Runners in a monthlong coast-to-coast relay of more than 3,300 miles to raise money for a charity aiding Boston Marathon bombing victims have crossed the finish line.

BOSTON — Runners in a monthlong coast-to-coast relay of more than 3,300 miles to raise money for a charity aiding Boston Marathon bombing victims have crossed the finish line.

The nonstop relay — One Run for Boston — began March 16 in Santa Monica, Calif., and ended Sunday evening in Boston.

More than 2,000 runners ran 3,328 miles through 14 states. They raised more than $425,000 for the One Fund, which supports people who were directly affected by the bombings last year.

An organizer says runners raced through deserts and survived tornadoes and were upbeat as they neared the finish line.

On the relay, runners also visited the 9/11 memorial in New York City and a memorial for victims of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing.

The overwhelming majority of Massachusetts taxpayers are filing their state tax returns electronically.

BOSTON — The overwhelming majority of Massachusetts taxpayers are filing their state tax returns electronically.

The Department of Revenue reported that as of Friday it processed just under 2.5 million returns, of which nearly 2.2 million had been e-filed.

The agency reported issuing about 1.8 million refunds totaling $858 million. The average turnaround time for a refund was 3.3 days for returns filed electronically, and 5-1/2 days for paper returns.

The deadline for filing state and federal taxes is Tuesday.

The department said it was fielding about 34,000 calls a week with tax questions and the average wait time for callers was 46 seconds.

Two Massachusetts men working on high-tension power lines are dead after their bucket truck tipped over while they were in the basket more than 100 feet in the air.

BOURNE, Mass. — Two Massachusetts men working on high-tension power lines are dead after their bucket truck tipped over while they were in the basket more than 100 feet in the air.

Cape and Islands District Attorney Michael O'Keefe told the Cape Cod Times (http://bit.ly/1km7t6U ) that Joseph L. Boyd III, of Fall River, and John Loughran, of Quincy, had been contracted for an NStar project in Bourne, on Cape Cod.

Police Chief Dennis Woodside told the newspaper the two men were both in the bucket when the truck toppled over Saturday. He said they were killed instantly.

Woodside said it was not particularly windy at the time of the accident and the ground under the truck appeared to be solid.

The Office of Occupational Safety and Health Administration is investigating.

A federal judge will hear arguments in a lawsuit claiming the state's first-in-the-nation ban of Zohydro, a powerful new painkiller, is unconstitutional.

BOSTON — A federal judge will hear arguments in a lawsuit claiming the state's first-in-the-nation ban of Zohydro, a powerful new painkiller, is unconstitutional.

U.S. District Court Judge Rya Zobel is expected to decide Monday whether to order an immediate but temporary halt to the ban, which is believed to be the first attempt by a state to block a federally-approved drug. The court would decide later if the ban should be permanently vacated.

Drug maker Zogenix argues that the ban is unconstitutional because the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has already approved Zohydro's use for treatment of severe and chronic pain. The state argues that Zohydro will "exacerbate a severe public health crisis" in Massachusetts, where Gov. Deval Patrick has declared prescription drug abuse a public health emergency.

An EMT. A volunteer. A spectator in a cowboy hat.

An EMT. A volunteer. A spectator in a cowboy hat.

Moments after bombs exploded at the Boston Marathon, these three helped rescue a man whose legs were blown off, a scene captured in an Associated Press photo. That man, Jeff Bauman, was lauded as a hero himself when he gave authorities a description that helped them track down two suspects.

A year later, the AP revisited the lives of the four people in the image.

PAUL MITCHELL

View full sizeIn this Thursday, March 20, 2014 photo, Boston Emergency Medical Services EMT Paul Mitchell stands next to an ambulance at his station in the Hyde Park neighborhood of Boston. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa) 

"I think a lot of things went into Jeff being alive today, not to mention the will of this guy. I met him once or twice. He's got the attitude. The positive spirit."

Looking at the photo reminds him to "live life to the fullest."

"Two of those people in that picture, not me, don't have any training, don't have any obligation to run in there — and they did."

DEVIN WANG

Wang is an aspiring athletic trainer, a senior at Boston University and a world-class synchronized skater. That day she was a race volunteer.

View full sizeIn this Wednesday, March 19, 2014 photo, Devin Wang, a Boston University student and skater with the USA synchronized skating team known as the Haydenettes, practices in Lexington, Mass. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa) 

CARLOS ARREDONDO

In his native Costa Rica, Arredondo was a rodeo clown, helping get fallen riders out of the way of angry bulls.

