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What Is Connections Sports Edition?

Connections Sports Edition is just like the regular Connections word puzzle, in that it's a game that resets at 12 a.m. EST each day and has 16 different words listed. It's up to you to figure out each group of four words that belong to a certain category, with four categories in total.

This new version is sports-specific, however, as a partnership between The New York Times and The Athletic.

As the NYT site instructs, for Connections Sports Edition, you "group sports terms that share a common thread."

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Related:The 26 Funniest NYT Connections Game Memes You'll Appreciate if You Do This Daily Word Puzzle

Hints for Today's Connections Sports Edition Categories on March 8, 2026

Here are some hints about the four categories to help you figure out the word groupings.

• Yellow: What a racket!

• Green: Soccer pros.

• Blue: Top prospects.

• Purple: Inspired a movie.

Here Are Today's Connections Sports Edition Categories

OK, time for a second hint…we'll give you the actual categories now. Spoilers below!

• Yellow: WOMEN'S TENNIS GREATS

• Green: NWSL TEAMS

• Blue: WNBA DRAFT NO. 1 PICKS

• Purple: TEAMS IN THE ALL-AMERICAN GIRLS PROFESSIONAL BASEBALL LEAGUE

If you're looking for the answers, no worries—we've got them below. So, don't scroll any further if you don't want to see the solutions!The answers to today'sConnections Sports Edition #531are coming up next.Related:15 Fun Games Like Connections to Play Every Day

What Are the Answers to Connections Sports Edition Today?

• WOMEN'S TENNIS GREATS: GRAF, KING, NAVRATILOVA, WILLIAMS

• NWSL TEAMS: COURAGE, DASH, LEGACY, THORNS

• WNBA DRAFT NO. 1 PICKS: AUGUSTUS, BOSTON, PLUM, YOUNG

• TEAMS IN THE ALL-AMERICAN GIRLS PROFESSIONAL BASEBALL LEAGUE: BELLES, BLUE SOX, COMETS, PEACHES

Don't worry if you didn't get them this time—we've all been there.

Up next,catch up on the answers to recent Wordle puzzles.

Related: These Ingenious Modern Storage Containers Are Made for the Organization Obsessed

This story was originally published byParadeon Mar 8, 2026, where it first appeared in theLifesection. Add Parade as aPreferred Source by clicking here.

Norway US Embassy

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No injuries were reported. Police received reports of a "loud bang" or explosion around 1 a.m., Oslo police said in a news release.

The U.S. Embassy in Oslo referred media queries to the U.S. State Department, which did not immediately return a request for comment. Nor did Oslo police. Other details were not available.

"It's getting hot, and the lobster is getting warm," said Michael Galpert, one of the hosts of the event, encouraging the thousand-plus crowd to settle down so the evening's presentations could begin. "Welcome to ClawCon."

The event, ClawCon NYC, held Wednesday night, brought together an eclectic crowd that ranged from college students and working moms to hedge fund technology teams. They had gathered for a seafood spread of free lobster tails and to learn more about one of the AI ecosystem's latest innovations: OpenClaw.

At its simplest, OpenClaw is a sort of free software package that allows humans to create "agents" — AI systems that can perform autonomous tasks with limited human oversight. The project, launched in November by software engineer Peter Steinberger, was originally named "Clawd" in homage to Anthropic's powerful Claude AI system.

After Anthropicstrongly suggested that Steinberger change its nameto avoid any legal issues, the project kept its lobster-themed heritage and eventually landed on the OpenClaw moniker. The software hassoared in popularityover the past few months, and several ClawCon attendees who started using it in January referred to themselves as "veterans."

The software serves as the bridge between today's powerful AI systems, like Claude or OpenAI's GPT family of models, and the real-world tasks that people actually want AI systems to accomplish.

After setting up their own OpenClaw agent, eitheron a physical computerorthrough a virtual provider,users can send text or WhatsApp messages to it, directing it to perform a variety of tasks within the wheelhouse of today's AI systems. For example, users say they tell their OpenClaw agentsto listen to episodes of their favorite podcastand send summaries of the key ideas to the users' inbox,negotiate with car dealersoverthe price of a new vehicle, andeven order and pay for grocery deliveries, all without direct human input.

