Judy Woodruff, IWMF board member and senior correspondent The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, received a 2009 Smart Cookie Award from Cookie magazine. Woodruff was honored for her support of the Kennedy Krieger Institute. The Cookie Awards recognize the relationship between motherhood and citizenship. Read more about Woodruff and the award.

Teresa Rehman is the principal correspondent for Tehelka Magazine in northeastern India, a conflict-torn region with a high incidence of HIV/AIDS. She is the 2007 recipient of the Sarojini Naidu Prize for best reporting on women and is working on a Ph.D. on folk media.

Watch the 2008 Courage in Journalism Award winners talk about reporting under dangerous conditions during a panel discussion at The Paley Center for M...

Jenny Manrique, the 2008-09 IWMF Elizabeth Neuffer Fellow, spoke on a panel on April 29 about the safety of journalists. The panel addressed how attacks and threats against journalists are a brutal and effective weapon against press freedom and democracy, representing the most dangerous form of censorship. Read more on the CIMA Web site.

Convicted of spying and sentenced to eight years in prison, American journalist Roxana Saberi has gone on a hunger strike. Saberi’s parents told NPR that their daughter plans to refrain from eating until she is freed. Listen to the NPR report. Read more in The Washington Post.

Grants are available to cover travel expenses affiliated with reporting on urgent global issues. Special attention is given to projects dedicated to under-reported news. Working journalists can receive grants of up to $20,000 for specific projects. Deadlines are rolling. Read more on the Pulitzer Center Web site.

The Hubert H. Humphrey fellowship program, which is sponsored by the U.S. Department of State, allows journalists with a minimum of five years of professional experience the opportunity to continue their education in the U.S. The Fellowship includes a ten-month stay at a U.S. university, where recipients will take classes and build professional affiliations with news groups. Deadlines vary by country. Learn more about the fellowship.

The Forum for African Investigative Reporters (FAIR) is accepting entries for the FAIR IJ Award, which commends outstanding investigative journalism on any subject. An Editor’s Courage Award is available as well, for any editor who has shown strength and perseverance in publishing quality news. The deadline is July 31. Find application information on the FAIR Web site. 

Seven awards will recognize exceptional journalists for their reporting on the sciences, mathematics or engineering. The American Association for the Advancement of Science, along with the Kavli Foundation, sponsors these awards for reporters who cover science for a general audience in all media. The deadline is August 1. Read more on the AAAS Web site.

Applications are being accepted for the 2009 Excellence in Urban Journalism Awards. Qualifying entries must have been published or broadcast during the 2008 calendar year and must pertain to pertinent urban or inner city issues. The application deadline is June 30. To apply, visit the Enterprise Community Partners Web site.

Through a grant from the Lilly Foundation, the Religion Newswriters Foundation is providing qualified, full-time journalists the opportunity to take religion courses at any accredited college. The scholarships are up to $5,000 each and are meant to cover all expenses for the continuing education of journalists working in general circulation media. Application deadlines are July 1 and October 1. Visit the Religion Newswriters Association Web site for details.

Eugene Robinson, a member of the IWMF board of directors and a columnist for The Washington Post, was named a Pulitzer Prize winner on April 20. Robinson won the award for commentary for his writing about the campaign that led to Barack Obama’s election. Read more about Robinson’s award.

American journalist Roxana Saberi was convicted by an Iranian court of spying for the U.S. She was sentenced to eight years in prison. Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has urged the chief prosecutor to re-examine the case. Saberi was arrested in January and has been detained since then. Read more about Saberi’s case. Sign the IWMF petition for Saberi’s release.

Roxana Saberi, an American journalist jailed in Iran and charged with espionage, stood trial behind closed doors, a judiciary spokesman reported Tuesday to National Public Radio. A verdict is expected within weeks. Saberi, who was arrested in January, was initially accused of working without press credentials. But an Iranian judge charged her last week with spying for the United States. Read more on NPR’s Web site. Sign the IWMF petition for Saberi’s release.

Cynthia Tucker, an IWMF Advisory Council member and a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist and editorial page editor for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, will take a new role as political columnist based in Washington, D.C., beginning this summer. Her columns will appear twice each week in the AJC’s Op-Ed pages and online at ajc.com. Read more on the Poynter Web site.