Recently I was using my mom’s iPad (with her permission), when she must have accidentally synced all her devices or something, because all of her texts started popping up on the screen. That’s how I found out she was having an affair with a woman. As soon as I realized what I was reading, I shut the iPad down, but I still saw enough, and I don’t know what to do. I feel like my dad should know. But I don’t know if it’s my place for me to tell him, or if I can tell him without outing my mom. I don’t want to out anyone, no matter who they are. But I feel like I’m part of the secret if I keep this from him. I obviously don’t want my parents to get a divorce either. I don’t want to cause it, if it does happen. What’s the best way to approach this that won’t cause any harm?

—Lost Privacy

The parents of an 8-year-old student who killed himself after being persistently bullied can move forward with a lawsuit against the Cincinnati school district that alleges wrongful death and other charges, a federal appeals panel ruled Tuesday.

The lawsuit's allegations also charge school officials with intentional and negligent infliction of emotional distress and failure to report child abuse. The lawsuit says Taye was bullied at his elementary school starting in first grade, with the bullying escalating in his third grade year.

Other students punched and kicked him in assaults and on Jan. 24, 2017, knocked him unconscious by throwing him against a bathroom wall, the parents say in the lawsuit.

He stayed home sick the next day, returned to school Jan. 26 and was bullied again in the bathroom by students who took his water bottle and tried to flush it down the toilet, his parents say. He killed himself that evening in his bedroom.

Dear Prudence,

I am 19 years old, and a few months ago I came out to my parents and siblings. Everyone has been very accepting and loving. The problem is this: My younger sister told my uncle and aunt that I am a lesbian. (It was not done maliciously.) They’re top-of-the-line homophobes. They told my grandmother, who is now banning me from Christmas festivities that we celebrate every year.

I told my parents to just go without me and, while reluctant, they would like to go just to smooth things over. As we get closer to Christmas, I am getting depressed at the thought of being alone for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. I could go to my friend’s house, but that seems pathetic. Please help!

Early in the coronavirus pandemic, California was celebrated as a beacon of common sense in a country on the brink.

By early summer, however, the pressure to open back up rose. Officials discovered the state wasn’t immune to the national fatigue with social distancing and mask-wearing. Amid a patchwork of haphazard rules and guidelines, cases crept up.

Los Angeles county last week passed the disturbing milestone of 10,000 new Covid-19 cases a day, and officials there fear a spike in infections resulting from the Thanksgiving holiday could send hospitalizations surging further. LA officials said that one person is now dying of Covid every 20 minutes, and the county’s public health director, Barbara Ferrer, broke down crying at a briefing while talking about the “incalculable loss” of more than 8,000 deaths.

A new TikTok trend has users sharing the “craziest” ways they’ve discovered they were being cheated on.

The trend started on Nov. 27 when user Mandi Kay Bowles asked her followers the question, “What is the craziest way you guys found out that somebody was cheating on you?”

One user named Brittany revealed in a now-viral TikTok that she found out a guy who she’d been seeing for three years was cheating when he gave her a very specific type of UTI caused by E. coli in her urine.

“I was like, ‘There’s no way, I’m always clean.’ Well, turns out my boyfriend actually didn’t go to the gym; he was having sex with another man,” she explained. He had sex with her immediately after having sex with another man, which gave her the UTI.

The amount of COVID-19 virus measured in the Palm Springs Wastewater Treatment Plant increased by more than 700% throughout November, according to new data published by the city. And samples collected this week suggest that about 5,800 people in Palm Springs could currently be infected with the virus.

According to Riverside County, Palm Springs has had 1,626 coronavirus cases confirmed via diagnostic tests since the start of the pandemic and 67 deaths. The city has about 48,000 people.

Riverside County reported more than 18,000 new COVID-19 cases from Tuesday to Thursday. From Dec. 1 to Dec. 7, it reported about 7,400.

In a group chat dated Wednesday, Dumont High School teachers appear to bash the sexual orientation and lifestyle of one of their co-workers.

“Why is that kid with the gay gym teacher?” asks one, according to a screenshot of the chat posted online.

My parents are currently trying to “help” my 29-year-old brother by allowing him to move out to their new beach house and subsidizing his rent so he can get a fresh start in life.

My parents have always seemed to favor my brother, and I was finally able to heal and move on from the hurt a few years ago. I am two years younger and my husband and I have our own house, own two new cars, and have two stable incomes.

I have worked for everything that I have in life, and I am grateful for how I was raised because being forced to earn everything, including my parents affection, has allowed me to have the life I do now

My parents have always supported my brother emotionally and financially. They currently pay for his phone plan, his cell phone, his car loan — after he totalled his last car two weeks ago — and now his rent.

He depends on them for almost everything in life. They are encouraging him to move to get a fresh start on their dime instead of taking a leap and getting an apartment. They are doing this because they didn’t want him to have a mortgage.

Meanwhile, I am finishing my accounting degree before sitting for the CPA (my husband and I are paying 100%), and my parents are encouraging me to NOT get my master’s degree because it’s useless and would make my brother feel worse. They say that we are already married and have a house so why do we need more.

A few weeks ago, I was supposed to take my sons to an outdoor activity that ended up getting canceled due to weather. We found out about the cancellation when we were halfway there. Before I turned around, I texted my husband that we would be heading home and never got a text back. This wasn’t unusual, as he usually puts his phone on “do not disturb” while he’s working. When we got home, I opened the door to find my husband and his best friend, “Ryan,” completely naked, and having fairly rough sex on our dining room table. They had music blaring, so they didn’t hear us come in, and my sons and I were all in shock and just stood there for a good 30 to 60 seconds before I was able to shut the music off, and they realized what was going on and could cover up. Obviously, this is a bit of a chaotic situation.