Many of ClawCon's participants had signed up for the event after catching seafood-tinged wind of these cutting-edge and hands-off uses for OpenClaw. The convention, which functioned like a high-energy meet-and-greet, featured a handful of main stage presentations, a rap performance, an open dance floor and — upstairs — a less-crowded VIP area witha livestream of the eventunfolding one floor below.

"There's a kind of electricity and energy you can just feel in the room," said Tomas Taylor, a programmer and ClawCon organizer. "OpenClaw has been a sort of catalyst for personal AI systems, and I think personal AI will be incredibly important in the overall evolution of AI." Taylor used his own OpenClaw system to help plan ClawCon and interact with vendors.

Designed to be accessible to anyone, OpenClaw can be used with paid AI systems from OpenAI and Anthropic or freely downloadable AI models, many of which come from Chinese companies like DeepSeek or Alibaba. The agents can also teach themselves how to perform new tasks and keep detailed notes about a user's preferences, allowing the agents to mold themselves to users' liking over time. OpenClaw itself relies on a small army of volunteers to maintain its code, respond to user issues and patch any security bugs.

One of these volunteers, Vincent Koc, emphasized that the technology is still in its infancy, though it is already having profound real-world impacts for many experienced coders and engineering novices alike.

"We're having a personal computer moment again, but now it's with actual personal AI systems," Koc shouted over the buzz of the party. "I'm hearing stories from moms, from artists and everyday people who are actually able to create stuff with AI. And I just think that's kind of magical."

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As the deep bass from the DJ's techno beats shook cups of cocktail sauce on a nearby table, Koc, a software engineer by day, gestured to the hundreds of OpenClaw disciples on the dance floor and argued that the excitement was more than just a passing fad.

"I believe in this so much. I'm gonna die on the sword for this," Koc said. To help figure out his tax burden earlier this year, Koc directed his OpenClaw agent to find an accountant and solicit quotes. "The system sent emails to many different tax lawyers, and they came back to me with real quotes for their services."

Yet many in the male-dominated crowd were not as trusting of the systems, whose claim to fame — the ability to perform meaningful actions without human oversight — could also be its Achilles' heel, or the closest crustacean equivalent.

The freewheeling nature of OpenClaw systemsrecently made headlinesafter Summer Yue, a leading AI security researcher at Meta, almost lost her entire inbox to her OpenClaw agent. Because OpenClaw can be linked up to personal email or financial accounts, weaknesses in the systemcould easily expose users' sensitive datato hackers across the globe.

"These systems are not for normies," Koc said, referring to the masses of everyday people less familiar with cutting-edge AI techniques and AI in general. "You're essentially having an AI literally take over a machine. That can feel daunting, because you're giving it access to information. But people should use their common sense. Take baby steps with this stuff."

As ClawCon preparesfor future stopsin Austin, Tokyo, and London, even the most enthusiastic in the crowd acknowledged that this technology comes with major risks.

"In Claw we trust!" said Mark Mollé, a lawyer specializing in intellectual property, observing the scene on the second floor while proudly holding up a lobster-shaped necklace. "At least, until the AI Hindenburg."

"We see people blindly trusting untested and unsafe agentic tools, which will continue until there's some sort of disaster," Mollé said. Several participants mentioned that they had set up cryptocurrency accounts for their agents and asked them to tryto make money on prediction market websiteslike Polymarket.

Downstairs, after the main stage talks concluded and a chrome-glad guitarist took center stage, catering staff inserted themselves into animated conversations about workflows and guardrails, trying to find owners for the remaining lobster tails.

Ryan Alport, a junior at the New Jersey Institute of Technology who has been experimenting with OpenClaw for several months, came to the event with a few friends to see what the in-person community would be like. "We figured there would be a bunch of nerds in the room," Alport said, "and to some degree there are."

Alport, who founded his own computer-science club at college and routinely commutes into New York City to attend AI events and meet other engineers, said he enjoyed learning how other ClawCon attendees are using OpenClaw and where they are running into security or reliability issues. Alport himself found OpenClaw to be a bit too rigid for writing computer code, so he instead designed it to function more like a general helper.

"It's easy enough to get it connected to the internet," Alport said. "Since it can read Twitter and check the weather, it gives me morning, afternoon, and evening reports. I can give it access to read my emails, but not exactly to send anything. It can keep track of my to dos, kind of like a personal assistant."

"I used to be pretty AI-averse, but at this point, I'm on the train," he added, watching as more lobster tails paraded by. "I definitely don't want the train to leave without me."

