia’s Coastal Ecology Lab was conducting an investigation.

“We shone our lights around the boat basin and down the ...Read more

Coast to Coast in a Flash has made the summer one of the most beautiful in memory. Of course, I’m The Garden Guy and I am talking about plants, not a hasty trip from Columbus, Georgia, to Carmel, California. Though the latter certainly sounds fun.

Coast to Coast is one of the most beautiful hosta varieties in the Shadowlaand series. In fact, ...Read more

If you’re serious about financial security in retirement, you can’t rely on Social Security alone.

For most people, those checks cover only a fraction of their living expenses. According to the Social Security Administration, the average monthly benefit for retired workers as of July 2025 was about $2,000 a month. That barely covers rent ...Read more