View full sizeIn this Tuesday, March 25, 2014 photo, Carlos Arredondo stands in the Jamaica Plain neighborhood of Boston. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa) 

He was passing out American flags on the race sidelines and ran to Bauman after the blasts.

"I thought, 'How am I going to get him out of here?'"

"And then I saw this miracle woman coming with a wheelchair," Arredondo recalled. "And it saved his life."

JEFF BAUMAN

View full sizeIn this Friday, March 14, 2014 photo, Jeff Bauman stands in his home in Carlisle, Mass. Bauman, who lost both of his legs in the Boston Marathon bombings, helped identify one of the two brothers accused of setting off the explosions, which killed three and injured more that 260 others. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa) 

"I never look at it. I can't. I Googled myself once, and I looked at it and I was like, I can't look at that. That just brings me right back to me laying on the ground."

But Bauman says it sums up the good that happened that day.

"I thought that was amazing that they helped save my life like that. ... Everyone was just trying to help me, help us, you know. Help the people that were hurt."

The cost of keeping global warming in check is "relatively modest," but only if the world acts quickly to reverse the buildup of heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere, the head of the U.N.'s expert panel on climate change said Sunday.

BERLIN -- The cost of keeping global warming in check is "relatively modest," but only if the world acts quickly to reverse the buildup of heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere, the head of the U.N.'s expert panel on climate change said Sunday.

Such gases, mainly CO2 from the burning of fossil fuels, rose on average by 2.2 percent a year in 2000-2010, driven by the use of coal in the power sector, officials said as they launched the Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change's report on measures to fight global warming.

Without additional measures to contain emissions, global temperatures will rise about 3 degrees to 4 degrees Celsius (5 degrees to 7 degrees Fahrenheit) by 2100 compared to current levels, the panel said.

"The longer we delay the higher would be the cost," IPCC chairman Rajendra Pachauri told The Associated Press after the panel's weeklong session in Berlin. "But despite that, the point I'm making is that even now, the cost is not something that's going to bring about a major disruption of economic systems. It's well within our reach."

The IPCC, an international body assessing climate science, projected that shifting the energy system from fossil fuels to zero- or low-carbon sources including wind and solar power would reduce consumption growth by about 0.06 percentage points per year, adding that that didn't take into account the economic benefits of reduced climate change. "The loss in consumption is relatively modest," Pachauri said.

The IPCC said the shift would entail a near-quadrupling of low-carbon energy -- which in the panel's projections included renewable sources as well as nuclear power and fossil fuel-fired plants equipped with technologies to capture some of the emissions.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry called it a global economic opportunity.

"So many of the technologies that will help us fight climate change are far cheaper, more readily available, and better performing than they were when the last IPCC assessment was released less than a decade ago," Kerry said.

The IPCC said large changes in investments would be required. Fossil fuel investments in the power sector would drop by about $30 billion annually while investments in low-carbon sources would grow by $147 billion. Meanwhile, annual investments in energy efficiency in transport, buildings and industry sectors would grow by $336 billion.

The message contrasted with oil and gas company Exxon Mobil's projection two weeks ago that the world's climate policies are "highly unlikely" to stop it from selling fossil fuels far into the future, saying they are critical to global development and economic growth.

Coal emissions have declined in the U.S. as some power plants have switched to lower-priced natural gas but they are fueling economic growth in China and India.

The IPCC avoided singling out any countries or recommending how to share the costs of climate action in the report, the third of a four-part assessment on climate change.

Though it is a scientific body, its summaries outlining the main findings of the underlying reports need to be approved by governments. This brings a political dimension to the process.

In Berlin, a dispute erupted over whether to include charts that showed emissions from large developing countries are rising the fastest as they expand their economies. Developing countries said linking emissions to income growth would divert attention from the fact that historically, most emissions have come from the developed nations, which industrialized earlier.

"This is the first step for developed countries of avoiding responsibilities and saying all countries have to assume the responsibility for climate change," said Diego Pacheco, the head of Bolivia's delegation in Berlin.

In the end the charts were taken out of the summary, but would remain in the underlying report, which was to be published later in the week, officials said.

Counting all emissions since the industrial revolution in the 18th century, the U.S. is the top carbon polluter. China's current emissions are greater than those of the U.S. and rising quickly. China's historical emissions are expected to overtake those of the U.S. in the next decade.

The IPCC summary also refrained from detailed discussions on what level of financial transfers are needed to help developing countries shift to cleaner energy and adapt to climate change.

Another IPCC report, released last month, warned that flooding, droughts and other climate impacts could have devastating effects on economies, agriculture and human health, particularly in developing countries.

