AP Investigations

Rohingya child bride, R, age 16, holds her newborn baby while standing in an apartment in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, on Oct. 4, 2023. R left Bangladesh's refugee camps for Malaysia in 2022 to marry her 27-year-old husband as conditions in the camps deteriorated. R says she wasn't ready to have a baby, but felt lonely and is now glad to have the company. (AP Photo/Victoria Milko)

Young Rohingya girls fleeing violence, starvation find new horrors in arranged marriages in Malaysia

Scores of underage Rohingya girls fleeing violence and starvation in their homeland of Myanmar and in the refugee camps of neighboring Bangladesh are being forced into arranged marriages with older men in Malaysia who frequently abuse them.

Chelsea Goodrich poses for a portrait in Ketchum, Idaho, on Tuesday, Sept. 19, 2023. Goodrich's father, a popular Idaho dentist and former bishop in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, widely known as the Mormon church, was excommunicated after sharing details about his relationship with her when she was a child during a religious confession. Recordings obtained by The Associated Press show that instead of helping prosecutors, the church used a legal playbook that has helped protect itself from sex abuse claims. Goodrich's father is today a free man, and she says she decided to speak out to protect other children. (AP Photo/Jason Dearen)

Recordings show how the Mormon church protects itself from child sex abuse claims

FILE - An FBI seal is seen on a wall on Aug. 10, 2022, in Omaha, Neb. A former American diplomat who served as U.S. ambassador to Bolivia has been arrested in a long-running FBI counterintelligence investigation, accused of secretly serving as an agent of Cuba’s government, The Associated Press has learned. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall, File)

Former US ambassador arrested in Florida, accused of serving as an agent of Cuba, AP source says

(AP Illustration/Peter Hamlin)

Intercepted calls from the front lines in Ukraine show a growing number of Russian soldiers want out

Longtime Florida social worker Connie Going looks at a computer screen with an image of her adopted son Davion in her adoptions office June 12, 2023, in St. Petersburg, Fla. Going said the Family-Match tool gives false hope to waiting parents by failing to deliver successful matches, and ultimately makes her job harder. (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara)

Inspired by online dating, AI tool for adoption matchmaking falls short for vulnerable foster kids

This image from video provided by Bolaji John shows the burning Trinity Spirit anchored 15 miles off the coast of Nigeria, which caught fire on Feb. 2, 2022. The ship had no insurance, no flag, and had fallen into a state of disrepair. Five workers were killed and two others left unaccounted for in the blast. (Bolaji John via AP)

Deadly explosion off Nigeria points to threat posed by aging oil ships around the world

An explosion aboard the Trinity Spirit off the coast of Nigeria last year that killed five workers and left two others unaccounted for stands among the deadliest tragedies on an oil ship or platform in recent years.

This image from video posted to social media by Hamas on Sept. 12, 2023 shows a live-fire exercise dubbed operation “Strong Pillar” outside Al-Mawasi, a Palestinian town on the southern coast of the Gaza Strip. (Hamas via AP)

Hamas practiced in plain sight, posting video of mock attack weeks before border breach

Less than a month before Hamas fighters blew through Israel’s “Iron Wall” in an attack that would leave more than 1,200 Israelis dead, they practiced in a very public dress rehearsal.

FILE - The hall of historic Waiola Church in Lahaina and nearby Lahaina Hongwanji Mission are engulfed in flames along Wainee Street on Tuesday, Aug. 8, 2023, in Lahaina, Maui, Hawaii. (Matthew Thayer/The Maui News via AP, File)

An old car tire, burnt trees and a utility pole may be key in finding how the Maui wildfire spread

Melted remains of an old car tire. Two burned trees. A stump of an abandoned utility pole. These are among the pieces of evidence investigators are examining as they seek to solve the mystery of last month’s Maui wildfire.

