broke the news that the U.S. attorney in Massachusetts would resign after an inspector general’s investigation uncovered serious misconduct through extensive and intrepid source work, preparation and reporting.Read more.
AP, cultivating sources on a highly competitive beat, broke two major Statehouse stories: an armed man came to the Wisconsin Capitol twice looking for the governor, and on Friday after 5 p.m. a state Supreme Court justice being targeted for impeachment if she heard a redistricting case decided not to recuse and cast the deciding vote for the court to hear it.
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Longtime cultivation of a source paid off with the AP getting exclusive access to an important new study that provided insight into how the federal justice system handles terrorism cases.Read more
AP covered a highly anticipated Justice Department report into the Robb Elementary School shooting that promised to address a question that continues to stoke outrage nearly two years later: Why did Texas police wait more than an hour to confront the gunman inside a fourth-grade classroom?Read more
The expertise of AP’s team and detailed advanced planning allowed the AP to dominate coverage of oral arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court in a case to determine whether Donald Trump can remain on the ballot.Read more
The AP used audio recordings, legal documents, email exchanges and interviews to reveal how a senior official in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints helped keep quiet the case of a former bishop in the church who was accused of sexually abusing his daughter.Read more
AP visual journalists in the Mexican town of Taxco for an annual Holy Week procession pivoted quickly to cover the brutal mob killing of a woman allegedly involved in the abduction and killing of a young girl.Read more
AP’s team in The Hague dominated coverage of the International Court of Justice hearings into South Africa’s accusation that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinians, thanks to expertise in international law and solid planning across continents.
Across two intense days and under close global scrutiny, AP’s team explored and explained the hearings into accusations that Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. Expertise in international law, knowledge of sensitive geopolitics and solid planning and coordination across continents contributed to AP’s showing.
AP’s coverage was front and center on customer websites and broadcasts around the world for two days straight. AP ran more than a dozen videos of the hearings and protests and reactions around the world. Video edits from The Hague alone scored more than 5,000 hits, and the live coverage over two days earned a staggering 3,300 hits. The top five videos on APNews on Jan. 11 were all from The Hague. The text stories with photos were among the top stories viewed both by customers and online. The New York Times was among customers featuring all formats of AP coverage on its website as the hearings unfolded.
For teaming up to tell the story of a case at The Hague that struck at the heart of Israel’s national identity, Corder, Furtula, Carlson and Casert share Best of the Week — First Winner.
An AP team highlighted the disproportionate effect of cash bail as a condition of pretrial release on people of color ahead of Illinois’ historic elimination of the system through stories of residents who lost jobs, homes and time with young children due to being unable to afford bail amounts.Read more
got rare access to a neighborhood in Port-au-Prince, Haiti’s capital, where vigilantes are striking back at gang members with brutal street justice.Read more.
secured rare access inside the federal jail in Manhattan where Jeffrey Epstein killed himself, reporting first-hand about the structural mess and squalid conditions. The AP pair had previously reported that the infamous Metropolitan Correctional Center, built in the 1970s, is slated for at least temporary closure. Still, they wanted more.Previous requests had been denied, but Balsamo and Sisak relied on years of deep source work and weeks of negotiations with the Justice Department and the BOP, finally winning access inside the MCC in Manhattan and the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, where a majority of the inmates will be moved.Balsamo, AP’s lead Justice Department reporter who was the first journalist to cover the resumption of federal executions, came away from MCC with details like: “One cell is off-limits because the door is now unstable — likely because of the constant pounding over the years from the prisoners inside on the cinder block walls.” New York-based law enforcement reporter Sisak also reviewed hundreds of pages of court documents and judicial orders that detailed the conditions inmates had faced and researched the history of the building.The result was a vividly written and reported exclusive unmatched by any other news agency. The story was picked up by New York media and news outlets across the country. https://aplink.news/xck
examined serious flaws in state crime victims’ compensation programs that exposed deep racial disparities across states.Read more.
uncovered the data behind some of the most influential artificial intelligence tools used in child welfare cases and showed they specifically flag whether parents have disabilities.Read more.
used strong sourcing and teamwork to break the news that Justice Department officials in Washington had taken over the public corruption investigation into the Texas state attorney general and that the local prosecuting office that had led the probe for years had been recused.Read more.
immediately reached out to state and county officials in Georgia to find out if they had also received subpoenas and was told they had not. She filed open records requests with state and local governments and was told there were no records to provide. But she stayed on it. The extra effort paid off. Nearly a week into her reporting, a source called to say that Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensberger got a subpoena that day. Brumback immediately prepared a story while her source sent her the actual subpoena. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution credited the AP in describing the effort to compel Raffensberger’s cooperation.
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"The drug war is a game,” José Irizarry told two AP reporters during his final moments of freedom. “It was a very fun game that we were playing.”
