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Even people with common and often treatable mental health problems like depression and anxiety may have a harder time than patients without these diagnoses getting admitted to a high-quality nursing home, a U.S. study suggests.

JACKSONVILLE BEACH, Fla. — Adam Fuller credits a simple, one-word command — and a black Lab mix named J.D. — with helping to save his life.

"Cover," he tells J.D., who is sitting to his left in a grassy field next to a park playground. The dog calmly walks to Fuller's right, then sits facing backward. Were someone coming up from behind, he'd wag his tail. The signal quells the sense of threat that plagued Fuller after serving in Afghanistan, that at one point had him futilely popping medications and veering toward suicide.

Personal health should be a private matter. But when you need to take time off work due to a mental health condition, often it isn't possible to maintain that privacy. As a board member at the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), and a former managing director at two global banks (UBS and Deutsche Bank), I've been approached by hundreds of colleagues and clients over the past 30 years seeking advice for themselves or a colleague, friend, or family member on how best to manage professional life while dealing with a mental health condition themselves or caring for a loved one who is.

Counties across California are under increasing scrutiny for how they use — or don't use — state funds earmarked for mental health services.

A recent state audit found that California counties were collectively sitting on an unused stash of $2.5 billion in funds from the Mental Health Services Act. The issue has taken front stage in Orange County, where officials are scrambling to provide housing and services to homeless people, some with mental illness, as part of a federal court settlement.

Among the young people known as "Dreamers," Ever Arias belongs to a select group.

Of the roughly 700,000 unauthorized immigrants who have temporary but tenuous protection from deportation, only 99 are in medical school. Fewer still have made it to their final year.

Mentally ill people who were cast out of a Las Vegas psychiatric hospital and issued Greyhound bus tickets to cities across the country without proper consent, care or planning soon will have their day in court.

A Nevada court has ruled that James Flavy Coy Brown, whose 2013 bus trip took him to Sacramento, and potentially hundreds of others who had similar experiences, may as a group pursue damages against Rawson-Neal Psychiatric Hospital in Las Vegas, Southern Nevada Adult Mental Health Services, which oversees the hospital, and various treatment professionals.

Sherry Alvarez says she knew there was something different about her son since he was about 9 months old. Back then Sherry says his pediatrician told her there was nothing to worry about, " 'Boys are a little slower than girls, so let's just wait until his second birthday.' " We aren't using Sherry's son's name to protect his privacy.

By her son's second birthday, Sherry says she was getting desperate. She didn't know why he wasn't talking yet or showing affection like other kids. At 2 1/2, he was referred to Children's Hospital Los Angeles.

The nation's opioid epidemic has been called today's version of the 1980s AIDS crisis.

In a speech Monday, President Donald Trump pushed for a tougher federal response, emphasizing a tough-on-crime approach for drug dealers and more funding for treatment. And Congress is upping the ante, via a series of hearings — including one scheduled to last Wednesday through Thursday — to study legislation that might tackle the unyielding scourge, which has cost an estimated $1 trillion in premature deaths, health care costs and lost wages since 2001.