for their diverse, visual vignettes package on President Trump’s first 100 days featuring excerpts of letters written to the president by people the reporters had previously interviewed for stories about Trump’s America. http://apne.ws/2qINl6f
for being first to identify the man who had arranged shipment of a giant rabbit that died after flying United from Britain to the U.S. http://apne.ws/2p1kWfz
Ezra Kaplan, legislative relief reporter, Atlanta, for his exclusive look into how one state lawmaker is running and funding an underground cannabis distribution network in Georgia. http://apne.ws/2oOZ07h
for a data analysis that found that non-whites are targeted by the Boston police at rates that far outstrip the percentages these minorities represent in the city's population. http://bit.ly/2pJqcSc
for revealing that the head of a pet agency created by the governor had contracted to spend $208,000 on professional memberships and subscriptions during the state’s budget crisis. http://bit.ly/2pgr56y
for a strong text, photo and video package documenting the fears in the agricultural industry that aggressive immigration enforcement will hurt workers and the producers’ bottom line. http://bit.ly/2pcv5BX
The last of four executions carried out by Arkansas in April highlighted concerns about the drug midazolam. The sedative has been adopted by many states in recent years as part of their lethal injection protocol in place of barbiturates and anesthetics no longer available because manufacturers don't want them used in executions.
How did that midazolam execution compare to others, some in other states, where problems were alleged?
It was a question the AP – with its nationwide profile – was uniquely positioned to answer. For its depth of coverage, the multi-state AP team wins this week's Best of States award.
AP’s race and ethnicity beat writer Jesse J. Holland was on vacation in Mississippi when a source called with a tip: New Orleans’ mayor was ordering the removal of the first of four Confederate-related statues in the middle of the night to avoid a racially-charged scene in the city.
Holland’s quick work to negotiate an exclusive on the monument’s removal, including an interview with the mayor, and photographer Gerald Herbert’s dramatic pre-dawn photos and video, earn the Beat of the Week.
for reporting exclusively that business is booming for Ivanka Trump, the brand – with sales surging and new trademarks being filed around the world even as the first daughter, now working for her father in the White House, tries to separate from the brand to avoid conflicts of interest. https://apnews.com/d9e34f23a64947d99e4a7d757012c50...
for scoring print and online exclusives, plus photos, on the last orca to be bred in captivity at SeaWorld after the theme park announced it is ending its killer whale breeding program. https://apnews.com/6283ed51eeab4b9c92e27ce4d94cf2e...
for detailing a devastating but little-known outgrowth of the housing crisis: Deed-theft scams that trick mostly elderly and vulnerable people into signing over title to their homes, typically in gentrifying areas, leaving them homeless or facing years of legal wrangling to undo the fraud. http://apne.ws/2oERZ4U
for revealing that Dow Chemical pushed the federal government to ignore the findings of federal scientists who point to a family of widely used pesticides as harmful to about 1,800 critically threatened or endangered species. https://www.apnews.com/a29073ecef9b4841b2e6cca0720...
for a months-long investigation showing Peru’s government undermining efforts to clean up its notoriously corrupt timber industry, reneging on obligations to combat illegal logging enumerated in a 2006 trade pact with the U.S. https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3673713-Mi...
for an AP investigation that for the first time brought to light a series of questionable decisions that nearly brought disaster to California communities downstream of the nation's tallest dam. https://apnews.com/0a4b46c359444c58918ad374f7cd3d2...
for a widely played second installment of the series, Trump Country. The AP journalists got the people of Androscoggin County, Maine, a community revived by refugees, to open up about the anti-immigrant fervor that helped elect Donald Trump, who carried the county. https://apnews.com/7f2b534b80674596875980b9b6e701c...
for an exclusive one-on-one interview in which former NBA star Kevin Garnett gave AP exclusive details about his anger with the Minnesota Timberwolves owner and described his foray into TV, leading to a pair of widely used and credited stories. https://apnews.com/bcd39c3988a84e288bda5c7b7ae5c5c...
for risking gunfire, tear gas and police arrest to bring to the world images of the anti-government unrest roiling Venezuela for the past three weeks. https://www.apnews.com/95fa53c88382410da… http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/ap/arti…
for digging into campaign finance records to reveal how the liquor industry contributes to powerful politicians in the state, who in turn protect an arcane system of laws about who can sell beer and even how cold or warm it is. http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/mid...
In February, Arkansas announced a series of April executions that, if carried out, would make history in the United States: Over an 11-day period, the state would put to death eight inmates – two each on four days. No state had performed so many executions in such a short time since the Supreme Court re-instated the death penalty in 1976.
And Arkansas, which had not carried out an execution since 2005, had a curious justification for the expedited timetable: the supply of one of its three execution drugs was expiring at the end of the month. Officials were not confident they could obtain more.
Weeks before the first planned execution, a team of AP journalists in Arkansas and beyond set out to both chronicle the executions and offer deep and varied enterprise that broke news. Their work earns this week's Best of States award.
It was supposed to be a 15-minute interview. Instead, Associated Press Chief White House Correspondent Julie Pace kept President Donald Trump talking for an hour in a wide-ranging Oval Office discussion that was exclusive, illuminating and full of news.
Pace's sit-down with the president – resulting in multiple stories that others scrambled to follow and a transcript that readers devoured despite its 8,000-word length – earns the Beat of the Week.