After ushering a reporter inside, Smith tilts his head back and peers across his desk, where papers are folded and arranged with geometric precision. He proffers a stack of printouts he says will prove his innocence — his lack of culpability.

Down a flight of stairs from where Smith sits, into a chill that grows with every step, Anthony "Tony" Mitchell slowly froze to death in a concrete cell in January 2023. About 100 feet from the sheriff's immaculate enclave, jailers who worked for Smith jeered as Mitchell shivered in his own waste, court records show.

A short walk from that cell, where the floor of the sheriff's office forms the ceiling of the Walker County Jail, a group of guards beat a man until one of their uniforms was soaked with his blood, according to court records. Nearby, deputies bribed a prisoner to serve as their enforcer. In the infirmary down the hall, jailers pummeled a man so hard they broke bones.

Three years later, none of it has come back on Smith. He struts calmly through the spaces where these things occurred, proudly pointing out the improvements he has made. Cameras over here. Monitors to track inmates' breathing over there. Supplies stacked in the bare cell where Mitchell once lay dying. As Smith walks, he has a habit of taking hold of the lapels of his Army-green vest, shrugging it forward in a muted facsimile of The Fonz.

"As long as I'm sheriff, … that cell is never being used again," he says, passing by the concrete box where Mitchell spent his final days.

Despite his outward calm, Smith is a man under siege. His watery blue eyes, narrow-set and preternaturally unblinking, reveal nothing of the pressure bearing down upon him. Under his reign at the apex of law enforcement in this rural Alabama county, 20 of his employees — nearly half the jail staff at the time of Mitchell's death — have been indicted in a sweeping federal investigation that also included five health care contractors.

As of early March, 13 defendants had pleaded guilty, admitting they violated the dead man's civil rights in the jail Smith ran from upstairs. Another worker entered a guilty plea stemming from a different incident.

The details laid out in court records detail abuse and neglect: One of the deputies who arrested Mitchell stomped on his groin as he lay handcuffed on the ground, telling him, "This is how we treat seizures in Walker County." A jailer tased Mitchell as he shivered in his cell. He depended on the guards for water, but they rarely brought him any. He needed medical care, but they wouldn't unlock the cell door for the nurses for two weeks. When they finally took him to the hospital, he was unconscious and cold, his body nearing the final stage of hypothermia.

Still, Smith remains in power.

Federal prosecutors have not charged him in connection with Mitchell's death. If he wins an upcoming election, a felony conviction may be the only thing that could force him from office.

In Alabama, it's extraordinarily difficult to oust an elected sheriff, and Smith is determined to cling to power as long as he can. The localdistrict attorney has filed unrelated misdemeanorcharges against him forhiring unqualifiedpeople, but Smith is fighting the charges. Even if he's convicted, he won't automatically lose his job because they're not felonies. A state board has voted to strip him of his law enforcement certification for the same reason, but under Alabama law, sheriffs don't need to be certified. The Walker County Commission says its hands are tied, and Smith has the authority to run the sheriff's department "as he sees fit."

And whileSmith faces three challengersin his bid for a third term as sheriff, plenty of Walker County residents believe he will cruise to victory, despite the violence that unfolded just down the stairs from his office.

"He needs to be held accountable for the failure of a sheriff and a man that he is," said Ryan Cagle, a local pastor and activist who has worked to keep Mitchell's memory alive. "Not as some supervillain, but this is a southern gothic — just a ridiculously deep and dark and wicked thing."

Mental illness was a death sentence in jail

At first,Steve Mitchelldidn't recognize the man who showed up at his door on January 12, 2023.

Wearing socks but no shoes as the temperature hovered around 60 degrees, the man stooped, his dirty clothes hanging off his lanky 6'5" frame like a scarecrow's. His hair flopped greasily over his ears.

It had been about three months since Steve had seen his 33-year-old cousin, Tony Mitchell, at Tony's father's funeral, but the transformation was unsettling. Haggard and emaciated, Tony looked to have lost more than 50 pounds, according to court documents.

Even more shocking than his appearance were the words coming out of Tony's mouth: He had found two portals in his house, he told Steve. One of them led to heaven, the other to hell.

There was more: In a box in the attic rested the remains of his older brother, stillborn in 1984, Tony insisted. He had to retrieve the box and put it in the portal to heaven, and he needed Steve's help to do it.

