New Mexico state legislature, with a focus on education and poverty

Associated Press

The Associated Press is a global news agency that began 172 years ago as a cooperative of five New York City newspapers. With 263 locations in more than 100 countries, AP provides journalism to roughly 15,000 media outlets around the world. AP sets standards for ethics and excellence, and has won 52 Pulitzer Prizes, including the 2016 gold medal for Public Service for an investigation into labor abuses in the seafood industry, reports that freed more than 2,000 slaves. AP’s seven news bureaus in the northeast U.S. provide vital local and regional news to 378 newsrooms.

Cedar Attanasio

Cedar Attanasio covers the New Mexico Legislature for The Associated Press where he concentrates on education and poverty. “I was born in a teepee and grew up off the grid,” he says. Among the pine—and, yes, cedar—forests of Northern New Mexico, Attanasio didn't have a television. "The first news story I ever saw was in a copy of Newsweek. I was kind of news starved, scrounging through old stacks of National Geographic," he says, adding “I have organized three community circuses. The first was in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where I taught teens my age how to stilt walk.” A New Mexico native, Attanasio covered immigration for The AP from its bureau in El Paso, Texas and also covered the mass terrorist shooting in the border city. He’s a graduate of the Santa Fe Tutorial School, the Li Po Chun United World College of Hong Kong and Middlebury College, where he earned a bachelor's degree in geography and Spanish.