Champagne corks are likely popping south of the Sunshine Skyway today, as the Sarasota Herald-Tribune earned the newspaper industry's most coveted award, winning a Pulitzer Prize for reporter Paige St. John's work on the state's insurance industry.

St. John's stories excavated Florida's $10-billion insurance industry, contending that the process is rigged against the public and receives little oversight. She spent two years on the project, traveling to Monte Carlo and Bermuda for the stories, even as the newspaper struggled with the economic issues hampering every media outlet in today's times.

The Herald Tribune was a finalist last year and in 2008 for stories about property flipping and Florida's inability to handle problem teachers, respectively. (The St. Petersburg Times last won in 2009, when two of its projects took home the prize in the same year for the first time)

The Los Angeles Times won the Public Service award for its stories exposing the massive salaries public officials gave themselves in Bell, Calif. The Los Angeles Times and New York Times tied with the most awards, at two each. The Pulitzers own site offers a list of winners and finalists, along with information on each; click here to see.

Look below for the list, from the site:

PUBLIC SERVICE - Los Angeles Times

BREAKING NEWS REPORTING - No Award

INVESTIGATIVE REPORTING - Paige St. John of the Sarasota Herald-Tribune

EXPLANATORY REPORTING - Mark Johnson, Kathleen, Gallagher, Gary Porter, Lou Saldivar and Alison Sherwood of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

LOCAL REPORTING - Frank Main, Mark Konkol and John J. Kim of the Chicago Sun-Times

NATIONAL REPORTING - Jesse Eisinger and Jake Bernstein of ProPublica

INTERNATIONAL REPORTING - Clifford J. Levy and Ellen Barry of The New York Times

FEATURE WRITING - Amy Ellis Nutt of The Star-Ledger, Newark, N.J.

COMMENTARY - David Leonhardt of The New York Times

CRITICISM - Sebastian Smee of The Boston Globe

EDITORIAL WRITING - Joseph Rago of The Wall Street Journal

EDITORIAL CARTOONING - Mike Keefe of The Denver Post

BREAKING NEWS PHOTOGRAPHY - Carol Guzy, Nikki Kahn and Ricky Carioti of The Washington Post

FEATURE PHOTOGRAPHY - Barbara Davidson of the Los Angeles Times
Letters, Drama and Music

FICTION - "A Visit from the Goon Squad" by Jennifer Egan (Alfred A. Knopf)

DRAMA - "Clybourne Park" by Bruce Norris

HISTORY - "The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery" by Eric Foner (W. W. Norton & Company)

BIOGRAPHY - "Washington: A Life" by Ron Chernow (The Penguin Press)

POETRY - "The Best of It: New and Selected Poems" by Kay Ryan (Grove Press)

GENERAL NONFICTION - "The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer" by Siddhartha Mukherjee (Scribner)

MUSIC - "Madame White Snake’" by Zhou Long, premiered on February 26, 2010 by the Boston Opera at the Cutler Majestic Theatre.