Terrified, Steve dialed 911 and asked for an ambulance.

By the time deputies made their way down the long driveway off Lost Creek Road to the house Tony once shared with his father, the onetime jokester and basketball player had lost all sense of reality. He had spray-painted his face black, in readiness to traverse the portal to hell. Confronted by a horde of officers, he ran off into the woods. According to a criminal complaint, he fired at least one shot in their direction before he fled.

Quickly caught, Mitchell soon found himself locked in a bare concrete cell known as "BK 5" at the Walker County jail, alone with his demons at the bottom of the stairs.

No bunk.No toilet.No running water.

Just a grate in the middle of the floor for your soul to slip away through.

After Mitchell's arrest, the sheriff's department released a photo of him, handcuffed, his face still blackened. On Facebook, the Walker County Sheriff's Office touted the arrest as a brave win.

"This situation could have ended much differently if it weren't for the constant training of our department, incredible work by our dispatchers, (and) assistance from other agencies," the post said, in part. "Thankfully, the day ended with everyone safe."

According to a lawsuit later filed by Mitchell's family, that's what the sheriff's office told them, too – that he was safe and would get help in jail.

While the arrest was traumatic for Mitchell's cousin, sister and mother, they also couldn't help but feel some relief. Mitchell had been spiraling since his father died, according to his sister, Maranda Mitchell-Gutzmer. Like so many in Appalachia, he had fallen into an abyss of drug abuse and paranoia.

A phone call with Mitchell a few days earlier had alarmed his sister, who had moved to the Chicago area years earlier to "escape" Walker County.

"He wasn't even making sense, and I just remember crying and being like, 'Please, please get help,' " said Mitchell-Gutzmer, who had recently given birth to her first child. "And he just was silent. I can hear him weeping, and I'm just like, 'Please — I want my daughter to be able to meet you.' "

Maybe her brother had hit that place people call "rock bottom," Mitchell-Gutzmer reasoned. Maybe what he needed was to be locked up, away from temptation, away from drugs. Surrounded by professionals who would provide him with medical care.

If nothing else, he'd be safe, she thought.

In those first few days, Mitchell-Gutzmer and her mother called the sheriff's office incessantly. They were given scant information, but what Mitchell-Gutzmer eked out of a woman who answered the phone offered some hope.

"They said that they're waiting for him to detox because he doesn't know what's going on," she said. "It's just sort of reassuring — like: 'We're handling this for you.' "

Whoever answered the phone, the family's lawsuit says, was echoing what deputies had promised Mitchell's mother and cousin: They would get him help once he was in custody.

A jail cell nicknamed 'the freezer'

The temperature doesn't change much when you step into the Walker County Jail from outside.

Just inside the door is Medical, a small, musty room where the rules require recently arrested people to be evaluated before being locked in a cell.

But the health services administrator on duty the evening Mitchell was taken into custody "wanted to wait," court records show, even though Mitchell couldn't walk. He could barely stand up.

He also couldn't change his clothes. Deputies stripped off his dirty outfit, but they couldn't get him into the orange jail-issue replacement. Instead, they pulled a one-piece garment known as a suicide smock over his head.

The specks of warmth salvaged from the inside of the patrol car, which had clung to his skin under his gray sweatpants and hooded striped sweatshirt, soon fell away.

As his mother and sister were assured Mitchell was safely detoxing, guards took away his sleeping mat and eventually even the smock, leaving him naked on the floor of the infamous BK 5 – booking area cell number five, nicknamed "the freezer," the family's lawsuit says. An empty concrete box with no bunk, no sink and no toilet, BK 5 was meant to be a holding cell, a place where people stay for a few hours until they sober up, bail out or move into the jail's housing unit.

Mitchell was locked inside BK 5 for 14 days. He was dependent on jailers for everything – food, water, trips to the bathroom.

Guards gave him food, but after one of them tased him a few days into his confinement, he couldn't chew it. Mitchell's drug abuse had ruined his teeth, so he wore dentures. The shock from the jailer's weapon caused them to fly out of his mouth, and he never got them back.

The paper bags and takeout-style containers the guards gave him at mealtimes didn't include anything to drink, the family's lawsuit says, and for the last 70 hours before he died, no one brought him any water until, finally, he was too weak to drink it.

