Grocery stores have shut down self-serve salad bars during the pandemic. They’ve taken away displays of fresh olives and dips. And they’ve replaced giant kettles of ready-to-ladle hot soup with sealed to-go containers.

The deli and prepared food areas that used to draw traffic to stores and differentiate grocers have fallen from favor as customers worry about the spread of the coronavirus, cook more from scratch and try to limit their time in stores.

Grocers are trying to revive those parts of the store with new approaches. At Publix, salad bars and hot bars have reopened, but employees dish out each item. Wegmans moved hummus, olives and more behind a counter where cheese shop employees fill orders. And at Texas-based H-E-B, some coolers carry prepared meals from local restaurants and a former food bar became an ice chest of beers.

Gay Rep. Mark Takano (D-CA) has introduced legislation that would create a four-day workweek nationwide.

Takano told Reuters that American workers are “are worn out and tired.” He said the pandemic has also made workers rethink the value of their time, especially since many have seen people die or risk dying from COVID-19.

The release said that multiple studies have shown that shorter workweeks improve worker morale, quality of life and childcare expenses. Shorter workweeks also reduce healthcare premiums for employers, reduce employee sick days and lower operational costs for businesses, it added.

I know this is going to sound like a nonproblem at first, but there is a deeper issue that troubles me. Our 16-year-old son is an amazing kid: intelligent, hardworking, and athletic. He is a straight-A student who juggles multiple AP classes with a demanding sports schedule. He is one of the top three students in his class and is also being recruited by college coaches for his sport. But ever since he was in elementary school, we’ve had the same experience at the end-of-year awards ceremonies: He’ll occasionally get recognized for the “objective” awards, like honor roll or scoring the highest on foreign-language tests, but he has never won a single “subjective” award, the ones selected by teachers/coaches or voted on by his peers. When he was little, we would console him by saying “Don’t worry, just keep working hard and maybe you’ll get one next year!”

But after several years of that, we changed our message, instead emphasizing that hard work is its own reward, and that we are proud of him for his diligence and work ethic. I suspect one of the reasons he gets so little recognition is his personality: He is extremely quiet, introverted, and serious. He has a handful of close friends but gets along with everybody; his school tends to be a bit “clique-ish,” but he is one of the few students who has good friends among both the “smart kids” and the athletes.

I’m not concerned about the awards themselves or about him impressing anyone else. Now that he’s older, he tends to brush it off as no big deal. But I just watched him sit through yet another awards ceremony with a forced smile on his face and tears in his eyes as every one of his friends at the table got a special award from one of the teachers or coaches. He sometimes comments about feeling “invisible” because he doesn’t have the charm and charisma of some of his peers. We’ve tried telling him that sometimes teachers like to reward students for their effort since the students who excel in class already get the reward of good grades. But this doesn’t feel right either, especially after seeing him come home exhausted from a three-hour sports practice and then stay up till 1 a.m. studying.

After 10-plus years of this, I can’t help worrying that maybe we should be giving him different advice—instead of preaching self-acceptance, perhaps we should be telling him to adjust his personality, so he is a bit more likable? He is headed to college soon, so maybe I should do nothing and let him figure it out himself?

—Mom of the Invisible Man

Classics majors at Princeton University will no longer be required to learn Greek or Latin in a push to create a more inclusive and equitable program, an effort that was given “new urgency” by the “events around race that occurred last summer,” according to faculty.

Last month, faculty members approved changes to the Classics department, including eliminating the “classics” track, which required an intermediate proficiency in Greek or Latin to enter the concentration, according to Princeton Alumni Weekly. The requirement for students to take Greek or Latin was also removed.

I met my husband 13 years ago, and we’ve been together ever since. We fell deeply, madly in love with each other and have been married for nine wonderful years now. He’s patient, kind, gentle-hearted. He’s also always been honest about being gay and has never hidden it from me. Only one of our mutual friends knows this about my husband. Our son also knows, since we thought it would be best to remain open with him about it, so he never “found out” by surprise or from our mutual friend. Our son took the news very well and doesn’t care that his father was gay.

I’ve never told my family, or really any of my friends, as I think they’d all be judgmental. My siblings don’t like my husband, but that’s a different letter in itself. So I’ve always kept it bottled up inside. He’s been married before, and divorced, to a straight woman, with whom he has a grown daughter. I’m a straight woman too. I’ve asked my husband about it, and he confirms that he’s gay, not bisexual. He left his first wife because of a lot of problems (and her infidelity), then he was in a few different relationships with other men, before he met his ex-boyfriend. They were still living together when we met. I’m confused by it all, and it has, at times, caused problems in our marriage, because of my lack of self-confidence. I have doubts that he might leave me someday for a gay relationship like he did his ex-wife. We’ve both been faithful to each other, and he loves me, and I love him. But is that good enough for him? Would you consider him bisexual or gay?

For almost a decade, Katrina Spade has been developing a new way to deal with dead bodies.

In 2011 as a graduate student in architecture, Spade began questioning what would become of her corpse after death. Unsatisfied with the options available, she spent years refining her own solution: “natural organic reduction.”

This December, after years of feasibility studies, fundraising, and legislative efforts, Spade’s company, Recompose, started turning its first customers into compost.

An education watchdog in the U.K. found that some children have regressed due to COVID-19-related school closures and restrictions. A report from Ofsted, the Office for Standards in Education, Children's Services and Skills, says some kids have fallen back in basic skills – and some who were greatly impacted have even forgotten how to use a fork and knife.

One is the "hardest hit" group of young kids. This group has suffered from time out of school and has gone backwards on words and numbers. This group has also reverted to diapers after being potty-trained or lost "basic skills" such as using a knife and fork.

