Breaking News

Lifestyles

HINTS FROM HELOISE: Lift chairs for bathtub work great

DEAR HELOISE: I read the letter about the reader in Florida, who can no longer take baths. I have been in a wheelchair 25 years and have a solution for her. She can buy a bathtub lift chair online. This powered chair lowers you gently down into the water and brings you up out of the water. It’s miraculous and life-changing. I use the grab bars to get in and out of the tub and back into my wheelchair. You just have to charge the remote for a few hours, then it’s good for about six baths before you have to charge it again. It’s wonderful to be able to take a bath again. I’ve ...

TO YOUR GOOD HEALTH: Sleep apnea can be tied to excessive urination

DEAR DR. ROACH: I’m writing regarding the recent column that mentioned frequent nighttime urination. I had a similar problem and awakened several times to urinate each night. About a year ago, I started using a CPAP for sleep apnea. Immediately after starting to use the CPAP, my nighttime urination frequency decreased. It’d range from sleeping completely through the night to waking up twice, with an average of waking up once per night. Building off a prior column, my hypothesis was that better sleep led to a more stable production of the natural diuretic that the body makes at ...

Bridge by Steve Becker for Sept. 1

A resourceful declarer is always on the lookout for a way to increase his chances of making the contract. Sometimes these extra chances are fairly obvious, but at other times they are more subtle. Take this case where South was in three notrump and West led a heart. Declarer ducked the first ...

Skimmers are part of larger dragonfly family

I found a skimmer sunning herself on my lettuce on a recent morning and thought an article about her would be fitting. She belongs to the Skimmer family (Libellulidae), which contains our most common and colorful dragonflies. They are the largest family of dragonflies with nearly 1,000 ...

Sunflowers: Wonder of science and beautiful

Sunflowers are amazing as well as a wonder of science. There are more than 60 varieties and some are multi-stalked. It is the national flower of Russia. To begin with, sunflowers are dicots, meaning their seeds have two cotyledons, or embryonic leaves. The plant usually grows from a single, ...