for breaking the news that the Trump administration is making a new push to get so-called sanctuary cities to cooperate with ICE on immigration enforcement. https://bit.ly/3azEmwd
for tracking from South America a source at the White House who confirmed that President Trump on at least three occasions last year pressed his aides in private about the possibility of invading Venezuela. https://bit.ly/2KVFl0r
for breaking the news that recently fired FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe had written contemporaneous memos after his meetings with President Donald Trump, similar to the records kept by his former boss James Comey. http://trib.in/2uatdAK
for working sources outside the White House to nail down all major aspects of President Donald Trump's long-awaited tariff plan 45 minutes ahead of the pack. http://bit.ly/2tV3U5p
for reporting that the Trump Organization had made a promised contribution to the U.S. Treasury of profits from foreign government stays at its hotels -- but refused to disclose the amount. http://bit.ly/2CYCICj
President Donald Trump has long asserted that his tax cuts and other policies would accelerate job growth, which, in turn, would serve the âforgottenâ men and women who had helped propel him to the White House in the 2016 election.
Washington, D.C.-based economics reporter Josh Boak wondered: Had that actually occurred so far? And how much was job growth a motivating force for Trump supporters?
Boak hit on a possible way to hold the presidentâs claims to a fair test. He turned to a relatively obscure report issued by the governmentâs Bureau of Labor Statistics, then merged those economic figures with the APâs 2016 election returns, broken down by county.
The result, under multiple calculations, was clear: The bulk of U.S. hiring under Trump had so far occurred in Democratic counties.
Boak then spent three days in Beaver County, Pennsylvania, an area that had voted decisively for Trump and had lost jobs in the past 12 months. He reported that Republican voters appeared to be motivated more by social issues â opposition to gun control, for example. âOur No. 1 motivating factor,â the county Republican chairman told Boak, âis Second Amendment issues.â
For exclusively documenting how job growth under Trump has disproportionately underserved his geographic base and for illustrating that trend in a community that reflects it, Boak earns this weekâs Best of the States award.
for unearthing a document that showed the Trump administration doesnât consider conserving oil an economic imperative for the U.S., breaking with decades-old policy on conservation. https://bit.ly/2o1DDfU
for landing an exclusive report about the columnist E. Jean Carroll seeking a DNA sample from President Donald Trump to potentially back her accusation that he raped her in a department store dressing room. Peltz raised the question of DNA testing with Carrollâs legal team last November and stayed in contact with the team, prompting them to reach out with the news that they had tested the dress Carroll wore during the alleged assault. https://bit.ly/36ZTaRM
delivered an exclusive, agenda-setting session with President Alexander Lukashenko, the authoritarian leader of Belarus, in his first in-depth interview since the Russian invasion of Ukraine.AP spent more than two years in increasingly difficult negotiations to secure the interview, conducted by Ian Phillips, AP vice president for international news. The all-formats interview, including Lukashenkoâs description of the war as âdragging on,â made headlines and was used around the world.Read more
Last November, more than 200 counties across America, scores of them in the upper Midwest, turned from blue to red on the electoral map. Why did voters in once-Democratic strongholds support Donald Trump?
An all-formats AP team of Claire Galofaro, Martha Irvine, David Goldman and Angeliki Kastanis set out to find the answer by focusing on one rural Wisconsin county and getting into the lives and mindset of its people. The result was a revealing package that earns the Beat of the Week.
for being first with the news that the Trump administration would extend temporary residency for nearly 7,000 Syrians in the U.S., but cut it off so new arrivals couldnât apply. http://wapo.st/2EP02Vz
for the first agency interview with Indonesian President Joko Widodo since his re-election last April. Wright pressed his contacts at the palace until they agreed to the interview, and when the palace requested that someone with Middle East expertise conduct the interview, Laub joined the Jakarta team for a wide-ranging interview. The all-formats package put AP ahead, especially in the eyes of Southeast Asian clients who are eager for stories about neighboring countries and their leaders.https://bit.ly/2YwTC9Qhttps://bit.ly/2TimhKS
for being first to report that testing of prototypes of Trumpâs proposed wall with Mexico found that their imposing heights would likely stop border crossers, a finding that pleased border hawks. http://bit.ly/2n4PUzF
for their exclusive interview with IOC President Thomas Bach, who revealed he had met Kim Jong Un and that Kim had endorsed North Korean participation in the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo and the 2022 Olympics in Beijing. https://bit.ly/2HcU0iA
for an intimate look at how refugee families living side by side in the same city have been affected by President Trumpâs refugee policies in very different ways. https://bit.ly/2GUJPPr
for revealing exclusively that Donald Trump Jr. and a hedge fund manager who helped raise millions for the Trump campaign â and who later lobbied National Security Council officials â had an undisclosed business relationship dating back years. http://nydn.us/2GRAQyK
for breaking news that the Trump administrationâs new U.S. advisory board created to help rewrite federal rules for importing heads and hides of African elephants, lions and rhinos was stacked with trophy hunters. https://usat.ly/2IvcHyh
for revealing the pain of people whose relatives were killed in actual lynchings, as a debate raged among politicians and pundits over President Donald Trumpâs use of the word âlynchingâ to describe the impeachment inquiry.
resisted competitive pressure, holding off on a Department of Justice press release on an investigation into âdiscardedâ military ballots for President Donald Trump, instead taking the time to do a more deeply reported story.Most media rushed to publish when a U.S. attorney in the battleground state of Pennsylvania took the unusual step of announcing the ongoing investigation, saying nine mail-in ballots for the president had been âcast asideâ in a county elections office. The county manager later blamed the incident on confusion over the appearance of the envelopes, but conservative social media quickly seized on the initial announcement while the Trump campaign blamed Democrats for âtrying to steal the election.âThe original press release, however, was short on details and no one, federal or local, was talking. Pennsylvania news editor Christina Paciolla brought the story to the attention of APâs voting team, and a deeper examination began.The AP drew on expertise across the organization to produce a far more well-informed story the following day, providing essential context and new information, including the U.S. attorney defending his announcement of the votes for Trump, and that Attorney General William Barr had previously briefed the president on the case. https://bit.ly/3if2LJZ
for an exclusive AP analysis of deleted tweets that revealed that disguised Russian agents worked to deflect scandalous news about Donald Trump while refocusing online criticism toward Hillary Clinton during last yearâs U.S. presidential campaign.http://bit.ly/2zJMDhKhttp://bit.ly/2zJAGbChttp://bit.ly/2hx1ssO