Ingested Articles

Tony Award winner George C. Wolfe and the Canadian poet-translator Anne Carson are among this year’s winners of PEN America awards for career achievement. Wolfe's credits range from writing the musical “Jelly’s Last Jam” to directing “Angels In America.” He has received the PEN/Mike Nichols Writing for Performance Award for work which “enlightens and inspires audiences.” Carson is a three-time finalist for the National Book Critics Circle poetry award and an acclaimed translator of Greek drama. She has won the PEN/Nabokov Award for work of “enduring originality and consummate craftsmanship.” 

A fire at an assisted living center in suburban New York has killed one resident and sent two firefighters and multiple residents to hospitals. Rescuers are combing through rubble for a third firefighter who is missing after the blaze early Tuesday at the Evergreen Court Home for Adults in Spring Valley. That's about 30 miles north of New York City. Rockland County Fire coordinator Chris Kear says the missing firefighter issued a mayday call while rescuing a resident on the building’s third floor. Other firefighters rushed to help but couldn’t because the flames were too intense. Investigators are trying to determine the fire's cause.

A new poll finds most parents fear their children are falling behind in school while at home during the coronavirus pandemic. The poll from The University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy and The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research finds 69% of parents are at least somewhat concerned their children will face setbacks in school because of the pandemic, including 42% who say they’re very or extremely worried about it. But nearly as many, 64%, say they're at least somewhat concerned in-person instruction will lead to more people being infected.

California could expand its unique law requiring individual identifiers on all bullet casings to include weapons used by law enforcement. Proponents say the pending legislation is another attempt to help investigate shootings by police while jumpstarting what the gun industry says still is unworkable technology. The state’s long-delayed law requires gun manufacturers to adopt microstamping technology on new types of handguns introduced in California. That is aimed at imprinting a unique set of microscopic characters on all cartridge casings when weapons are fired. That would link bullet casings left behind by semi-automatic weapons to the guns that discharged them. 

BRUSSELS (AP) — Since the coronavirus started spreading through Europe over a year ago, NATO's headquarters in Brussels has been off-limits to the media and others, but the military alliance now aims to get ahead of Belgium's vaccine program and…

TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — Sinovac said its COVID-19 vaccine is safe in children ages 3-17, based on preliminary data, and it has submitted the data to Chinese drug regulators. More than 70 million shots of Sinovac’s vaccine have been given…

Airbnb is being asked to drop its sponsorship connections to next year's Beijing's Winter Olympics by a coalition of 150 human rights campaigners. The coalition is headed by groups that oppose rights violations in China. Airbnb is one of the International Olympic Committee's leading 15 sponsors. An open letter asking Airbnb to withdraw its connection to Beijing was sent to CEO Brian Chesky. The top 15 IOC sponsors paid about $1 billion in the last full Olympic cycle to be associated with the games. Rights groups are pressuring IOC sponsors and planning diplomatic boycotts of the games to call attention to alleged abuses against Uyghurs, Tibetans and and others in China.

BEIJING (AP) — China looked to Europe as an amicable partner as the continent's leaders resisted being drawn into President Donald Trump’s conflicts with Beijing over trade, technology and human rights. On Monday, that image shattered when the European Union…

A day after upsets were all the rage at the NCAA Tournament, the second round wrapped up with just one mild surprise and the rest all blowouts. Led by overall No. 1 Gonzaga, the rest of the higher seeds in action Monday clobbered their opponents by an average of 18 points. Bulldogs big man Drew Timme said, “You gotta bring that fire. Because all it takes is one good game and you can be out.” But right now, even very good might not be enough to knock a calm, confident and comfortable Gonzaga team off its perch.   

