ADAM GELLER

National writer

Geller is an Associated Press national writer based in New York. He is part of a team focused on in-depth enterprise reporting.

FILE - This handout photo provided by Haim Zach/GPO shows Sharon Hertzman, right, hugging her husband Hen Avigdori as they reunite at Sheba Medical Center in Ramat Gan, Israel, Saturday Nov. 25, 2023. Sharon Hertzman and her daughter Noam, 12 years old, not pictured, were released by Hamas after being held as hostages in Gaza for 50 days. Step by step, the newly freed and their families are testing the ground for a path to recovery. No one, including the physicians and psychologists who have been treating them, is sure how to get there or how long it might take. (Haim Zach/GPO/Handout via AP)

‘Shadows of children:’ For the youngest hostages, life moves forward in whispers

After seven weeks held hostage in the tunnels of Gaza, they are finally free to laugh and chat and play.

Rev. Jimmie Hardaway Jr. shows the gun he carries on him during services at Trinity Baptist Church Sunday, Aug. 20, 2023, in Niagara Falls, N.Y. One time, when he wasn’t carrying a gun, “I had a guy beat his wife in my office and I couldn’t do anything. He was too big for me. All I could do was say: ‘Stop! Stop!,” he recalls. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

Freedom Under Fire: 5 takeaways from AP’s series on rising tension between guns and American liberty

In a country shadowed by the threat of mass shootings and neighborhood violence, courts have embraced an increasingly absolute reading of the right to guns.

Hollan Holm, left, and his wife, Kate Dittmeier Holm, right, observe a moment of silence with their daughter, Sylvia, 11, during a rally against gun violence in Louisville, Ky., Saturday, June 3, 2023. Raising kids amid school shootings and neighborhood violence is enough to worry any parent. For those, like Hollan Holm who survived a school shooting during the Columbine era, it can be even harder. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

For parents who’ve been through shootings, raising kids requires grappling with fears

After a record number of mass killings this year and surging youth deaths by firearms, it can be challenging for any parent to reassure their children.

Rev. Jimmie Hardaway Jr. sits for a portrait next to the gun he carries on him during services at Trinity Baptist Church Sunday, Aug. 20, 2023, in Niagara Falls, N.Y. “I’m really not free if I have to sit here and worry about threats to a congregation,” says Hardaway, one of several religious leaders who sued New York officials last fall after lawmakers restricted guns in houses of worship. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

Two pastors worry for their congregants’ safety. Are more guns the answer or the problem?

Two pastors are each worried for their congregants safety. One believes the right to bear arms undermines the freedom to worship in peace.

Palestinians transport a captured Israeli civilian, center, from Kibbutz Kfar Azza into the Gaza Strip on Saturday, Oct. 7, 2023. The militant Hamas rulers of the Gaza Strip carried out an unprecedented, multi-front attack on Israel at daybreak Saturday, firing thousands of rockets as dozens of Hamas fighters infiltrated the heavily fortified border in several locations by air, land, and sea and catching the country off-guard on a major holiday. (AP Photo/Hatem Ali)

As Israel pummels Gaza, families of those held hostage by militants agonize over loved ones’ safety

The families of some 130 Israelis kidnapped by Hamas are anxiously waiting to find out if their loved ones are safe.

FILE - Balloonist Steve Fossett is retrieved by a U.S. Coast Guard helicopter from waters 10-15 miles north of the island of Oahu in the Hawaiian Islands, Dec. 25, 1998, after abandoning his quest along with Per Lindstrand, of Sweden, and British mogul Richard Branson, who were attempting to make the first nonstop round-the-world flight in a balloon. The massive hunt for the Titan submersible that imploded deep in the North Atlantic has refocused attention on whether wealthy risktakers should pay for emergency search and rescue efforts. (Richard Ambo/Honolulu Star-Advertiser via AP, File)

When wealthy adventurers take huge risks, who should pay for rescue attempts?

In recent days, the massive hunt for a submersible vehicle lost during a north Atlantic descent to explore the wreckage of the Titanic has refocused attention on the conundrum: who should pay for the sweeping search?

