The 2008 Pulitzer Prize winners:

JOURNALISM:

Public Service: The Washington Post for exposing the mistreatment of wounded veterans at Walter Reed Hospital.

Breaking News Reporting: The Washington Post staff for its coverage of the Virginia Tech massacre.

Investigative Reporting: Walt Bogdanich and Jake Hooker of The New York Times and the Chicago Tribune Staff. The Times won for stories on toxic ingredients in medicine and other products imported from China; the Tribune for exposing faulty regulation of toys, car seats and cribs.

Explanatory Reporting: Amy Harmon of The New York Times for her examination of the dilemmas and ethical issues that accompany DNA testing.

Local Reporting: David Umhoefer of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel for stories on the skirting of tax laws to pad pensions of county employees.

National Reporting: Jo Becker and Barton Gellman of The Washington Post for their exploration of Vice President Dick Cheney’s influence on national policy.

International Reporting: Steve Fainaru of The Washington Post for his series on private security contractors in Iraq that operate outside most of the laws governing American forces.

Feature Writing: Gene Weingarten of The Washington Post for chronicling the violinist Joshua Bell as he played beautiful music in a subway station filled with unheeding commuters.

Commentary: Steven Pearlstein of The Washington Post for columns exploring the nation’s complex economic ills.

Criticism: Mark Feeney of The Boston Globe for his command of the visual arts, from film and photography to painting.

Editorial Writing: No award.

Editorial Cartooning: Michael Ramirez of Investor’s Business Daily for what the judges called his “provocative cartoons.”

Photography: Adrees Latif of Reuters for his photograph of a Japanese videographer, sprawled on the pavement, fatally wounded during a street demonstration in Myanmar.

Feature Photography: Preston Gannaway of the Concord (N.H.) Monitor for her chronicle of a family coping with a parent’s terminal illness.

ARTS:

Fiction: “The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao,” by Junot Diaz (Riverhead Books)

Drama: “August: Osage County,” by Tracy Letts

History: “What Hath God Wrought: the Transformation of America, 1815-1848,” by Daniel Walker Howe (Oxford University Press)

Biography: “Eden’s Outcasts: The Story of Louisa May Alcott and Her Father,” by John Matteson (W.W. Norton)

Poetry: “Time and Materials,” by Robert Hass (Ecco/HarperCollins) and “Failure,” by Philip Schultz (Harcourt)

General Nonfiction: “The Years of Extermination: Nazi Germany and the Jews, 1939-1945,” by Saul Friedlander (HarperCollins)

MUSIC: “The Little Match Girl Passion,” by David Lang, premiered Oct. 25, 2007, at Carnegie Hall, New York. (G. Schirmer, Inc.)

SPECIAL CITATION: Bob Dylan

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press.