for the first extensive look into what is going on inside Raqqa ahead of the U.S.-backed assault on the Islamic State group's de facto capital, revealing in particular the extent to which the militants are holding the population hostage. http://apne.ws/2p9m2l0
for putting AP ahead by reporting the specific wording of the U.S. Department of Justice's rollback of guidelines that originally were aimed at reducing the imprisonment of nonviolent offenders. https://apnews.com/e72e3fe1fc2d4108a249710e8f9097c...
for reporting exclusively that Homeland Security officials deciding whether 50,000 Haitians should be allowed to remain in the U.S. searched for evidence of criminal conduct and other misdeeds. The decision is supposed to be based on living conditions in their home country. https://apnews.com/740ed5b40ce84bb398c82c48884be61...
for breaking the news that Iraq and the U.S. are in talks over keeping American troops in Iraq for the long term after the Islamic State group is defeated. http://apne.ws/2p9DuW3
The email to AP confided: “Up until reading your article I believed that my daughter's assault was an anomaly. It's not something that is talked about. School officials must take immediate and proactive steps to protect students from being assaulted on school grounds. The first step is to bring it out in the open.”
The anguished mother was responding to the first installment of an Associated Press series running through May exploring the untold story of student-on-student sexual assaults, not on college campuses but in U.S. elementary and secondary schools. The result of a yearlong investigation, the expose by Emily Schmall, Reese Dunklin, Robin McDowell and Justin Pritchard earns the Beat of the Week.
It was supposed to be a 15-minute interview. Instead, Associated Press Chief White House Correspondent Julie Pace kept President Donald Trump talking for an hour in a wide-ranging Oval Office discussion that was exclusive, illuminating and full of news.
Pace's sit-down with the president – resulting in multiple stories that others scrambled to follow and a transcript that readers devoured despite its 8,000-word length – earns the Beat of the Week.
The stories could not be more different. One revealed that United Nations peacekeepers had been accused of thousands of instances of sexual abuse over 12 years. The other recounted the last hours of a doomed freighter and its crew, as they sailed into a hurricane.
But both of these AP stories – by Paisley Dodds and Jason Dearen, respectively – drew extraordinary notice, captivating readers in a busy news week. And in a departure from usual practice, the two contrasting stories, a hard-hitting investigation and a powerful narrative, are being recognized as co-winners of the Beat of the Week.
for breaking the result of the Trump administration's two-month review on North Korea, which established the new U.S. policy of "maximum pressure and engagement." http://apne.ws/2oxebNm
for getting word of a highly classified and highly sensitive U.S. intelligence conclusion that Russia had foreknowledge of Syria's chemical weapons attack. http://apne.ws/2o1Cjs3
for an exclusive report about the NHL investing in China and for breaking the news that the U.S. women's hockey team had ended a boycott launched over a wage dispute. http://apne.ws/2nd1wTV
for their exclusive report showing how President Trump's expected refugee clampdown already was having ripple effects abroad, as Austria turned away 300 non-Muslim Iranians hoping to transit through the country to resettle in the U.S. http://apne.ws/2k3RX6K
for revealing that the U.S. government’s investigation of Trump’s former campaign manager, Paul Manafort, extended to the island nation of Cyprus. https://yhoo.it/2ocLXvk
Around last November’s election, Paul Manafort, President Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman, resurfaced as a priority for the AP’s Washington investigative team when it became clear he was a leading focus of the government’s inquiry into whether Trump’s campaign had coordinated with Russians to meddle in the presidential election.
Jeff Horwitz and Chad Day, along with AP colleagues in Washington and elsewhere, dove in and after weeks of reporting, learned that Manafort had worked for a Russian billionaire a decade ago and had proposed to him a plan to greatly benefit President Vladimir Putin’s government, even as U.S.-Russia relations under then-President George W. Bush grew worse.
For their
for reporting that U.S. officials expected North Korea to conduct a missile launch from the eastern city of Wonsan. The launch occurred hours later. http://apne.ws/2nzKL2d
After eight years on the White House beat, AP’s Julie Pace is a leader among correspondents in fighting for access to the president and his advisers, and over those years she routinely has resisted any efforts to exclude the press unreasonably from news events or obscure the president’s schedule.
On Friday, she recognized instantly that what was happening at the White House was anything but routine: a first-in-memory, invitation-only daily briefing by the presidential press secretary from which other news organizations were excluded. Her spot-on instinct to walk out put The Associated Press at the forefront of the fight for access and openness.
Pace’s quick decision reverberated across Washington and the country – and earns the Beat of the Week.
for an exclusive report that U.S. immigration authorities made a last-minute decision to block a 21-year-old Syrian cinematographer from attending the Oscars. http://apne.ws/2mCrqMZ
for breaking the news that China is banning the powerful and deadly synthetic opioid carfentanil, the latest in a series of AP beats detailing China’s role in the U.S. opioid epidemic. http://apne.ws/2kAwWgG
for two scoops on Trump trademarks: The first showed how Trump’s 10-year fight to win back rights to his name in China ended in a sudden, surprise victory after he declared his candidacy. The second broke the news that China had officially registered the valuable new trademark in Trump’s name, prompting constitutional questions by some in the U.S. http://apne.ws/2lqqexG http://apne.ws/2lhzxRj
Among the many questions raised by President Donald Trump’s surprise executive order targeting predominantly Muslim nations was how his administration arrived at the seven “countries of particular concern.” Take Libya, for example. By making the list, one might think the country was sending waves of refugees pouring into the U.S. Not so, according to data analyzed and packaged on deadline for AP customers by data journalist Meghan Hoyer.
Hoyer’s analysis of federal data in the chaotic days that followed the Trump administration order provided tremendous value for AP customers across the country, allowing them to localize a story of international significance. Hoyer wins this week’s $300 Best of the States award.
for their Only on AP story that showed Donald Trump’s choice for Labor secretary, Andrew Puzder, had outsourced jobs as CEO of a fast-food chain, in contrast to the president’s push to keep jobs in the U.S. http://apne.ws/2k4AQBK