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DEAR ANNIE: Kids’ privilege has distorted their perspectives

DEAR ANNIE: My spouse and I chose to raise our kids in a neighborhood with excellent schools and a strong sense of community. The downside is that it’s also a very affluent area, and many of the families around us are far wealthier than we are. We work hard and live comfortably enough, but we can’t provide the kinds of luxuries that some of our children’s friends take for granted — brand-name clothes, international vacations, new cars at 16 and the latest electronics. Lately, our kids have started acting embarrassed about what we can’t afford. They complain that their friends ...

HINTS FROM HELOISE: Report phone scams to FTC

DEAR HELOISE: I know you warn people never to give out their personal information, but since this past Christmas, I have been blasted with phone calls from callers who claim to be from some fake government agency and are checking to see if I’m gullible enough to give out information about my Medicare card. I usually hang up on them, but not everyone knows that they are scammers. Who should I report these callers to in order to stop them? — Naomi L., in Oklahoma Naomi, try the Federal Trade Commission at ReportFraud.FTC.gov. You’re correct — we should never hand out personal ...

TO YOUR GOOD HEALTH: Probiotics not always needed for gut health

DEAR DR. ROACH: I read your recent column about a person who was refusing antibiotics due to a fear of a Clostridioides difficile (C. diff) recurrence. I am interested in your thoughts regarding people who take probiotics to restore a healthy gut biome. Relatively healthy people ingest probiotics to maintain good digestive health. Shouldn’t people take probiotics after taking antibiotics, especially after experiencing such a drastic condition like C. diff? Good gut health, including a proper gut biome, is critical to overall health. There are numerous published, peer-reviewed ...

Bridge by Steve Becker

One of declarer’s greatest enemies is complacency, which frequently develops when, after viewing dummy, declarer decides there’s really nothing to the play. Consider this deal where South is in four hearts. He wins the spade lead with dummy’s ace, and, without giving the matter much thought, next leads a heart to the ace, planning to draw trump and later discard a club on one of dummy’s high diamonds for an overtrick. But if declarer leads a trump to the ace at trick two, he goes down one. After discovering the 3-0 trump break, the best he can do is play a diamond to the ...

Thesis focuses on body positivity

Youngstown State University graduate student Emily Vero recently presented her research from her master’s thesis at the Conference on College Composition and Communication, one of the largest national conferences for scholars and teachers of writing, rhetoric and composition. Vero, who ...