for an exclusive sit-down interview with novelist Michael Peterson the day before he entered a plea ending the 15-year murder case against him. http://bit.ly/2mqwLKe http://apne.ws/2m533K9
for getting exclusive access to a Brazil penitentiary where the country’s worst prison massacre in 25 years happened, and for obtaining the results of an investigative probe. http://apne.ws/2llQMgo
for getting hold of a report from the Department of Homeland Security’s intelligence arm that concluded citizenship was an inadequate indicator to use for a travel ban to keep out people who may pose a threat of violent attacks. http://trib.in/2kVAsaO
for obtaining a draft proposal from Republican governors to revamp Medicaid, which provides insurance to more than 70 million low-income Americans. http://abcn.ws/2maJvV6
for being first to get to the scene of the kidnapping of two German archeologists in Nigeria, and also first to get a police suggestion that a ransom was paid to free them. http://fxn.ws/2l9gYj2
for an exclusive report that U.S. immigration authorities made a last-minute decision to block a 21-year-old Syrian cinematographer from attending the Oscars. http://apne.ws/2mCrqMZ
for finding out that Pope Francis had trimmed sanctions against a handful of pedophile priests who had sought his mercy, and that one case backfired so badly that the Vatican had to put the priest on trial for a second time. http://www.dailyherald.com/article/20170225/news/3...
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 Motors’ 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 an exclusive story on the theft of opioids and other drugs from VA facilities. http://bit.ly/2lw8TRs
for beating other media outlets to a letter from the Trump administration rescinding Obama administration’s transgender bathroom guidance for schools. http://apne.ws/2mIs3DW
After eight years on the White House beat, AP’s Julie Pace is a leader among correspondents in fighting for access to the president and his advisers, and over those years she routinely has resisted any efforts to exclude the press unreasonably from news events or obscure the president’s schedule.
On Friday, she recognized instantly that what was happening at the White House was anything but routine: a first-in-memory, invitation-only daily briefing by the presidential press secretary from which other news organizations were excluded. Her spot-on instinct to walk out put The Associated Press at the forefront of the fight for access and openness.
Pace’s quick decision reverberated across Washington and the country – and earns the Beat of the Week.
This story begins in 2014, when five members of Word of Faith Fellowship, an evangelical congregation in western North Carolina, were indicted for beating a young man because they thought he was gay. Mitch Weiss, an investigative reporter based in Charlotte, reached out to the man, Matthew Fenner, who told a harrowing tale.
For Weiss, that conversation was the beginning of a nearly two-year quest to tell the story of Word of Faith and its controlling leader, Jane Whaley, a 77-year-old petite former math teacher with a thick Southern accent. Working alongside Atlanta-based video journalist Alex Sanz, Weiss eventually pieced together a startling and comprehensive look at a religious community that promised its members peace and prosperity. What they got was violence and abuse, administered in the name of God, former followers told him.
Part one of that series, published this week, wins Best of the States, and there is more to come.
for breaking the news that the Trump administration considered a proposal to mobilize the National Guard to arrest and deport millions of unauthorized immigrants in 11 states, from Oregon to Louisiana – far from the Mexico border. Story: http://apne.ws/2lriwnf Document: http://bit.ly/2kS7TXC
for his exclusive report on how more than 500 Texas voters may have voted improperly during November’s presidential election, and that most would likely face no criminal or civil penalties for doing so. http://wapo.st/2m8HuJw
for accepting an inmate’s call and reporting his remarkable claim with essential context: The prisoner, charged with killing a transit guard, claimed to be a supporter of the Islamic State group, but AP’s story, with reporting also by Jim Anderson, noted investigators had found no evidence the terror group had anything to do with the killing. http://apne.ws/2m56r4e
for a profile of President Donald Trump’s choice for an important health care post that shed light on the nominee’s business arrangements and possible conflicts of interest while acting as an adviser to then-Indiana Gov. Mike Pence. http://apne.ws/2l9wuY2
for reporting exclusively that Illinois officials had eliminated funding for domestic violence programs and then failed to inform service providers for more than five months, forcing many organizations to abruptly cut staff and other resources. http://trib.in/2lQ9rkL
for exclusively obtaining a scathing grand jury report showing how better information-sharing among various agencies could have stopped the alleged abusive actions of a foster parent years before he was arrested. http://apne.ws/2m8RfHo
for breaking the news that China is banning the powerful and deadly synthetic opioid carfentanil, the latest in a series of AP beats detailing China’s role in the U.S. opioid epidemic. http://apne.ws/2kAwWgG