Brian Bohannon / AP

Buddy Dumeyera, the Louisville deputy coroner who runs the indigent burial program, places a flag on 48-year-old Francisco Carmona's casket as students from the St. Joseph of Arimathea Society at Trinity High School prepare to perform their duties on Feb. 6, at Meadow View Cemetery in Louisville, Ky. The students are, from left, Paul Adams, 18, senior, Jeremy Gaines, 16, junior, Nolan Riley, 14, freshman, Greg Atchison, 17, senior, Sean Dageforde, 17, Jake Eddy, 18, senior, school principal Dan Zoeller and social studies teacher Chad Waggoner.

By Brett Barrouquere, The Associated Press

Kate Hopkins didn't know the man in the casket, never met him or his family. Yet, Hopkins stood watch over 48-year-old Francisco Carmona's funeral on a gray, cold day at a county-owned cemetery in south Louisville.

Hopkins joined a group of high school students, a few county employees and a deputy coroner on Feb. 6 to ensure that Carmona, who died in January in a Louisville hospital with no family or friends, had a service — the 91st service for the poor in Louisville since Nov. 1.

Counties across Kentucky, like much of the country, are seeing more cases of unclaimed bodies and families who can't afford to bury or cremate a loved one. Every situation is unique, but coroners and local government officials tell a similar story: The economic downturn has left many people without the money to pay for funeral services that can cost thousands of dollars, and it's falling on cities and states to cover the bills. Continue reading.

Editor's note: The Associated Press made these images available to NBC News on Feb. 26.

Brian Bohannon / AP

Students read the opening prayer from a program for the indigent burial of 48-year-old Francisco Carmona, who died in January with no family or friends, yet had a service on Feb. 6, at Meadow View Cemetery in Louisville, Ky. Carmona's funeral was the 91st service for the poor in Louisville since Nov. 1.

Brian Bohannon / AP

Workers prepare to bury Francisco Carmona on Feb. 6, as graves await the indigent at Meadow View Cemetery, Louisville's current Potter's Field.

Previously on PhotoBlog:

• Residents struggle for food in Camden, N.J.
• Remote Area Medical offers free healthcare to impoverished Appalachia
• Mobile food pantry serves fresh groceries to families in need
• Homeless mothers and children find a lifeline at Hope Gardens
• South Dakota's Badlands are rich in culture, rife with poverty

Joseph Eid / AFP - Getty Images

A tombstone sculptor works at his workshop in Damascus, Syria on August 28, 2012. In the Sahnaya district of Old Damascus, even tombstones are not easily available for a conflict which the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says has killed more than 25,000 people over the past 17 months.

Joseph Eid / AFP - Getty Images

In the Sahnaya district of Old Damascus, even tombstones are hard to come by, Agence France Presse reports.

"People are just looking for a hole in a cemetery," says Tareq Samini, 45, carving with his chisel the name of a shaheed (martyr), a young soldier killed in the central city of Homs.

"A tombstone is a luxury that we offer in peacetime, not wartime," says colleague Jihad Jano.

See more images of the Syrian conflict on PhotoBlog.

Slideshow: Syria uprising

Goran Tomasevic / Reuters

After months of protests and violent crackdowns, a look back at the violence that has overtaken the country.

Launch slideshow

Maggie Steber / via MediaStorm

Madje Steber sleeps.

Two photographers, Phillip Toledano and  Maggie Steber, are sharing deeply personal stories with the public this week – their own documentation of the decline and death of their aging parents. Initially, the images they captured were for themselves. But in the end, both chose to share these bodies of work – exploring universal themes of love, life and family – through two videos, produced in partnership with MediaStorm.

From MediaStorm about "Rite of Passage":

When Madje’s dementia proved relentless, her daughter, photographer Maggie Steber, moved her life to care for her. In the darkness, Maggie documented the beauty of a liberation from the roles she and her mother had learned to play—a discovery she felt gave her the mother she always wanted.