"The world's poorest nations are in need of economic development. But they need to be helped to leapfrog dirty energy and develop in a way which won't entrench their poverty by making climate change worse," said Mohamed Adow of charity group Christian Aid.

The IPCC reports provide the scientific basis for U.N. climate negotiations. Governments are supposed to adopt a new climate agreement next year that would rein in emissions after 2020.

The ambition of that process is to keep warming below 1.2 degrees Celsius (2.2 Fahrenheit) compared to today's levels. Global temperatures have already gone up 0.8 Celsius (1.4 Fahrenheit) since the start of record-keeping in the 19th century.

The IPCC, which shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore in 2007, said the U.N. goal is still possible but would require emissions cuts of 40 percent to 70 percent by 2050 and possibly the large-scale deployment of new technologies to suck CO2 out of the air and bury it deep underground.

"The IPCC is telling us in no uncertain terms that we are running out of time -- but not out of solutions -- if we are to avoid the worst effects of climate change," said Frances Beinecke, president of the Natural Resources Defense Council, a Washington-based environmental group. "That requires decisive actions to curb carbon pollution -- and an all-out race to embrace renewable sources of energy. History is calling."

The fire spread from outside a front window to the inside of the house.

SPRINGFIELD – Fire Department investigators are searching for the cause of a fire that damaged a home at 16 Andover Road Saturday night.

The fire is believed to have started outside under a front window and is likely suspicious, said Dennis G. Leger, aide to Fire Commissioner Joseph Conant.

The residents were not home when the fire started. Neighbors who heard the smoke detectors in the house reported the fire at about 10:40 p.m. They attempted to extinguish the blaze with a garden hose, but it had already spread inside, Leger said.

The fire spread up the side wall on the first floor and traveled up the attic before firefighters were able to extinguish it. It caused about $15,000 in damage, Leger said.

Three people died Sunday after shootings at a Jewish community center campus and retirement community in suburban Kansas City, and a 15-year-old boy is in critical condition.

OVERLAND PARK, Kan. -- A man opened fire outside a Jewish community center on Sunday, killing two people before driving over to a retirement community a few blocks away and killing someone else, authorities said.

Megan Huntsman, 39, who lived in the Utah home until three years ago, had the infants between 1996 and 2006, investigators said.

A Utah woman accused of killing seven babies she gave birth to over 10 years was arrested Sunday after police discovered the tiny bodies stuffed in separate cardboard boxes in the garage of her former home.

Megan Huntsman, 39, who lived in the Utah home until three years ago, had the infants between 1996 and 2006, investigators said.

Officers responded to a call Saturday from Huntsman's estranged husband about a dead infant at the home in Pleasant Grove, 35 miles south of Salt Lake City, police Capt. Michael Roberts said. Officers then discovered the six other bodies.

Roberts declined to comment on a motive and what Huntsman said during an interview with investigators.

The spokesman said the estranged husband lived with Huntsman when the babies were born but isn't a person of interest at this time. The man's name was not immediately released.

"We don't believe he had any knowledge of the situation," Roberts told The Associated Press.

Asked how the man could not have known if he lived in the house, Roberts replied, "That's the million-dollar question. Amazing."

The babies' bodies were sent to the Utah medical examiner's office for tests, including one to determine the cause of death. DNA samples taken from the suspect and her husband will determine definitively whether the two are the parents as investigators believe.

The house in a middle-class neighborhood is owned by the husband's parents, and the man was cleaning out the garage when he made the grisly discovery.

Huntsman's three daughters still live there, longtime neighbor Sharon Chipman told The Salt Lake Tribune. The oldest are around 18 to 20 years old, while the youngest is now about 13, she said.

Huntsman was a great neighbor, and Chipman trusted her to watch her grandson when he was a toddler, Chipman added.

"She took good care of him. She was good. This really shocks me," Chipman told The Tribune.

Roberts said the case has been "emotionally draining" and upsetting to investigators. He was at the home when the bodies were discovered.

"My personal reaction? Just shocked. Couldn't believe it. The other officers felt the same," the 19-year police veteran said.

Huntsman was booked Sunday into the Utah County Jail on six counts of murder. Roberts said it wasn't clear if she has an attorney.

Ware police received a warrant to search the home.

WARE – Police arrested a man and a woman on charges of distribution of heroin and possession of crack cocaine Sunday afternoon.

The arrest came after an investigation by police detectives into possible drug sales. Sunday police received a warrant to search 4 East St. and found an undetermined amount of heroin and a small amount of crack cocaine in the home, Police Sgt. Kenneth Kovitch said.

