Spotlight

This still image from a deputy’s body camera video provided by the Camden County Sheriff's Office shows Staff Sgt. Buck Aldridge following a chase and arrest on June 24, 2022. Aldridge was placed on administrative pending an investigation after he fatally shot Leonard Cure on Oct. 16, 2023, in Camden County, Georgia. The deputy shot the Black man at point-blank range during a traffic stop after the man, who had been wrongfully imprisoned years ago, grabbed the officer by the neck and was forcing his head backward, according to video released by a sheriff. (Camden County Sheriff's Office via AP)

Georgia deputy who shot absolved man had been fired for excessive force. Critics blame the sheriff

A Georgia sheriff’s deputy who fatally shot a driver in a roadside struggle has been involved in other traffic stops that spiraled into violence.

An employee of the HIK abalone farm holds an abalone snail near Hawston, South Africa, April 26, 2023. (AP Photo/Jerome Delay)

A curious South African sea snail is a prized dish in Asia. That has meant a trail of destruction

A person holds drug paraphernalia near the Washington Center building on SW Washington St. in downtown Portland, Ore. on Tuesday, April 4, 2023. Three years ago, nearly two-thirds of Oregon voters approved a ballot measure decriminalizing illicit drugs, backing the idea that addiction treatment is more effective than jail. But now, public drug use in cities such as Portland and a surge in fentanyl overdose deaths have created a backlash against the first-in-the-nation law. (Dave Killen/The Oregonian via AP)

Oregon’s first-in-the-nation drug decriminalization law is facing pushback amid the fentanyl crisis

Occupants wait to see how police officers work during a city-sponsored sweep of an encampment overlooking the city skyline on Diamond Hill Wednesday, Nov. 1, 2023, in Denver. The sweep was just one of several staged in various locations across the Mile High City. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)

Democratic-led cities pay for migrants’ tickets to other places as resources dwindle

FILE— In this July 16, 2019 photo, health workers dressed in protective gear begin their shift at an Ebola treatment center in Beni, Congo DRC. Internal documents obtained by The Associated Press show that the World Health Organization has paid $250 each to at least 104 women in Congo who say they were sexually abused or exploited by Ebola outbreak responders. That amount is less than what some U.N. officials are given for a single day's expenses when working in Congo. (AP Photo/Jerome Delay, File)

Internal documents show the World Health Organization paid sexual abuse victims in Congo $250 each

Gun violence

As guns in the U.S. outnumber people, AP examines a nation trapped in its cycle of gun violence

The tombstone of Army Sgt. Cody Bowman stands at the Dallas-Fort Worth National Cemetery, Sunday, June 11, 2023, in Dallas. For decades, discussions of suicide prevention skirted fraught questions about firearms; the Army has punted implementing measures that might be controversial. But a growing movement has taken hold, among researchers, the Veterans Administration, ordinary people like Bowman's mother, Barbie Rohde, if this country wants to get serious about addressing an epidemic of suicide, it must find a way to honor veterans and active-duty service members, respect their rights to own a gun, but keep it out of their hands on their darkest days. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

Americans have fundamental freedoms – to life, liberty, happiness. Do gun rights overshadow them all?

Sandy Phillips, left, and her husband, Lonnie, stand for a portrait in Longmont, Colo., Monday, Sept. 4, 2023. Suffering through their own personal loss after a mass shooting in Colorado in 2012, the couple set out to help other parents like them, traveling to shooting sites around the country in this RV. The trip continued for a decade. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

In the shadow of loss, a mother’s long search for happiness

Janet Paulsen, left, is embraced by her friend, Susan McElvey, after lunch in Acworth, Ga., Tuesday, Aug. 8, 2023. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

Some states take abusers’ guns. Will the Supreme Court stop them?

The wreck of a traditional Mauritanian fishing boat, known as a pirogue, also used by migrants to reach Spain's Canary Islands, sits on a beach near Nouadhibou, Mauritania, Thursday, Dec. 2, 2021. In 2021, at least seven boats appearing to be from Northwest Africa washed up in the Caribbean and in Brazil. All carried dead bodies. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana)

Adrift in the Atlantic, a boat of death and lost dreams

In 2021, at least seven boats appearing to be from northwest Africa washed up in the Caribbean and in Brazil. All carried dead bodies. For nearly two years, The AP worked to uncover the story of one of those doomed boats.

In predominantly Black schools, students’ mental health is further tested by pressures and discrimination they endure because they are Black, as well as violence and poverty in their communities that have faced years of disinvestment. (AP Illustration)

From Birth to Death: Black Americans and a lifetime of disparities

From birth to death, Black Americans fare worse in measures of health compared to their white counterparts.

Guohua Power Station, a coal-fired power plant, operates in Dingzhou, Baoding, in the northern China's Hebei province, Friday, Nov. 10, 2023. The world is off track in its efforts to curb global warming, a new international report calculates Tuesday, Nov. 14. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)

Two grim reports on global climate efforts highlight increased fossil fuel subsidies, ill health

Paul Tomita poses for a portrait in a historic barracks at Minidoka National Historic Site, Saturday, July 8, 2023, in Jerome, Idaho. Tomita, who had asthma as an infant, says the constant desert dust that seeped even into the barracks repeatedly sent him to the camp hospital. "Dust on your face, dust in your ears, dust up your nose, dust in your mouth," he remembers. (AP Photo/Lindsey Wasson)

Japanese Americans were jailed in a desert. Survivors worry a wind farm will overshadow the past.

FILE - Workers and family members take part in a 15-city walkout to demand $15 per hour wages on May 19, 2021, in front of a McDonald's restaurant in Sanford, Fla. A federal rule that goes into effect next month could make it easier for millions of workers to form unions at big companies like McDonald's. But it's already facing significant pushback from businesses and some members of Congress. (AP Photo/John Raoux, File)

New rule would make it easier for millions of Americans to unionize, but businesses are pushing back

A woman walks past rubble that was caused the September earthquake in Amizmiz, outside Marrakech, Morocco, Friday, Oct. 6, 2023. Morocco has pledged to rebuild from a September earthquake in line with its architectural heritage. Villagers and architects agree that earthquake-safe construction is a top priority. That’s created a push for modern building materials. But the government says it wants to rebuild in line with Morocco’s cultural and architectural heritage. (AP Photo/Mosa'ab Elshamy)

Morocco debates how to rebuild from September quake that killed thousands

CORRECTS TO HONOLULU FIRE DEPARTMENT HELICOPTER This photo provided by the Hawaii Department of Land and Natural Resources shows an Honolulu Fire Department helicopter carrying water to douse a wildfire burning east of Mililani, Hawaii, on Thursday, Nov. 2, 2023. A wildfire that has burned forestlands in a remote mountainous area of Central Oahu has moved eastward and away from population centers as firefighters continued to battle the blaze. (Dan Dennison/Hawaii Department of Land and Natural Resources via AP)

There’s another wildfire burning in Hawaii. This one is destroying irreplaceable rainforest on Oahu

Associated Press reporter Richard Lardner kayaks to Sweetheart Island, off the coast of Yankeetown, Fla., on Aug. 5, 2023. Patrick Parker Walsh is serving five and half years in federal prison for stealing nearly $8 million in federal COVID-19 relief funds that he used, in part, to buy the island. (AP Photo/Julio Aguilar)

The Great Grift: COVID-19 aid thieves bought fancy cars, a Pokemon card — even a private island