Irizarry’s decision to spend some of his last few hours before beginning a 12-year federal prison sentence with two AP reporters in early 2022 was a moment years in the making that yielded a bombshell bacchanal of a story -- itself months in the making.
Four years ago, just before starting at The Associated Press, New York-based investigative reporter Jim Mustian received a tip about a DEA investigation into one of the agency’s own agents in Colombia. That spiraled into a string of AP scoops by Mustian and Miami-based Latin America correspondent Joshua Goodman on DEA corruption in Latin America, including an exclusive on the arrest of that agent. Irizarry had been accused of conspiring with Colombian drug cartels to divert millions from DEA money laundering stings in what prosecutors called one of the worst betrayals in DEA history.
For a deeply reported and compelling investigation, telling the tale of a former war-on-drugs warrior who crossed multiple boundaries, Mustian and Goodman earn AP’s Best of the Week — First Winner honors.
used planning and preparation — and worked through the night — to put AP ahead on the Justice Department document that alleged efforts to obstruct the investigation of classified documents kept at former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate.When the nearly 40-page document landed after 11 p.m. Tuesday night, Washington reporters Tucker, Colvin and Balsamo quickly identified the newsiest, most salient points and filed an alert just minutes after the document had dropped, then followed with a textured, detailed story that moved before competitors had even published their own alerts. Kesten provided lightning-fast editing and filing, and photo editor Elswick expedited a key evidence photo.Read more
It was in mid-July when Las Vegas reporters Rio Yamat and Ken Ritter began working their sources, after the police raided the home of a suspect in connection with an investigation into the 1996 killing of rapper Tupac Shakur. The result months later was a super scoop on a riveting story nearly three decades in the making.
Through their deep and extensive sourcing in law enforcement and criminal justice, Yamat and Ritter sought to penetrate a grand jury case shrouded in secrecy. For months, they regularly contacted everyone who was likely involved. It all paid off when they learned they should prepare for an indictment in mid-September. From there, it was a lesson in patience and persistence.
After months where Yamat and Ritter attended court hearings and drafted prep for a potential break, Yamat began hearing rumblings an indictment was imminent. She and Ritter were able to nail down the next morning from multiple sources with firsthand knowledge that Duane “Keffe D” Davis had been taken into custody on suspicion of murder in Tupac's killing.
They broke the news at 9:27 a.m. PDT. The alert published 93 minutes before the court convened for grand jury returns when the indictment would be made public.
For dogged reporting and deep source work that allowed AP to dominate a story that’s mystified fans for decades, Yamat and Ritter are this week’s Best of the Week — First Winner.
AP’s team coverage led the pack for the three-week Kyle Rittenhouse trial — including word of Rittenhouse’s full acquittal in the killing of two protesters and wounding of a third in Kenosha, Wisconsin — thanks to smart, detailed planning and deep knowledge cultivated throughout the proceedings.
The foundation of the coverage was the daily testimony, but following a blueprint laid down during earlier coverage of the Derek Chauvin trial in Minneapolis, it was the spinoff coverage, starting weeks ahead of the trial and carrying through after the verdict, that was key. A multiformat team of journalists delivered more than a dozen AP Explainers, enterprise pieces and video debriefings that went deeper into what was happening in court — and in some cases anticipated developments in the case.
The expansive team coverage figured prominently among AP’s top stories throughout the trial. AP’s explainer on the charges against the teenager remained at the top of Google’s “Rittenhouse” search results, placement that drove some 3.5 million pageviews on AP News before and after the verdict.
For comprehensive, speedy and illuminating coverage of a trial that riveted the country, the Kyle Rittenhouse trial team earns AP’s Best of the Week — First Winner.
deconstructed how the Louisiana State Police scandal of beatings and cover-ups could have gone on for so long, digging deeper into the institutional thinking of the agency, its history and the background of key figures. They interviewed dozens of current and former troopers and uncovered thousands of pages of documents that described an entrenched culture of impunity, nepotism and in some cases outright racism.This story, the latest in their investigative series stemming from the deadly 2019 arrest of Black motorist Ronald Greene, was built around a father who rose to second in command of the state agency despite being reprimanded for racist behavior, and his son who became one of the state police’s most violent troopers — with the brunt of his use of force directed at Black people.Mustian and Bleiberg, federal law enforcement reporters, also had never-before-reported details of a 2019 cheating scandal in the state police academy that targeted the entire class for dismissal. In the end, nearly everyone in the class was allowed to graduate. And they conducted a revealing interview with the head of the state police in which he admitted he doesn’t know how many other cases like Ronald Greene’s could still be out there because “we’ve not looked at every video.”The story, accompanied by video and photos by multiformat journalist Allen Breed, added to calls for a federal investigation, and Louisiana lawmakers created a special committee to dig into reports of excessive force. The piece also resonated with readers, scoring strong play online and ranking as one of the most-engaged stories of the week.https://aplink.news/3zuhttps://aplink.video/ysmhttps://aplink.news/xda
