for gaining unprecedented access to a meeting at Washington stateās troubled Western State Hospital where staff expressed safety concerns as nurses and others are assaulted by patients and inmates with severe mental issues. https://bit.ly/2CqIOjE
worked with AP statehouse colleagues around the country to find that several states ā and even the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ā have lumped together coronavirus tests that measure differing things or are reporting data in different ways, often giving a confusing or misleading picture for people trying to make decisions based on the testing data. https://bit.ly/3eBZtzd
fittingly beat the competition with news of the biggest impact yet from their two-year investigation of beatings and cover-ups by the Louisiana State Police: The U.S. Justice Department is launching a sweeping civil rights probe of the agency to see if there is a pattern of excessive force and racial discrimination.Based on their deep sourcing, Mustian and Bleiberg were able to exclusively report the federal āpattern-or-practiceā investigation as a news alert about an hour before the official announcement in Baton Rouge. It marked the first such action against a statewide law enforcement agency in more than two decades. All the examples cited by the assistant attorney general as justitification for the probe came from a string of AP scoops that exposed (often with video) beatings of mostly Black men and the Louisiana agencyās instinct to protect troopers rather than investigate them.Read more
for giving the AP a 15-minute break on the news that disgraced cyclist Lance Armstrong had settled the last major lawsuit he faced for doping during his heyday, for $5 million. https://bit.ly/2vRKnUv
revealed that Postal Service districts across the nation are missing the agencyās own standards for on-time delivery as tens of millions of Americans prepare to vote by mail ā and the lag times are especially pronounced in key regions of some battleground states.Postal Service delivery times, some of them obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request, indicate that the district covering Detroit and the eastern third of Michigan, the part of the state that is being most heavily contested politically, has the worst on-time delivery in the nation. Regions of Ohio and Pennsylvania show similar underperformance. In fact, the data showed that no Postal Service region is meeting the agencyās target of delivering more than 95% of first-class mail within five days. https://bit.ly/2GecGlX
for reporting that Hillary Clinton met with numerous Clinton Foundation donors during her early years as secretary of state.
Former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke fell one election short of becoming Louisianaās governor in 1991. In the years since, he has frequently mulled another run for office, but never taken the plunge. So when Duke publicly floated the idea of running for Congress, Louisiana statehouse reporter Melinda Deslatte was cautious.
But Deslatte also knew that if Duke were to actually run, it would be big news, especially in a year where race relations were front and center in the national debate.
Beyond its dramatic effects, the audio from 911 calls can provide the kind of context that is essential to the public's understanding of what happened during a newsworthy crime or emergency. Those recordings are, with few exceptions, a matter of public record. That almost changed this year in Iowa, where the state House passed ā unanimously ā a bill that would end the public's ability to access many 911 calls. The bill eventually died after an outcry from the media, watchdog groups and civil rights organizations, but it was not unusual. A months-long project by AP reporters and data journalists found more than 150 bills introduced in state legislatures this year that were intended to eliminate or limit public access to a wide range of government records and meetings.
To help reporters find, track and provide input on those bills, Serdar Tumgoren and Seth Rasmussen of the data team created a unique online tool that provided full access to AP customers.
Called the Sunshine Hub, it helps users keep track of legislative activity related to government transparency, suggest new bills, search for and categorize bills for research purposes, and discuss legislation with others. The Sunshine Hub directly complemented stories by Ryan Foley in Iowa, Andrew DeMillo in Arkansas and Laurie Kellman in Washington.
For their groundbreaking reporting and software development, Tumgoren, Rasmussen, Foley, DeMillo and Kellman win this week's Best of the States award.
AP reporting on energy policies in all 50 states led to an unexpected discovery: Roughly two-thirds of states in the U.S. plan to use nuclear power as an essential part of their plan to replace fossil fuels.
That resurgence in nuclear energy, despite its downsides, launched AP coverage of the latest nuclear technology and the impact on local communities, particularly those dependent on coal: a small Wyoming town replacing its coal plant with a nontraditional nuclear reactor by a Bill Gates-founded company, and a town in Colorado where coal is being phased out after generations, with no plans to replace it. āWe canāt recover from that,ā a former mayor told the AP.
