for tracking down former hostage Joshua Boyle on a Canada-bound plane and getting the familyâs first public statement. Benedyk gambled the family would be on the flight and had to overcome objections from State Department chaperones.http://bit.ly/2glIZinhttp://bit.ly/2xPk2Ca
for getting out first word on the end of a siege by the Philippine army against Islamic State group militants who had occupied the city of Marawi. The assault killed two senior militant leaders. http://bit.ly/2yPQkSc
When reporters Justin Pritchard and Reese Dunklin were asked to look into price gouging and profiteering off the coronavirus crisis, they sought to go deeper by employing a key part of their investigative reporting toolkit: a systematic reporting strategy.
The pair quickly executed a plan to question attorneys general in all 50 states, resulting in the most comprehensive look yet at the problem across the nation. In just two days of reporting, Pritchard and Dunklin uncovered more than 5,000 reports of everything from price gouging on toilet paper and masks, to scams offering tests and even cures for the illness.
Their brightly written story won strong play on a busy day of coronavirus news, hitting the wire hours before Attorney General William Barr announced new actions against such crimes.
For fast, aggressive work that tapped into a topic on the publicâs mind, AP recognizes Pritchard and Dunklin with this weekâs Best of the States award.
has been breaking news about buried treasure since 2018, when the FBI conducted a secretive dig in a remote area of Pennsylvania, aimed at recovering a legendary cache of stolen Civil War-era gold. The FBI has long refused to confirm it was searching for the fabled gold â while also insisting it didnât find whatever it was hoping to dig up.Rubinkam knew the FBI needed a federal search warrant to gain access to the site, but every document in the case was sealed ... as if the case didnât exist. With help from AP attorney Brian Barrett and a Philadelphia-based media lawyer, a judge lifted the sealing order, revealing a veritable gold mine of news and confirming Rubinkamâs previous reporting: that the feds were, indeed, looking for gold. Among the details in the FBIâs unsealed affidavit: A contractorâs sensitive instruments had detected a huge underground mass with the density of gold.What the unsealed case didnât include was a document describing what the FBI actually found. Federal prosecutors assert no such document exists because the dig came up empty. But the treasure hunters who led the FBI to the site in the first place believe the evidence says otherwise. They are seeking FBI records of the dig.Rubinkamâs story was among the top 10 most-viewed stories on apnews.com last week. It appeared on newspapers' front pages and spurred follow-ups, including by The Washington Post.https://aplink.news/gcohttps://aplink.news/jyq
The Life Care Center in Kirkland, Washington, has emerged as the epicenter of the COVID-19 outbreak in the United States. At least 35 coronavirus deaths have been linked to the facility, and more than half of those inside have tested positive, leaving the remaining residents in a sort of purgatory that has anguished their relatives.
Photographer Ted Warren has spent much of his time recently outside the long-term care center, documenting in heartrending photos how people have tried to communicate with mothers, fathers and loved ones through windows because visitors are no longer allowed inside.
Warren found an ideal subject for conveying this desperation in the story of 86-year-old Chuck Sedlacek. With reporting by Gene Johnson, the pair delivered a package that detailed the isolation and anguish faced by the nursing home residents and their families â a feeling of helplessness many more are likely to experience as the disease spreads across the country.
For compelling work that conveys the frustration and despair of families coping with the coronavirus at a facility in the glare of the media spotlight, Warren and Johnson earn this weekâs Best of the States award.
Resolving cold cases can be thankless work for law enforcement â and an endless emotional journey for the families affected. Tamara Lush used the lens of one Florida cold case, and the relatives of a long-missing woman, to give life to the backlog of such cases nationwide.
After the publication of her first big takeout on an exhumation in a cold case, Lush turned her attention to two sisters who played just a small role in that piece. Lush met with the family numerous times â she was with them every step of the way through the drawn-out process of DNA tests, results, periods of silence from police, the day they finally got some answers about their missing family member, and the moment they shared that news with the woman's mother. The narrative story, teeming with emotion and details, can't be matched by any competitor.
