Community funds are sprouting up nationwide to post bail while lawmakers try to tackle reforms.

Every time New Orleans public defender Nia Weeks saw her 18-year-old client in court, she could see the fear in his eyes. He had been caught with a gun after already having one unlawful possession of a firearm on his record. Now he was awaiting trial in the same jail that housed many of the people he felt were trying to kill him. Weeks was trying to get him out so that they could proceed with his defense without him constantly looking over his shoulder. The teenager ended up spending five months behind bars because he couldn’t afford bail, released only once his case finally ended with a plea agreement.

Weeks’ client was far from an exception. There are nearly half a million people incarcerated across the U.S. without having been convicted of a crime, many of them because they can’t pay for their release. For decades, cash bail has faced criticism for allowing those who can pay to walk free while the poor remain imprisoned, at risk of losing their families, homes and jobs. Now a wave of criminal justice reformers has begun to change that.

A surprising percentage of adults say they’d rather snooze apart from their significant other.

Each night, Kelly Kandra Hughes nestles under the weighted blanket of her queen-size bed around 9 pm. She usually reads before her husband, Heath, comes in to chat about their plans for the next day. If it’s been a long day, he’ll crawl into the bed and run his fingers through her hair. After kissing Kelly goodnight, he turns off the lamp.

When Heath goes to bed a few hours later, he heads into his own bedroom. The couple has been sleeping separately since about seven months into their marriage. Because Kelly has narcolepsy, her husband’s nighttime movements disturb her sleep. But recent studies suggest that their situation — which has been coined a “sleep divorce” — isn’t all that unique. In fact, 46 percent of Americans in a relationship would rather sleep alone at least some of the time, according to a 2018 survey.

The economy has opened up dramatically over the past two decades, but there are few opportunities for women.

Beatriz Tumoine wanted to be a doctor. A gifted student, at 16 she won a place at the medical school of the prestigious Tecnológico de Monterrey university, about 220 miles from her home in Torreón, northern Mexico. But her parents would not let her enroll.

“My dad wouldn’t even consider it,” says Tumoine, now an executive at building materials group Cemex, one of Mexico’s most successful multinational companies. “I thought my grandfather, a doctor, would support me. But he said it was a very demanding career and, for a woman, may not be the best choice.”

Tumoine was devastated — but in provincial 1980s Mexico, she says, they “just didn’t know” any different.