Workers bag cocoa beans at a warehouse inside the conservation zone of the Omo Forest Reserve in Nigeria, Monday, Oct. 23, 2023..(AP Photo/Sunday Alamba)

Cocoa grown illegally in a Nigerian rainforest heads to companies that supply major chocolate makers

As the world’s demand for chocolate grows, farmers in Nigeria are moving into protected areas of a forest reserve that’s home to endangered species like African forest elephants.

Cheryl Geidner of New Wilmington, Pa., records the Volant Borough Council meeting on her phone Tuesday, Dec. 12, 2023, at the borough building in Volant, Pa. Local governments in many states are making it harder for the public to access information, with residents increasingly complaining about issues like closed meetings and high fees for records, open government advocates and experts say. The result is important business often taking place under a shroud of secrecy. (Tiffany Wolfe/New Castle News via AP)

Locked out of local government: Residents decry increased secrecy among towns, counties, schools

Kealoha Pisciotta, a cultural practitioner and longtime activist, lays offerings before praying at an "ahu," or ceremonial platform, part of the way up Mauna Kea in Hawaii, on Saturday, July 15, 2023. Along the slopes of this sacred mountain are ceremonial platforms, ancestral burial sites, and an alpine lake whose waters are believed to have healing properties. (AP Photo/Jessie Wardarski)

Mauna Kea’s sacred volcano unites spiritual heritage and cosmic exploration

FILE - Activists gather outside Atlanta City Hall, Monday, Sept. 11, 2023, where they delivered dozens boxes full of signed petitions to force a referendum on the future of a planned police and firefighter training center. An analysis of petition entries by four news organizations finds it’s unclear whether petitioners have enough valid entries to force the citywide vote, with nearly half the entries unable to be matched to eligible registered Atlanta voters. (Miguel Martinez/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP, file) /Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP)

Analysis: It’s uncertain if push to ‘Stop Cop City’ got enough valid signers for Atlanta referendum

FILE - Former President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally in Hialeah, Fla., Nov. 8, 2023. Even before the 2024 presidential primary, the attention of many political journalists has shifted to Jan. 20, 2025. There's been a flurry of recent stories about the implications of a second presidency for Trump, and his team's planning for Inauguration Day and beyond, with polls showing his continued dominance over Republican rivals and the likelihood of a close general election. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky, File)

Journalists tackle a political what-if: What might a second Trump presidency look like?

AP Investigations

FILE - DeAngelo Martin stands for a probable cause hearing, in Detroit on June 20, 2019. DeAngelo Martin killed four women and raped two others before being captured in 2019. Repeatedly over the previous 15 years Detroit police failed to follow up on leads or take investigative steps that may have averted the killing spree, an Associated Press investigation has found. (Todd McInturf/Detroit News via AP, File)

A serial killer set Detroit on edge. Police missteps over 15 years allowed him to roam free

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

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 - 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

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

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

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 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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Gun violence

As guns in the U.S. outnumber people, AP examines a nation trapped in its cycle of gun violence

The tombstone of Army Sgt. Cody Bowman stands at the Dallas-Fort Worth National Cemetery, Sunday, June 11, 2023, in Dallas. For decades, discussions of suicide prevention skirted fraught questions about firearms; the Army has punted implementing measures that might be controversial. But a growing movement has taken hold, among researchers, the Veterans Administration, ordinary people like Bowman's mother, Barbie Rohde, if this country wants to get serious about addressing an epidemic of suicide, it must find a way to honor veterans and active-duty service members, respect their rights to own a gun, but keep it out of their hands on their darkest days. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

Americans have fundamental freedoms – to life, liberty, happiness. Do gun rights overshadow them all?

Sandy Phillips, left, and her husband, Lonnie, stand for a portrait in Longmont, Colo., Monday, Sept. 4, 2023. Suffering through their own personal loss after a mass shooting in Colorado in 2012, the couple set out to help other parents like them, traveling to shooting sites around the country in this RV. The trip continued for a decade. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

In the shadow of loss, a mother’s long search for happiness

Janet Paulsen, left, is embraced by her friend, Susan McElvey, after lunch in Acworth, Ga., Tuesday, Aug. 8, 2023. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

Some states take abusers’ guns. Will the Supreme Court stop them?

Investigative series

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.

Teachers have been outed for moonlighting in adult content. Do they have legal recourse?

At a small rural Missouri high school, two English teachers shared a secret: Both were posting adult content on OnlyFans, the subscription-based website known for sexually explicit content.

A 26-year-old woman, who wouldn't give her name for security reasons speaks in safe house for women in Belgrade, Serbia, Thursday, Nov. 23, 2023. She said her partner repeatedly raped her, beat and choked her, and kept her and the baby locked in their flat for hours at a time. Throughout the Western Balkans, women are harassed, raped, beaten and killed, often by their partners and after repeatedly reporting the violence to the authorities. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic)

Brutal killings of women in Western Balkan countries trigger alarm and expose faults in the system

A man in Bosnia killed his wife while streaming the murder live on Instagram. In neighboring Serbia, at least 26 women were killed this year despite efforts to raise awareness and turn the trend.

A woman in conservative dress walks past a menorah standing outside a Jewish synagogue ahead of the start of Hanukkah, in Miami Beach, Fla., Friday, Dec. 1, 2023. Daily life for many Jews has been upended by the surprise attack on Oct. 7 in Israel, when Hamas militants killed about 1,200, mostly civilians, and by the rise in antisemitism worldwide during the ensuing war, in which more than 15,800 Palestinians have died. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)

Hanukkah message of light in darkness feels uniquely relevant to US Jews amid war and antisemitism

Preparing for Hanukkah feels uniquely somber yet defiant this year for the Jewish communities in and around Miami Beach.

FILE - A police officer searches and checks the documents of a man living in the Kiwanis Community, during a preventive patrol in search of gang members in Soyapango, El Salvador, Tuesday, Aug. 16, 2022. A May 2023 report by the human rights organization Cristosal, tallied 153 incarceration deaths during the first year of the state of emergency in El Salvador. No victim had been convicted of the alleged crime that put them behind bars. (AP Photo/Salvador Melendez, File)

Detainees in El Salvador’s gang crackdown cite abuse during months in jail

Thousands of detainees swept up in El Salvador’s gang crackdown over the past 1 1/2 years have been released from pre-trial detention.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy poses for a photo after his interview with The Associated Press in Kharkiv, Ukraine, Thursday, Nov. 30, 2023. Zelenskyy says the war with Russia is in a new stage, with winter expected to complicate fighting after a summer counteroffensive that failed to produce desired results due to enduring shortages of weapons and ground forces. Despite the setbacks, however, he says that "we are not backing down." (AP Photo/Felipe Dana)

AP Exclusive: Zelenskyy says the Israel-Hamas war could divert attention from Ukraine’s conflict

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says the war with Russia is in a new stage, with winter expected to complicate fighting after a summer counteroffensive that failed to produce desired results due to enduring shortages of weapons and ground forces.

Andrea Campbell, Attorney General of Massachusetts, answers a question during an interview at the State Attorneys General Association meetings, Tuesday, Nov. 14, 2023, in Boston. In exclusive sit-down interviews with The Associated Press, several Black Democrat attorneys general discuss the role race and politics plays in their jobs. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

America’s Black attorneys general discuss race, politics and the justice system

The American legal system has never faced greater challenges or demands for reform from people of all races and across the political spectrum.

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