“This body of work is the most important one I have ever done,” says Maggie, “and will ever do. It’s Madje’s story, but really and truly, it’s my story.”

From MediaStorm, about "A Shadow Remains":

Phillip Toledano is an artist. His life has been marked by the passing of family. Each death diverting the river slightly. "A Shadow Remains" brings us through Toledano’s life as he considers the impact that love and loss have had on his life and the life of his family.

“I’m so clearly conscious of everything that they gave me now,” says Phillip. “Now that they’re gone their shadow remains and I see what a strong and lengthy shadow that is.”

Phillip Toledano / via MediaStorm

Phillip Toledano's dad Edward Toledano.

With these productions, MediaStorm debuts a new business model – pay per story. Like other publications who have "pay walls" or online subscriptions, they are exploring new ways to help pay for reporting, producing and publishing costs.

If you click on the embedded videos above, you’ll see a trailer of the stories. If you choose to pay the one-time cost of $1.99 for each story, a link will take you to the MediaStorm website for the transaction. After paying the story can be viewed on multiple devices or computers.

More stories from MediaStorm:

Seltzer delivery man practices bygone craft in New York City

Undesired: In India, boys are prized over girls with violent results

Follow @msnbc_pictures

AP

People mourn their deceased family members at a cemetery during the Qingming Festival in Jinjiang in southeast China's Fujian province, on April, 4, 2012.

The Qingming festival, also known as tomb-sweeping day, is a day when Chinese people honor the dead by cleaning their tombs and placing flowers and offerings at grave sites. 

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David J. Phillip / AP

The skeletal remains of Patty Robinson are seen at the Forensic Anthropology Research Facility in San Marcos, Texas on Feb. 9, 2012. Robinson donated her body for research at the school.

David J. Phillip / AP

Kate Spradley, an assistant professor at Texas State University, looks over the skeletal remains of Patty Robinson.

The Associated Press reports — For more than five weeks, a woman's body lay undisturbed in a secluded Texas field. Then a frenzied flock of vultures descended on the corpse and reduced it to a skeleton within hours.

But this was not a crime scene lost to nature. It was an important scientific experiment into the way human bodies decompose, and the findings are upending assumptions about decay that have been the basis of homicide cases for decades.

Experienced investigators would normally have interpreted the absence of flesh and the condition of the bones as evidence that the woman had been dead for six months, possibly even a year or more. Now a study of vultures at Texas State University is calling into question many of the benchmarks detectives have long relied on.

Researchers at the school's "body farm," officially the Forensic Anthropology Research Facility, are monitoring a half-dozen other corpses in various stages of decomposition, and they have a list of about 100 people prepared to donate their bodies to the project.

The body in the vulture study was that of Patty Robinson, an Austin woman who died of breast cancer in 2009 at age 72. She donated her remains to research, and they were placed in a five-acre fenced area.

Her son, James, said the research seemed like a worthy project and his mother would be delighted "if she could come back and see what she's been doing." Read the full story.

David J. Phillip / AP

At the facility, forensic pathologists observe the decomposition process in natural surroundings to see how corpses react to sun and shade, whether they decay differently on the surface or below ground and what sort of creatures — from large to microscopic — are involved.

David J. Phillip / AP

Boxes of skeletal remains. The forensic center opened in 2008, as did a similar facility at Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, making Texas home to two of the nation's five "body farms."

Justin Tallis / AFP - Getty Images

Visitors photograph various custom designed coffins, during the "Death - Festival for the Living" exhibit, at the Royal Festival Hall in London, on Jan. 28. Crazy Coffins, an offshoot of a Nottingham-based traditional coffin and urn maker which took on a new identity in the 1990s when people began asking to customize their final resting places, presents uncanny coffins as part of the exhibit. The "Death - Festival for the Living" exhibit is open from Jan. 20-29.

If you're wondering how much a Crazy Coffin will set you back, the Nottingham, England based company's site offers the following on their pricing:

A coffin shaped like a particular motor car may set you back four or five thousand pounds. But a simplified football boot may cost you only eight hundred pounds.

