The AP quickly deployed an all-formats team that dominated the story by providing voices and color from Vang Vieng, Laos, ahead of competitors.   AP’s

Eight staff members of a backpacker hostel in Laos have been detained by local authorities as they investigate the deaths of six foreign tourists from suspected methanol poisoning, according to state-affiliated media in the Southeast Asian country.

Laos has banned the sale and consumption of a local alcohol brand following the death of six foreign tourists due to alleged methanol poisoning.

A Laos government document obtained by the ABC suggests the source of a methanol poisoning outbreak that killed six tourists is a rundown factory outside of Vientiane that was making vodka and whisky.