According to the lawsuit, jailers brought Mitchell to the toilet and shower only six times the entire two weeks he was there – not even once every two days – and his cell became soiled with feces. After his showers, he was returned, naked and cold, to the filthy, freezing cell.

Deposing a king

Alabama once boasted thousands of acres of "white gold" — cotton that enriched landowners who enslaved hundreds of thousands of people to work the fields.

After the slaves were freed and cotton was no longer king, a different sort of richness was pulled from the ground in Walker County. The mineral wealth that flowed into landowners' pockets is reflected in place names to this day: Coal Valley. Carbon Hill. Coal Mine Road.

The tiny minority that held this fragile wealth has long needed protection, both from the vast numbers of oppressed people needed to extract it and from the federal government determined to protect them.

"Good ole boy" networks arose as local families banded together to protect their legacies and each other, elevating their favorite sons to the highest law enforcement position in the land: County sheriff.

Whether by emotional manipulation, fear or a shared hatred of a common enemy – the federal government – poor and working-class citizens continue to fall in line, allowing those with power to keep it, said Susan Pace Hamill, a professor emerita of law at the University of Alabama.

"Getting rid of a sheriff in a smallish Alabama community is like deposing a king," she said.

Smith managed to do it in the 2018 election, when he defeated an incumbent sheriff in the Republican primary and went on to win the general election with 60% of the vote.

He took office at age 35, among the youngest in the state to ever hold the position. Smith prevailed in the primary again in 2022 and easily won a second term in this Republican stronghold, where Democrats haven't put up a serious general election fight in recent years.

In interviews and campaign videos, Smith insists he's not a good ole boy, but a local boy made good.

Growing up in the county seat of Jasper, he played football for the local Curry High School yellowjackets. He's spent his entire law enforcement career in Walker County, first in the town of Parrish, where he rose to the rank of chief, and then as chief in the city of Cordova.

Smith and his wife, Tabatha, who married in 2006, are the parents of four children, three of whom they adopted from foster care. They attend the Living Light Church of God.

"God called us to be leaders, and He called us, again, to be his hands and feet,"Tabatha Smithsays in a video urging voters to elect her husband to a third term. "We were called to greater."

Smith says when he took over as sheriff, the jail was like "a third world country," covered in graffiti and with just one or two working toilets. More than 400 people were confined to the facility, which was designed for 250. It now averages about 130 to 140. But even today, many of the prisoners are suffering from mental illness, Smith says. They should be in treatment but ended up in jail because there aren't enough beds.

"We got a guy that's been here three years on a waiting list. What do I do with him?"

Smith throws up his hands in exasperation.

"What am I supposed to do with him? I have put him in every county jail in northern Alabama just to give our people relief from having to deal with him, because he's just that type of inmate. And then usually they'll make it two or three days or a week, and then they're sending him back."

Faced with such challenges, it's a point of pride for Smith that only four people have died in the jail on his watch, compared with nine under the previous sheriff.

Getting that number to zero, the sheriff says, would be impossible.

"Can I say, '… There won't never be another person die in this jail?' I can't say that," Smith told USA TODAY. "Because if you put 200 people, 100 people, 150 people, 400 people in one building, that are sick, you can't never make that promise to somebody."

'He gets what he gets since he shot at cops'

As Mitchell wrapped his arms around himself and pulled his knees to his chest, trying to keep warm, guards told nurses he was too combative for a medical evaluation and refused to open the cell. Twice, a mental health practitioner tried to speak with him through a tiny window in the locked door but didn't get very far.

During every shift, at least one jailer would say something like, "F--- him. He gets what he gets since he shot at cops," according to federal plea agreements.

Two weeks passed before a guard finally unlocked Mitchell's cell for a nurse. It took less than three minutes for her to decide he should go to the emergency room.

No one called 911.

Instead, more than three hours later, a supervisor told two deputies to drive him there.

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Leaked surveillance video shows what happened next:

The deputies lifted Mitchell's limp body into a wheelchair. Almost immediately, he slid forward onto the floor. After the deputies put him back into the chair, Mitchell's body stiffened, with his legs straight in front of him and his head lolling back. The jailers lifted him from the chair and put him back on the cell floor as a handcuffed woman entered the booking area.

A few minutes later, they carried him to their waiting SUV and shoved his motionless body into the back seat.

Mitchell had no pulse when he arrived at the hospital around 9:20 a.m. on January 26, 2023 — five hours after the jail nurse found him dehydrated and "cool to the touch."