FILE - Marine Maj. Joshua Mast and his wife, Stephanie, arrive at Circuit Court, Thursday, March 30, 2023 in Charlottesville, Va. The U.S. government has warned a Virginia judge that allowing Marine Maj. Joshua Mast and his wife to keep an Afghan war orphan risks violating international law and could be viewed around the world as “endorsing an act of international child abduction,” according to secret court records reviewed by The Associated Press. (AP Photo/Cliff Owen, File)

Secret records: Government says Marine’s adoption of Afghan orphan seen as abduction, must be undone

The U.S. government has warned a Virginia judge that an American Marine’s adoption of an Afghan war orphan was flawed and could be seen as international child abduction.

Utility poles stand in Lahaina on the island of Maui, Hawaii, Aug. 16, 2023. When the winds of Hurricane Dora lashed Maui Aug. 8, they struck bare electrical lines the Hawaiian electric utility had left exposed to the elements. (Stephen Lam/San Francisco Chronicle via AP)

Bare electrical wire and leaning poles on Maui were possible cause of deadly fires

In the first moments of the Maui fires, when high winds brought down power poles, slapping electrified wires to the dry grass below, there was a reason the flames erupted all at once in long, neat rows -- those wires were bare, uninsulated metal that could spark on contact.

This artist sketch depicts Judge Dipti Pidikiti-Smith of the Fairfax County General District Court, presiding over the assault and battery trial of CIA officer trainee Ashkan Bayatpour, seated left, in Fairfax, Va., Wednesday, Aug. 23, 2023. Standing in front of the judge are the prosecutor, Deputy Commonwealth's Attorney Jenna Sands, left, and Bayatpour's defense lawyer Stuart A. Sears, right. The judge found Bayatpour guilty Wednesday of attacking a fellow CIA trainee with a scarf in the stairwell of CIA headquarters at Langley last year. Seated right is an unidentified defense team member. (Dana Verkouteren via AP)

CIA stairwell attack among flood of sexual misconduct complaints at spy agency

A CIA officer trainee has been convicted in Virginia of attacking a female colleague with a scarf and kissing her inside a stairwell at the agency’s headquarters in Langley.

This combination of images from video made by neighbors Shane Treu, left, and Robert Arconado on Aug. 8, 2023 shows fires outside their homes on the Hawaiian island of Maui. Treu used a garden hose to spray water during fires caused by snapped electrical cables falling to the dry grass below and quickly igniting a row of flames. (Shane Treu, Robert Arconado via AP)

Videos put scrutiny on downed power lines as possible cause of deadly Maui wildfires

Videos showing downed power lines apparently sparking some of the early blazes in the Maui wildfires have become key evidence in the search for a cause.

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

A baby found in the rubble of a U.S. raid in Afghanistan was adopted by a Marine. Once-secret documents and AP reporting in the village reveal details that thrust this raid into an ongoing controversy over who the military killed.

FILE - Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., testifies before a House Judiciary Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, July 20, 2023. Rising to prominence during the COVID-19 pandemic due to his strident opposition to vaccines, Democratic presidential candidate Kennedy Jr. portrays himself as a true Democrat inheriting the mantle of the Kennedy family. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky, File)

RFK Jr. says he’s not anti-vaccine. His record shows the opposite. It’s one of many inconsistencies

As Robert F. Kennedy Jr. challenges President Joe Biden, the stories he tells on the campaign trail about himself, his life’s work and what he stands for are often the opposite of what his record shows.

Illustration of detained Ukrainian civilians digging into frozen ground. (AP Illustration/Peter Hamlin)

AP Exclusive

Thousands of Ukraine civilians are being held in Russian prisons. Russia plans to build many more

Thousands of Ukrainian civilians are being detained across Russia and the Ukrainian territories it occupies, in centers ranging from brand-new wings in Russian prisons to clammy basements.

This image from video, released by the Russian Defense Ministry Press Service on June 6, 2023, shows what Russia claimed was the destruction of a German-made Leopard tank. But a visual analysis by The Associated Press shows the grainy black-and-white video Russia released to prove it had blown up the tanks actually documented the destruction of a tractor. (Russian Defense Ministry Press Service via AP)

Russia claims it blew up advanced Ukrainian tank, but video shows its helicopter attacked a tractor

WASHINGTON (AP) — A grainy black-and-white gunsight video Russia released this week to bolster a claim its military blew up some of Ukraine’s most fearsome tanks actually documented the destruction of a tractor, according to a visual analysis by The Associated Press.

