Going to therapy for the first time can be intimidating.

It can be hard to seek help — and awkward to imagine opening up to a complete stranger. The process of finding an available therapist alone can be discouraging, especially as the demand for mental health services has been outpacing supply.

But therapy can be extremely helpful for many ...Read more

At the bowling alley, Julia Prendergast carefully worked the joystick on her friend’s wheelchair, positioning her perpendicular to the lane.

She brushed a wisp of hair off Tyme Fiedorczyk’s face and adjusted her glasses. Tyme has cerebral palsy, which impairs her muscle coordination; to talk, she must type into an electronic device; to move...Read more

BALTIMORE -- Raynold Smith beefed with another man for months and when they crossed paths in March 2021, both were armed.

The reason Smith didn’t pull the trigger? In a split-second moment, when life and death hung in the balance, he glimpsed a child’s car seat and suddenly realized everything his enemy stood to lose. Almost immediately, ...Read more

WASHINGTON — At 4:30 in the morning on May 2, Debra and Marc Tice woke up in their Texas home to a phone call from the White House. President Joe Biden wanted to meet them in Washington that afternoon.

It was an opportunity they were not going to miss. Their son, Austin Tice, a journalist and former U.S. Marine, had been abducted in Syria ...Read more

WASHINGTON — Former President Donald Trump said he supported the release of documents related to the FBI’s search of his Mar-a-Lago home earlier this week, including a copy of the search warrant and a receipt of items that agents took from the property.

Trump made the announcement late Thursday on his social media site, Truth Social, ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — Actor Anne Heche is not expected to survive after a fiery car crash in Mar Vista last week left her in a coma, according to a statement on behalf of her family and friends Thursday night.

She is being kept on life support at the Grossman Burn Center at West Hills Hospital while medical staffers determine whether any of her ...Read more

Anne Heche is “not expected to survive” after suffering massive injuries in a car crash last week, a published report said.

The actress suffered a severe brain injury, a rep for her told People.

Heche remains in a coma, the rep said, and is unlikely to come out of it.

“It has long been her choice to donate her organs and she’s being ...Read more

An estimated 21,000 fish died at the U.C. Davis Center for Aquatic Biology and Aquaculture in what the university described as a “catastrophic failure.”

The loss appears to be a result of chlorine exposure, to which fish are uniquely sensitive, according to a Thursday news release from U.C. Davis.

U.C. Davis has initiated an independent ...Read more

WASHINGTON — The Department of Justice is moving to unseal the search warrant and itemized receipt of what was taken from former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence earlier this week, Attorney General Merrick Garland said Thursday in his first public comments since the FBI search was conducted.

It is extraordinarily unusual for ...Read more

As the USS Abraham Lincoln sailed into San Diego Thursday, Aug. 11, with two destroyers in tow and some 6,000 sailors and Marines aboard, it marked the completion of a U.S. military first:

Navy Capt. Amy Bauernschmidt has now completed her first mission as the first woman to command a U.S. aircraft carrier.

The nuclear-powered aircraft carrier...Read more

REDWOOD CITY, Calif. — Scott Peterson’s lawyers made their final appeal in court Thursday to convince a judge that his conviction for murdering his pregnant wife, Laci, and unborn son two decades ago should be overturned because a “feisty” juror with a history of domestic violence was biased against him from the start.

But Superior ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — Actor Anne Heche was under the influence of narcotics during her fiery car crash in Mar Vista last week.

Officer Annie Hernandez, a spokesperson for the Los Angeles Police Department, said a blood test showed the presence of narcotics, but those initial findings could be invalidated if medications at the hospital turned out to ...Read more

ALBANY, N.Y. — Former governor Andrew Cuomo thinks New York taxpayers should be on the hook for his legal bills.

A year to the day after announcing his resignation amid sexual harassment allegations, the disgraced Democrat filed a lawsuit against Attorney General Letitia James for failing to provide him with legal representation after one of ...Read more

South Korea said the possible operation of a controversial American-made missile shield was “not negotiable,” pushing back at China’s efforts to hold President Yoon Suk Yeol to his predecessor’s policy to freeze its deployment.

Decisions on the deployment of Lockheed Martin Corp.’s Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense system was a ...Read more

DETROIT — A high-profile Flint water crisis trial against two private engineering companies ended Thursday with a hung jury, a development that experts say makes a settlement less likely in the near future but lets the opposing attorneys learn lessons from the five-month-long case.

Eastern District of Michigan U.S. District Court magistrate ...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS — A pair of suspects have been arrested in Chicago following last week's shooting inside a crowded store at the Mall of America, police said Thursday.

Shamar Alon Lark, 21, of Minneapolis, and Rashad Jamal May, 22, of Burnsville, were arrested during a traffic stop conducted by the Chicago FBI Fugitive Task Force about 2:25 p.m. ...Read more

SEATTLE — While the unusual quiet of COVID's first months was hard on many people, it allowed birds in the Pacific Northwest to use a wider range of habitats, according to a newly published University of Washington study.

The study, published Thursday in Scientific Reports, found that in Pacific Northwest cities under lockdown, birds were ...Read more