MICHAEL BIESECKER

Global investigative reporter

Biesecker is a global investigative reporter for The Associated Press, based in Washington. He reports on a wide range of topics, including human conflict, climate change and political corruption.

FILE - A mural is seen in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, Wednesday March 1, 2023. Three survivors of an attack in Zaongo, central Burkina Faso, told AP that dozens of people were killed in their village on Nov. 5 when security forces attacked. One of the survivors, a 32-year-old farmer, said he photographed the horrific scenes of bodies as proof of the carnage before fleeing. (AP Photo, File)

Burkina Faso’s security forces are killing more civilians. Survivors detailed 1 village’s massacre

Women slain with babies wrapped against their bodies. Lifeless children intertwined together. A 2-month-old face-up on the ground.

This image from video posted by Hamas on Dec. 20, 2023, purports to show Hamas militants using machining equipment to make their own domestic copies of the AM-50 Sayyad, an Iranian-made a sniper rifle that fires a .50- caliber round powerful enough to punch through up to an inch of steel. Experts interviewed by The Associated Press said it would be nearly impossible for Hamas to manufacture a safe and accurate sniper rifle using the rudimentary equipment shown in the video. Watermark at upper left reads “military media.” (Hamas via AP)

Hamas fights with a patchwork of weapons built by Iran, China, Russia and North Korea

Iranian sniper rifles. AK-47s from China and Russia. North Korean-built rocket-propelled grenades. Anti-tank rockets secretly cobbled together in Gaza An Associated Press analysis of more than 150 videos and photos taken in the three months of combat since Hamas launched its Oct. 7 surprise attack o

FILE - Men look over the site of a deadly explosion at Al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza City, Wednesday, Oct. 18, 2023. This photo and others taken the morning after the explosion show no evidence of a large crater at the impact site that would be consistent with a large bomb such as those dropped by Israeli aircraft in other recent strikes. (AP Photo/Abed Khaled, File)

New AP analysis of last month’s deadly Gaza hospital explosion rules out widely cited video

The Associated Press is publishing an updated visual analysis of the deadly Oct. 17 explosion at Gaza’s Al-Ahli Hospital.

A girl carries blankets as she walks past the site of a deadly explosion at al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza City, Wednesday, Oct. 18, 2023. (AP Photo/Abed Khaled)

New AP analysis of last month’s deadly Gaza hospital explosion rules out widely cited video

The Associated Press is publishing an updated visual analysis of the deadly Oct. 17 explosion at Gaza’s Al-Ahli Hospital.

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.

This image from video provided by South First Responders shows charred and damaged cars along a desert road after an attack by Hamas militants at the Tribe of Nova Trance music festival near Kibbutz Re'im in southern Israel on Saturday, Oct. 7, 2023. (South First Responders via AP)

Israeli survivors recount terror at music festival, where Hamas militants killed at least 260

The open-air Tribe of Nova music festival will go down in Israeli history as the country’s worst civilian massacre.

In this photo provided by the Morgan & Morgan law firm, utility contractors remove a charred Hawaiian Electric utility pole stump in Lahaina, Maui, Hawaii on Aug. 29, 2023. Investigators are examining this and other pieces of evidence as they seek to solve the mystery of how a small, wind-whipped fire sparked by downed power lines and declared extinguished flare up again hours later into a devastating inferno. (Morgan & Morgan via AP)

Takeaways from AP report on Maui fire investigation

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: How did a small fire sparked by downed power lines and declared extinguished

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.

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 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.

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 - Russian President Vladimir Putin, left, speaks to South African President, Cyril Ramaphosa, right, during a plenary session at the Russia-Africa summit in the Black Sea resort of Sochi, Russia on Oct. 24, 2019. The U.S. ambassador to South Africa, Reuben Brigety, has accused South Africa of providing weapons to Russia saying the U.S. government was certain that weapons were loaded onto a cargo ship that docked secretly at a naval base near the city of Cape Town for three days in December. (Sergei Chirikov/Pool Photo via AP, File)

US ambassador accuses South Africa of providing weapons, ammo to Russia

The U.S. ambassador to South Africa has accused the country of providing weapons and ammunition to Russia.

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.

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

A video in Burkina Faso showing men in military fatigues walking among the bloodied bodies of boys with their hands bound surfaced on social media in mid-February.

FILE - A flare burns off methane and other hydrocarbons as oil pumpjacks operate in the Permian Basin in Midland, Texas, Oct. 12, 2021. Two Texas companies have resolved Clean Air Act violations with the Environmental Protection Agency by agreeing to reduce emissions of planet-warming methane and other harmful pollutants wafting from the nation's largest oil and gas producing region. (AP Photo/David Goldman, File)

EPA cites 2 oil and gas firms over Permian Basin pollution

WASHINGTON (AP) — Two Texas companies have resolved Clean Air Act violations with the Environmental Protection Agency by agreeing to reduce emissions of planet-warming methane and other harmful pollutants wafting from the nation’s largest oil and gas producing region.