Crazy Coffins has yet to fill an order outside the United Kingdom, but waits in anticipation to do so:

The time between death and the funeral is sometimes short and can prohibit an order from abroad. A better idea is to buy now and die later!

Learn more about their work: Crazy Coffins

Justin Tallis / AFP - Getty Images

Visitors look at a sled coffin made for Richard Mullard. Mullard plans to be buried wearing his skis and commissioned this replica of a Laplanders sled, with boots to fit, so that his funeral resembles a final expedition to the frozen north.

Justin Tallis / AFP - Getty Images

Visitors listen to a talk by former Concord engineer Malcolm Brocklhurst, top right, as they look at his airplane coffin.

Justin Tallis / AFP - Getty Images

Railway enthusiast Brian Holden, 83, poses for a photograph with the Orient Express Railway Carriage coffin he commissioned.

Justin Tallis / AFP - Getty Images

Visitors look at a corkscrew shaped coffin.

Justin Tallis / AFP - Getty Images

Visitors look at a ballet shoe shaped coffin commissioned by ballet fan Pat Cox.

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Aaron Favila / AP

Philippine Navy personnel arrange coffins that will be shipped with drinking water, clothes and other relief goods to flood-stricken Cagayan De Oro and Iligan cities on board a navy ship in Manila, Philippines on Dec. 20, 2011.

Rolex Dela Pena / EPA

Philippine Navy personnel carry donated caskets to be transported by a Navy ship to flood affected provinces from military headquarters in Manila on Dec. 20, 2011.

Erik De Castro / Reuters

Unidentified typhoon victims, inside coffins and body bags, lie near a road awaiting identification by their relatives near Iligan city on Dec. 20, 2011.

The Associated Press reports from ILIGAN, Philippines:

The government shipped more than 400 coffins to two flood-stricken cities in the southern Philippines on Tuesday as the death toll neared 1,000 and President Benigno Aquino III declared a state of national calamity.

The latest count listed 957 dead and 49 missing and is expected to climb further as additional bodies are recovered from the sea and mud in Iligan and Cagayan de Oro cities.

A handful of morgues are overwhelmed and running out of coffins and formaldehyde for embalming. Aid workers appealed for bottled water, blankets, tents and clothes for many of 45,000 in crowded evacuation centers.

Navy sailors in Manila loaded a ship with 437 white wooden coffins to help local authorities handle the staggering number of dead. Also on the way were containers with thousands of water bottles.

Most of the dead were women and children who drowned Friday night when flash floods triggered by a tropical storm gushed into homes while people were asleep. Continue reading.

Related content:

• PhotoBlog: Philippines counts the cost of Typhoon Washi
• Slideshow: Typhoon strikes the Philippines

Korean Central TV of the North via Reuters

The body of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il lies in state at the Kumsusan Memorial Palace in Pyongyang in this still picture taken from video footage of still images aired by KRT (Korean Central TV of the North) on Dec. 20, 2011.

The Associated Press reports from PYONGYANG, North Korea:

The body of North Korea's long-time ruler Kim Jong Il was laid out in a memorial palace Tuesday as weeping mourners filled public plazas and state media fed a budding personality cult around his third son, hailing him as "born of heaven."

Indicating the leadership transition in the world's only communist dynasty is on track, Kim Jong Un — Kim's youngest known son and successor — visited the body with top military and Workers' Party officials and held what state media called a "solemn ceremony" in the capital, Pyongyang, as the country mourned.

The Korean people were in "deep sorrow at the loss of the benevolent father of our nation," Ri Ho Il, a lecturer at the Korean Revolutionary History Museum, told The Associated Press in Pyongyang.

"He defended our people's happiness, carrying on his forced march both night and day," Ri said.

Korean Central TV of the North via Reuters

Medals belonging to Kim Jong Il are displayed as he lies in state at the Kumsusan Memorial Palace.

Still images aired on state TV showed that the glass coffin holding Kim's body was surrounded by his namesake flowers — red "kimjongilia" blossoms. He was covered with a red blanket, his head placed on a white pillow.