Police arrested Ann Cutler, 33, and Joseph Delabruere, 29, and charged them with possession with intent to distribute heroin and possession of cocaine. Both are being held on $2,500 bail, Kovitch said.

The two live at 4 East St., he said.

The bridge that is under construction began leaning toward the bridge that is currently in use.

BRATTLEBORO, VT - Both lanes of Interstate-91 have now been open to traffic ending days-long traffic jams in the southern part of the state.

The Windham Sheriff's Department announced at about 10:45 p.m. that workers had managed to stabilize the bridge that is under construction to make it safe.

All northbound and southbound lanes for Interstate 91 between Exits 1 and 3 in Brattleboro had been closed since Saturday morning because of problems with bridge construction. The closures created gridlock at times in the town and on the highway.

The problem happened when the bridge that is under construction began leaning towards the bridge that was being used, according to the Windham County Sheriff's Department.

State police had originally predicted the highway would open at 8:30 p.m. Sunday.

Nicole O'Neil was standing about 150 feet from where the second bomb detonated at last year's Boston Marathon. She wasn't physically injured, but, nearly one year later, the 34-year-old Charlestown photographer says she hasn't fully recovered.

BOSTON — Nicole O'Neil was standing about 150 feet from where the second bomb detonated at last year's Boston Marathon. She wasn't physically injured, but, nearly one year later, the 34-year-old Charlestown photographer says she hasn't fully recovered.

Once-routine things still trigger anxiety attacks, flashbacks and waves of overwhelming emotion. At a Bon Jovi concert in July, O'Neil says she went into "full panic" when the Gillette Stadium crowd roared and the lights went out. Summoned for jury selection recently, she was overcome by an anxiety attack that left her shaking and crying on a courtroom bench before she was excused.

She's among hundreds of people who have taken advantage of a range of programs offered — free of charge — at Boston-area hospitals for those affected by last year's bombings, which killed three people and injured more than 260 on April 15, 2013.

"Sometimes it's just this feeling in my chest, where my heart is beating fast," she said. "But other times it's so intense it can feel like I'm dying. I can't catch my breath and my body goes numb and it's hard to pull out of it. It's completely exhausting."

It wasn't always this way. O'Neil says she wasn't much of a crier before. She never suffered from anxiety or panic attacks. She was comfortable in social situations. "I'm more afraid now than I ever was before," O'Neil says. "I was a completely different person a year ago."

O'Neil spent a few months in private counseling before finding the support groups, individual therapy and other mental health services at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.

Some of those services were covered through an initiative funded in part by the state's Office for Victim Assistance. The city is also offering free counseling sessions, both in person and over the phone, to help residents cope with the anniversary.

Cynthia Kennedy, a clinician at Beth Israel, says the significant psychological trauma suffered by those in the vicinity of the twin blasts is too often overlooked. Part of the problem, mental health professionals suggest, is how the public and media interpret "Boston Strong," the phrase that became the city's rallying cry after the bombings.

"Some people are not feeling justified with their own struggles, or they are feeling guilty with their reaction," Kennedy said. "It leaves people feeling like, 'What is wrong with me? Why can't I just get over it?'"

O'Neil says she started participating in programs at Beth Israel in August. But she became frustrated at what she felt was a lack of progress early on. Over the holidays, she took a break from the programs.

"It's isolating. Even the people closest to you don't understand it. That you don't really have control over it," O'Neil said.

Kennedy says O'Neil's experience is typical. Support group members at Beth Israel, who range from marathon runners to first responders, volunteers and bystanders, report having trouble adjusting to public settings, being in large crowds and riding public transit.

Kennedy says the support groups help people understand that these reactions are normal after traumatic events.

In February, O'Neil resumed her individual counseling sessions at the hospital and started taking part in a Buddhist meditation group, also provided by Beth Israel. She knows it will be a gradual process.

"Those of us there that day have a new reality," O'Neil says. "A year ago, if someone asked me what the chances were that I would witness a terrorist attack, I would have said the chance was slim. Now I've been that statistic."

As the bombing anniversary and next marathon near, mental health professionals say their programs have shifted focus to how people will handle those two critical milestones.

Kennedy says support group members are considering a variety of approaches. Some will attend the race. Others will be far away from Boston. Still others, she said, have talked about doing something locally as a group, like bowling.

O'Neil says her plans are still up in the air. She's determined to attend a public ceremony marking the bombing anniversary. The actual marathon on April 21 is another matter.

"I feel torn. I want so badly to be there. ... The marathon is an important day for me. I have always loved it," O'Neil says. "I worry the crowd and all of the aspects of the race could trigger anxiety and flashbacks that will make it difficult."

