for obtaining, through an open-records request, exclusive and surprising details about the man charged with killing two Iowa police officers on Nov. 2: He had written a letter days before the shootings referring to police as âabsolute heroes.â http://dmreg.co/2g0u3E8
Mulvihill broke the news that a record number of women had won their races for state legislative seats around the country, and Lieb gave a clear analysis of the results of gerrymandering in Pennsylvania and North Carolina.http://bit.ly/2RUzzLGhttp://bit.ly/2DNC4fB
used exhaustive data gathering and analysis, as well as interviews with experts and authorities across the country, to produce an exclusive, first-ever count that shows U.S. states barely using the much-touted âred flagâ laws that give them the power to take guns away from people who threaten to kill. The trend is traced to lack of awareness of the laws and outright resistance by some police to enforce them, even as shootings and gun deaths soar.Condonâs deeply reported story adds data and clarity to the debate over red flag laws, which are promoted as the most powerful tools available to prevent gun violence before it happens. But as the piece shows, such laws are only useful if they are actually enforced.Read more
teamed up to tally total opioid settlements in the U.S., then used the onset of that spending to anchor a story around families and others seeking a voice in how the money is used.State government reporter Mulvihill worked with data reporter Harjai to arrive at total settlements â proposed and finalized â of more than $40 billion so far, breaking it down by state. Mulvihill and Ohio reporter Hendrickson then sensitively interviewed advocates and affected loved ones on the front lines of loss, delivering a forward-looking story on how the settlement money might be spent and who gets a say in those decisions.Read more
teamed up on a revealing story about the influence of conspiracy theories on countless Republicans across the country. Election administration reporter Cassidy researched the âNebraska Election Integrity Forum,â determining the event was indeed part of the election conspiracy movement. Omaha reporter Beck and freelance photographer covered the event, engaging with attendees even as one prominent speaker complained about journalists who are âelection fraud deniers.âThe result was a comprehensive look at those who are continuing to peddle lies about the nationâs elections and the people who fervently believe those lies. The story also described how violence is woven into the conspiracies â from statements about civil war to calls for putting certain election officials before firing squads. The piece engaged readers online and landed on more than a dozen front pages.Read more
delivered an exclusive, deeply reported account of how the Department of Justiceâs biggest terrorism prosecution in years almost didn't happen. The case involves two alleged Islamic State militants dubbed âThe Beatles,â British citizens blamed for the jailing, torture and murder of Western hostages in Syria.Tucker spoke to roughly a dozen current and former U.S. and British officials â many of whom rarely, if ever, grant interviews â as well as relatives of slain hostages. The story broke news in several areas, revealing for the first time how grieving families reached a gradual consensus to take the death penalty off the table, a major sticking point. Tucker also reported the behind-the-scenes involvement of current and former FBI officials who encouraged the families to prod the administration into action, and never-before-seen email correspondence from a senior Justice Department official to one of the victimsâ relatives.https://bit.ly/3m1IcCOhttps://bit.ly/37Std99
A mother shot fatally shot in front of her 3-year-old son. A suspect killed while an officer tried to handcuff him. A Homeland Security agent was shot at a Texas high school by a U.S. marshal fumbling with equipment. These are among the more than 1,400 unintentional discharges found by Seattle reporter Martha Bellisle in an investigation that highlights the shortcomings of police weapons training.
No agency tracks how often local, state and federal officers accidentally fire their weapons. Over the course of more than a year, Bellisle exhaustively documented 1,422 unintentional discharges by 258 law enforcement agencies since 2012.
With contributions from colleagues in photo and video â including the story of an Iowa woman who was killed when an officerâs gun discharged, leaving her husband and children still scarred by the tragedy â the all-formats package received prominent play.
For an exclusive that sheds light on a virtually undocumented area of firearms safety, Bellisle earns this weekâs Best of the States award.
Investigative reporter Jim Mustian told the exclusive story of a female informant raped twice in an undercover drug sting after her law enforcement handlers left her alone and unmonitored â a case that revealed the perils such informants can face while seeking to âwork offâ criminal charges in often secretive arrangements.
