This is the second installment of our reality show series about Jennifer Towler, 38, and her 19-year-old son Bradley, who has autism. Jennifer has a seemingly impossible vision for her son: She prays he’ll be an evangelist sharing the gospel to the disabled. We’ll chronicle the challenges of raising and ministering to someone with autism, the happenings in the Towlers’ home, and the joy and endurance found in God’s faithful promises. 

With her gold-rimmed glasses, broad cheekbones, and cropped white hair, Susan Ahn Cuddy of Los Angeles looks like a typical Korean grandma. But when Susan speaks, people are amazed to hear her perfect Americanized English. 

PHOENIX—Some stories of the mentally ill have a happy ending. Most don’t. Medical advances make it possible for many people to function in the world instead of undergoing institutionalization. But many seriously mentally ill people don’t follow prescriptions for a simple reason: They don’t realize they’re ill.

Mitt Romney picks up trash and always makes sure the lights are turned off. He good-naturedly lets his wife muss up his hair. He laughs out loud when his sons tackle him in the snow and dab frosting on his face.

Labor Day is like any worthy poem: However you feel about it, you’ll feel something. The romantic drama, based on a same-title novel by Joyce Maynard and directed by Jason Reitman, is the kind of film that leaves your heart tingling, your head steaming, and your ears echoing. Like poetry, it awakens all senses to taste, touch, and smell the tiniest details, from the sour stench of sweat stains to the overripe sweetness of yellow peaches.

Think of Jack Ryan as America’s more human, more interesting James Bond. The British icon’s greatest flaw is having no flaw at all—he is too smooth, too composed, too perfect to the point of blandness. When Daniel Craig finally portrayed James Bond as an agent weathered in skin and spirit in Skyfall, critics hailed it as “the greatest James Bond movie ever.” Perhaps fans are ready for an espionage thriller with more believability, and Jack Ryan provides that—to a certain dose.

PHOENIX—By now the infamous mug shot of Jared Loughner—head shaved, eyes crazed, smile crooked and unreadable—is embedded in Americans’ minds. He was once a good-looking, well-toned teenager with blue eyes. Today, he’s better known as a mass murderer who in Tucson on Jan. 8, 2011, shot 19 people, including U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. Six of them, one a 9-year-old girl, died.