Krystal Emerson’s son can no longer attend Ellsworth Elementary-Middle School in person. An internal investigation found that staff had improperly restrained and secluded the then-second grader on at least 5 of 18 occasions during the 2023-24 school year. (Photo by Troy Bennett / Maine Morning Star)

Mallie Luken, 70, remembers thinking of her parents as she tried to sleep outdoors in the parking lot of Abundant Life Church in Central City. She sat for a photo in her home in Greenville on April 27, 2025. (Kentucky Lantern photo by Austin Anthony)

The cost of defending lawsuits against individual officers and larger, class-action cases against the entire department has pushed ADOC’s legal spending over $57 million since 2020. In the last five years, the department has spent over $17 million on the legal defense of accused officers and lawsuit settlements, along with over $39 million litigating a handful of complex cases against ADOC, including a lawsuit filed by the U.S. Department of Justice over prison conditions. (Alex Cochran for Alabama Reflector)

A memorial honoring San Carlos Apache teen Emily Pike can be seen at the intersection of Mesa Drive and McKellips Road in Mesa, the location where she was last seen in January. Photo by Shondiin Silversmith | Arizona Mirror

Smokestack emissions rise into the air on Feb. 7, 2025, above Golden Heart Plaza in downtown Fairbanks. Snow dusts the statute of the “Unknown First Family” that is the plaza’s centerpiece. (Photo by Yereth Rosen/Alaska Beacon)

Emma Bye, pictured here on May 9, 2025, is an obstetrician-gynecologist at Yankton Medical Clinic in southeastern South Dakota. (Kelly Hertz, Yankton Press & Dakotan)