for breaking the news that the leaders of the secretive Word of Faith Fellowship sect kept funds flowing to the church during the recession with a scheme that involved the filing of bogus unemployment claims. http://bit.ly/2gf4dPp
for a compelling package on the release of an ex-juvenile lifer from prison after 28 years and his remarkable meeting with his victimâs sister. http://bit.ly/2zhQp1F http://bit.ly/2iIBxPb http://bit.ly/2zupm0f
for reporting that a federal judge in Washington blocked President Donald Trump's controversial order excluding transgender people from the military. http://bit.ly/2xBl9X6
Georgia's centralized and aging election system has been the subject of several controversies â 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 bureauâs Frank Bajak wrote up the initial news of Georgiaâs 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 weekâs Best of the States award.
for negotiating exclusive access to gun-training in upstate New York by an LGBTQ group that is taking up arms in response to its fears of organized extremists and white supremacists. http://bit.ly/2y84S09
for getting an exclusive photo and interview with the lucky fan who managed to catch two home run balls in different cities during the National League Championship Series. http://bit.ly/2zcb5YX
for spearheading a nationwide effort by AP sportswriters to report on how universities with top basketball programs were responding to a federal corruption investigation of the sport. http://bit.ly/2yOl31X
It was the deadliest single attack in Somaliaâs history, and one of the worldâs worst in years.
When the massive blast occurred on Saturday, Oct. 14, Associated Press video journalist Mohamed Sheikh Nor was playing with his 10-month-old daughter at their home. He immediately knew it was not an average Mogadishu bombing.
He grabbed his wife and wailing daughter and, covered in dust, escaped unharmed. âOutside, we could see the explosion was close to us. It was just 70 steps away from our home.â
Recognizing the unprecedented force of the explosion in a city long targeted by the Islamic extremist rebels of al-Shabab, Sheikh Nor insisted to editors that the casualties would be well over 100. He and his AP colleagues hurried to the scene, where buildings had been mangled and overturned cars were ablaze. The all-formats team â comprising Sheikh Nor in video, AP photographer Farah Abdi Warsameh and AP text reporter Abdi Guled â delivered the first stunning images and stories of grief from the smoking scene. Their courageous, traumatic and heart-rending effort earns this weekâs Beat of the Week.
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.
The days leading up to Cataloniaâs independence referendum pointed toward trouble on the day of the vote. The autonomous region in northeast Spain was pushing ahead with the election despite the countryâs constitutional court ordering it to be stopped. In the weeks leading up to the vote, thousands took to the streets, demonstrating for and against independence. The election, set for Oct. 1, was sure to be a defining moment for the region and the country.
It also posed a challenge to those planning APâs visual report: How best to capture the expected chaos? How to navigate its major city, Barcelona, which would be flooded with demonstrators and police? How to get photographers and video journalists in the right positions, knowing they might be stuck there for hours?
These decisions fell to Emilio Morenatti, APâs chief photographer for Spain and Portugal. A longtime Barcelona resident, he anticipated those obstacles as he deployed APâs staff and freelance photographers.
The result was some 200 photographs that captured the violence and passion of a remarkable moment in Spanish history. For planning creatively, making smart in-the-moment decisions and risking personal safety, Morenatti and his team of photographers win this weekâs Beat of the Week.
"They kept us as slaves."
One man's tearful revelation to AP national investigative reporter Mitch Weiss helped unravel a horrible secret â the former congregant of the World of Faith Fellowship sect was among hundreds who'd been dispatched from the church's two Brazilian branches to the U.S., where many say they were forced to work for little or no pay and physically or verbally assaulted.