Mustian spent weeks interviewing sources and obtaining confidential documents after receiving a tip about the incident which took place in central Louisiana early last year. His reporting showed authoritiesâ apparent disregard for the safety of the informant, while experts told him that such drug stings are conducted countless times a day across the country, but they are notoriously unregulated.
Mustianâs story was among the most-read stories of the week on AP News and earned prominent play by AP members and customers.
For deep reporting that exposed a horrific case and took a hard look at a common police practice, Mustian earns APâs Best of the Week â First Winner honors.
gained exclusive access to a tennis program in Californiaâs San Quentin State Prison, producing a distinctive enterprise piece on sports behind bars.Bay area sports writer McCauley, a former college tennis player, had been invited to play tennis with inmates and requested permission from prison authorities to write about the program, which pairs inmates with a player from the outside community. She and photographer VĂĄsquez were allowed into Californiaâs oldest prison twice â McCauley as a player and reporter, and VĂĄsquez to capture images of the program and the inmatesâ stories.The result was an engaging account of a sports program seeking to build a stronger sense of community among inmates, as well as the connections they forge with players from the outside the prison.Read more
for capturing exclusive video of a police van ramming into protesters. Calupitan was able to get to a higher vantage point as tensions rose, allowing him to show the full view of the incident.
AP reporters from three different teams broke distinctive, significant stories on the continuing drug overdose crisis in the U.S., which has been overshadowed this year by the coronavirus pandemic:
— A state-level report showing that overdose deaths are on pace to reach an all-time high this year, and that overdoses increased after the virus began spreading in the U.S.— An accountability story on President Donald Trumpâs handling of the opioid crisis, and how the issue has been overlooked in the presidential race.— A major scoop on a settlement between the federal government and Purdue Pharma, complete with details of criminal charges and the $8 billion settlement.
But the depth of coverage didnât end with the major news beats. All three stories put victims at the center of the reporting.
For revealing stories that broke news and provided a powerful reminder of an ongoing epidemic that has contributed to the deaths of more than 470,000 Americans, Mike Stobbe, Adrian Sainz, Farnoush Amiri, Geoff Mulvihill, Meghan Hoyer and Michael Balsamo win this weekâs Best of the States award.
for gaining unprecedented access to a meeting at Washington stateâs 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
joined forces to reveal how religious lobbying across the U.S. has protected a loophole that exempts clergy from reporting child abuse if the abuse is revealed in a spiritual setting. The subject had surfaced in Rezendesâ August investigation into the mishandling and coverup of child sex abuse cases by the Mormon church.The investigative reporters found similar dynamics playing out in all 33 states that have the loophole: The Catholic and Mormon churches, and the Jehovahâs Witnesses successfully defeated more than 130 bills seeking to create or amend child sex abuse reporting laws.APâs reporting brought attention to the loophole and prompted at least one state lawmaker to say he would introduce a bill to close the exemption.Read more
teamed up to obtain exclusive video of police confronting a beheading suspect outside Paris.
Macpherson, senior field producer, Paris, was coordinating video coverage Saturday after the horrific news that a teacher had been beheaded the previous day. She was working with AP freelance video journalist Patrick Hermansen, who had been sending live video all morning outside the school where teacher Samuel Paty had held a class discussion about the Charlie Hebdo-published caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed.
Juggling live and edited coverage, Macpherson saw that phone video had surfaced in local French media, shot from a home, on which police can be heard screaming at the beheading suspect to throw down his weapon and get down. A short time later, you can hear, but not see, police shooting the man and killing him.
Macpherson knew instinctively that our best chance to get this video was through old-fashioned shoe leather reporting. She had Hermansen stop everything he was doing to try to pinpoint the the house from which the amateur video was shot. Going house-to-house, Hermansen eventually found the the right one and put the owner of the video on the phone with Macpherson, where they negotiated an agency exclusive for AP.