The fire was put down by firefighters before it could work its way from the porch into the house, a fire official said.

SPRINGFIELD — A fire in the rear porch of a home at 702 Belmont Ave. caused an estimated $5,000 damage Monday evening, a fire official said.

There were no injuries, and firefighters stopped the fire before it could work its way into the house, said Dennis Leger, aide for Fire Commissioner Joseph Conant.

All damage was confined to the rear first-floor porch, he said.

The preliminary investigation suggests it was caused by careless disposal of smoking materials, Leger said.

No one was home at the time of the fire, he said.

The house is located at Belmont Avenue and Hollywood Street in the city's Forest Park neighborhood.

Springfield City Councilor said he plans to sponsor an ordinance with increased controls on cigar sales to promote less use by youth.

Updates a story posted Monday at 3:08 p.m.

SPRINGFIELD — Several high school students met with city officials on Monday, urging tighter controls on the sale of cigars aimed at making it more difficult to sell to minors.

The students, as participants in the Pioneer Valley Area Health Education Center, are asking the City Council to pass an ordinance that would ban the sale of single cigars if priced less than $2.50.

Their proposal, presented by students accompanied by city health officials, calls for a price of at least $2.50 per cigar, unless sold in packages of four cigars, or more. The packages of four or more would be unaffected by the ordinance, under the proposal.

While tobacco sales to minors is illegal, such sales do occur, and the ordinance is aimed at making such sales less affordable to youth, reducing their lure at that age, the students said during a meeting at City Hall.

“If youth are starting so early, it’s going to be very addictive throughout their lives,” said Elizabeth Phan, a junior at Central High School.

Cigarettes, in contrast, are very expensive as sold in packs and cartons, making them less affordable to youth, students said.

Councilor Bud Williams, as chairman of the council’s Health and Human Services Committee, heard the presentation and saw the students’ crafted charts, and said he plans to sponsor such an ordinance.

“Fantastic,” Williams said after the student presentation. “You young people are doing the right thing. We are going to make this happen.”

Phan and Alexandra Santiago, a senior at the High School of Commerce, were among students saying they are concerned about the packaging of some tobacco products that seems designed to make them more colorful or fun.

For example, some products are shaped like a tin of mints, and prices are made more affordable due to the smaller size offered, making them more attractive to young people, they said.

If the council sets a higher minimum price for a single cigar, “high school students are less likely to purchase them,” Santiago said. The sale of single cigarettes is illegal, but does occur, while single-cigar sales can legally be sold to adults, health officials said.

There are times when minors can “walk in a store and buy them without any i.d.,” said Augustina Amoako, a senior at Central.

“Our purpose is to make it difficult to sell to young persons,” she said.

Lila Chamlagai, a junior at Central High School, and Rushawna Elliot, a junior at Commerce, joined in the presentation.

Some of the students said they take part in city compliance checks, in which students go into a store and ask to buy a tobacco product. There are times they are not asked for identification and buy the product, which can lead to warnings and fines levied against the store by the city.

Helen Caulton-Harris, the city’s director of health and human services, and Neville Anglin, the city’s tobacco control coordinator, attended the meeting. Anthony Wilson, associate city solicitor, also attended and will work with city officials on drafting the ordinance.

The Pulitzer for breaking news was awarded to The Boston Globe for its "exhaustive and empathetic" coverage of the Boston Marathon bombing and the manhunt that followed.

NEW YORK — The Washington Post and The Guardian won the Pulitzer Prize in public service Monday for revealing the U.S. government's sweeping surveillance efforts in a blockbuster series of stories based on secret documents supplied by NSA leaker Edward Snowden.

The Pulitzer for breaking news was awarded to The Boston Globe for its "exhaustive and empathetic" coverage of the Boston Marathon bombing and the manhunt that followed.

Two of the nation's biggest and most distinguished newspapers, The Post and The New York Times, won two Pulitzers each, while the other awards were scattered among a variety of publications large and small.

The stories about the National Security Agency's spy programs revealed that the government has systematically collected information about millions of Americans' phone calls and emails in its effort to head off terrorist attacks.

The disclosures touched off a furious debate in the U.S. over privacy versus security and led President Barack Obama to impose limits on the surveillance.

The NSA stories were written by Barton Gellman at The Washington Post and Glenn Greenwald, Laura Poitras and Ewan MacAskill, whose work was published by The Guardian US, the British newspaper's American operation, based in New York.

"I think this is amazing news," Poitras said. "It's a testament to Snowden's courage, a vindication of his courage and his desire to let the public know what the government is doing."