The all-formats work showed the nationās struggles as it shifts energy sources to stave off the worst effects of climate change. And showcasing the APās 50-state footprint, a localization guide enabled APās customers to bring the debate home for their own audiences. The package played widely at home and abroad, from local papers to national news outlets.
For superior coverage bringing to light developments in energy policy across the country and the effects on people at a local level, the team ofJennifer McDermott, Brady McCombs, Mead Gruver, Patty Nieberg, Rick Bowmer, Elaine Thompson, Manuel Valdes and Natalie Behring is APās Best of the Week ā First Winner.
analyzed data showing that most states are not meeting the minimum level of coronavirus testing suggested by the U.S. government. In the absence of comprehensive federal data, AP calculated the monthly testing rate for each state, along with a separate review by AP state reporters, to find that only 40% of states currently meet the Trump administrationās testing threshold. Those that donāt include several that have been moving quickly to reopen their economies. And some states with infection hot spots are not testing at a higher rate recommended by Harvard University. https://bit.ly/3fpF7ud
When the Supreme Court allowed all states to offer betting on sports, some lawmakers across the country saw an opportunity: Here was a way to bolster state budgets with revenue from an activity that was already happening in the shadows. But an AP review showed that actual tax revenue has yet to match expectations in the majority of states that legalized sports gambling.
State government team reporter Geoff Mulvihill, based in New Jersey, and Rhode Island statehouse reporter Jennifer McDermott looked through monthly state revenue reports and then compared the tax revenue generated to the original estimates in the legislation that authorized sports betting. They found that in four of the six states that legalized it last year ā Rhode Island, West Virginia, Mississippi and Pennsylvania ā tax revenue was far below what the state had projected it would be.
The revenue story was the latest in a string of distinctive stories from reporters working the sports betting beat. Many of the stories, including the state revenue piece, have been accompanied by a data set compiled by Mulvihill that tracks every piece of legislation related to sports gambling. It is being made available to all AP customers who subscribe to our data distribution platform and has been promoted to local reporters as a way to add context to their stories.
For revealing the difference between lawmakersā promises on tax revenue and the reality, Mulvihill and McDermott win this weekās Best of the States prize.
AP reporter Michelle Smith was working on another project in June when she came up with the names of a dozen or so public health officials who had quit, retired or been fired. Sensing a trend, Smith and reporters at Kaiser Health News continued to track those departures as the pandemic worsened and the backlash against public health restrictions became more strident.
The journalists contacted officials in all 50 states and interviewed dozens of people, finding a public health leadership vacuum developing at a critical time in the pandemic. They told the stories of public servants who toiled through the pandemic only to be reviled by their neighbors — including the wrenching story of an official whose husband would not even follow her recommendation to require masks in the family store. The timely all-formats story included a data distribution, interactive graphics and a sidebar with portraits and quotes of public health officials.
For a deeply reported package that examines a vital component of the pandemic response, Smith, Anna Maria Barry-Jester, Hannah Recht and Lauren Weber earn this weekās Best of the States award.
reported exclusively on a string of racial slurs used by Louisiana State Police troopers, both in their official emails and spoken on the job, refuting the contention of the agencyās superintendent that the use of such demeaning language was just āisolated.āMustian reviewed hundreds of police records and found at least a dozen instances over a three-year period in which employees forwarded racist emails or demeaned minority colleagues with racist nicknames. He also exclusively obtained documents of an accidental āpocket-dialā of sorts in which a white trooper sent a voice mail to a Black trooper that blurted out his name and then a vile racist slur. The state police superintendent made an abrupt retirement announcement in the midst of Mustianās reporting, which follows weeks of his coverage on the still-unexplained death of Ronald Greene, a Black motorist taken into custody last year following a police chase. Reeves faced criticism for his secretive handling of the case, including the refusal to release body-cam video that, according to those who have seen it, shows troopers beating, choking and dragging Greene. The case is now the subject of a federal civil rights investigation. Mustianās story on the racial slurs received strong play, including on the front page of New Orleansā Times-Picayune/Advocate. https://bit.ly/34VHCkp
Itās no secret that the repeal and replacement of Obamacare could have a significant impact both on those holding insurance and on the finances of states that have embraced the health care law. But over the last few months, few details had emerged on what that precise impact might be.
