Star Tribune wins Pulitzer for breaking coverage of Annunciation Catholic school shooting
A Minneapolis newspaper has won a Pulitzer Prize for its coverage of a mass shooting at a Catholic school that killed two children and injured more than a dozen others.
The Minnesota Star Tribune took the breaking news prize at the Pulitzer journalism awards announced Monday, with judges praising the "thoroughness and compassion" of the paper's reporting on the Annunciation shootings last August, a day when two children were killed and 21 others were injured.
The shooting happened during the school's first Mass of the academic year. Eight-year-old Fletcher Merkel and 10-year-old Harper Moyski were killed in the attack. The shooter was later found dead of what appeared to be a self-inflicted gunshot.
Last month, Minnesota State Patrol dispatchers were honored for the difference they made on the day of the shootings.
Additionally, the Washington Post won a Pulitzer Prize for public service for scrutinizing the Trump administration's sweeping, choppy cuts and changes to federal agencies, and The Associated Press won the award Monday for international reporting. Spanning three years, thousands of pages of documents and numerous interviews, the AP project found that American companies help lay the foundations of the Chinese government's system for monitoring and policing its citizens.
Reuters won the award for national reporting. Its work looked at how U.S. President Donald Trump has used the federal government and his supporters' influence to expand presidential authority and to try to punish his foes, the award judges noted. It was one of two awards for Reuters. Its reporting on the social media giant Meta won a prize in the newly revived category for beat reporting.
The Pulitzer journalism awards are for work done in 2025 by U.S. news sites, newspapers, magazines and wire services in text, photo, and audio. Video and graphics can be part of an entry package. Television and radio stations' websites also are eligible, if their entries focus on written material.
Separately, Monday's awards also honored books, music and theater.
The Pulitzer Prizes were established in newspaper publisher Joseph Pulitzer's will and were first awarded in 1917. Winners receive $15,000, and the prestigious public service award earns a gold medal.
Decisions are made by the Pulitzer Board, based at Columbia University in New York. The Associated Press' executive editor, Julie Pace, is among the board's new members.