Best of the Week — First Winner

AP investigates Russia’s cover-up of deaths caused by dam explosion in Ukraine

More than six months after the explosion that destroyed the Kakhovka Dam in Ukraine’s Kherson region, an AP investigation by Samya Kullab and Ilia Novikov found that Russian occupation authorities vastly and deliberately undercounted the dead. The AP inquiry came the closest yet to revealing the real number of deaths Russia tried to hide from the dam’s destruction, which Ukrainians believe was carried out to hamper the Ukrainian counteroffensive across the Dnipro River. Russia has denied it was responsible.

AP Kyiv correspondent Kullab and news assistant Novikov were working on a different story about how residents of the affected town of Oleshky were returning slowly to Ukraine. During their reporting, a source told them of a mass grave. That sent Kullab and Novikov in a fresh direction, and the story of the hidden deaths developed from there. Eventually, the AP spoke to health workers, volunteers, residents and recent escapees who provided invaluable details. Instead of the 59 people Russian authorities said drowned in the territory they control, AP found the real number is at least in the hundreds in just one town.

For dogged pursuit of the facts and allowing victims and their survivors to be heard, Kullab and Novikov earn Best of the Week — First Winner.

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

No twerking. No drinking. No smoking. AP looks at a Christian nightclub in Nashville

Luis Henao and Jesse Wardarski on the religion beat produced an all-formats story that earned a massive response. They looked at a Christian nightclub in Nashville that’s drawing racially diverse crowds to dance parties featuring Christian rap and reggaeton, plus periodic interludes of prayer. Read more

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

America’s Catholic Church seeing shift toward more conservative ways

AP reports that some U.S. Catholic parishes are divided as a new generation seeks a more orthodox and traditional style of Catholicism.Read more

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

In far-flung countries worldwide, the ranks of nonbelievers are swelling

The AP “Nones” team, in a package encompassing a dozen countries on five continents, provided an unprecedented global look at the surge of religiously unaffiliated people, as well as the risks faced by nonbelievers in places where such an outlook remains taboo.Read more

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)

Coral wipeout: A global catastrophe that is barely getting any attention

for a deeply researched all-formats report showing the unprecedented global scale of coral destruction following the worst year of damage on record. http://time.com/4701776/global-warming-coral-reefs...

Best of the Week — First Winner

Three-ring scoop: Ringling Bros. folding its circus tent after 146 years

Last weekend, the greatest show at the AP was Tampa, Florida, reporter Tamara Lush’s exclusive. Drawing upon relationships she built over years with the company that owns the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, Lush was able to break the news: “The Greatest Show on Earth,” was folding up its tents after 146 years.

Circus owner Feld Entertainment approached Lush about what they said would be a scoop of “biblical” proportions. They reached out to her because of they knew and trusted her work.

Lush’s all-formats work earns the Beat of the Week.

Best of the States

Lie detectors trip up border agency applicants

San Diego correspondent Elliot Spagat was chatting with a longtime government source and she mentioned her son applied to Customs and Border Protection but was rejected after failing a polygraph test. She and her son were mystified by the result. Soon after, a member of Spagat’s running group – a military veteran with a stellar resume – told the same story of a failed Border Patrol test.

Intrigued, Spagat brought up the issue during a regular check-in call with an official involved in recruiting for the Border Patrol. The official told him the polygraph failure rate was very high. Spagat knew he was on to something and kept pressing, next talking to Border Patrol Commissioner Gil Kerlikowske, who gave him a failure rate – 65 percent.

But Kerlikowske didn’t see the number as a negative – it meant the agency was applying tough standards to find its officers. Still, a two-thirds failure rate struck Spagat as abnormal but how could he prove it? Comparable data was hard to find.

So Spagat set about creating it.

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Fearing Trump crackdown, “dreamers” advised to end travel

for an all-formats, multi-language story on advocates warning young illegal immigrants not to be out of the country when Donald Trump is sworn in as president for fear they may not be allowed back in. http://wapo.st/2gxFWBu

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Visit to South Sudan town exposes ethnic violence

for traveling to Yei, in the thick of simmering conflict, and getting unmatched text, photos and video of ethnic violence that is threatening to plunge the new country into a spiral that a U.N. envoy warned could be like genocide. http://www.mrt.com/news/world/article/Wave-of-ethn...