FILE Police and investigators look at what remains of the nose of Pan Am 103 in a field in Lockerbie, Scotland, in this Dec. 22, 1988 file photo. U.S. and Scottish authorities said Sunday, Dec. 11, 2022 that the Libyan man suspected of making the bomb that destroyed a passenger plane over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988 is in U.S. custody. (AP Photo/Martin Cleaver, File)

With suspect in custody, spotlight returns to 1988 bombing

The announcement that a Libyan man suspected in the 1988 bombing of a passenger jet has been taken into U.S. custody put the spotlight back on the notorious terrorist attack.

Grannies will dance again in parade where tragedy struck

MILWAUKEE (AP) — The high winds forecasters warned about are blasting down Wisconsin Avenue, but 15 grandmothers lining up in the street are ready to march.

Pam Junion, 65, and other members of the Milwaukee Dancing Grannies practice in a parking lot in Milwaukee on Wednesday, Nov. 2, 2022. Junion is one of a few women who answered a call for new members as the group attempted to rebuild in the face of tragedy. Three Dancing Grannies and one group member’s husband were among those killed at a Christmas parade in Waukesha, Wisconsin, when the driver of an SUV struck them on the parade route. Dozens more, including some Grannies, were injured. (AP Photo/Martha Irvine)

To heal after parade tragedy, the Grannies must march again

MILWAUKEE (AP) — The high winds forecasters warned about are blasting down Wisconsin Avenue, but 15 grandmothers lining up in the street are ready to march.

FILE - A couple pay their respect at a picture of Queen Elizabeth II on the Loyalist Shankill Road in west Belfast, Sept. 10, 2022. Britain's longest-reigning monarch and a rock of stability across much of a turbulent century, died Sept. 8, 2022. (AP Photo/Peter Morrison, File)

In Northern Ireland, praise for monarchy vies with disdain

It’s less than ten minutes walk from the Falls Road to the Shankill Road in Northern Ireland’s capital.

FILE - Pedestrians walk past a portrait of the late Queen Elizabeth II near Buckingham Palace in London, Sunday, Sept. 11, 2022. On morning television, the moment was singularly somber — the departure of the hearse bearing the flag-draped coffin of Queen Elizabeth II. But at the very same hour, as fans in shorts and Ray-Bans streamed into London's Oval stadium for a long-anticipated cricket match, you wouldn't have guessed the country was preparing for the most royal of funerals. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti, File)

After the death of a renowned queen, life in London goes on

On most any other week, the fact that people in this city obsessed with fortune, fashion and buzz are pursuing life at full tilt would hardly be noteworthy.

A mourners is overcome with emotion as he pays his respect at the gates of Buckingham Palace in London, Friday, Sept. 9, 2022. Queen Elizabeth II, Britain's longest-reigning monarch and a rock of stability across much of a turbulent century, died Thursday Sept. 8, 2022, after 70 years on the throne. She was 96. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)

‘Thank you, ma’am': A singular queen, mourned by her people

Mourners streamed to the gates of Buckingham Palace in London to mourn a queen they lost this week after she spent 70 years on the throne.

A woman wears an anti-gun T-shirt outside of the Supreme Court, following the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade in Washington, Friday, June 24, 2022. The Supreme Court on Thursday struck down a New York state law that had restricted who could obtain a permit to carry a gun in public.(AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

Guns and abortion: Contradictory decisions, or consistent?

They are the most fiercely polarizing issues in American life: abortion and guns. And two momentous decisions by the Supreme Court in two days have done anything but resolve them.

Adam Almonte sits on a bench overlooking the Hudson River where he used to sit and eat tuna sandwiches with his older brother, Fernando Morales, in Fort Tryon Park in New York, Wednesday, March 16, 2022. On the deadliest day of a horrific week in April 2020, COVID-19 took the lives of 816 people in New York City alone. Lost in the blizzard of pandemic data that's been swirling ever since is the fact that 43-year-old Morales was one of them. Soon, likely in the next few weeks, the U.S. toll from the coronavirus will surpass 1 million. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

A million empty spaces: Chronicling COVID’s ruthless US toll

On the deadliest day of a horrific week in April 2020, COVID took the lives of 816 people in New York City alone.

