SEATTLE — At the water's edge, Pastor Mary Elise Scott led a group in prayer for a safe and bountiful fishing season.

Guide and protect David Christensen, his crew, and all who fish the North Pacific waters," Scott said Sunday afternoon at Fishermen's Terminal in Seattle.

Christensen then raised a handmade religious pennant on his boat, Gjø...Read more

I love a clean car — no trash on the floor, no empty plastic water bottles rolling around, no fossilized fries smashed into floor mats. A clean car makes me happy.

Sometimes, if the car is clean on the inside and the outside, I’m so happy I throw it in park at red lights and car dance like crazy.

Not really. But I’m car dancing on the ...Read more

Q. I just got married to a man with three children. Their mother died two years ago, and we have bonded quite well. Problem is the kids' grandmother -- the children's mother's mother -- seems very jealous and undermines things that I do. She will make appointments for outings directly with the kids that I know nothing about. Or she will show up ...Read more

Dear Kid Whisperer,

Another teacher at my school recently loaned me a copy of "The Classroom Behavior Manual." Wow! I just read through the entire book yesterday! This book is speaking directly about my school's student population. I teach at the middle school in our city with the lowest socioeconomic demographic and the highest numbers of ...Read more

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — “You don’t see a pig on a leash every day with a hat on,” Mina Alali said as her potbelly pig wearing a colorful propeller hat tugged at her skirt, hoping to receive a handful of oats.

The propeller hat has become a signature look for the pig — a 4-year-old Vietnamese potbelly named Merlin — who has more than 1 ...Read more

It does my heart good to know that my heart is in the right place (right now it’s in my office, where I am, too) and that I don’t need open-heart surgery.

That’s why I was happy to have a heart-to-heart talk with a very nice ultrasound technician named Emily, who gave me an echocardiogram. It showed, among other things, that I am able to ...Read more

CHICAGO -- When Joseph Slajchert first bought a workers cottage at 29th and Emerald, the automobile was on its way to replace the horse and buggy.

But it wasn’t quite there yet.

The year was 1910. A black-and-white photo from around that time in Bridgeport shows five children wearing their Sunday best on the front steps, the boys in dapper ...Read more

It is indeed a Dandy Man, but let me explain.

Tim Wood, known by many as "The Plant Hunter," made some comments on LinkedIn. It was regarding the Dandy Man Color Wheel rhododendron. He said it was a rhododendron hyperythrum hybrid. Why is that important? It gives the plant disease resistance, particularly to rhizoctonia. It also gives it ...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS -- Minnesota is pushing to build a diverse teacher workforce to better match its student demographics, with the goal of increasing the number of teachers of color by 2% per year.

That pursuit now faces fresh challenges, with the Trump administration targeting diversity and equity initiatives, and the state being three years removed ...Read more

I see the same posts and clips you do, the ones saying the president of the United States has dementia.

They tick off the tell-tale signs. They call for the 25th Amendment to be invoked. They may be right, though diagnosing from a distance never feels helpful or humane to me. Especially for the stigma it leaves on folks truly living with a ...Read more

When I saw my parents recently, I thought it would be fun, both as a dating coach and as their daughter, to ask them about how they met and how their relationship progressed. I always knew some details, but I didn’t know the full story. March 16 marked their 46th wedding anniversary, so I would like to give tribute to them in this article.

...Read more

PHILADELPHIA -- In November 2023, Henry “Hank” McNeil Jr. had a problem.

He was buying something new for his 8,806 square-foot Rittenhouse Square townhouse’s dining room that would displace the family Christmas tree.

He called Jake Quinn, his friend and real estate manager, at 11 p.m.

The tree, the men decided after much deliberation, ...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS — Conventional wisdom is that members of Gen Z are on their phones 24-7. But once or twice a week, Abraham Teuber can’t wait to put his down.

That’s when Teuber — who, at 25, is near the upper end of the 14-29 age range of Gen Z — goes to the movies. And the Minneapolis resident is in good company. Hollywood executives ...Read more

PITTSBURGH -- Pittsburgh has never seen two nests with a total of five eaglets live-streamed at the same time.

After recovering from endangered status, bald eagles now have nests throughout the region. The first live webcam, installed for the 2014 breeding season for a pair of eagles nesting in Hays, now has expanded to two sites with multiple ...Read more

We are more connected than ever before, with our high-speed internet, pinging smartphones and ever-updating apps and social media networks. (iPhone 17e, anyone?!)

And yet, we are also lonelier than ever, especially younger generations who are even more likely to be on their digital devices for longer periods of time. Gen Z, it turns out, is the...Read more

Q. My ex wants me to give him my friends’ phone numbers so he can call them and arrange playdates with their children when my son is with him. You don’t give people’s phone numbers out without asking them first, and these are my friends. I feel uncomfortable sharing their information, but he says I’m being difficult and preventing our ...Read more

A document detailing our health care expenditures just arrived in the mail.

“Shocking,” I said.

“You mean the cost of health care?” the husband asked.

“No — documentation that we are officially fixer-uppers.”

There it was, right before our eyes. Three months of physical therapy for a back injury from crawling into the far back ...Read more

In 1998, Bruce Willis saved the world by blowing up an asteroid threat in “Armageddon.” In 2022, NASA did the real thing, crashing a spacecraft into asteroid Dimorphos to prove that we don’t have to end up like the dinosaurs.

On March 6, scientists from Johns Hopkins’ Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, and NASA published ...Read more

Dear Kid Whisperer,

I am not considered an official educator, but I do have time with my kids every day before school. I am a bus driver, and I believe I have a big impact on my kids. As they say, "I am the first face they see in the morning." I have, at most, one hour of time each morning with my kids. They are special needs students, and each...Read more