Snowden, a former contract employee at the NSA, has been charged with espionage and other offenses in the U.S. and could get 30 years in prison if convicted. He has received asylum in Russia.

In a statement issued by the Freedom of the Press Foundation, Snowden saluted "the brave reporters and their colleagues who kept working in the face of extraordinary intimidation, including the forced destruction of journalistic materials, the inappropriate use of terrorism laws, and so many other means of pressure to get them to stop."

Snowden's supporters have likened his disclosures to the release of the Pentagon Papers, the secret Vietnam War history whose publication by The New York Times in 1971 won the newspaper a Pulitzer. His critics have branded him a traitor to the U.S.

"To be rewarding illegal conduct, to be enabling a traitor like Snowden, to me is not something that should be rewarded with a Pulitzer Prize," said Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y. "Snowden has violated his oath. He has put American lives at risk."

At The Boston Globe, the newsroom was closed off to outsiders, and staff members marked the announcement of the breaking-news award — coming just a day before the anniversary of the bombing — with a moment of silence for the victims.

"There's nobody in this room who wanted to cover this story. Each and every one of us hopes that nothing like it ever happens again on our watch," Globe Editor Brian McGrory told the newsroom.

The bombing last April 15 that killed three people and wounded more than 260 also led to a Pulitzer in the feature photography category for Josh Haner of The New York Times, for his photo essay on a blast victim who lost his legs.

The Times also won in the breaking-news photography category, for Tyler Hicks' coverage of the Westgate mall terrorist attack in Kenya.

The Washington Post won a second Pulitzer in the explanatory reporting category, for Eli Saslow's look at food stamps in America.

The Pulitzers are given out each year by Columbia University on the recommendation of a board of distinguished journalists and others.

The two winners of the public service award will receive gold medals. The other awards carry a $10,000 prize.

The Center for Public Integrity's Chris Hamby won for investigative reporting for detailing how lawyers and doctors rigged a system to deny benefits to coal miners suffering from black lung disease.

The prize for national reporting went to David Philipps of The Gazette of Colorado Springs, Colo., for an investigation that found that the Army has discharged escalating numbers of traumatized combat veterans who commit crimes at home.

The Pulitzer for international reporting was awarded to Jason Szep and Andrew R.C. Marshall of Reuters for their coverage of the violent persecution of a Muslim minority in Myanmar.

The Oregonian newspaper won for editorial writing for its pieces on reforms in Oregon's public employee pension fund. The prize was the third in the newspaper's history for editorial writing.

The Tampa Bay Times' Will Hobson and Michael LaForgia won in local reporting for writing about squalid housing for the city's homeless.

"These reporters faced long odds. They had to visit dicey neighborhoods late at night. They had to encourage county officials to be courageous and come forth with records," said Neil Brown, Tampa Bay Times editor and vice president. "And in the end, what they were ultimately doing was standing up for people who had no champion and no advocate."

The Philadelphia Inquirer's architecture critic Inga Saffron won for criticism. At The Charlotte Observer, Kevin Siers received the award for editorial cartooning.

No award was handed out for feature writing.

Sig Gissler, who administers the prizes at Columbia, said the reporters on the NSA story "helped stimulate the very important discussion about the balance between privacy and security, and that discussion is still going on."

The Post's Gelman said the stories were the product of the "most exhilarating and frightening year of reporting."

"I'm especially proud of the category," he said. "Public service feels like a validation of our belief in the face of some pretty strong criticism that the people have a right to take part in drawing the boundaries of secret intelligence in a democracy."

HOLYOKE -- Imposition of a meals tax is a proposal that has drawn restaurant owners and city officials to a debate at City Hall Monday of the City Council Finance Committee. The meals tax -- 0.75 percent -- is an option the state granted cities and towns in 2009. It would add 23 cents to a $30 bill, for...

HOLYOKE -- Imposition of a meals tax is a proposal that has drawn restaurant owners and city officials to a debate at City Hall Monday of the City Council Finance Committee.

The meals tax -- 0.75 percent -- is an option the state granted cities and towns in 2009. It would add 23 cents to a $30 bill, for example, or 75 cents to a $100 bill.

Each year, the Department of Revenue calculates what each city or town would receive from a meals tax, and Holyoke would get $533,199, officials have said.

Supporters said the meals tax would be a pennies-on-the-dollar revenue infusion. New revenue is needed as the city struggles with expenses that rise yearly while additional property tax revenue is off limits because of Proposition 2 1/2 restrictions.

Opponents said another tax that is however small still would mean restaurants are charging customers more when the choice should be to cut city spending.