FILE - A neighbor comforts Natalia Vlasenko, whose husband, Pavlo Vlasenko, and grandson, Dmytro Chaplyhin, called Dima, were killed by Russian forces, as she cries in her garden in Bucha, Ukraine, Monday, April 4, 2022. Russian soldiers picked up Dima during a March 4 sweep, accused him of being a spotter helping the Ukrainian military. Asked “What would justice be for you?,” the grandmother of 20-year-old Dima says, “I- I- I can’t even- I don’t know. These scoundrels…” (AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda, File)

Evidence of Russian crimes mounts as war in Ukraine drags on

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ten months into Russia’s latest invasion of Ukraine, overwhelming evidence shows the Kremlin’s troops have waged total war, with disregard for international laws governing the treatment of civilians and conduct on the battlefield.

FILE - This combination of satellite images provided by Maxar Technologies shows the Staryi Krym cemetery in Mariupol, Ukraine, on March 29, 2022, top, and additional graves seen on Nov. 30, 2022. (Maxar Technologies via AP, File)

How the AP estimated 10,300 new graves in occupied Mariupol

The Associated Press estimated at least 10,300 new graves in and around Mariupol — most in the Staryi Krym cemetery — by analyzing satellite imagery from early March through December, noting sections where the earth had been disturbed.

FILE - This Nov. 7, 2022, photo, released by the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection shows a methane leak at a well owned by Equitrans Midstream at their Rager Mountain storage facility near Jackson Township, Pa. The operator of the natural gas storage well says workers have successfully plugged a leak that had been spewing massive amounts of planet-warming methane into the atmosphere for two weeks. Equitrans Midstream said the well at its Rager Mountain storage facility was sealed shut with concrete on Sunday, Nov. 20. (Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection via AP, File)

Company: Leak at Pennsylvania gas storage well plugged

The operator of a natural gas storage well in Western Pennsylvania says workers have successfully plugged a leak that had been spewing massive amounts of planet-warming methane into the atmosphere for two weeks.

FILE - This Nov. 7, 2022, photo, released by the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection shows a methane leak at a well owned by Equitrans Midstream at their Rager Mountain storage facility near Jackson Township, Pa. The operator of the natural gas storage well says workers have successfully plugged a leak that had been spewing massive amounts of planet-warming methane into the atmosphere for two weeks. Equitrans Midstream said the well at its Rager Mountain storage facility was sealed shut with concrete on Sunday, Nov. 20. (Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection via AP, File)

Leak at Pennsylvania gas storage well spewing methane

A vent at an underground natural gas storage well in Western Pennsylvania has been spewing massive amounts of planet-warming methane into the atmosphere for more than 11 days and attempts to plug the leak have thus far failed.

David DePape, right, records the nude wedding of Gypsy Taub outside City Hall on Dec. 19, 2013, in San Francisco. DePape is accused of breaking into House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's California home and severely beating her husband with a hammer. DePape was known in Berkeley, Calif., as a pro-nudity activist who had picketed naked at protests against local ordinances requiring people to be clothed in public. (AP Photo/Eric Risberg)

Suspect in assault at Pelosi home had posted about QAnon

The man accused of breaking into House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s home and severely beating her husband with a hammer appears to have made racist and often rambling posts online, including some that questioned the results of the 2020 election, defended Donald Trump and echoed QAnon conspiracy theories.

The cargo ship Laodicea sails through the Bosphorus Strait in Istanbul, Turkey, on July 7, 2022. An Associated Press investigation shows the ship, owned by the Syrian government, is part of an extensive Russian-run smuggling operation that has been hauling stolen Ukrainian grain from ports in occupied Crimea to customers in the Middle East. (AP Photo/Yoruk Isik)

Russia smuggling Ukrainian grain to help pay for Putin’s war

BEIRUT (AP) — When the bulk cargo ship Laodicea docked in Lebanon last summer, Ukrainian diplomats said the vessel was carrying grain stolen by Russia and urged Lebanese officials to impound the ship.

Patches of land housing oil pumpjacks dot the landscape of the Permian Basin in Midland, Texas, Monday, Oct. 11, 2021. Carbon Mapper, a partnership of university researchers and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, documented massive amounts of methane venting into the atmosphere from oil and gas operations across the Permian, a 250-mile-wide bone-dry expanse along the Texas-New Mexico border that a billion years ago was the bottom of a shallow sea. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

EPA announces flights to look for methane in Permian Basin

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Environmental Protection Agency says it will conduct helicopter overflights to look for methane “super emitters” in the nation’s largest oil and gas producing region.