For her Only on AP story that gave a face to the national backlog of cold cases, Lush wins this weekâs Best of the States award.
broke the news that copies of confidential software for a widely used voting machine had been released publicly during an event held by supporters of former President Donald Trump, leading to wider concerns about election security.After a local elections clerk in Colorado leaked confidential information about her countyâs voting machines, Cassidy, an Atlanta-based state government reporter, began calling her sources to get a sense of what the breach could mean for other states that used the same voting machines produced by Dominion Voting Systems. Her source reporting uncovered yet another leak, this time in a county in Michigan where Trump allies had challenged his election loss. The software copies ended up being distributed publicly at a symposium hosted by the CEO of MyPillow, Mike Lindell, a major Trump supporter who has helped spread his lies of election fraud.The software leak from Antrim County, Michigan, had not previously been reported until Cassidy learned of it. Election security experts said taken together, the leaked software could provide hackers with a âpractice environmentâ to probe for vulnerabilities in Dominion machines, which are used in 30 states. https://aplink.news/kj8
for being first to report that authorities investigating Flintâs water crisis used search warrants to look at the state-owned mobile devices and computers of former Gov. Rick Snyder as well as those of other state employees. https://bit.ly/2XJ8mPj
used source work to break news, naming the new chief for the U.S. Capitol Police three days ahead of the official announcement. They were so far out front that a local news station said even the new chief had not been officially told he had the job.The selection of a new head for the beleaguered department had been closely tracked by Washington national and local media in the aftermath of the Jan. 6 insurrection. But AP was well ahead of the competition, started with a sourceâs late-night tip to Justice Department reporter Tucker that J. Thomas Manger, former chief in Montgomery County, Maryland, was about to be named chief. Tucker shared that tip with Washington colleagues Michael Balsamo, Colleen Long and Mary Clare Jalonick, and the group flooded their sources, getting quiet acknowledgements. The following afternoon a second source confirmed the selection to Tucker, and the team â intimately familiar with the department and the search process â rounded out the story for Monday afternoonâs scoop.Their piece immediately received strong play and AP was cited by other news outlets that had been chasing the story. https://aplink.news/9wb
Immigration and Homeland Security reporter Colleen Longâs ears perked up in early October when she heard agency officials mention âCODISâ as they briefed reporters on the likelihood they would expand their practice of collecting DNA from migrants.
CODIS, she knew from experience, was an FBI database usually associated with violent crimes, so Long was surprised to hear of its use in connection with migrants whose only crime was crossing the border illegally. Long followed up with detailed questions at the briefing but didnât get answers, so she kept pressing officials.
Her persistence was rewarded with an advance briefing on the new rule, and additional details about how the DNA policy would be implemented. Longâs story moved hours ahead of the official announcement, becoming one of the most-read stories of the day.
For making the early connection to the policy implications of the DNA database, then pressing the issue with officials until she had the exclusive details, Long earns this weekâs Best of the States award.
for linking tainted vapes blamed for clusters of illnesses to a CBD pioneer who was a major drug wholesaler of synthetic marijuana. Mohr traced the vapes back to a woman who had remained unknown for nearly two years â and whose product had sickened dozens of people in Utah and other states. https://bit.ly/31UieXG
for breaking news leading up to the 2020 U.S. headcount. Starting with a smart follow-up by Schneider showing that federal governmentâs attempts to get states to surrender driverâs license information have been a bust so far, and concluding with a weekend spotlight story by Seitz and Lerman showing how new concerns about misinformation and fraud could cause major problems for the Census Bureau.https://bit.ly/36mZDqShttps://bit.ly/2N0gbgI
When two burning tree limbs crashed in flames on the exact spot where Marcio Sanchez had been standing just moments earlier, the shaken AP Los Angeles photographer called two colleagues to check that they both had his wifeâs phone number, figuring that âif something happened to me, they could tell her.â He then plunged back to work, capturing vivid images of the furious wildfires tearing across swaths of California.
That incident captured the commitment of AP journalists during a frenetic week documenting the wind-whipped wildfires and accompanying blackouts. Sanchez was joined in the riveting coverage by photographers Noah Berger and Greg Bull, reporters Janie Har and Don Thompson, and more than a dozen others on the ground and in AP bureaus.
The engrossing, all-formats coverage was among the most popular on AP all week.
For their extraordinary work during a hectic and dangerous week, Sanchez, Berger, Bull, Thompson and Har share APâs Best of the Week.
for his piece on the state of student journalism around the country and how the problems of the newspaper industry are being mirrored on campuses across the country. But after some brutal years, there are signs of life: Enrollment in journalism programs is up. https://bit.ly/32Oyo5o
Severe storms, extreme flooding and aging infrastructure present a rising peril throughout much of the U.S., but trying to assess the risks has been extremely difficult. The reason: The federal agency overseeing the nationâs dams has sealed off the most essential information about their condition and the potential threats to those living downstream.
