Kara Mihm

KXAN Austin • 22nd July 2025

As AI chatbots become more popular for therapy, experts urge users to keep humans in the loop

If you are in distress, call the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline 24 hours a day at 988, or visit 988lifeline.org for more resources.


AUSTIN (KXAN) — If this were the 1950s, Jenna Truong might have turned to a Magic 8 Ball for answers about why her relationship ended. But it’s 2025, so Truong turned to ChatGPT.


“During my breakup, I was thinking way too much, so I was like, ‘Tell me the truth. Why did he do this? Why did he do that?'” said Truong, a 24-year-old social media content creator. “I kn...

KXAN Austin • 8th July 2025

‘Lost Stuffy Project’ reunites Texas flood victims with replicas of lost comfort items

AUSTIN (KXAN) – A beloved stuffed monkey is on its way to accompany a young Camp Mystic camper in her final resting place.


The weathered Jellycat animal, pre-loved by another child, is en route in an overnight shipment to her family in Houston before her funeral on Friday. This tender reunion is all thanks to a grassroots project grounded in reuniting children and their beloved stuffed animals.

The “Lost Stuffy Project,” founded by Randi Jaffe, locates replacements of children’s lost comfor...

25th February 2025

Dozens protest at Whole Foods over rat poison use

Protest at Arlington Whole Foods on Feb. 22. / Kara Mihm photos
Dozens of people crowded the sidewalk next to the Whole Foods Market in Arlington on Saturday, Feb. 22, to protest what they say is the company’s continued use of rodenticides at the store and parking lot, despite the discovery of two dead hawks there in the past several weeks.
Protesters, bundled in warm layers, hoisted signs for passing motorists and visiting shoppers to see. Customers engaged with the protesters, expressing cur...

CNN • 30th July 2024

‘Catastrophic flooding’ forces water rescues in Vermont after 1-in-1,000-year rainfall event | CNN

Emergency responders sprang into action early Tuesday to rescue residents in flooded areas of northeast Vermont after a 1-in-1,000-year rainfall event created a surge of dangerous floodwaters for the second time in a matter of weeks.



Ten swift-water rescue teams completed about two dozen rescues in Caledonia and Essex counties, some of the hardest-hit areas, where flash flood emergencies warning of “catastrophic flooding” were issued and the storm unleashed inches of rainf...

CNN • 13th July 2024

Cape Cod mass stranding of more than 140 dolphins confirmed to be largest in US history | CNN

The stranding of more than 140 dolphins off Cape Cod last month has been confirmed as the largest mass stranding of the mammals in United States history, animal rescuers say.



A final review of data and aerial imagery of the mass stranding event near Wellfleet, Massachusetts, believed to have begun June 28, revealed 146 dolphins were involved, the International Fund for Animal Welfare announced Thursday.



Wellfleet is located on Cape Cod’s northeastern...

CNN • 26th June 2024

26-year-old hiker drowns after slipping into rapid waters at Glacier National Park | CNN

A hiker drowned Sunday at Glacier National Park in Montana after slipping into fast-moving water, being swept over several small waterfalls, and getting pinned underwater for several minutes, according to officials.



The woman, identified as 26-year-old Gillian Tones, was visiting the park from Pennsylvania, the National Park Service said in a news release Tuesday.



Tones diverted from a hiking trail near St. Mary Falls late Sunday and walked down to V...

14th February 2024

Find your people with Popple: an app launched by BU students – The Daily Free Press

Across the Charles River from where Mark Zuckerberg launched the ubiquitous Facebook, two Boston University students have embarked on a similar path by designing a platform that cultivates student connectivity.

After meeting at SPLASH when they were freshmen, Remi Chester and Prianna Sharan quickly began to notice the difficulty of making plans and finding friends as busy college students.

“We felt that the whole system of finding things to do on campus and joining clubs could have been made a

The Uproar • 16th March 2022

Champions of Two Decades

Though Sarah Mulligan and Lexi Sundgren swam for NA nearly forty years apart from each other, their lanes converged earlier this month.

Crushing the forty year-old Women’s 500 yard freestyle record, Lexi Sundgren displays the same characteristics as Sarah Mulligan who set it in 1982.

The year was 1982. Michael Jackson dropped the earth-shattering album Thriller, Prince William was brought into the world, and NASH senior Sarah Durstein set a record-breaking 500 freestyle time that would last at

The Uproar • 13th September 2021

One Step from the Podium

It is sarcastically called “The Fourth-Place Finisher Club,” but for the world’s best athletes, finishing without a medal can lead to years of devastation.

After his second fourth-place finish at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, Andrei Minakov lay paralyzed in pain and disappointment.

That fatal word described the performance of 339 athletes at the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games. The blink of an eye or the fraction of an inch separated the top world medalists from the empty-handed fourth-place finishers in