Declining enrollment in California public schools is spawning a new and growing partnership that is helping to keep child-care centers in business — vacant classrooms are being filled with toddlers and babies.

From Los Angeles to Solano counties, nonprofit day-care operators see underused facilities already centered on children — spacious ...Read more

'ONE NIGHT ONLY'

Rated R for sexual material, language and brief nudity.

What it’s about: The government has banned premarital sex, except for one night a year. Can two crazy single kids fall in love?

The kid attractor factor: This is more for young adults.

Good lessons/bad lessons: It's not all about sex, even when it's all about sex.

...Read more

'SPIDER-MAN: BRAND NEW DAY'

Rated PG-13 for sequences of action/violence and some language.

What it’s about: Tom Holland's Peter Parker is all grown up and attempting to navigate adult life and the Spider-Man life with very few friends.

The kid attractor factor: The character and superhero spectacle.

Good lessons/bad lessons: We can't do ...Read more

It began as a whimsical idea that occurred to Daniel Leigh after an idyllic trip to the United States: Sell his family's five-bedroom home in England and travel the world with his wife, Lauren Vaknine, and their two children.

So he was surprised when, a few months later, Vaknine and their children, Braxton, 10, and Viva, 7, agreed to go along ...Read more

Foster children will now have more support when they age out of the foster care system after a new law was signed by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer that prevents the state from keeping children's full federal benefits to pay for the cost of their care.

The bill, spearheaded by state Rep. Kathy Schmaltz, R-Jackson, in 2023, was signed into law by Whitmer...Read more

'MOTOR CITY'

Rated R for strong bloody violence, some grisly images, drug content, sexuality/nudity and language.

What it’s about: Set in 1977 Detroit, a factory worker wrongly imprisoned goes on a revenge spree to win back his woman.

The kid attractor factor: This is a bloody thriller — for adults, not kids.

Good lessons/bad lessons: ...Read more

LOS ANGELES -- It was after the death of her son, Laith, that Esme Saleh decided to become a folk artist.

She had always been creative, experimenting with watercolors and learning to sew and embroider at a young age.

"I had a creative inkling," she said, "but I never pursued it."

Everything changed on Aug. 17, 2013.

When Saleh was nine ...Read more