Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP Exclusive: Manafort firm received Ukraine ledger payout

for breaking the news that a firm headed by Paul Manafort, President Donald Trump's former campaign manager, received more than $1.2 million in payments that match a Ukrainian ledger that investigators say reflect off-the-books payments from a pro-Russia political party. They also broke the news that Manafort will register with the Justice Department as a foreign agent for lobbying work he did years ago on behalf of political interests in Ukraine. http://abcn.ws/2otpOWd

Best of the Week — First Winner

Cuba mystery deepens: AP first with details of 'health attacks' against US diplomats

When news first broke in early August about mysterious incidents involving U.S. diplomats in Cuba, the AP was all over the story, beating the competition to several key early details. These included talk among officials about a possible “sonic attack” and suspicions that ranged from Cuban culpability to possible intervention by an outside culprit like Russia.

But so many questions were left unanswered. And with the FBI deep into one of the most perplexing investigations in modern diplomatic history, U.S. officials in the State Department, White House and elsewhere were saying as little as possible about what they were learning.

That’s when the Washington bureau put together a multi-beat team of reporters to try to put the pieces together. Their comprehensive work wins Beat of the Week.

Best of the Week — First Winner

Deep reporting, startling images reveal shaky faith and depths of despair in Trump Country

It’s a difficult thing, interviewing people about their desolation. But an Associated Press team went to Grays Harbor County, Washington, and came away with a deeply reported portrait of a place that had voted Democrat in every presidential election since 1932, but placed a bet on Donald Trump in November as its rescuer from addiction and economic malaise.

Sensitively and penetratingly, the team of Claire Galofaro, David Goldman and Martha Irvine used text, photos and video to tell the tale of an old logging county that “answered Donald Trump's call to the country's forgotten corners.” A half-year into the Republican’s term, they found varying degrees of faith in his ability to make a difference in their lives.

The latest installment in the AP’s Trump Country series is the Beat of the Week.

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP gets exclusive access to Sessions amid scathing criticism from Trump

for source development work that resulted in AP obtaining exclusive reaction from U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions during the week in which Sessions received scathing, public criticism from President Donald Trump. Gurman was the only text reporter accompanying Sessions on a trip to El Salvador. http://bit.ly/2vxEvxX http://bit.ly/2vxuVex

Best of the Week — First Winner

'They kept us as slaves': AP Exclusive reveals abuse claims against church

"They kept us as slaves."

One man's tearful revelation to AP national investigative reporter Mitch Weiss helped unravel a horrible secret – 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.

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Few answers in study-abroad student deaths

for a New Delhi-datelined investigation that uncovered a systematic lack of transparency in the multibillion-dollar study abroad industry. http://bit.ly/2uXFzsm

Best of the Week — First Winner

How Sri Lanka let U.N. peacekeepers get away with sexual abuse in Haiti

When The Associated Press last year started to look into the issue of sexual abuse by U.N. peacekeepers, one finding was a leaked investigative report detailing how a group of 134 Sri Lankan peacekeepers preyed upon young Haitian children in a sex ring that lasted for three years. Beyond that was another startling find: The U.N. accepted a Sri Lankan general who was accused of being a war criminal to lead the investigation of another rape in the Caribbean country.

AP’s Katy Daigle traveled to Sri Lanka to score a rare, extended interview with Maj. Gen. Jagath Dias and question him about his role – and to press government and military officials on how they'd followed up on the allegations. In London, meanwhile, investigative reporter Paisley Dodds was tipped by sources to a State Department memo on the WikiLeaks site in which a former U.S. ambassador to Sri Lanka raised concerns that that country’s military and government were complicit in war crimes during the 26-year civil war.

Their disclosures earn the Beat of the Week.

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Face-to-face interview with computer whiz who halted WannaCry virus

for scoring the only face-to-face interview with the computer whiz credited with halting the WannaCry virus that crippled systems in 150 countries. http://apne.ws/2qXE2mg

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

How money and clout protect quirky cold beer laws and liquor vendors in Indiana

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...

Best of the Week — First Winner

Must-read stories: UN sex abuse, El Faro sinking share Beat of the Week honors

The stories could not be more different. One revealed that United Nations peacekeepers had been accused of thousands of instances of sexual abuse over 12 years. The other recounted the last hours of a doomed freighter and its crew, as they sailed into a hurricane.