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

A rare cancer linked to parasites in raw fish is killing some Vietnam vets

for revealing that exposure to liver flukes in raw or poorly cooked river fish may be responsible for a type of bile duct cancer in Vietnam War veterans.

http://bit.ly/2f2tz2B

Best of the States

Jailed without a Judge: AP reporter tells the story of woman jailed for months without due process

Reporter Jeff Amy in Jackson, Mississippi, often combs through recent federal court decisions, upcoming cases and random filings. Every once in a while that produces a whopper of a story. The story of Jessica Jauch, who was jailed for 96 days in Mississippi without seeing a judge, getting a lawyer or having a chance to make bail, was the result of such legwork.

“Oh, my God,” he thought, as he pored over court documents that laid out, in great detail how Jauch was charged with a felony based on a secretly recorded video and how when she finally got a hearing and prosecutors watched the video _ in which she committed no crime _ the case fell apart.

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Chemical weapon for sale: China's unregulated narcotic

for their report about the ease with which one can buy the powerful opioid carfentanil online and have it sent all over the world from Chinese companies. http://apne.ws/2dzBMs0

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Just say no to Narcan? Heroin rescue efforts draw backlash

for his report showing a growing backlash in the U.S. over the cost of providing life-saving drugs ... http://apne.ws/2d4shmp

Best of the Week — First Winner

The first fully televised interview with Syrian President Bashar Assad

More than three years ago, Lebanon-Syria News Director Zeina Karam in Beirut began her quest to get an interview with Syrian President Bashar Assad.

Karam, along with AP’s longtime Damascus stringer Albert Aji, worked their sources, convincing reluctant Syrian officials about The Associated Press’ reach and significance. Last week, their work paid off: the first fully televised interview Assad has given to an international news agency, resulting in an exclusive, news-breaking all-formats package.

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Jewish avengers unapologetic for targeting Nazis after WWII

for getting documents about a group of Jewish “avengers” who poisoned more than 2,000 Nazis after World War II but did not succeed in killing any. http://apne.ws/2c11Nlx

Best of the Week — First Winner

4 Hours in Huntington: how the heroin epidemic choked a city

The scene, presented in the most vivid close-up, shows a paramedic frantically pushing an IV full of an opioid blocker into the vein of a woman turning blue and barely breathing. Then the radio squawks: Two more overdoses just reported. Where will Claire Galofaro’s riveting narrative go from here?

“The woman’s eyes blinked open” she writes next. Then: “Red lights on the phone at the 911 dispatch center flashed faster and faster until all 16 lines were screaming. They called from the dining room of a rickety house, the parking lot of a fast food restaurant, the bathroom of a gas station. `People are dying everywhere,’ one caller said.”

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Baylor's strict conduct code may have silenced rape victims

Jim Vertuno, reporter, Austin, Texas, for seizing on details in a report about sexual assault at Baylor University ...

Best of the Week — First Winner

A nightmare in South Sudan

The scene was nightmarish. Women and girls fleeing fighting in South Sudan had taken refuge in a United Nations camp. As fighting subsided, they ventured out in search of food, but just outside the camp, they were dragged off by soldiers and raped. Two died of their injuries. At least one attack was said to have occurred within sight of U.N. peacekeepers.

The details in Jason Patinkin’s only-on-AP story could not have been reported without getting into the camp – but the U.N. at first blocked journalists from entering. Demanding access along with other journalists – and winning – in the midst of already challenging coverage allowed Patinkin to produce an exclusive that prompted outrage around the world. It earns Beat of the Week.

Best of the Week — First Winner

As Olympics loom, violence flares in Rio's slums, even those termed ‘pacified’

Ahead of the Olympics, an AP team in Rio wanted a close look at the city's slums, which have long been plagued with violence, to learn whether high-profile community policing programs are working in areas deemed `pacified.' Braving gunfire in what is considered a no-go area for reporters, AP produced up-close, all-formats coverage showing deadly violence continues to flare.