Along with sepsis, his cause of death was hypothermia. His body temperature was 72 degrees.

'Please don't kill my son'

Smith faults the county's hiring process for some of his employees' behavior.

Whenever he has a job opening, he gets a list of the three people who have scored highest on a civil service test and says he has no choice but to hire one of them – whether he thinks they're fit for the job or not.

"Let's say I know that this guy is an alcoholic. And I know that this guy beats his wife on Sundays, just because it's a small town. This guy has a drug problem, but he ain't never been arrested, and he's studied enough to pass his test. … I could know those things, but I gotta' hire one of these three."

A review of the written civil service rules shows what he's saying is true.

But the rules didn't stop Smith from later naming one of the guards involved in Mitchell's death Rookie of the Year.

They didn't stop him from firing people, and he had no trouble getting rid of the jailer who leaked the video of Mitchell.

They also didn't force him to hire his friend John "J.J." Jackson. In fact, a loophole in the rules allowed Smith to give Jackson a job without a formal background check. Such a check would have found at least three lawsuits that alleged excessive force.

About two years after Smith hired him, on Feb. 26, 2021, Jackson responded to a 911 call from Frederick Earl Hight Sr.

Hight wanted an ambulance for his 26-year-old son, who suffered from paranoid schizophrenia. The father told the dispatcher there were no guns in their house and begged for calm:

"I don't want my son shot. I don't want my son shot," Hight said. "Please don't shoot him. Taser him or something if he gets like that. Because he said to me he wants to kill cops. … Please don't kill my son."

Jackson arrived around 8 p.m. to find the worried father waiting outside in the evening chill.

Cellphone video reviewed by USA TODAY shows what happened next: Jackson went into the trailer. He outweighed Frederick Earl Hight II, slim in a dark bathrobe, by about 60 pounds. The younger Hight grabbed a kitchen knife, and Jackson drew his gun.

"You've got a weapon, I've got a weapon," Hight said.

Jackson ordered Hight to drop the knife, which he immediately did. He walked into the living room with his hands up and quickly followed Jackson's demand to get on the ground.

"What does this have to do with?" Hight asked repeatedly from the floor. The deputy didn't answer.

"I'll (expletive) you up. I'll (expletive) you up, son," Jackson yelled, struggling to handcuff Hight with one hand while pointing the gun at him with the other.

"Dad! You better … say something!" Hight called out, starting to get up.

"I'm going to shoot you," Jackson shouted. "I'm going to shoot you."

"That ain't even a gun. Joke's on you," Hight replied. "Joke's on you."

Jackson fired. Hight slumped to the ground.

Jackson glanced down at the man he'd just shot to death and said: "I told you. And I'll do it again."

Jackson could not be reached for comment. He told the State Bureau of Investigation Hight was trying to grab his gun. Jackson also stated that he couldn't be sure if Hight, briefly alone in the kitchen, had picked up another knife or a gun. When Hight said "joke's on you," Jackson took it as a threat, he told investigators.

When the video footage sparked outrage, Smith accused the public of rushing to judgment "to vilify a good man."

"To see people of this community attack a deputy based on a 90-second clip of a video that would have 90% of them peeing down both legs if they were in that same situation makes me sad more than anything," Smith wrote in an op-ed in the Daily Mountain Eagle.

State investigators forwarded their report to the local district attorney, who declined to charge Jackson with any crime.

In his deposition in a civil suit later filed by Hight's father, Smith's chief deputy explained that because Jackson initially worked part-time, the civil service process didn't apply to him. So Jackson didn't have to take a test or get his name on a list.

Jackson also didn't have to do those things when he switched to full time. And no one at the sheriff's office called his previous employers or his references. They also didn't check for lawsuits against Jackson. If they had, they would have discovered the three times Jackson had been sued for using excessing force, twice against people with mental health issues.

In his own deposition, Smith said he had known Jackson for 20 years.

"People in this county love him," the sheriff said.

After the state investigation ended, Smith returned Jackson to duty as a Walker County sheriff's deputy.

He now works as a school resource officer.

'We did it. We killed him.'

Back in his climate-controlled office, Smith won't concede Mitchell was treated badly.

There could be more to the story, the sheriff says. Security cameras may have captured something that supports a different conclusion. He says he doesn't know.