Prying that information loose took the kind of dedicated, 50-state effort that the AP is uniquely positioned to pursue. Data journalist Michelle Minkoff and Northern New England correspondent Michael Casey, collaborating with state government team member David Lieb and a visual team led by video journalist Allen Breed â as well as a cast of AP state reporters, photographers and data journalists â produced a deeply reported and visually stunning package revealing the dangers of nearly 1,700 aging dams, from Hawaii to Massachusetts.
Some two years in the making, the package resulted in explosive play â more than 100,000 page views on AP News and more than 80 front pages.
For their exhaustive efforts to unlock critical public information and relay the findings in an engaging fashion, Minkoff, Casey, Lieb and Breed win this weekâs Best of the States award.
for determined reporting and source work to reveal exclusively that the FBI was investigating how Gov. Tom Wolfâs administration came to issue permits for construction of a multibillion-dollar pipeline project to carry highly volatile natural gas liquids across Pennsylvania. https://bit.ly/2pBqNcO
for shedding light on the Census Bureauâs policy of counting inmates as residents of the prison where they are held, rather than where they are actually from. Critics call it prison gerrymandering, arguing that it unfairly shifts political power and resources from urban, liberal, largely minority areas to rural, white, largely conservative areas. http://bit.ly/3562l2q
AP staffers displayed remarkable professionalism and composure under extraordinary circumstances in their coverage of the Nov. 14 mass shooting at Saugus High School in a Los Angeles suburb.
LA photographer Marcio Sanchez found himself in a nearly unfathomable position: He was making news photos outside a high school where a gunman had opened fire while one of his sons was locked down inside. Later, when Sanchez was safely home with his 15-year-old son Noah, his longtime LA colleague, reporter Brian Melley, did a sensitive interview with the teenager about his experience during the shooting and lockdown.
Meanwhile, veteran breaking news staffer John Antczak in the LA bureau reported the shifting numbers of casualties with careful sourcing and attribution, anchoring the coverage and avoiding the false reports put out by some media.
APâs full complement of all-format coverage was the product of excellent reporting and editing by staffers in the field and in the bureau. That team effort was highlighted by the remarkable work of Sanchez, Antczak and Melley, who earn this weekâs Best of the States award.
In addressing its clergy sex abuse crisis, the Catholic church has touted a key reform: independent review boards with lay people.
But an exhaustive investigation by the AP team of Reese Dunklin, Matt Sedensky and Mitch Weiss methodically discredited that claim.
The reporters unearthed dozens of cases nationwide in which review boards rejected complaints from survivors, only to have them later validated by secular authorities. They also found that bishops stacked the boards with their own aides and attorneys. In a few cases, board members were themselves clergy accused of sexual misconduct.
The rock-solid reporting was brought alive by the storytelling, with revealing details down to the pink sweater one board member was knitting while listening to a survivorâs story of abuse.
For their comprehensive investigation into the Catholic churchâs deeply flawed system for addressing claims of abuse, Dunklin, Sedensky and Weiss earn this weekâs Best of the States award.
reported exclusively in all formats on climate-fueled wildfires flaring up on tropical Pacific islands from Hawaii to Micronesia, causing environmental harm from mountaintops to coral reefs.Aware of persistent wildfire problems on some of the Hawaiian Islands and Guam, Honolulu-based Jones and Jakarta, Indonesia-based Milko reported that climate change is making once-lush areas of the islands hotter, drier and more susceptible to fire. As a result, runoff from burned areas damages coral reefs, and the fires are converting critical watershed forests to grasslands that are more prone to fire in the future.While Milko reported on the situation in Guam, where the top fire official said most fires were arson, Jones traveled to the Big Island of Hawaii which was experiencing the largest wildfire in the stateâs history. He shot photos and video of firefighters at work, and gained access to private Native Hawaiian homestead land where homes and vehicles were destroyed on the slopes of Mauna Kea. He spoke to residents and evacuees for a historical perspective on the drier, more volatile land, while fire officials and scientists in Honolulu explained how climate change contributes to the fires. https://aplink.news/o3nhttps://aplink.video/mny
