Author: Reporter

In fifth grade, Stella Gage’s class watched a video about puberty. In ninth grade, a few sessions of her health class were dedicated to the risks of sexual behaviors. That was the extent of her sex education in school. At no point was there any content that felt especially relevant to her identity as a queer teenager. To fill the gaps, she turned mostly to social media. “My parents were mostly absent, my peers were not mature enough, and I didn’t have anyone else to turn to,” said Gage, who is now a sophomore at Wichita State University in...

U.S. health officials plan to endorse a common antibiotic as a morning-after pill that gay and bisexual men can use to try to avoid some increasingly common sexually transmitted diseases. The proposed CDC guideline was released in October, and officials will move to finalize it after a 45-day public comment period. With STD rates rising to record levels, “more tools are desperately needed,” said Dr. Jonathan Mermin of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The proposal comes after studies found some people who took the antibiotic doxycycline within three days of unprotected sex were far less likely to...

Compared with the devil, angels carry more credence in America. Angels even get more credence than, well, hell. More than astrology, reincarnation, and the belief that physical things can have spiritual energies. In fact, about 7 in 10 U.S. adults say they believe in angels, according to a new poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. “People are yearning for something greater than themselves — beyond their own understanding,” said Jack Grogger, a chaplain for the Los Angeles Angels and a longtime Southern California fire captain who has aided many people in their gravest moments. That...

For more than two hours on a Sunday afternoon, the Rev. Gustavo Castillo led the Pentecostal congregation he’s been growing in this Minneapolis suburb through prayer, Scriptures, rousing music, and sometimes tearful testimonials. But it all may end soon. A sudden procedural change in how the federal government processes green cards for foreign-born religious workers, together with historic highs in numbers of illegal border crossers, means that thousands of clergy like him are losing the ability to remain in this country. “We were right on the edge of becoming permanent residents, and boom, this changed,” Colombia-born Castillo said as...

Brunch dates and flag football games might be a little easier to get to on Sunday, November 5, when phones grace early-risers with an extra hour of rest before alarm clocks go off. The downside: Next week across most of the U.S., the sun will set well before many folks step foot out of the office, leaving them to run errands or take walks in utter darkness. Come November 5, daylight saving time is out and standard time is in, and will last until March 10. No need to wait till the midnight hour to prepare for the time...

Godzilla, the nightmarish radiation spewing monster born out of nuclear weapons, has stomped through many movies, including several Hollywood remakes. Takashi Yamazaki, the director behind the latest Godzilla movie, set for U.S. theatrical release later this year, was determined to bring out what he believes is the essentially Japanese spirituality that characterizes the 1954 original. In that classic, directed by Ishiro Honda, a man sweated inside a rubber suit and trampled over cityscape miniatures to tell the story of a prehistoric creature mistakenly brought to life by radiation from nuclear testing in the Pacific. The monster in “Godzilla Minus...