Author: Reporter

Last summer, Derrika Richard felt stuck. She did not have enough money to afford child care for her three youngest children, ages 1, 2 and 3. Yet the demands of caring for them on a daily basis made it impossible for Richard, a hairstylist, to work. One child care assistance program rejected her because she was not working enough. It felt like an unsolvable quandary: Without care, she could not work. And without work, she could not afford care. But Richard’s life changed in the fall, when, thanks to a new city-funded program for low-income families called City Seats,...

Wine time. Beer Thirty. Happy hour. Five o’clock somewhere. Maybe it is also time to rethink drinking? Moderate drinking was once thought to have benefits for the heart, but better research methods have thrown cold water on that. “Drinking less is a great way to be healthier,” said Dr. Timothy Naimi, who directs the Canadian Institute for Substance Use Research at the University of Victoria in British Columbia. ARE DRINKING GUIDELINES CHANGING? Guidelines vary a lot from country to country but the overall trend is toward drinking less. The United Kingdom, France, Denmark, Holland, and Australia recently reviewed new...

Scientists studying the sperm whales that live around the Caribbean island of Dominica have described for the first time the basic elements of how they might be talking to each other, in an effort that could one day help better protect them. Like many whales and dolphins, sperm whales are highly social mammals and communicate by squeezing air through their respiratory systems to make strings of rapid clicks that can sound like an extremely loud zipper underwater. The clicks are also used as a form of echolocation to help them track their prey. Scientists have been trying for decades...

Virginia high school teacher Joe Clement keeps track of the text messages parents have sent students sitting in his economics and government classes. Clement has a plea for parents: Stop texting your kids at school. Parents are distressingly aware of the distractions and the mental health issues associated with smartphones and social media. But teachers say parents might not realize how much those struggles play out at school. “What did you get on your test?” One culprit? Mom and Dad themselves, whose stream-of-consciousness questions add to a climate of constant interruption and distraction from learning. “Did you get the...

Inside a high school classroom, Bryan Martinez jots down several purchases that would require a short-term savings plan: shoes, phone, headphones, clothes, and food. His medium-term financial goals take a little more thought, but he settles on a car — he does not have one yet — and vacations. Peering way into his future, the 18-year-old also imagines saving money to buy a house, start his own business, retire, and perhaps provide any children with a college fund. Martinez’s friend next to him writes a different long-term goal: Buy a private jet. “You have to be a millionaire to...