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Here are the winners of the 2024 Pulitzer Prizes

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2 weeks ago

May 7, 2024

Here are the winners of the 2024 Pulitzer Prizes

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The Pulitzer Prizes were awarded today at Columbia University, honoring American achievements in journalism, letters and drama, and music. Widely recognized as the most prestigious awards in their field within the United States, the 108th Pulitzer Prizes took place against an unusually fraught backdrop. In a statement last week, the Pulitzer Board commended student journalists covering campus protests against the war in Gaza, acknowledging they were often placing themselves “in the face of great personal and academic risk.”

Twenty-three prizes were awarded last year, with cash prizes of $15,000 going to the recipients of most of the prizes and a gold medal to the news organization that wins the Public Service Prize.

The New York Times won one of its three Pulitzers this year for its coverage of the war in Gaza. The award for International Reporting went to its staff for “wide-ranging and revelatory coverage of Hamas’ lethal attack in southern Israel on October 7, Israel’s intelligence failures and the Israeli military’s sweeping, deadly response in Gaza.” The Times also took Pulitzers in the Features and Investigative categories, the latter for a series by Hannah Dreier that revealed “the stunning reach of migrant child labor across the United States – and the corporate and governmental failures that perpetuate it.”

The Washington Post tied with the Times with three wins in the categories of Commentary, Editorial Writing and National Reporting. It shared the last with the staff at Reuters, which also won a Pulitzer for Breaking News Photography, for “raw and urgent photographs documenting the October 7th deadly attack in Israel by Hamas and the first weeks of Israel’s devastating assault on Gaza.”

And film critic Justin Chang of the Los Angeles Times won a Criticism Pulitzer for “richly evocative and genre-spanning” work “that reflects on the contemporary moviegoing experience.” Chang also contributes to numerous other publications, including NPR.

In arts and letters, the Biography award was given to two authors. The judges called Jonathan Eig’s King: A Life, a revelatory portrait of slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. Ilyon Woo also won a Biography Pulitzer for Master Slave Husband Wife: An Epic Journey from Slavery to Freedom.

The Fiction Pulitzer went to West Virginia writer Jayne Anne Phillips for her novel Night Watch. It’s about a traumatized family in the aftermath of the Civil War. And the Nonfiction prize went to A Day in the Life of Abed Salama: Anatomy of a Jerusalem Tragedy, by Nathan Thrall. The treatment of a grieving Palestinian father was described by the judges as a “finely reported and intimate account of life under Israeli occupation of the West Bank.”

Here are the 2024 winners:

Prizes in Journalism

Public Service
“Awarded to ProPublica for the work of Joshua Kaplan, Justin Elliott, Brett Murphy, Alex Mierjeski and Kirsten Berg, groundbreaking and ambitious reporting that pierced the thick wall of secrecy surrounding the Supreme Court to reveal how a small group of politically influential billionaires wooed justices with lavish gifts and travel, pushing the Court to adopt its first code of conduct.”

Breaking News Reporting
“Awarded to the Staff of Lookout Santa Cruz, California, for its detailed and nimble community-focused coverage, over a holiday weekend, of catastrophic flooding and mudslides that displaced thousands of residents and destroyed more than 1,000 homes and businesses.”

Investigative Reporting
“Awarded to Hannah Dreier of The New York Times for a deeply reported series of stories revealing the stunning reach of migrant child labor across the United States – and the corporate and governmental failures that perpetuate it.”

Explanatory Reporting
“Awarded to Sarah Stillman of The New Yorker for a searing indictment of our legal system’s reliance on the felony murder charge and its disparate consequences, often devastating for communities of color.”

Local Reporting
“Awarded to Sarah Conway of City Bureau and Trina Reynolds-Tyler of the Invisible Institute for their investigative series on missing Black girls and women in Chicago that revealed how systemic racism and police department neglect contributed to the crisis.”

National Reporting
“Awarded to the Staff of Reuters for an eye-opening series of accountability stories focused on Elon Musk’s automobile and aerospace businesses, stories that displayed remarkable breadth and depth and provoked official probes of his companies’ practices in Europe and the United States.”

“Awarded to the Staff of The Washington Post for its sobering examination of the AR-15 semiautomatic rifle, which forced readers to reckon with the horrors wrought by the weapon often used for mass shootings in America. (Moved by the Board from the Public Service category, where it also was entered and nominated.)”

International Reporting
“Awarded to the Staff of The New York Times for its wide-ranging and revelatory coverage of Hamas’ lethal attack in southern Israel on October 7, Israel’s intelligence failures and the Israeli military’s sweeping, deadly response in Gaza.”