The U.K. has a lot to reflect on a year after British Prime Minister Boris Johnson first announced that the country would go into lockdown to slow the fast-spreading coronavirus. A national day of reflection taking place on Tuesday will remember more than 126,000 people who died after contracting the virus. The U.K. has the highest pandemic death toll in Europe and the fifth-highest worldwide. Few foresaw that scale of death and grief when Johnson made a prime-time televised address instructing the British people to stay at home. The prime minister nonetheless has faced criticism for delaying the first lockdown, as well as the current one that remains in effect.

Among the economic victims of the coronavirus pandemic in Spain are newly homeless residents who saw their jobs dry up or their marriages collapse and now have nowhere to live but their cars. One 65-year-old man who has spent three months sleeping in his Renault Clio says that before was evicted from his apartment he wouldn't have been able to fathom ending up homeless after five decades of manual labor. The pandemic has been particularly hard on Spain’s economy due to its reliance on tourism and the service sector. The country’s left-wing government has maintained a furlough program to reduce the impact, but over a million jobs have been wiped out.  

By at least one measure, this is the most chaotic Sweet 16 field to date. The seed numbers of the 16 remaining teams add up to 94, the highest total since the NCAA Tournament expanded in 1985. The previous record of 89 was set in 1986. This year’s regional semifinals include 15th-seeded Oral Roberts, 12th-seeded Oregon State, 11th-seeded Syracuse, 11th-seeded UCLA and eighth-seeded Loyola Chicago. Three No. 1 seeds did make it through — Gonzaga, Michigan and Baylor. It’s the sixth straight Sweet 16 appearance for Gonzaga and the fourth for Michigan, the nation’s longest two active streaks.

There is no definition for what makes someone the Most Valuable Player in the NBA. If it’s the best player, LeBron James should have way more than four trophies. If it’s the best player on the best regular-season team, then Giannis Antetokounmpo has been the correct pick in each of the last two seasons. Of late, it’s often been the leading scorer; Kevin Durant, Stephen Curry, Russell Westbrook and James Harden recently won MVPs in scoring-title seasons. If it’s the player most valuable to a contending team, it might be time to make a case for Chris Paul.

The women's NCAA Tournament became a lot less predictable with double-digit seeds pulling off a trifecta of upsets. BYU, Belmont and Wright State advanced to the second round Monday with surprising victories. The upsets came a day after the better seeds opened play by winning all 16 game. But on Monday, No. 11 seed BYU held off sixth-seeded Rutgers to get things started. Wright State became the first 13th seed in nine years to win, ousting No. 4 seed Arkansas. And Belmont won its first-ever NCAA game beating No. 5 seed Gonzaga. 

Oral Roberts will avoid some of the distractions Florida Gulf Coast had to deal with during its NCAA Sweet 16 run in 2013. The team known as Dunk City was the first No. 15 seed to make it past the first weekend of the tournament. Oral Roberts is the second. Oral Roberts is in the tournament bubble in Indianapolis as a precaution against COVID-19. There will be limited access to players and coaches before Saturday's game against Arkansas. Michael Fly was an assistant on the 2013 FGCU team. He says the media frenzy took a toll.

Heavy rainfall was forecast to ease across Australia’s east coast but floodwaters will linger for days across New South Wales state where 15,000 people were on Tuesday nervously waiting for potential orders to evacuate. Some 18,000 residents of Australia’s most populous state have fled their homes since last week, with warnings the flood cleanup could stretch into April. Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the rain emergency was expected to ease by late Wednesday, but the “floodwaters remain persistent for some time.” Skies were forecast to clear over parts of Sydney and the coast to the north by late Tuesday.

Memories from the height of the coronavirus pandemic in Wuhan are etched in the mind of artist Yang Qian, those of fear and desperation, but also unity and resilience. She is channeling those memories into artwork to preserve the memory of the central Chinese city’s 76-day lockdown that upturned the lives of some 11 million people. In a way, that’s an extension of her work as a volunteer delivering vital supplies to hospitals and residents during the traumatic period, as well as a reflection of the pride many residents take in having weathered the outbreak and the draconian measures taken to bring it under control.