ST. PAUL, Minn. -- Snowcapped mountains, towering pine trees and a winding dirt road cover the dining room walls. Fluffy white clouds float above the kitchen cabinets. A waterfall painted onto a slender slice of wall separating the dining room and the living room is so vivid, you can almost hear the water flowing, gurgling.

But it’s the ...Read more

The story starts the same. You like someone. They like you. You continue liking this person. This person stops liking you (or never did?) and pulls back. You like this person more. This person, feeling smothered, continues to pull back. You continue to obsess more.

Why is this, though? Why should a person’s feelings actually grow the less and...Read more

LOS ANGELES -- Eleven of us — all women dressed in lingerie, silk robes and other sheer or flowy clothing — are dancing, freeform, in a circle. Spacy electronic music fills the room, which looks something like a spa tent: Faded woven carpets blanket the floor, billowy white curtains drape from the ceiling and flickering lanterns cast ...Read more

You may be familiar with high-density, or good cholesterol; low-density lipoproteins (LDL), or bad cholesterol; and their connections to heart health. But what about triglycerides? Often that word gets skimmed over when talking about cholesterol levels.

Dr. Regis Fernandes, a Mayo Clinic cardiologist, says triglycerides provide the body with ...Read more

Dear Kid Whisperer,

My 10-year-old acts like he can’t do anything. Yesterday he said, “I can’t open this,” handed me a box of cookies that a 5-year-old could open and walked away and started watching TV. I know I’m messing up. What do I do?

Answer: The problem with kids is that they start out as infants.

Infants can’t do anything ...Read more

Q. How do you tell someone who you have been terrible to that you want them back? Can you say you're sorry enough when you have hurt them so badly, they tell you they never want to talk to you again? My temper got the best of me during an argument, and I pushed my fiancee to the floor. She got up and walked out the door. I want to tell her I'm ...Read more

Parents and grandparents sometimes debate which musical instrument is the most painful in the hands of a beginner.

Our nomination for first place is the violin, with drums coming in a distant second. Sure, drums can rattle the windows, but only a violin can peel paint from the walls.

The xylophone, also under our roof years ago, was the ...Read more

Elite athletes don’t just train harder — they train smarter. Small adjustments to form, recovery time and nutrition can create significant improvements in performance. The same principle applies to budgeting. Once you’ve established solid money habits, the next step isn’t just maintaining them — it’s optimizing them for better ...Read more

BOISE, Idaho — While visiting Flying M Coffee, one of their favorite downtown Boise haunts, Chelsea Gaona-Lincoln pretended to go to the gift shop before returning to her table with Van Beechler-Lincoln carrying a personalized flipbook that told the story of their love. On the table between them was a ship in a bottle that Van’s friend had ...Read more

COLUMBIA, S.C. — “It’s an eggs-ellent day,” Pastor John Ptak said as an orderly line formed and a light drizzle fell outside the White Knoll, South Carolina, campus of Radius Church on Thursday morning.

People lined up early for free eggs, handed out by the dozen at the weekly food pantry operated by the church.

When they heard of the ...Read more

Row, row, row my seat swiftly down the track.

Warily, warily, warily, warily, my body’s out of whack.

That’s the tune I sang to myself — because I didn’t want to scare everyone else at the gym — as I rocked and rolled on a rowing machine under the expert guidance of my very own personal trainer.

I decided to go back to the gym ...Read more

SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- More than once he awoke in his Yuba City, California, apartment with a feeling of relief, followed by one of sadness.

Although thankful to have made it to the U.S., the thought of other Afghans who remain in limbo, including ones he worked with in Afghanistan, saddened him. He said they, like him, had been admitted as ...Read more

I surveyed my friends recently to find out what they’re doing to stay sane.

“Screaming into a paper bag,” said a friend who lives near Capitol Hill in Washington.

“Staying away from the news,” said another friend.

“Who said I’m sane?” said another.

As a massive reassembling of the U.S. government by President Donald Trump ...Read more

SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- While most look for ways to avoid the steady rain falling from atmospheric rivers, some take advantage of the unwieldy weather patterns to improve forecasts and to help control, and ultimately modernize, the complex labyrinth of waterways hydrating California.

Weather researchers with the Scripps Institution of ...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS -- “Anthony Sledwards” was named this year’s winner for the metro in the Minnesota Department of Transportation’s annual Name a Snowplow contest, a nod to the Minnesota Timberwolves' superstar.

Gov. Tim Walz named the winners on Wednesday, saying he was “always thrilled that Minnesotans are this clever.”

The contest, ...Read more

Thomas Wenski, the archbishop of Miami, has been working with immigrants in Miami for going on 50 years.

His flock is worried. Although thousands of recent immigrants in his Catholic archdiocese are here legally, many know people who are not. Florida is home to some 1.2 million people who are in the country illegally.

Some of Wenski’s ...Read more

Dear Anna,

I'm at my wit's end with my partner’s extreme focus on achieving FIRE (financial independence, retire early). What started as a healthy interest in personal finance has turned into an all-consuming obsession. We're both 29 and have lived together the last year. My boyfriend has become fixated on retiring by 35, which means saving ...Read more

BOISE, Idaho -- Pickleball noise has become a national scourge, The New York Times reported in June.

The noise from the sport, which has exploded in popularity in recent years, was a session topic at an annual noise control conference, is the focus of a Facebook group on “pickleball noise mitigation” with nearly 2,500 followers, and has ...Read more

I've always been a nervous flier. The second I take my assigned seat in a plane, I pull my headphones over my ears and glue my eyes shut in an attempt to drown out the sound of a plane taking off.

The tactic usually works, but with the recent fatal midflight collision at Reagan National Airport followed by an air ambulance crash in Philadelphia...Read more