Feature Writing
“Awarded to Katie Engelhart, contributing writer, The New York Times for her fair-minded portrait of a family’s legal and emotional struggles during a matriarch’s progressive dementia that sensitively probes the mystery of a person’s essential self.”

Vladimir Kara-Murza in Moscow on Feb. 22, 2024.

Alexander Nemenov/AFP via Getty Images

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Alexander Nemenov/AFP via Getty Images

Vladimir Kara-Murza in Moscow on Feb. 22, 2024.

Alexander Nemenov/AFP via Getty Images

Commentary
“Awarded to Vladimir Kara-Murza, contributor, The Washington Post for passionate columns written at great personal risk from his prison cell, warning of the consequences of dissent in Vladimir Putin’s Russia and insisting on a democratic future for his country.”

Criticism
“Awarded to Justin Chang of the Los Angeles Times for richly evocative and genre-spanning film criticism that reflects on the contemporary moviegoing experience.”

Editorial Writing
“Awarded to David E. Hoffman of The Washington Post for a compelling and well-researched series on new technologies and the tactics authoritarian regimes use to repress dissent in the digital age, and how they can be fought.”

Illustrated Reporting and Commentary
“Awarded to Medar de la Cruz, contributor, The New Yorker for his visually-driven story set inside Rikers Island jail using bold black-and-white images that humanize the prisoners and staff through their hunger for books.”

Breaking News Photography
“Awarded to the Photography Staff of Reuters for raw and urgent photographs documenting the October 7th deadly attack in Israel by Hamas and the first weeks of Israel’s devastating assault on Gaza.”

Haitian migrants wade through water as they cross the Darien Gap from Colombia to Panama on May 9, 2023.

Ivan Valencia/AP

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Ivan Valencia/AP

Haitian migrants wade through water as they cross the Darien Gap from Colombia to Panama on May 9, 2023.

Ivan Valencia/AP

Feature Photography
“Awarded to the Photography Staff of Associated Press for poignant photographs chronicling unprecedented masses of migrants and their arduous journey north from Colombia to the border of the United States.”

Audio Reporting
“Awarded to the Staffs of the Invisible Institute, Chicago, and USG Audio, California, for a powerful series that revisits a Chicago hate crime from the 1990s, a fluid amalgam of memoir, community history and journalism.”

Letters and Drama Prizes

Fiction
“Awarded to Night Watch, by Jayne Anne Phillips (Knopf), a beautifully rendered novel set in West Virginia’s Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum in the aftermath of the Civil War where a severely wounded Union veteran, a 12-year-old girl and her mother, long abused by a Confederate soldier, struggle to heal.”

Drama
“Awarded to Primary Trust, by Eboni Booth, a simple and elegantly crafted story of an emotionally damaged man who finds a new job, new friends and a new sense of worth, illustrating how small acts of kindness can change a person’s life and enrich an entire community.”

History
“Awarded to No Right to an Honest Living: The Struggles of Boston’s Black Workers in the Civil War Era, by Jacqueline Jones (Basic Books), a breathtakingly original reconstruction of free Black life in Boston that profoundly reshapes our understanding of the city’s abolitionist legacy and the challenging reality for its Black residents.”

Biography
“Awarded to King: A Life, by Jonathan Eig (Farrar, Straus and Giroux), a revelatory portrait of Martin Luther King, Jr. that draws on new sources to enrich our understanding of each stage of the civil rights leader’s life, exploring his strengths and weaknesses, including the self-questioning and depression that accompanied his determination.”

“Awarded to Master Slave Husband Wife: An Epic Journey from Slavery to Freedom, by Ilyon Woo (Simon & Schuster), a rich narrative of the Crafts, an enslaved couple who escaped from Georgia in 1848, with light-skinned Ellen disguised as a disabled white gentleman and William as her manservant, exploiting assumptions about race, class and disability to hide in public on their journey to the North, where they became famous abolitionists while evading bounty hunters.”

Memoir or Autobiography
“Awarded to Liliana’s Invincible Summer: A Sister’s Search for Justice, by Cristina Rivera Garza (Hogarth), a genre-bending account of the author’s 20-year-old sister, murdered by a former boyfriend, that mixes memoir, feminist investigative journalism and poetic biography stitched together with a determination born of loss.”

Poetry
“Awarded to Tripas: Poems, by Brandon Som (Georgia Review Books), a collection that deeply engages with the complexities of the poet’s dual Mexican and Chinese heritage, highlighting the dignity of his family’s working lives, creating community rather than conflict.”