Adam Almonte sits on a bench overlooking the Hudson River where he used to sit and eat tuna sandwiches with his older brother, Fernando Morales, in Fort Tryon Park in New York, Wednesday, March 16, 2022. On the deadliest day of a horrific week in April 2020, COVID-19 took the lives of 816 people in New York City alone. Lost in the blizzard of pandemic data that's been swirling ever since is the fact that 43-year-old Morales was one of them. Soon, likely in the next few weeks, the U.S. toll from the coronavirus will surpass 1 million. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

A million empty spaces: Chronicling COVID’s cruel US toll

On the deadliest day of a horrific week in April 2020, COVID took the lives of 816 people in New York City alone.

FILE - Elon Musk, Tesla CEO, attends the opening of the Tesla factory Berlin Brandenburg in Gruenheide, Germany, Tuesday, March 22, 2022. Many people are puzzled on what a Elon Musk takeover of Twitter would mean for the company and even whether he’ll go through with the deal. If the 50-year-old Musk’s gambit has made anything clear it’s that he thrives on contradiction. (Patrick Pleul/Pool via AP, File)

Elon Musk, an erratic visionary, revels in contradiction

As the uproar over Elon Musk’s $44 billion buyout of Twitter reaches a crescendo, another Musk drama, still chaotic four years after it began, has been back in court.

A person walks past an apartment building which suffered the city's deadliest fire in three decades, in the Bronx borough of New York, Tuesday, Jan. 11, 2022. A malfunctioning electric space heater apparently started the fire Sunday in the 19-story building in the Bronx, fire officials said. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

How fleeting choices, circumstances doomed 17 in Bronx fire

A series of fleeting choices and troubling circumstances fueled a staggering tragedy — the fire at a Bronx apartment building that left 17 people dead.

Betty Bednarowski, 79, smiles as she bats a balloon back and forth with a nursing assistant at home, Tuesday, Nov. 30, 2021, in Rotterdam Junction, N.Y. It's been a year since her family took her out of a nursing home locked down against COVID-19 to rescue her from isolation and neglect. (AP Photo/Wong Maye-E)

Feeling powerless, families bring elderly home in pandemic

ROTTERDAM JUNCTION, N.Y. (AP) — Pushed up to the breakfast table, Betty Bednarowski folds and refolds her napkin with studied intensity, softly singing “Winter Wonderland” without the words, the same as she did in March and July and September.

Betty Bednarowski, 79, smiles as she bats a balloon back and forth with a nursing assistant at home, Tuesday, Nov. 30, 2021, in Rotterdam Junction, N.Y. It's been a year since her family took her out of a nursing home locked down against COVID-19 to rescue her from isolation and neglect. (AP Photo/Wong Maye-E)

Feeling powerless, families bring elderly home in pandemic

ROTTERDAM JUNCTION, N.Y. (AP) — At the breakfast table, Betty Bednarowski softly sings “Winter Wonderland” without the words, the same as she did in March and July and September.

FILE - Kyle Rittenhouse, left, with backwards cap, walks along Sheridan Road in Kenosha, Wis., Tuesday, Aug. 25, 2020, with another armed civilian. The trials of Rittenhouse and three men accused of killing Ahmaud Arbery had vastly different outcomes. But coming just days apart, they laid bare a dangerous and long-running current in the fight for racial equality: The move by some white Americans to grab guns and take their own stand against perceptions of lawlessness, particularly by Black people. (Adam Rogan/The Journal Times via AP, File)

2 trials, 1 theme: White men taking law into their own hands

The trials of Kyle Rittenhouse and three men accused of killing Ahmaud Arbery had vastly different outcomes.

Former Facebook employee Frances Haugen speaks during a hearing of the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Subcommittee on Consumer Protection, Product Safety, and Data Security, on Capitol Hill, Tuesday, Oct. 5, 2021, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

How one Facebook worker unfriended the giant social network

Less than two years after Facebook hired Frances Haugen to help correct dangerous distortions spilling across its platform, she had seen enough.

Mortician Shawn Troy stands at the grave of his father, William Penn Troy Sr., at Hillcrest Cemetery outside Mullins, S.C., on Sunday, May 23, 2021. The elder Troy, who developed the cemetery, died of COVID-19 in August 2020, one of many Black funeral directors to succumb during the pandemic. “I don’t think I’ll ever get over it,” he said. “But I’ll get through it.” (AP Photo/Allen G. Breed)

Virus claims Black morticians, leaving holes in communities

MULLINS, S.C. (AP) — When the last mourners departed and funeral director Shawn Troy was left among the headstones, he wept alone.

