for breaking the news that Michigan State Universityâs response to the Nassar scandal prompted 150 Nassar victims to call for the interim presidentâs ouster. https://bit.ly/2KgxQRr
for reporting first that Michiganâs top education official decided to back away from issuing A-to-F letter grades for each public school in the state. http://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/loâŠ
As domestic production of oil has increased in recent years, Billings, Montana, Correspondent Matthew Brown closely followed derailments of trains carrying volatile crude. A train from North Dakota jumped the track, exploded and killed 47 people in Canada in 2013. In Brownâs own state, a derailment near the town of Culbertson spilled 27,000 gallons of oil in 2015. Last year, Brown reported that more than 800 potential safety violations were discovered on Union Pacific freight lines after a fiery June 2016 oil train derailment in Oregonâs Columbia River Gorge.
But Brown wanted to know how widespread the problem really was. By pushing repeatedly for public records and working with a longtime source, Brown was able to exclusively report the results of a two-year federal inspection program for the nationâs oil trains â and he revealed that some safety defects uncovered where similar to ones blamed in derailments that triggered huge fires or oil spills in Oregon, Virginia, Montana and elsewhere. For his AP NewsBreak, Brown wins this weekâs Best of the States award.
for obtaining documents detailing New York state's $3 million settlement with the family of a developmentally disabled boy who was repeatedly molested in a state group home, including the attacker's affidavit saying supervision was so lax "it was a predator's dream." http://abcn.ws/2lm7lIW
for revealing details of General Motorsâ behind-the-scenes push to get to state legislators -- some of them recipients of GM donations -- to adopt rules for self-driving cars that would benefit the company and shut out competitors. http://apne.ws/2lzBxlt
for reporting exclusively that a California inmate had become the first in the nation to receive state-funded sex reassignment surgery: http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/apnewsbre...
for capturing emotional images of Gov. Dannel Malloy announcing unexpectedly that he would not seek reelection. The photos widely used on membersâ front pages and websites http://bit.ly/2obtW1i
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
for exemplary journalistic craft in requesting records of the case of the car-and-knife attack at Ohio State after a grand jury had cleared the police officer who shot and killed the attacker. The request produced an APNewsBreak and previously unseen visuals. http://apne.ws/2qXaHpm
What happens when the state of Nevada announces it intends to use its own photographer to cover the parole hearing of O.J. Simpson, and exclude all others?
The Associated Press steps up, rallies the media and forces the state to backtrack. For their efforts to ensure news photo access to a high-profile story, the team of Stephanie Mullen, Ken Ritter and Tom Tait is awarded Beat of the Week.
Paul J. Weber, newsperson, Austin, and Eric Gay, photogapher, San Antonio, Texas, for documenting Texasâ quiet but sweeping funding cuts to the 2,300 impoverished border communities known as âcolonias,â and including 360-degree video. http://abcn.ws/2wMSFbI
for his report that a closed-down Penn State fraternity, where a pledge died from alleged alcohol-related hazing, was being put to new use by alums as a party house during weekend football games. http://bit.ly/2xgLrjO
for their quick, authoritative work in producing both text items and a rich multimedia experience for users as they fact-checked President Trumpâs claims during his State of the Union speech. http://bit.ly/2nsBvNO
The threat over her phone to Army wife Angela Ricketts was terrifying. âDear Angela!â it said. âBloody Valentineâs Day!â
âWe know everything about you, your husband and your children,â it continued, claiming that Islamic State militants had penetrated her computer. âWeâre much closer than you can even imagine.â
More than three years after Ricketts and four other military wives received this and other alarming messages, AP London-based cybersecurity reporter Raphael Satter unraveled the secret behind it all. Satter drew on a massive hit list of Russian hacking targets, focusing on a group of five women whose names were clustered together on the list. All reported having received death threats from a mysterious group calling itself CyberCaliphate back in 2015.
The threats were not from Middle Eastern terrorists at all, but hackers from the Russian group widely dubbed Fancy Bear â the same gang who later broke into the Democratic Partyâs emails and interfered in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
For revealing the latest wrinkle in the Russian hacking story, Satter earns the Beat of the Week.
for being first to report that a now-deceased Ohio State team doctor accused of sexual misconduct had ties to several other schools. https://trib.in/2yWgdRr
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.
Hurricane Harvey killed more than 80 people and triggered historic flooding in Houston and across large swaths of Texas. But it also sparked oil spills and gasoline shortages. Those presented major tests for the stateâs Railroad Commission, which, despite its peculiar name, actually regulates the energy industry â with historically lax enforcement.
So when the commissionâs executive director, Kim Corley, abruptly resigned, the timing and circumstances made Austin newsman Paul Weber curious. He began making calls and soon secured a tip: Corley had been on vacation and unreachable at the height of the Category 4 hurricane that walloped the industry she was paid $180,000 annually to safeguard.
For his exclusive on a hyper-competitive story, Weber wins this weekâs Best of the States award.
for getting out first word on the end of a siege by the Philippine army against Islamic State group militants who had occupied the city of Marawi. The assault killed two senior militant leaders. http://bit.ly/2yPQkSc
AP Portland, Oregon, reporter Gillian Flaccus has long followed a simmering issue in the Klamath River Basin, a swath of rural agricultural land in Northern California and southern Oregon that is ground zero for the fight over an increasingly precious resource in the American West: water. Amid extreme drought in the region, the U.S. government has stopped irrigation to hundreds of farmers for the first time in history, while Native American tribes along the 257-mile Klamath River are watching fish species hover closer to extinction. The farmers face ruin and tribes worry their culture will vanish.Flaccus has developed deep sources with area farmers as well as tribal members and recently spent nearly a week in the remote area with freelance photographer Nathan Howard documenting an issue that would have been unthinkable just a few years ago. Working with New York photo editor and digital storyteller Alyssa Goodman, they produced a sweeping, striking all-formats package that showed the pain on both sides as people begin to realize the water may not be coming back. The package was among APâs most-viewed stories for Friday. For immersive journalism that explores the human consequences of drought in the U.S. West, Flaccus, Howard and Goodman receive this weekâs Best of the States award.
for reporting that, despite a ban on using assets seized in criminal investigations to raise salaries for law enforcement, the federal government told the Virginia state government how to get around the rule. The resulting worker pay raises of up to 30 percent became the subject of a heated floor speech in the state Senate and a disapproving editorial. https://yhoo.it/2jRl90P