"I have not, to this day, watched the 300-something hours of video footage, because I do not want to put myself into that position," Smith says. "It's easy to make the determination that you're saying when you're spoon-fed, every day, a handful of videos."

Pressed to provide a single minute of footage that exonerates his deputies or his own leadership during the two weeks Mitchell suffered in a cell just downstairs from his office, Smith offers a rare blink. He can't do that, he says. It might interfere with the ongoing federal investigation.

What about the people who have pleaded guilty, admitting what they did to Mitchell was a crime?

Smith bobs and weaves around the question.

Maybe they were scared, he says. Maybe they were forced. He doesn't want to jeopardize the defense of the "good people" who have been charged in connection with Mitchell's death. It's an open investigation, and everyone deserves their day in court.

In court documents, however, several of those same defendants, like former jailer Joshua Conner Jones, haven't minced words. They have clearly admitted responsibility for what happened to Mitchell.

"Collectively we did it," Jones told federal prosecutors. "We killed him."

A spokeswoman for the U.S. attorney's office in Northern District of Alabama, which is overseeing the investigation, said she couldn't comment because it is ongoing.

A review of court dockets shows prosecutors seem to be following a well-worn pattern in federal law enforcement: persuade the lower-level players to cooperate and flip on the ringleader.

The wild card is the man in the White House. President Donald Trump has ended federal oversight of police departments that have violated peoples' civil rights. And at the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, which in the past assisted with such cases, at least 250 lawyers have left or been reassigned since Trump's second term began.

Whatever happens, Smith says he refuses to live in fear.

"I don't live a life worrying every day," he told USA TODAY. "I can't sit back and worry about things that I don't have control over."

If you're looking for the perfect sheriff, Nick Smith isn't it

Shortly after he moved into his second-floor office in 2019, Smith added more than 100 security cameras at the jail. Those were the cameras that captured the guards' abuse and neglect of Mitchell four years later.

Smith says he had wanted to make more changes at the jail when he first took office, but the county commission wouldn't approve the money for improvements until after Mitchell's death.

Since then, Smith has increased jail health care staffing from eight hours per day to 16. But there were nurses on duty when Mitchell was arrested and for much of his time in custody. They just didn't examine him.

Smith has installed state-of-the-art monitors that sound an alarm when an inmate's breathing slows or their heart rate drops. But Mitchell didn't die because the guards didn't know he was suffering. He died because they didn't care.

"Those systems wouldn't have changed anything for Tony. … They knew what was going on," said Cagle, the activist. "The issue is not because there wasn't the right equipment. The issue is because there was a culture of abuse and harm."

The one change that may have saved Mitchell hangs on the wall just inside the jail's entrance: a sign. It reads, in part:

Any arrestee exhibiting any of the following behavior or characteristics should be denied admission to the jail until evaluated by an emergency facility:

◦Persons who are unconscious or in and out of consciousness

◦Persons who cannot walk under their own power

◦Persons who are having or have recently had convulsions/seizures

◦Persons exhibiting apparent hallucinations, delusions or diminished capacity to communicate or comprehend

If the sign had been there in January 2023, would Mitchell have ended up in a cell?

"No," Smith bluntly says three years later.

And he admits he still doesn't hear about everything that happens down the stairs from his office.

"It's a chain of command," he explains. "I don't have the ins and outs of every movement throughout the day."

Still, he says transparency and accountability have improved under his watch. That's what he focuses on when he knocks on voters' doors.

"I tried to do the right things, and I tried to do the right steps," he said. "And I tell people when I'm out campaigning, or asking for their vote: 'If you're looking for the perfect sheriff, I'm not it.'"

The Republican primary is set for May 19. The average high for that date is 81 degrees.

Will Carlesscovers extremism and emerging issues for USA TODAY.He reported from Jasper, Alabama.

Gina Barton is an investigative reporter at USA TODAY. She can be reached at (262) 757-8640 orgbarton@gannett.com. Follow her on X@writerbartonor on Bluesky@writerbarton.bsky.social.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY:Mental illness was a death sentence for an Alabama prisoner

Australia F1 GP Auto Racing

Leclerc took the lead into turn one, following a lightning start from fourth on the grid, and diced with Mercedes' George Russell for the lead until the Virtual Safety Car was deployed on lap 12 due to the stopped Red Bull of Isack Hadjar. An opportunity that both Mercedes cars took to pit for a cheap stop.