Mortician Shawn Troy stands at the grave of his father, William Penn Troy Sr., at Hillcrest Cemetery outside Mullins, S.C., on Sunday, May 23, 2021. The elder Troy, who developed the cemetery, died of COVID-19 in August 2020, one of many Black funeral directors to succumb during the pandemic. “I don’t think I’ll ever get over it,” he said. “But I’ll get through it.” (AP Photo/Allen G. Breed)

Virus claims Black morticians, leaving holes in communities

MULLINS, S.C. (AP) — When the last mourners departed and funeral director Shawn Troy was left among the headstones, he wept alone.

Palestinians walk along Al-Baali Street next to debris of homes heavily damaged by airstrikes during an 11-day war between Israel and Hamas, the militant group that controls Gaza, in Beit Hanoun, northern Gaza Strip, Wednesday, June 16, 2021. Since 2008, more than 4,000 Palestinians have been killed in four wars, according to the United Nations. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana)

Through four wars, toll mounts on a Gaza neighborhood

BEIT HANOUN, Gaza Strip (AP) — The electricity is out again tonight in what’s left of Zaki and Jawaher Nassir’s neighborhood.

Palestinians walk along Al-Baali Street next to debris of homes heavily damaged by airstrikes during an 11-day war between Israel and Hamas, the militant group that controls Gaza, in Beit Hanoun, northern Gaza Strip, Wednesday, June 16, 2021. Since 2008, more than 4,000 Palestinians have been killed in four wars, according to the United Nations. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana)

Through four wars, toll mounts on a Gaza neighborhood

BEIT HANOUN, Gaza Strip (AP) — From the shell of their sitting room, its wall blown open by Israeli missiles, Zaki and Jawaher Nassir have a window into their neighborhood’s upheaval.

CORRECTS TO KARI, NOT KERI - Kari Wegg is reflected in a sliding glass door as she looks outside her home in Westfield, Ind., on Monday, March 22, 2021. The Indiana nurse came down with COVID-19 in the summer of 2020; her condition spiraled downward, and her life was saved only by grace of a double lung transplant. The road to normal is a long one, but she's bolstered by the love and support of her husband and sons, and by her own indomitable spirit. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)

Searching for footing in a life nearly extinguished by COVID

WESTFIELD, Ind. (AP) — Before the coronavirus nearly killed her, Kari Webb relished life as a nurse to newborns and a mother of two teenagers.

CORRECTS TO KARI, NOT KERI - Kari Wegg is reflected in a sliding glass door as she looks outside her home in Westfield, Ind., on Monday, March 22, 2021. The Indiana nurse came down with COVID-19 in the summer of 2020; her condition spiraled downward, and her life was saved only by grace of a double lung transplant. The road to normal is a long one, but she's bolstered by the love and support of her husband and sons, and by her own indomitable spirit. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)

Searching for footing in a life nearly extinguished by COVID

WESTFIELD, Ind. (AP) — On line in the hospital atrium, Kari Wegg folds her hands in her lap while husband Rodney pilots the wheelchair, moving forward together a few feet at a time, their progress halting but methodical.

In this Sunday, June 7, 2020, photo, the sun shines above a mural honoring George Floyd in Houston's Third Ward. Floyd, who grew up in the Third Ward, died after being restrained by Minneapolis police officers on Memorial Day. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)

For George Floyd, a complicated life and consequential death

HOUSTON (AP) — Years before a bystander’s video of George Floyd’s last moments turned his name into a global cry for justice, Floyd trained a camera on himself.

For George Floyd, a complicated life and a notorious death

HOUSTON (AP) — Years before a bystander’s video of George Floyd’s last moments turned his name into a global cry for justice, Floyd trained a camera on himself.

Envoy to Ukraine was removed after pushback on Giuliani

The former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine was removed from her post after insisting that Rudy Giuliani’s requests to Ukrainian officials to investigate President Donald Trump’s political rival be conveyed through official channels.