Councilors Jossie M. Valentin, Gordon P. Alexander and Rebecca Lisi filed the order to adopt the meals tax that the council referred to committee April 1.

The Finance Committee report will go to the full City Council for a vote at a later date.

See live coverage in the comment section below:

President Barack Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke Monday for the first time in more than two weeks, but appeared to make little progress in stemming the growing crisis in eastern Ukraine, where pro-Russian forces are deepening their insurgency.

WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke Monday for the first time in more than two weeks, but appeared to make little progress in stemming the growing crisis in eastern Ukraine, where pro-Russian forces are deepening their insurgency.

A senior U.S. official said Obama told Putin that while a diplomatic solution to the crisis remains his preferred outcome, Russia's actions are not conducive to that approach. The Kremlin said Putin used the call to reject Western claims that Russian agents have stoked protests in eastern Ukraine and also urged Obama to discourage the Ukrainian government from using force against those protesters.

The call was initiated at Russia's request, according to the U.S. official, who insisted on anonymity in order to describe the call before details are formally released by the White House. The conversation occurred days before U.S., Russian, Ukrainian and European officials are due to hold talks on the unrest in Geneva.

U.S. officials say there is compelling evidence that Russia is fomenting the unrest in eastern Ukraine, but have suggested Obama has not yet concluded that Putin's actions warrant broader sanctions on key Russian economic sectors.

"We are actively evaluating what is happening in eastern Ukraine, what actions Russia has taken, what transgressions they've engaged in," White House spokesman Jay Carney said. "And we are working with our partners and assessing for ourselves what response we may choose."

Administration officials confirmed Monday that CIA chief John Brennan visited the Ukrainian capital of Kiev over the weekend, breaking with the administration's typical practice of not disclosing the director's travel. Ousted Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych accused Brennan of being behind Ukraine's decision to send troops into the east to try to quash an increasingly brazen pro-Russian insurgency.

While U.S. officials denied those accusations, confirmation of Brennan's visit could provide fodder for Russian officials to create a pretext for further incursions into eastern Ukraine.

Obama and Putin last spoke on March 28. Since then, pro-Russian forces have undertaken a rampage of storming and occupying local government offices, police stations and a small airport in eastern Ukraine. The Ukrainian government has proved powerless to rein in the separatists, who are demanding more autonomy from the central government in Kiev and closer ties to Russia.

The White House has blamed the unrest on Russia, saying there are undeniable similarities between the situation in eastern Ukraine and the Kremlin's maneuvers in Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula Russia annexed from Ukraine last month.

"The evidence is compelling that Russia is supporting these efforts and involved in these efforts," Carney said. "You saw this coordinated effort in a number of cities across eastern Ukraine all at once that sure didn't look organic to observers from the outside."

Despite those assertions, it was unclear whether the U.S. planned to respond with deeper economic penalties. Obama has repeatedly warned that Russian advances into eastern Ukraine would mark a serious escalation of the crisis that would warrant a stronger international response, including the prospect of sanctions on Russia's energy sector and other key industries.

But the administration has avoided saying whether Russia's actions in the east thus far have crossed that line. U.S. officials are also still trying to rally support for sector sanctions from Europe, which has a far deeper economic relationship with Russia and would therefore be more likely to be negatively affected by the penalties.

As part of that effort, Obama spoke Monday with French President Francois Hollande. The French leader said in a statement that he and Obama discussed the importance of avoiding provocations in Ukraine and establishing a policy of strong and calibrated sanctions along with other European partners.

A high-ranking European Union official said foreign ministers did decide Monday to sanction more Russians with asset freezes and visa bans, though they appeared to stop short of the broader penalties on Russia's economy.

A space station cargo ship will remain Earthbound for a while longer because of a rocket leak.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- A space station cargo ship will remain Earthbound for a while longer because of a rocket leak.

With just over an hour remaining, the SpaceX company called off Monday's planned launch. Officials said they believe the problem can be fixed by Friday, the next opportunity for flying and the last chance before astronauts do urgent spacewalking repairs.

A helium leak in the first-stage of the unmanned Falcon rocket forced a halt to the countdown, the latest delay spanning the past month.

Over the weekend, NASA almost postponed the launch attempt because of a computer outage at the International Space Station. But mission managers decided Sunday that everything would be safe for the arrival of the Dragon capsule and its 2½ tons of supplies.

The computer, a critical backup, failed outside the space station Friday as flight controllers were trying to activate it for a routine software load. The primary computer has been working fine.

It's the first breakdown ever of one of these so-called space station MDMs, or multiplexer-demultiplexers, used to route computer commands for a wide variety of systems. Forty-five MDMs are scattered around the orbiting lab. The failed one is located outside and therefore will require spacewalking repairs.

