Spotlight

The Moradi family sits for a portrait on a small boat in Band-i-Mir lake, one of the tourist attractions in the Bamiyan Valley region in Afghanistan, Saturday, June 17, 2023. The family traveled a long way from Helmand to spend a few days for their summer vacation. During their first stint in power from 1996 to 2001, the Taliban banned photography of humans and animals as contrary to the teachings of Islam. On Aug. 26, 2023 they banned all women from entering all national parks including Band-i-Mir, in a move that has triggered widespread condemnation.(AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)

From an old-style Afghan camera, a new view of life under the Taliban emerges

Two years after US troops left, AP photographer Rodrigo Abd returned to Afghanistan with an idea: to use an old-style Afghan “box camera” to document how life has changed under Taliban rule. This special project gives a unique and intimate window into life in Afghanistan since the U.S. withdrawal. Peace has come to Afghanistan, but at a steep price: poverty, global isolation and the virtual erasure of Afghan women.

A group of people take in the views of the Mendenhall Glacier on June 8, 2023, in Juneau, Alaska. The glacier in the summer is accessible by kayak or canoe, by foot on a challenging trail or by helicopter. As the Mendenhall Glacier continues to recede, tourists are flooding into Juneau. A record number of cruise ship passengers are expected this year in the city of about 30,000 people. (AP Photo/Becky Bohrer)

Crammed with tourists, Alaska’s capital wonders what will happen as its magnificent glacier recedes

Maya Johnson, 7, of New York, is playfully swung into the lake by her friends during Camp Be'chol Lashon, a sleepaway camp for Jewish children of color, Friday, July 28, 2023, in Petaluma, Calif., at Walker Creek Ranch. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

Summer camp in California gives Jewish children of color a haven to be different together

A baby was found in the rubble of a US raid in Afghanistan. But who exactly was killed and why?

Incarcerated graduates, who finished various educational and vocational programs in prison, wait for the start of their graduation ceremony at Folsom State Prison in Folsom, Calif., Thursday, May 25, 2023. Thousands of prisoners throughout the United States get their college degrees behind bars, most of them paid for by the federal Pell Grant program, which offers the neediest undergraduates tuition aid that they don’t have to repay. That program is about to expand exponentially next month, giving about 30,000 more students behind bars some $130 million in financial aid per year. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

Thousands more prisoners across the US will get free college paid for by the government

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.

EDS NOTE: GRAPHIC CONTENT - FILE - Lifeless bodies of men, some with their hands tied behind their backs, lie on the ground in Bucha, Ukraine, Sunday, April 3, 2022. Russian soldiers picked up these men on March 4, 2022, as they swept the streets of Bucha to identify and neutralize potential threats. Ukrainian prosecutors now say they know who was responsible for the violence that day: Soldiers from the 76th Guards Airborne Assault Division, who ultimately reported up to Col. Gen. Alexander Chaiko, a man known for his brutality as leader of Russia’s troops in Syria. (AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda, File)

How Russian soldiers ran a ‘cleansing’ operation in Bucha

BUCHA, Ukraine (AP) — The first man arrived at 7:27 a.m. Russian soldiers covered his head and marched him up the driveway toward a nondescript office building.

Erika Kinetz