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'ONE OF THEM DAYS'

Rated R for language throughout, sexual material and brief drug use.

What it’s about: Two best friends living in L.A. have a crazy day trying to secure their rent payment.

The kid attractor factor: The comedy will be a draw to teens

Good lessons/bad lessons: Never let your boyfriend pay your rent, have each other's backs...Read more

Saturday morning began with a video text of one of the grands doing a wild gymnastics routine on an exercise mat in the middle of their family room. She was lunging, flipping and cartwheeling (barely clearing the sofa, the TV and a younger sister’s head), all to the soothing strains of “Who Let the Dogs Out?”

The antics culminated in a ...Read more

Q. My son is 9. His mother and I broke up a year and a half ago. Although we absolutely do not get along, we have been trying to share his time. We exchange every few days. Each time he has to leave my home, I see the happy little boy slip away. Sometimes he tells me he doesn’t want to go, but he can’t tell me why. I told his mother, but she...Read more

It was date night for me and my husband, the first since our daughter was born. When we returned to my mom’s house for the baby — hurriedly, being first-time parents — I heard a strange but familiar voice.

It was that of Raffi Cavoukian, known simply as “Raffi,” who rose to fame in the 1970s with such folksy, reassuring numbers as “...Read more

The sweeping tale of the French Acadians in America and one family’s trials over hundreds of years of persecution is revealed in "The Acadians" by Samuel Andre Aucoin.

Aucoin mixes history and light fiction to tell the often heartbreaking story of the Acadian experience in America. Beginning with a trip to the Vietnam War Memorial in ...Read more

History is most clearly observed through the rearview mirror. Leaders can more accurately be judged by the impact of their speeches, actions or inaction, beliefs and accomplishments not by eulogies but after an adequate amount of time has passed for a more objective assessment. Yesterday’s lauded heroes may have legitimately earned the ...Read more

Can we ever make peace with our regrets? That is the question I asked myself while reading Tom Casey’s "Unsettled States" (Heresy Press), which begins with a raw portrait of familial fracture. Bradley’s visit to his mother, Eleanor, opens the door to a past steeped in warmth now shadowed by regret.

Eleanor, a once-spirited woman, is now ...Read more

A week after giving birth to her second daughter, Amelia Laytham's focus was on baby Jocelyn's and big sister Vera's sleep schedules; on breastfeeding her newborn; on the balancing act that parents navigate.

The morning she was scheduled to bring Jocelyn to the pediatrician for her first checkup, Amelia woke up feeling like someone was sitting ...Read more

CHICAGO -- South Loop’s FAME Center started in 2018 in what founder Sheila Fortson called “a broom closet” with just a few students and a piano. The nonprofit is now looking to become a major music and arts education landmark in Chicago with the purchase of a 56,000-square-foot historic building.

Matthew Thomas, 14, remembers that when he...Read more

'DEN OF THIEVES 2: PANTERA'

Rated R for pervasive language, some violence, drug use and sexual references.

What it’s about: A sequel to the 2018 heist movie that takes the action to Europe and the world of diamond thieves.

The kid attractor factor: Not much, this is an adult crime thriller.

Good lessons/bad lessons: As always, in crime, ...Read more

CHICAGO -- As a mom of three girls, Khallilah Watkins isn’t new to the process and preparation it takes to breastfeed a baby outside of the house.

One time with her second daughter, she had to hunker down in a restaurant bathroom for a few minutes to pump.

“That was my first experience pumping in a restaurant and inside of a smelly public ...Read more

Q.My ex and I split up six months ago and our children go back and forth between our new homes. We don’t have a formal parenting plan -- the split was amicable; we just share the kids every few days. They are 5 and 7. It seems to be working OK, but I have recently met someone new. I am afraid this will complicate things, and their mother will...Read more

"Stay tuned for a weather impact update," says the man on the television.

I have problems with the word impact and not just because it's one of those words that can be both a noun and a verb. Impact always reminds me of when my brother was a toddler and shoved a Red Hot up his nose. The Red Hot was impacted and our mother had to carefully ...Read more

The best romance novels often work off the dichotomy between the story’s meant-to-be and can’t-possibly-work elements. Kay Cove’s latest novel, "Snapshot," delivers beautifully on both, with plot twists and outside characters that seriously threaten a happily-ever-after ending. For added depth, Cove intertwines two love stories, one from a...Read more

Ashley Boyea had asthma, so she wasn't surprised when she got breathless at work. But when she began gasping for air just walking around, the then-25-year-old sales associate went to her pulmonologist for a checkup.

The doctor had her wear a heart monitor for a few days. It showed her heart was beating too fast. More testing revealed that, in ...Read more

With only four minutes of exercise a day, middle-age women might reduce their risk of cardiovascular problems by nearly half. It’s the latest discovery from University of Sydney researchers, whose study was published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.

“We found that a minimum of 1.5 minutes to an average of 4 minutes of daily ...Read more