After Learning She Was 8 Weeks Pregnant, This Texas Woman Had to Travel 1,500 Miles for an Abortion

Before Rebecca* learned she was eight weeks and one day pregnant, there were weeks when the thought hadn’t even crossed her mind. But in mid-September, after realizing she “wasn’t feeling myself for a series of days,” Rebecca decided to take an at-home pregnancy test “to get peace of mind.” “I wanted to rule that out and think it was maybe something else, just other environmental circumstantial things that I hadn’t considered,” she tells PEOPLE.

After Local Theater Star Commits Grisly Double Murder for Cash, a Two-Year Quest for the Truth

Photo: Courtesy Kibuishi Family; Courtesy Steve Herr The 2010 double murder ofJuri “Julie” Kibuishiand her friendSam Herrwas as gruesome as it was surprising. Their killer,Daniel Wozniak, a former theater actor and Herr’s friend and neighbor in Orange County, California,was sentenced to death in 2016. But reporter Linda Sawyer believes there is more to the case than has been revealed — and her two-year quest to prove it is chronicled in the new iHeartRadio podcastSleuth, which debuts on Wednesday.

After Losing 160 Lbs., This Woman Is Fulfilling Her 'Childhood Dream' of Becoming a Firefighter

Ever since Penny Leaver was “a little kid,” she dreamed of becoming a firefighter.“I always wanted to be a first responder,” the 43-year-old from Farmersville, Texas, tells PEOPLE for theHalf Their Size issue. Leaver tried being a police explorer in high school “but really liked the fire side,” and always kept it in mind as a possible career.And when she was young, it seemed doable — Leaver grew up in a household where “we were counting calories as soon as we could add,” and she played basketball, softball and was on the drill team.

After Losing 3 Family Members to Gunfire, Activist Ryane Nickens Helps Survivors Overcome Trauma

Ryane Nickens.Photo: Nate Palmer Ryane Nickens was 12 when she lost her first relative to gun violence. The victim in that 1989 shooting was her 20-year-old uncle, David Williams. Then, in 1993, a shooting in Nickens' Southeast Washington, D.C., neighborhood killed her pregnant sister Tracy, 18, and injured her mother, Linda Bunn, as well as Ryane’s sister Dee Dee and her brother Ronnie. “The pain was so deep for her,” Bunn says of Ryane.

After Losing His Mom and Sister to AIDS, Jake Glaser Overcomes 'Survivor's Guilt' to Help Others

Jake Glaserremembers coming home on Dec. 3, 1994 and finding his father,Starsky and Hutchactor Paul Michael Glaser, sitting alone. He immediately knew that his mother, HIV/AIDS activistElizabeth Glaser, had died. “I sat down next to him, and we both cried,” Jake, now 37, tells PEOPLE in this week’s issue. The Glasers' battle withHIV/AIDSbegan when Elizabeth hemorrhaged while giving birth to daughter Ariel in August 1981, two months after the first cases of AIDS were reported in the U.