But Leclerc says Ferrari's failure to take the stop, too, was not a mistake; instead that Ferrari's decision was based on the fact the team believed there would be more safety car appearances as the race went on.

"I don't regret it," Leclerc said at the official post-race press conference. "It was a wanted choice, a wanted and conscious choice. Looking from (Free Practice 1) to now, there's been at every session a car that was stopped, at least one car.

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"We knew that there were very high chances that this was not going to be the only VSC of the race, and so we thought that it was better for us to maybe wait for another one — and that's always a gamble. Of course, we didn't know that this will happen.

"(The) reality is we had another VSC after (it) and one which was particularly well placed. But, unfortunately, on this one, for us, the pit entry was closed and we couldn't take it, so we were a little bit unlucky on that side, but it was a conscious choice again and I don't really regret it."

AP auto racing:https://apnews.com/hub/auto-racing

Jamarion Bateman added 13 points and Dominykas Pleta had 11 for Iowa State (25-6, 12-6 Big 12), which clinched the fifth seed in the Big 12 tournament as well as a first-round bye.

Massamba Diop led the Sun Devils (16-15, 7-11) with 12 points while Anthony Johnson and Maurice Odum scored 10 each. Arizona State finished 12th in the league and will play No. 13 seed Baylor in the first round on Tuesday in Kansas City. The winner of that game faces the Cyclones in the second round.

The Cyclones trailed by four points after a stuttering first half, but they swept to the front by scoring 10 of the first 14 points after halftime.

Back-to-back 3-pointers by Momcilovic and Jefferson gave Iowa State the lead for good with 14:57 to go, but that was just the start of a 24-0 run. Lipsey's 3-pointer with 8:38 left pushed Iowa State's lead to 65-45.

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Arizona State went scoreless for 8:45 during that pivotal stretch and endured a span of 10:42 without a field goal while missing 12 straight shots.

The Sun Devils put up a better fight in the first half. Arizona State led 22-21 after Allen Mukeba's tip-in at the 10:07 mark, but went the next 6:44 without a field goal while missing four straight shots and committing four turnovers.

The Cyclones used that swoon and a ball-hawking defense to build a 35-26 lead, with the run capped by two free throws by Momcilovic with 3:46 left in the half. Odum ended Arizona State's difficult stretch with a jumper and then a 3-pointer that brought the Sun Devils to within 35-31 with 2:36 to play.

After a pair of free throws by Killyan Toure pushed Iowa State's lead to 37-31, the Sun Devils reeled off the final 10 points of the half with five straight coming from Johnson. Andrija Grbovic canned a 3-pointer with nine seconds left to grant Arizona State a 41-37 advantage at the break.

--Field Level Media

The Jayhawks (22-9, 12-6 Big 12) closed the regular season with their 20th straight win over the Wildcats at Allen Fieldhouse. They ended a brief two-game losing skid as they'll enter the postseason with high hopes.

K-State (12-19, 3-15) has lost four of its last five under interim coach Matthew Driscoll. P.J. Haggerty and Nate Johnson both finished with 21 points to lead the Wildcats.

KU started to create separation in the final five minutes of the first half, outscoring K-State 17-9 and taking a 46-33 lead into the locker rooms.

KU maintained a double-digit lead throughout the second half. The Jayhawks had an 8-0 spurt early in the half, taking a 54-36 lead on a 3 by White at the 17:47 mark.

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KU went on another 8-0 run with consecutive 3s by Jayden Dawson and Elmarko Jackson, and then a dunk by Paul Mbiya, for a 90-60 lead with 5:47 left. The 30-point lead was the largest of the day.

The Jayhawks hit the century mark on a 3 by Wilder Evans for a 100-72 advantage with just over three minutes left. KU went 6-of-8 from deep in the second half.

Along with his 27 points, Peterson also grabbed five rebounds and dished four assists for the Jayhawks. Melvin Council Jr. had 17 points and grabbed eight rebounds with 10 assists, and Flory Bidunga added 13 points and five rebounds to contribute to KU's win. KU won the rebounding battle, 45-28, and had a noticeable 48-36 edge in points in the paint.

Along with Haggerty and Johnson, K-State had two other players in double figures with Khamari McGriff's 17 points and Andrej Kostic's 11 points.

Up next for both is the Big 12 tournament at the T-Mobile Center in Kansas City, Mo.

--Field Level Media