General Nonfiction
“Awarded to A Day in the Life of Abed Salama: Anatomy of a Jerusalem Tragedy, by Nathan Thrall (Metropolitan Books), a finely reported and intimate account of life under Israeli occupation of the West Bank, told through a portrait of a Palestinian father whose five-year-old son dies in a fiery school bus crash when Israeli and Palestinian rescue teams are delayed by security regulations.”

Prize in Music
“Awarded to ‘Adagio (For Wadada Leo Smith)’ by Tyshawn Sorey, premiered on March 16, 2023 at Atlanta Symphony Hall, an introspective saxophone concerto with a wide range of textures presented in a slow tempo, a beautiful homage that’s quietly intense, treasuring intimacy rather than spectacle.”

Special Citations
“The Pulitzer Board awards a special citation for the late writer and critic Greg Tate, whose language – cribbed from literature, academia, popular culture and hip-hop – was as influential as the content of his ideas. His aesthetic, innovations and intellectual originality, particularly in his pioneering hip-hop criticism, continue to influence subsequent generations, especially writers and critics of color.

In recent years the Pulitzer Board has issued citations honoring journalists covering wars in Ukraine and Afghanistan. This year, the Board recognizes the courageous work of journalists and media workers covering the war in Gaza. Under horrific conditions, an extraordinary number of journalists have died in the effort to tell the stories of Palestinians and others in Gaza. This war has also claimed the lives of poets and writers among the casualties. As the Pulitzer Prizes honor categories of journalism, arts, and letters, we mark the loss of invaluable records of the human experience.”

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Wait Wait… Don't Tell Me!

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May 19, 2024

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NPR’s weekly news quiz hosted by Peter Sagal. Have a laugh and test your knowledge with today’s funniest comedians and a celebrity guest.Hate free content? Try a subscription to Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me!+. Your subscription supports public radio and unlocks fun bonus episodes along with sponsor-free listening. Learn more at https://plus.npr.org/waitwait

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Tell us: What's the most extraordinary West Coast experience?

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May 19, 2024

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Tell us: What's the most extraordinary West Coast experience?

Our guide to the 101 best West Coast experiences brings you essential things to do in Baja, California, Oregon, Washington and British Columbia. We think it has something for every type of explorer, from the awe-seeking (a hike around the rim of a sleeping volcano at Crater Lake) to the nostalgic (burgers alongside classic cars at the oldest Bob’s Big Boy) to the unabashedly extravagant (a stay at San Diego’s maximalist LaFayette Hotel).

Of course, you may have your own favorite adventure that didn’t make the list. We’d love to hear about it. In the form below, tell us what you believe is the most extraordinary experience or destination on the West Coast and why it resonates with you. It can be as simple as a single bench with a view or as vast as a life-changing road trip. We may feature your response in a future story.

Lifestyle

Dabney Coleman, who starred in '9 to 5' and 'Tootsie', dies at 92

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13 hours ago

May 18, 2024

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Dabney Coleman, who starred in '9 to 5' and 'Tootsie', dies at 92

Dabney Coleman, who starred in “9 to 5” and “Tootsie,” appears in Los Angeles on Nov. 14, 1988. The actor died Thursday at his home in Santa Monica, Calif.

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Dabney Coleman, who starred in “9 to 5” and “Tootsie,” appears in Los Angeles on Nov. 14, 1988. The actor died Thursday at his home in Santa Monica, Calif.

Nick Ut/AP

NEW YORK — Dabney Coleman, the mustachioed character actor who specialized in smarmy villains like the chauvinist boss in “9 to 5” and the nasty TV director in “Tootsie,” has died. He was 92.

Coleman died Thursday at his home in Santa Monica, his daughter, Quincy Coleman, said in a statement to The Associated Press. She said he “took his last earthly breath peacefully and exquisitely.”

“The great Dabney Coleman literally created, or defined, really — in a uniquely singular way — an archetype as a character actor. He was so good at what he did it’s hard to imagine movies and television of the last 40 years without him,” Ben Stiller wrote on X.

For two decades Coleman labored in movies and TV shows as a talented but largely unnoticed performer. That changed abruptly in 1976 when he was cast as the incorrigibly corrupt mayor of the hamlet of Fernwood in “Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman,” a satirical soap opera that was so over the top no network would touch it.

A Cup Of Ambition And Endurance: '9 To 5' Unites Workers Across Decades

Producer Norman Lear finally managed to syndicate the show, which starred Louise Lasser in the title role. It quickly became a cult favorite. Coleman’s character, Mayor Merle Jeeter, was especially popular and his masterful, comic deadpan delivery did not go overlooked by film and network executives.