A cow walks through a field as an oil pumpjack and a flare burning off methane and other hydrocarbons stand in the background in the Permian Basin in Jal, N.M., Thursday, Oct. 14, 2021. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

Hidden Menace: Massive methane leaks speed up climate change

LENORAH, Texas (AP) — To the naked eye, the Mako Compressor Station outside the dusty West Texas crossroads of Lenorah appears unremarkable, similar to tens of thousands of oil and gas operations scattered throughout the oil-rich Permian Basin.

A flare burns off methane and other hydrocarbons as oil pumpjacks operate in the Permian Basin in Midland, Texas, Tuesday, Oct. 12, 2021. Massive amounts of methane are venting into the atmosphere from oil and gas operations across the Permian Basin, new aerial surveys show. The emission endanger U.S. targets for curbing climate change. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

Hidden Menace: Massive methane leaks speed up climate change

LENORAH, Texas (AP) — To the naked eye, the Mako Compressor Station outside the dusty West Texas crossroads of Lenorah appears unremarkable, similar to tens of thousands of oil and gas operations scattered throughout the oil-rich Permian Basin.

FILE - Marianna Vishegirskaya stands outside a maternity hospital that was damaged by shelling in Mariupol, Ukraine, Wednesday, March 9, 2022. Visheirskaya was taken to another nearby hospital where she gave birth the following day to a baby girl she named Veronika. “We were lying in wards when glass, frames, windows and walls flew apart,” she told AP, lying next to her newborn. "We don’t know how it happened. We were in our wards and some had time to cover themselves. Some didn’t.” (AP Photo/Mstyslav Chernov, File)

War Crimes Watch: Russia’s onslaught on Ukrainian hospitals

LVIV, Ukraine (AP) — For a month now, Russian forces have repeatedly attacked Ukrainian medical facilities, striking at hospitals, ambulances, medics, patients and even newborns — with at least 34 assaults independently documented by The Associated Press.

FILE - Marianna Vishegirskaya stands outside a maternity hospital that was damaged by shelling in Mariupol, Ukraine, Wednesday, March 9, 2022. Visheirskaya was taken to another nearby hospital where she gave birth the following day to a baby girl she named Veronika. “We were lying in wards when glass, frames, windows and walls flew apart,” she told AP, lying next to her newborn. "We don’t know how it happened. We were in our wards and some had time to cover themselves. Some didn’t.” (AP Photo/Mstyslav Chernov, File)

War Crimes Watch: Russia’s onslaught on Ukrainian hospitals

LVIV, Ukraine (AP) — For a month now, Russian forces have repeatedly attacked Ukrainian medical facilities, striking at hospitals, ambulances, medics, patients and even newborns — with at least 34 assaults independently documented by The Associated Press.

FILE - The yacht Amore Vero is docked in the Mediterranean resort of La Ciotat, France, Thursday, March 3, 2022. French authorities have seized the yacht linked to Igor Sechin, a Putin ally who runs Russian oil giant Rosneft, as part of EU sanctions over Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The boat arrived in La Ciotat on Jan. 3 for repairs and was slated to stay until April 1 and was seized to prevent an attempted departure. (AP Photo/Bishr Eltoni, File)

Fleeing sanctions, oligarchs seek safe ports for superyachts

WASHINGTON (AP) — The massive superyacht Dilbar stretches one-and-a-half football fields in length, about as long as a World War I dreadnought.

FILE - The yacht Amore Vero is docked in the Mediterranean resort of La Ciotat, France, Thursday, March 3, 2022. French authorities have seized the yacht linked to Igor Sechin, a Putin ally who runs Russian oil giant Rosneft, as part of EU sanctions over Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The boat arrived in La Ciotat on Jan. 3 for repairs and was slated to stay until April 1 and was seized to prevent an attempted departure. (AP Photo/Bishr Eltoni, File)

Fleeing sanctions, oligarchs seek safe ports for superyachts

WASHINGTON (AP) — The superyacht Dilbar stretches one-and-a-half football fields in length. It has two helipads, berths for more than 130 people and a 25-meter swimming pool that itself can accommodate another superyacht.

FILE - Russian President Vladimir Putin and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov walk past honour guards as they attend a ceremony to receive diplomatic credentials from newly appointed foreign ambassadors at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, Thursday, Oct. 11, 2018. In the wake of the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, U.S. sanctions are targeting Putin and a handful of individuals believed to be among his closest security advisers, including Lavrov. (Sergei Karpukhin/Pool Photo via AP, File)

US sanctions on Russian oligarchs miss richest of rich

WASHINGTON (AP) — The term Russian oligarch conjures images of posh London mansions, gold-plated Bentleys and sleek superyachts in the Mediterranean, their decks draped with partiers dripping in jewels.

Ashli Babbitt a martyr? Her past tells a more complex story

Former President Donald Trump and his supporters have sought to portray the woman who was shot by a police officer during the Jan. 6 Capitol riot as a righteous martyr who was unjustly killed.