Top Lifestyle News

Oct 24, 2026 - Lifestyle

The process included a gala featuring medical students doing aerial yoga and singing Taylor Swift to donors’ families. In some ways, it was absolutely perfectWhen my mother, Erin O’Connell, was diagnosed with a rare and aggressive cancer in late 2022, one of her first thoughts was: “What will I do if I can’t work?”At the time, she was 62 years old and working as a physical therapist in Portland, Oregon, where she had recently moved to live closer to me and my family. Reluctantly, she filed for short-term disability from her job and paused her training to become a volunteer search and rescue EMT. Continue reading...

Oct 22, 2026 - Lifestyle

Fearing future catastrophe is nothing new – ancient Greek and Roman philosophers all visualized the apocalypseDo your feelings of existential dread extend beyond your own personal mortality? Do they include fears about the survival of our culture and institutions, our species, nonhuman life and the Earth itself? Do you feel like there’s nothing that can help to wrap your head around the biggest problem we face: the end of the world as we know it?Apocalyptic expectations are on the rise. According to a 2022 Pew Research Center survey, 39% of Americans believe that we are living in the end times. Continue reading...

Oct 21, 2026 - Lifestyle

Hospice and end-of-life workers discuss what they’ve learned from their work and patients in their last moments“Hospice” can be a loaded term. Some see it as synonymous with death and “giving up”, as Courtney, a full-time hospice nurse practitioner in Missouri, puts it. But Courtney, who asked that her last name be withheld for privacy reasons, doesn’t see it that way.“Hospice is giving someone a gift,” she says of her patients, who have typically received a terminal diagnosis with a timeline of six months or less. “It is giving them the gift of being able to stay at home and eat or not eat whatever they want. It is the gift of comfort.” Continue reading...

Oct 19, 2026 - Lifestyle

These food storage containers with clever, reheat-friendly vented lids are ‘endlessly versatile, lightweight and durable’ The best air fryers, tried and tested in a food labYou know those round deli containers people love to keep after getting takeout pho? Recently, I’ve been using some new food storage containers in the same shape that stack the same convenient way. But that’s where the similarities end.The Anydeli plastic-free silicone containers were just released by Anyday, the maker of my favorite glass food storage system. (I raved about those previously.) After testing a set at home for a few weeks, I have no notes. Well, I have notes, but they’re all very positive, because the containers are endlessly versatile, lightweight and durable enough to send in my kids’ lunchboxes without worry. They’re also cute.The Anyday glass food containers transformed how I store leftoversThe best plastic-free food storage containers: Anydeli Silicone Mixed Set of 3The best plastic-free food storage full set: Anydeli Silicone Mixed Set of 6 Continue reading...

Oct 16, 2026 - Lifestyle

An urn cost more than my rent. So I scattered my mother’s ashes at Yosemite from a Ziploc bag, without the federal permit I couldn’t afford to wait forMy mother is in a Ziploc bag on my lap, wedged between a half-eaten bag of trail mix and my purse.My stomach is queasy from the switchbacks up to Yosemite, where I’ve come to spread her ashes, and I’m having an existential crisis. Continue reading...