Dozens of former congregants told similar stories of abuse and exploitation in an exclusive AP multi-format story that earns Weiss, national investigative reporter Holbrook Mohr, and Peter Prengaman, news director in Rio de Janeiro, the Beat of the Week.
for their thoughtful look at the heroic efforts of the âLittle Rock Nineâ 60 years after they integrated Central High School in Arkansas, while reporting todayâs national data that details the lingering barriers of segregation. http://bit.ly/2xMcBPp
for an explanatory story that captured a bid by GOP governors to quietly enter the ânewsâ business by creating a news website without disclosing its link to the Republican Party. http://bit.ly/2fXsoSi
for analyzing census data to show that rising sea levels and fierce hurricanes have failed to stop relentless population growth in southwest Florida and south Texas in recent years. http://to.pbs.org/2fiXCX4
for an inside look at how Illinois high school officials and police confronted an honor-roll student about recording and sharing sexual images in the hours before he took his own life. http://wapo.st/2hjtNm0
Shootings in Chicago have captured national headlines, and for good reason: The city has among the highest rates of teenage gun violence in the nation. But where else in the U.S. are teenagers most likely to be killed or injured by gunfire? Baltimore, Detroit, Los Angeles?
In an exclusive analysis, journalists from the AP, working jointly with the USA Today Network, arrived at an unexpected answer: Except for Chicago, the places with the highest rates of teen gun violence in America are smaller and mid-sized cities â towns like Wilmington, Delaware, population 72,000.
AP data journalists Meghan Hoyer and Larry Fenn led the analysis of 3½ yearsâ worth of shooting cases provided by the nonprofit Gun Violence Archive. Baltimore reporter Juliet Linderman, with significant assists from Albany reporter Michael Hill and Savannah correspondent Russ Bynum, picked it up from there. Video journalist Allen Breed produced a powerful video that illustrates the danger and despair, along with the difficulties that WIlmington is having in addressing the problems. The package also was enhanced with graphics from interactives producer Maureen Linke.
For their work revealing a surprising side of teenage gun violence in America, state reporters Linderman, Bynum and Hill, video journalist Breed, data journalists Hoyer and Fenn, and graphic artist Linke share this weekâs Best of the States award.
for their illustrated explainer that looked at the many ways the trillions of gallons of water that Hurricane Harvey dumped on Texas will impact the region for years to come. https://www.apnews.com/fe0a07ce6fe94137a7e0a2e0cea...
Floodwaters from Harvey were still rising in the Houston area and APâs responsibilities to thoroughly cover breaking news developments across the region hadnât diminished, but already there was an appetite for investigative reporting on the disaster. An AP team from across the company quickly mobilized.
Among the early efforts was a package of stories, data, photos and an interactive revealing that fewer Americans, in the Houston area and nationally, were buying flood insurance than just five years ago, despite serious risks from flooding.
The stories relied on federal data analyzed by Meghan Hoyer and reporting from Business writers Bernard Condon and Ken Sweet in New York as well as staff writers Terry Spencer in south Florida, Michael Kunzelman in Baton Rouge and Jeff Donn in Boston, with an interactive national map of flood insurance policies by Maureen Linke in Washington.
For their efforts that produced exclusive content with relevance to national and local media, Hoyer, Spencer, Kunzelman, Sweet, Condon, Donn and Linke will share this weekâs Best of States award.
By the time the moon began to block the sun for millions of Americans on August 21, Marcia Dunn, Seth Borenstein, Gillian Flaccus, Marshall Ritzel and many others across the AP had told the world just about everything there was to know about the event with a series of text stories, photos, videos and animations organized and coordinated by Stephanie Nano and Raghu Vadarevu. Stories included what scientists were hoping to learn, what ancient peoples thought of eclipses, how to protect your eyes, how eclipses work, how businesses were taking advantage of the big day, and more.
For leading the effort on a sparkling package that made full use of the APâs national reach and expertise in all formats to explore a story of enormous national interest, this weekâs $300 Best of the States prize is shared by Dunn, Borenstein, Flaccus and Ritzel.
Sarah Rankin and Steve Helber were covering a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia when chaos broke out. The marchers and counter protesters â Rankinâs words â ââthrew punches, screamed, set off smoke bombs. They hurled water bottles, balloons of paint, containers full of urine. They unleashed chemical sprays. Some waved Confederate flags. Others burned them.ââ
Rankin and Helber were the first of many AP colleagues to cover the story, and their initial work paid off in significant ways.