Ryan is like an uncle to my kids, has dinner at our house several times a week, has occasionally lived with us, and he and my husband actually work together. My husband and I are planning on staying together and are still trying to figure a lot of things out. Here’s the problem: My younger son (6) is pretty oblivious and thought Uncle Ryan was wrestling with his dad. My middle son (9) is very confused about the mechanics of what we saw (we’ve had the sex talk with him, but in hindsight, we made the mistake of only talking about heterosexual sex). My older son (12) is having a very difficult time. My middle son has a lot of questions that I’m not really sure how to answer, and I’m not sure how much detail I should be going into, and who should be leading this conversation (me? my husband? a doctor?). I’ve been getting phone calls home from my older son’s school. Ever since the incident, he has apparently been making derogatory remarks about gay people, using slurs, and is also refusing to speak to his father (they were previously pretty close). The school is threatening to expel him. We’re on the waitlist for individual and family therapy, but I was wondering if you guys had any advice about what to do with my two older sons?

—What Now?

Q. Catfishing: My daughters have been phone banking, calling Arizona and Michigan and so on to get out the vote. I didn’t want to do that but I felt guilty. Then I read an article in Slate about using the dating app Hinge to get out the vote. That sounded like fun to me, so I set up an account. I figured that there were few people my age (about 70) on Hinge, so I used a pic that was 40(!) years old and pretended to be young, single, and child-free. My state was also in the bag as far as electoral votes were concerned, so I decided to “live” in another state. Anyway, you could say I was catfishing, but I figured it was for a good cause—no one would get hurt, thus, no harm, no foul.

However. I found a match. Of course he is much younger than I am and lives in a different state. But we are politically similar. And we have the same (very niche!) hobby. (I can’t name the hobby, because all my friends who read this column would immediately identify me! But, as a false example, it is not that we both like to read biographies—it is more like we both like to make art with old encyclopedias. So we share this unusual passion.)

Now I want to tell him the truth and be friends. But I know that no one wants to be fooled. Is there any way to break the news—that I am decades older than he is and not interested in dating—that would not destroy this budding relationship?

When I was 14, I had a particularly vivid dream about Helen Hunt. I know, just go with me on this.

In the dream, she was teaching me how to play the piano, an instrument I have inexplicably always found to be very sexy (but probably because of that one scene in Pretty Woman). After I'd performed well, she leaned over and gave me a kiss.

My mom, being of sound mind and body, rolled her eyes and told me to stop 1) eating so many weird midnight snacks, and 2) worrying about my sexual orientation.

4. Gay or lesbian sex dreams might mean you're pregnant.

My family have known Alex since we were teenagers and point-blank refuse to accept her as a woman. Alex has kept her original first name, as it’s gender-neutral, so it’s not even as though my parents and sister have had to adjust to learning a new name. They just won’t consider it. They refer to her as my “boyfriend” and have made comments about how glad they are that I’ve “finally grown out of my lesbian phase.” This is starting to eat away at my sense of identity. I was never attracted to Alex before her transition or to men in general. But my sister has argued with me that, since I’ve known Alex “since she was a boy,” I’ve obviously been in denial about my feelings toward her and must have been attracted to a guy all this time. My parents have repeated similar theories, and it’s getting to me. I’ve already started cutting them off on the phone every time they refer to my “boyfriend” or are rude to Alex on Zoom, but their constant speculation about my sexuality is gnawing at me. I took a long time accepting my lesbian identity. Does my relationship with Alex undermine that, or is that just transphobic thinking getting to me? How do I shut my parents down permanently on these horrible comments?


—Harried and Harangued

The doctor that has pioneered penis transplant surgery believes that soon it will become possible to operate a successful transplant.

“This would be a quantum leap if you were able to transplant a real penile structure. It’s certainly pushing the boundaries,” plastic surgeon Curtis Cetrulo, M.D. told MedPage Today.

“We’re ready to do it, and we could do it pretty soon if we get it approved,” the Boston doctor claimed.

Cetrulo, who works at Massachusetts General Hospital, was the first to complete a successful penis surgery in 2016. Now he has to convince the medical community and hospital administration that it can be done.

The Covai Trans Kitchen opened in the Coimbatore district when Sangeetha, president of the Transgender Association of Coimbatore, noticed the impact of the pandemic on the area’s already struggling trans community.

To help tackle joblessness due to COVID-19, a problem that has hit the trans community especially hard, the 32-seater restaurant has a fully trans staff.

Sangeetha told Indian Express: “Catering is our primary business. But due to Covid-19, many of the restaurants where our community members were working had been closed. They were jobless.

“So, we thought we should open a small kitchen that would beneficial to everyone.

The Texas State Board of Education has given preliminary rejection to a plan to include lessons about sexual orientation and gender identity in the sex education curriculum, but LGBTQ+ advocates are fighting back.

The Republican-majority board last week voted down a proposal by member Ruben Cortez, a Democrat, to teach students in middle school and high school about the difference between sexual orientation and gender identity, ABC News reports. It also rejected a move to start lessons about consent in middle school, as some board members thought the topic inappropriate for students that age. A final vote will come in November.