In an āOnly on APā story, St. Paul, Minnesota, statehouse reporter Kyle Potter revealed that Minnesota officials were bracing for additional costs that could reach $6 billion by 2029 to maintain a low-income health care program that covers more than 900,000 state residents. For providing one of the first concrete glimpses into the possible ramifications states envision, Potter wins this week's Best of States recognition.
collaborated with Surgo Ventures, a health care information organization, to tell the story of how U.S, states that opened up vaccines to more people actually fared worse in the rollout than those that took a more methodical approach. The first-of-its-kind data analysis by AP gauged the success of all states in the vaccine rollout ā comparing states by their varying degrees of aggressiveness. Forster, a New York health and science data journalist, and Johnson, Seattle health and science reporter, found states that were most aggressive actually vaccinated a smaller share of their population than those that took a go-it-slow approach. The story also quoted real people about their struggles in getting shots. The result was a hit among customers, including front page play in the Chicago Tribune, the Atlanta Journal Constitution and Orlando Sentinel. https://bit.ly/3cha9F4
for breaking news on the unusual circumstances around $4.15 million in settlements for alleged victims of sexual harrassment by a former close ally of Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds. From a comprehensive records request and interviews, Foley learned that a lawyer for the women had sent a detailed ādemand letterā threatening a lawsuit days before the election and a promise to dig into the governorās association with the now-fired director of the Iowa Finance Authority. The state, Foley reported, agreed to settle immediately after receiving the letter. https://bit.ly/2EoXmxR
for getting photos of prison inmates moving furniture at the New Jersey statehouse and defending press freedom. Corrections officers erroneously told Catalini such photos are illegal and ordered him to remove the images from his phone. Catalini stood his ground and saved the images in his deleted photos folder. After receiving a letter from an AP lawyer, officials conceded the officers were wrong. AP had already moved the images. https://apnews.com/348a45a1135843468642d420be093de...
Georgia's centralized and aging election system has been the subject of several controversies ā most recently in June, when a whistleblower revealed that state contractors had failed to secure an important election server. Hackers could potentially have affected the results of both 2016 races and a special congressional election last June that drew national attention.
The Houston bureauās Frank Bajak wrote up the initial news of Georgiaās server problem. But that didn't answer the larger question of whether the vulnerable server had actually been hacked, so Bajak developed new sources and kept pressing for more information.
His efforts paid off when a source provided him with an email disclosing that the troubled server had been wiped clean of all data. Even more interesting, this destruction of evidence happened just a few days after a lawsuit was filed seeking a forensic examination of the server in an effort invalidate the state's vulnerable election technology.
For his enterprise and dogged pursuit of the story behind the story, Bajak wins this weekās Best of the States award.
scored yet another exclusive in his groundbreaking coverage of the death of Black motorist Ronald Greene in the custody of Louisiana state troopers, obtaining internal documents showing police brass still trying to blame Greeneās death on a car crash, more than a year and a half after they were aware of body camera footage showing troopers brutalizing the unarmed man.The agency sought to reduce its liability in Greeneās 2019 death despite footage showing troopers stunning, punching and dragging the unarmed man ā and one trooperās startling admission that he bashed him in the head with a flashlight, a use of deadly force not previously reported.Mustian's deeply reported story ā which had APās second-highest reader engagement for the week ā showed in startling detail how everyone from top brass to troopers on the scene were involved in trying to cover up or downplay their roles in Greeneās death. https://aplink.news/s7j
for patiently working with a source to provide an exclusive look at how Dominion Energy, Virginiaās biggest corporate campaign contributor, exerted its influence over members of both parties. http://bit.ly/2nT1MF7