FILE - People jostle each other to buy subsidized sacks of wheat flour in Quetta, Pakistan, Thursday, Jan. 12, 2023, after a recent price hike of flour in the country. An Associated Press analysis of a dozen countries most indebted to China - including Pakistan, Kenya, Zambia and Laos - found the debt is consuming an ever-greater amount of tax revenue needed to keep schools open, provide electricity and pay for food and fuel. (AP Photo/Arshad Butt, File)

China’s loans pushing world’s poorest countries to brink of collapse

A dozen poor countries are facing economic instability and even collapse under the weight of hundreds of billions of dollars in foreign loans, much of them from the world’s biggest and most unforgiving government lender, China.

FILE - Joseph Moore looks out of a window at his home in Jacksonville, Fla., on Tuesday, Dec. 7, 2021. Moore worked for nearly 10 years as an undercover informant for the FBI, infiltrating the Ku Klux Klan in Florida, foiling at least two murder plots, according to investigators, and investigating ties between law enforcement and the white supremacist organization. "From where I sat, with the intelligence laid out, I can tell you that none of these agencies have any control over any of it. It is more prevalent and consequential than any of them are willing to admit." (AP Photo/Robert Bumsted, File)

New AP/ABC film probes white supremacy in law enforcement

GAINESVILLE, Fla. (AP) — Dozens of robed Ku Klux Klansmen gathered around a burning cross in a remote field in North Florida.

EDS NOTE: GRAPHIC CONTENT - An uncle of a 16-year-old named Adama watches a video in Burkina Faso, Saturday March 18, 2023, showing a man slamming a rock onto the head of his nephew. Burkina Faso has been wracked by violence linked to al-Qaida and the Islamic State group that has killed thousands, but some civilians say they are even more afraid of Burkina Faso’s security forces, whom they accuse of extrajudicial killings. The military junta has denied its security forces were involved, but a frame-by-frame analysis by The Associated Press of the 83-second video shows the killings happened inside a military base in the country's north. (AP Photo)

‘We’ll kill you': Troops film boys’ killings in Burkina Faso

OUAGADOUGOU, Burkina Faso (AP) — It was a walk 16-year-old Adama had done countless times, feeding the cows not far from his grandmother’s house in northern Burkina Faso.

The Hackneys’ daughter looks at her reflection in a bedroom mirror during a supervised visit at her parent's home in Oakdale, Pa., on Thursday, Nov. 17, 2022. At 8 months old, the young child was taken from her parents custody after arriving at the hospital severely dehydrated and malnourished. The Hackneys and their lawyer believe the Allegheny County Family Screening tool may have flagged the couple as dangerous because of their disabilities. (AP Photo/Jessie Wardarski)

Not magic: Opaque AI tool may flag parents with disabilities

PITTSBURGH (AP) — For the two weeks that the Hackneys’ baby girl lay in a Pittsburgh hospital bed weak from dehydration, her parents rarely left her side, sometimes sleeping on the fold-out sofa in the room.

FILE - Fishermen remove their catch from nets after returning to shore in Jakarta, Indonesia, Feb. 24, 2022. Corruption is undermining the management of some of the world’s most threatened fishing grounds, according to a review of criminal case files and media reports by the AP. At least 45 government officials have been accused of graft or extortion in the past two decades. (AP Photo/Achmad Ibrahim, File)

Corruption endangers world’s shrinking fisheries

WASHINGTON (AP) — As Indonesia’s fisheries minister, Edhy Prabowo was tasked with protecting one of his country’s most precious resources: baby lobsters so tiny one can fit on the tip of a finger.

FILE - A "playground ahead" warning stands by the side of a road on the outskirts of Bisbee, Ariz., Oct. 26, 2021. Bisbee was home to Paul and Leizza Adams, and their six children, before Paul and Leizza were charged with child sexual abuse. (AP Photo/Dario Lopez-Mills)

Sex-abuse video victimizes child long after abuser is gone

The video of a man raping his 9-year-old daughter was discovered in New Zealand in 2016 and triggered a global search for the little girl.