Dozens of customers used the exclusive video, including some key clients such as EuroNews, Sky News, Al Jazeera and Russia Today. https://bit.ly/3jiJAzghttps://bit.ly/2ITiz9r
mobilized on July Fourth to deliver fast, multiformat coverage of the mass shooting at a parade in Highland Park, Illinois, that ultimately resulted in seven deaths and dozens wounded. Local and regional staffers responded quickly with all-formats coverage in the Chicago suburb while colleagues across the U.S. and into Mexico stepped in to assist with reporting, writing and editing.Mondayâs efforts laid the groundwork for coverage in the days that followed, including more breaking news updates, victim profiles, a narrative on how the events unfolded, explainers, an investigative piece on how the suspect was able to get weapons despite Illinoisâ red flag law and more.The mainbar story trended near the top on AP platforms for much of the week and made the front page of newspapers across the country.Read more
for telling the story on Penn Stateâs âSquirrel Whispererâ with a video that became the top download of the year for AP Video US.
Text: http://wapo.st/2haE0n0
Video: http://apne.ws/2hhhlWc
set out to document ways students with disabilities are excluded from the classroom â and from learning. Their reporting led to advocates who described working with families whose children were essentially kept out of school, with none of the records that come with formal suspensions. The families claimed their schools couldnât or wouldnât accommodate their studentsâ disabilities â a violation of federal law â and said the practice had gotten worse during the pandemic.Ma, race and ethnicity reporter in Washington, partnered with Kolodner, of the nonprofit Hechinger Report, who had been pursuing the same topic. Together, they interviewed 20 families in 10 states, and a top Department of Education official. Read more
With extensive preparation ahead of the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade, the AP moved at lightning speed, covering the historic ruling comprehensively in all formats. Months of meticulous planning and prep work paid off when the courtâs opinion came down Friday morning, enabling AP to get the word out ahead of the competition and then deploy teams of journalists to capture reaction and the broader ramifications of the ruling.
Countless AP journalists in Washington and around the country delivered spot and enterprise coverage in all formats, including live and edited video, insightful analysis, striking photos, state-by-state updates and the stories of people on both sides of the abortion issue.
For exemplifying the news cooperative at its best, covering a pivotal moment with far-reaching consequences for American society, AP recognizes journalists Mark Sherman, Jessica Gresko, Jacquelyn Martin, Steve Helber, Gemunu Amarasinghe, J. Scott Applewhite, Andrew Harnik, Rick Gentilo, Dan Huff, Nathan Ellgren, Mike Pesoli, Kimberlee Kruesi, Lindsay Whitehurst, John Hanna, Matt Sedensky, David Goldman, Rogelio Solis, Rick Bowmer, Eric Gay, Alex Connor, Kevin Vineys and colleagues throughout the organization with Best of the Week â First Winner honors.
An exclusive analysis conducted for AP showed that in the shadow of the pandemic, a quiet surge in non-COVID âexcess deathsâ in U.S. nursing homes could top 40,000 above and beyond what is normal.
To find out why, the AP team of reporters Matt Sedensky and Bernard Condon, with video journalist Allen Breed and colleagues, interviewed nursing home authorities and family members, documenting severe cases of neglect and prolonged isolation for residents not infected with the virus, much of it due to chronic understaffing. The text story and video piece received prominent play and were among the most widely viewed on the AP News app on the day of publication.
For exposing a grim consequence of the pandemic affecting an already vulnerable population, the team of Sedensky, Condon and Breed earns this weekâs Best of the States award.
took the lead in obtaining and analyzing public records that disclosed state coronavirus-related spending that had largely been kept from the public. The reporters filed Freedom of Information Act requests in all 50 states seeking purchase order records to determine how much was being spent on what items, which suppliers the states were using and how the spending compared across the states.The findings revealed that overall the states spent at least $7 billion on medical gear in the first few months of the pandemic, a massive amount that had not been reported until APâs investigation. Even lawmakers in most states did not know the scope of spending, much of which was inflated by competition between states and huge price markups for routine items.The project reflected a signature goal of the AP news department this year: to âconnect the dotsâ across the states for our U.S. customers in a way that only AP can. After months spent analyzing the state-by-state information, the data team made all the information available in an easy-to-use format for AP members and for our own state reporters. In addition to the national stories, more than a dozen AP reporters wrote state sidebars, receiving prominent play online and in print. https://bit.ly/37HJS07