The coffin was in a room of the Kumsusan Memorial Palace, a mausoleum where the embalmed body of his father — national founder Kim Il Sung — has been on display in a glass sarcophagus since his death in 1994.

The state funeral is to be held at the palace on Dec. 28. Read the full story.

Korean Central TV of the North via Reuters

Kim Jong Un pays his respects to his father lying in state at the Kumsusan Memorial Palace.

Related content:

• Will younger Kim's aunt and uncle be North Korea puppet masters?
• NYT: In Kim's death, an extensive intelligence failure
• Mourning in North Korea, worries in South after Kim Jong Il's death
• PhotoBlog: Satellites document North Korea's dark ages
• PhotoBlog: North Koreans mourn the death of Kim Jong Il, the 'Dear Leader'
• PhotoBlog: Flowers and North Korea
• Slideshow: The life of Kim Jong Il
• Slideshow: Journey into North Korea

The AP reports from ZWOLLE, Netherlands:

 The recycling warehouse looks unremarkable. Workers sift through dusty containers of screws, rods and iron balls and sort them for processing.

From the jumble it's hard to tell they were once prosthetic hips, artificial knees and metal implants of all sorts, salvaged from the ashes of crematoria.

Peter Dejong / AP

An employee of OrthoMetals separates parts for recycling on a conveyer belt in a warehouse in Zwolle, eastern Netherlands, on Nov. 14. Imperishable body parts are recovered from the ashes of cremated people, and precious metals are also recovered by the crematoria and offered to the family or placed in the urn.

Peter Dejong / AP

An employee of OrthoMetals sifts through coffin ornaments on a conveyer belt, rear, as parts of hip implants are seen in a box in the foreground.

If recycling grandma's replacement parts seems a grisly business, it is in fact a blessing for funeral homes, for the environment and for families who know that the implants that made their loved ones more comfortable are not being discarded in the trash.

When relatives are asked, virtually no one objects that the ashes are sifted for reusable metals, says Ruud Verberne, director of OrthoMetals, which recovers 200 tons of valuable metals a year from funeral parlors. Read the full story.

Peter Dejong / AP

Implants and other materials are collected in a bag for recycling at the OrthoMetals warehouse.

Peter Dejong / AP

Stripped gold-plated crucifix coffin ornaments are seen on a conveyer belt during the recycling process.

Yuriko Nakao / Reuters

An employee adjusts a coffin sold at the Lastel corpse hotel during a photo opportunity in Yokohama, south of Tokyo, September 10, 2011.

Yuriko Nakao / Reuters

A Buddhist monk takes a seat during a photo opportunity at funeral operator Lastel's room where funeral services are conducted in Yokohama, south of Tokyo September 10, 2011.

Yuriko Nakao / Reuters

An employee of funeral operator Lastel adjusts flowers inside a viewing room where coffins are delivered through hatches whenever friends and family come to pay their respects to the dead during a photo opportunity in Yokohama, south of Tokyo September 10, 2011.

Yuriko Nakao / Reuters

An employee adjusts flowers in a viewing room, where chilled encoffined corpses are delivered through hatches through an automated storage system, during a photo opportunity at the Lastel corpse hotel in Yokohama, south of Tokyo, September 10, 2011.

Yuriko Nakao / Reuters

Morticians prepare a body at the Lastel corpse hotel in Yokohama, south of Tokyo, September 10, 2011.

Reuters reports:

TOKYO — Across from a noodle shop in a Yokohama suburb, Hisayoshi Teramura's inn looks much like any other small lodging that dots the port city. Occasionally, it's even mistaken for a love hotel by couples hankering for some time beneath the sheets.

But Teramura's place is neither a love nest nor a pit stop for tired travelers. The white and grey tiled building is a corpse hotel, its 18 deceased guests tucked up in refrigerated coffins.

"We tell them we only have cold rooms," Teramura quips when asked how his staff respond to unwary lovers looking for a room. Full story.