The majority of children are in the middle group and "have slipped back in their learning to varying degrees since schools were closed to most children and movement restricted." According to Spielman, the "lost learning is unarguable, but it is hard to assess."

The Ofsted inspectors said older children have lost their "stamina" for reading. The watchdog also warned that older kids might show loss of concentration when returning to school, noting that fights on social media started during the lockdown are now "being played out in the classroom."

The couple looked troubled. Everything that they thought they'd figured out, that had been explained by their pastor, no longer made sense. "OK, then, if it's not sex addiction, what is the problem?" A moment passed. Then another. "Well," I said, "for starters, it's worse than you think."

Sex addiction, as a pseudoscientific concept, is so very emotionally appealing. First of all, it definitely labels the objectionable sexual conduct as a disease and nothing but a disease so, really, there's no need to look any further. But the reason I told my clients it's worse than what they thought is because it's not the so-called addict who has a problem. The problem is about them as a couple.

Dating is more complicated than ever right now: You can be Gatsbyed, breadcrumbed, and ghosted by your Tinder match... all in the same week. And even when a great first date gives you butterflies, knowing what to do next can be confusing AF. Luckily, in Elite Daily's series, We Need To Talk, our Dating editors break down the latest terms, trends, and issues affecting your life with their own hot takes to figure out how to navigate finding love in a world that changes faster than you can swipe left.

PSA: “Commitment” is not a dirty word. Whether the person you’re talking to is “sooooo busy with work” or “honestly not looking for anything serious right now,” it can feel like there’s an endless list of reasons no one wants to define the relationship, and an endless number of people who will lead you on, only to break your heart. Asking someone whether or not they want to commit to you can be more nerve-wracking than interviewing for your dream job and waiting on pregnancy test results combined, and it can make finding an exclusive relationship feel next to impossible. The good news? It’s not just you, and contrary to popular belief, casual hookup culture isn’t the only thing to blame.

When people ask her if she has children, Münter, who is 44, has a prepared answer: “No, my husband and I are child-free by choice.” Saying child-free, she argues, doesn’t imply you are deprived, as the more standard “childless” might. And by letting them know it isn’t a sad topic to be avoided, she says, “it opens up the door for them to ask: ‘Oh, that’s interesting, why did you choose not to?’” Münter wants to move the awkward topic of overpopulation into the mainstream. “The more we talk about it, the more comfortable people will feel talking about it and then, maybe, things will change.”

For too long, she feels, the issue has been swept under the rug. “We can talk about emissions and climate change, but talking about population gets such an emotional reaction.”

The last thing she wants to do is make parents feel guilty, or to shut them out of the conversation. Procreation, after all, is natural. And if you have two children, you are only replacing their parents, rather than adding extras. But if you’re not yet a parent and can’t suppress your parental instincts, says Münter, “my ask is that you consider adopting one of the 153m orphan children that are already on the planet and need a home. Or, if you are dead set on having your own, my hope would be that you just have one and then if you want more, adopt.” Ultimately, she says, “your kids and your kid’s kids will be the ones who benefit from humans deciding to slow down our rate of growth. It will slow down climate change, ocean acidification, cutting down the wild places.”

Web developer Victor Pontis has had enough of cars in San Francisco — parking spaces, he says, just take up too much space.

His idea: turn the prime real estate of parking spots into coworking spaces, complete with desks and chairs, that he called WePark — and charge only the price of a parking meter, which is a fraction of the price of other local coworking spaces.

United Airlines CEO Oscar Munoz acknowledged key pain points customers face when traveling today, including airlines' increasingly shrinking seat sizes.

"I think we are nearing a point certainly that we can't do that anymore," Munoz told ABC News. The interview was conducted prior to the U.S. grounding of the Boeing 737 Max.

He said that air travel used to be a thrilling experience but has turned into a laborious process.

"It's become so stressful," he told the outlet, "from when you leave, wherever you live, to get into traffic, to find a parking spot, to get through security."

The Transportation Security Administration is bringing new 3D security scanners nationwide, which means your next airport experience could go a lot smoother.

TSA began testing the "computed tomography" machines at airports in Phoenix and Boston in June 2017. Since then, the machines have been expanded to 12 more locations.

In a press release, TSA announced 300 new systems will be deployed at more airports nationwide thanks to a $96.8 million contract.

The biggest perk for travelers? You may not have to take your laptop, liquids and other materials out of your carry-on bag for inspection in the coming years.

The sound of drums, singing and prayers marked the opening of a powwow in Phoenix on a Saturday afternoon this month. Marchers carried the flags of the United States and some of Arizona's tribal nations onto the grass field, but the procession also included rainbow flags, and the pink and blue transgender flag. It was Arizona's first Two-Spirit Powwow, one of a handful of powwows that have sprung up across North America to celebrate LGBT Native Americans.

Among the marchers in the grand entry was Kay Kisto, the reigning Miss Indian Transgender Arizona. "To actually be here, to be at the first-ever [Two-Spirit Powwow] in Arizona - I've been having goose bumps ever since I got here," Kisto said.

The sullen teenager grinding through a restaurant shift after school was once a pop culture cliche—as American as curly fries.

Nowadays, Brad Hamilton, the teen played by Judge Reinhold in “Fast Times at Ridgemont High,” would probably be too young to work at the fictional Captain Hook Fish and Chips. That’s because senior citizens are taking his place—donning polyester, flipping patties and taking orders. They’re showing up at casual dining chains such as Bob Evans and fast-food operators like McDonald’s Corp., which says it plans to make senior citizens one hiring focus in the coming year.