A six-footer with an ample black mustache, Coleman went on to make his mark in numerous popular films, including as a stressed out computer scientist in “War Games,” Tom Hanks’ father in “You’ve Got Mail” and a fire fighting official in “The Towering Inferno.”

He won a Golden Globe for “The Slap Maxwell Story” and an Emmy Award for best supporting actor in Peter Levin’s 1987 small screen legal drama “Sworn to Silence.” Some of his recent credits include “Ray Donovan” and a recurring role on “Boardwalk Empire,” for which he won two Screen Actors Guild Awards.

In the groundbreaking 1980 hit “9 to 5,” he was the “sexist, egotistical, lying, hypocritical bigot” boss who tormented his unappreciated female underlings — Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin and Dolly Parton — until they turned the tables on him.

In 1981, he was Fonda’s caring, well-mannered boyfriend, who asks her father (played by her real-life father, Henry Fonda) if he can sleep with her during a visit to her parents’ vacation home in “On Golden Pond.”

Opposite Dustin Hoffman in “Tootsie,” he was the obnoxious director of a daytime soap opera that Hoffman’s character joins by pretending to be a woman. Among Coleman’s other films were “North Dallas Forty,” “Cloak and Dagger,” “Dragnet,” “Meet the Applegates,” “Inspector Gadget” and “Stuart Little.” He reunited with Hoffman as a land developer in Brad Silberling’s “Moonlight Mile” with Jake Gyllenhaal.

Coleman’s obnoxious characters didn’t translate quite as well on television, where he starred in a handful of network comedies. Although some became cult favorites, only one lasted longer than two seasons, and some critics questioned whether a series starring a lead character with absolutely no redeeming qualities could attract a mass audience.

“Buffalo Bill” (1983-84) was a good example. It starred Coleman as “Buffalo Bill” Bittinger, the smarmy, arrogant, dimwitted daytime talk show host who, unhappy at being relegated to the small-time market of Buffalo, New York, takes it out on everyone around him. Although smartly written and featuring a fine ensemble cast, it lasted only two seasons.

Another was 1987’s “The Slap Maxwell Story,” in which Coleman was a failed small-town sportswriter trying to save a faltering marriage while wooing a beautiful young reporter on the side.

Other failed attempts to find a mass TV audience included “Apple Pie,” “Drexell’s Class” (in which he played an inside trader) and “Madman of the People,” another newspaper show in which he clashed this time with his younger boss, who was also his daughter.

He fared better in a co-starring role in “The Guardian” (2001-2004), which had him playing the father of a crooked lawyer. And he enjoyed the voice role as Principal Prickly on the Disney animated series “Recess” from 1997-2003.

Underneath all that bravura was a reserved man. Coleman insisted he was really quite shy. “I’ve been shy all my life. Maybe it stems from being the last of four children, all of them very handsome, including a brother who was Tyrone Power-handsome. Maybe it’s because my father died when I was 4,” he told The Associated Press in 1984. “I was extremely small, just a little guy who was there, the kid who created no trouble. I was attracted to fantasy, and I created games for myself.”

As he aged, he also began to put his mark on pompous authority figures, notably in 1998’s “My Date With the President’s Daughter,” in which he was not only an egotistical, self-absorbed president of the United States, but also a clueless father to a teenager girl.

Dabney Coleman — his real name — was born in 1932 in Austin, Texas After two years at the Virginia Military Academy, two at the University of Texas and two in the Army, he was a 26-year-old law student when he met another Austin native, Zachry Scott, who starred in “Mildred Pierce” and other films.

“He was the most dynamic person I’ve ever met. He convinced me I should become an actor, and I literally left the next day to study in New York. He didn’t think that was too wise, but I made my decision,” Coleman told The AP in 1984.

Early credits included such TV shows as “Ben Casey,” “Dr Kildare,” “The Outer Limits,” “Bonanza,” “The Mod Squad” and the film “The Towering Inferno.” He appeared on Broadway in 1961 in “A Call on Kuprin.” He played Kevin Costner’s father on “Yellowstone.”

Twice divorced, Coleman is survived by four children, Meghan, Kelly, Randy and Quincy, and the grandchildren Hale and Gabe Torrance, Luie Freundl and Kai and Coleman Biancaniello.

“My father crafted his time here on earth with a curious mind, a generous heart, and a soul on fire with passion, desire and humor that tickled the funny bone of humanity,” Quincy Coleman wrote in his honor.