But both of these AP stories – by Paisley Dodds and Jason Dearen, respectively – drew extraordinary notice, captivating readers in a busy news week. And in a departure from usual practice, the two contrasting stories, a hard-hitting investigation and a powerful narrative, are being recognized as co-winners of the Beat of the Week.

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Scoop on DC schools chancellor censure follows AP’s exclusive digging

for being first to report that DC Schools Chancellor Kaya Henderson was censured for violating the school system’s code of conduct; the development followed earlier reporting by Nuckols revealing Henderson had asked vendors for contributions in violation of ethics rules. http://wapo.st/2geLnXj

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Red Bull heir accused in fatal hit-and-run has been living jet-set life for 4 years

for a detailed examination of one of Thailand's most notorious criminal cases, revealing that the Red Bull heir accused in a fatal hit-and-run has been living the high life around the world since shortly after the crash four years ago. The story served as fresh evidence for critics of Thailand's court system who say the rich and powerful get their own form of justice. http://apne.ws/2p9EMAM

Best of the States

Fight for access leads to Porter's breaking news in Bridgegate case

The Associated Press has been working for more than a year with a group of media organizations to lobby the federal court system in New Jersey to release pre-sentencing memos in criminal court cases to pull back the veil on what goes into judge’s sentencing decisions.

With two former allies of Gov. Chris Christie convicted in the Bridgegate case set to find out their fates last week, New Jersey law enforcement reporter David Porter was done waiting.

For his work collaborating with AP members in New Jersey to fight for public access to the memos and then being the first to report on them, Porter wins this week’s Best of the States award.

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Trump transition knew Flynn might register as foreign agent

for breaking the story that President Donald Trump's former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, was quietly acknowledging to the Justice Department that he had been paid $530,000 for lobbying up to Election Day on behalf of Turkey's government.

Best of the Week — First Winner

​Ex-sect members tell AP that prosecutors obstructed abuse cases

It’s one of the most important lessons of investigative journalism: One good story can lead to another. Don’t give up after the first round. Keep digging.

That’s what Mitch Weiss of the national investigative team did after his explosive first story on the Word of Faith Fellowship. His follow-up story earns the Beat of the Week.

It took Weiss many months to persuade 43 former members of the Fellowship to open up – on the record and identified – with stories of adults and children being slapped, punched, choked and slammed to the floor in the name of the Lord. But getting so many of the reluctant ex-congregants to talk was only the start of his journalistic journey.

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP first to report water lead-level drops below federal limit in Flint

or being first to report that Flint’s water system is no longer exceeding the federal limit for lead, more than 15 months after the city’s water crisis exploded. http://bit.ly/2jCDuMn

Best of the Week — First Winner

Inaugural images: Talent and tech combine in sweeping, instant photo coverage

Remember these images from the Inauguration: The new first couple dancing across a giant presidential seal at a ball? Faces in the crowd cheering or crying in the rain? The instant when Donald Trump took in the scene through an opening door before stepping onto the podium to become the 45th U.S. president?

Credit for those signature images, which appeared across the globe almost as they happened, goes to the skill and artistry of a hand-picked team of AP photographers and photo editors – and also to the cutting-edge, behind-the-scenes efforts of AP technicians working hand-in-hand with them to cover the intensely competitive event.

Their extraordinary work, a stream of 2,000 photos sent from daybreak until well after midnight, earns the Beat of the Week.

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Costs have more than doubled to overhaul California prison medical records

for reporting that the cost of California's project to modernize its prison medical records system has ballooned to nearly $400 million and is years behind schedule. http://abcn.ws/2hqvFZU

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Innocent suspects face terrible choice: Plead guilty or risk life in prison

for using data and shoe-leather reporting to spotlight a terrible choice faced by many innocent people in a judicial system full of overworked defense lawyers and expedient judges and prosecutors: Plead guilty or risk going to prison for life. Last year, they found, 68 of 157 exonerations were in cases in which the defendant had pleaded guilty after facing that choice. http://apne.ws/2fVEf1O

Best of the States

Innocent suspects face terrible choice: plead guilty or risk life in prison

It’s hard to imagine why anyone would plead guilty to a crime they didn’t commit. But as Richmond-based reporter Alanna Durkin Richer and Miami legal affairs reporter Curt Anderson found, it happens more often than you might think.

Digging through publicly available data on exonerations, they found alarming statistics: More than 300 of the roughly 1,900 people who have been exonerated in the U.S. since 1989 pleaded guilty. So Richer and Anderson set out to explain why anyone would plead guilty to a crime he or she didn’t commit ...