The Dragon capsule holds a gasket-like material for next week's computer replacement. This new material was rushed to the launch site over the weekend and loaded into the Dragon. NASA said astronauts can make the repair without it if necessary.

NASA astronauts Rick Mastracchio and Steven Swanson will perform the spacewalk next Tuesday -- regardless of whether the Dragon flies by then. It will take several days to get the replacement computer ready, thus the one-week wait before the job, NASA's Kenny Todd, a station operations manager, said Monday.

SpaceX -- Space Exploration Technologies Corp. of California -- is one of two American companies hired by NASA to fill the cargo gap left when the space shuttles retired in 2011. Orbital Sciences Corp. of Virginia is the other.

If the SpaceX Dragon isn't flying by Friday, the company may have to get in line behind Orbital, on track for a May delivery run from its Virginia launching site.

The Dragon should have soared in mid-March, but SpaceX needed two extra weeks of launch prepping. Then an Air Force radar-tracking device was damaged in a fluke accident; an electrical short caused the instrument to overheat.

Monday's helium leak apparently came from a system that separates the first-stage during the first few minutes of flight.

Earlier in the afternoon, SpaceX signed a 20-year lease with NASA to take over the launch pad used during the Apollo and shuttle programs. Kennedy Space Center's Launch Complex 39-A would be used for SpaceX launches with astronauts bound for the space station in three or four more years, if NASA approves the venture. Russia currently provides the only way to get astronauts to and from the space station.

Unmanned missions also are slated for this pad, possibly next year.

In Pulitzer Prize-winng "The Flick," by Amherst native Annie Baker, 3 relatively youthful, low-paid employees work together in a theater in Massachusetts that still shows 35-millimeter movies on film.

By MARK KENNEDY
AP Drama Writer

NEW YORK — Annie Baker's "The Flick" has won the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for drama, a play set in a rundown movie theater that was hailed by the judges as a "thoughtful drama with well-crafted characters" with "lives rarely seen on the stage."

The Columbia University's prize board on Monday gave the playwright, a native of Amherst, Massachusetts, who is in her early 30s, the prize for her play about friendship, morality and loyalty. The university said it was "a hilarious and heart-rending cry for authenticity in a fast-changing world."

It played off-Broadway at Playwrights Horizons last year, becoming a topic of discussion when a small group of early theatergoers found it too long at 3 hours and 15 minutes and walked out. But critics found it challenging and rewarding, and it soon won over audience members, running for months.

In "The Flick," three relatively youthful, low-paid employees work together in a theater in Massachusetts that still shows 35-millimeter movies on film. Everyday jealousies, disappointments and anger share the stage with jokes, chit-chat, occasional poignant revelations and a lot of workplace tedium.

Baker, 33, beat out "The (Curious Case of the) Watson Intelligence," by Madeleine George, which also played Playwrights Horizons, and "Fun Home," with a book and lyrics by Lisa Kron and music by Jeanine Tesori, which played the Public Theater.

Baker was traveling to a Passover seder on Monday and unreachable for comment. But plans are already in the works to mount her winning play in New York again: Film and theater producer Scott Rudin, who owns the option on "The Flick," hopes to remount the play at the Barrow Street Theater with the same cast from Playwrights Horizons, according to a spokesman, Philip Rinaldi.

If Monday was a big day for women in the theater — all four finalists are women — it also was a big day for Playwrights Horizons, one of the most consistently exciting theater companies in the city.

"Doing new plays is always an adventure and you do your best on every single one of them. I kind of approach them the same, in a way, because it's so impossible to predict," said Tim Sanford, artistic director of Playwrights Horizons.

Sanford said Baker's play "had it all," with characters, archetypes and "a heroic sweep." He called it "sheer brilliance." He acknowledged that perhaps it was longer than most subscribers were used to, but he noted that it was as long as some August Wilson plays.

"I would always much rather have a play where a smaller percentage of the audience hates it and a larger percentage of the audience adores it rather than have a play that no one can quite remember," said Sanford.

A native of Amherst, Mass., Baker has created a name for herself for creating minutely detailed worlds filled with silences and minimal information. Her other plays include "Circle Mirror Transformation," ''Body Awareness" and "The Aliens."

The drama award, which includes a $10,000 prize, is "for a distinguished play by an American author, preferably original in its source and dealing with American life," according to the official guidelines.

The production must have opened during 2013 to be eligible for this year's award. Previous playwrights honored include August Wilson, Edward Albee, Eugene O'Neill, Arthur Miller and Tennessee Williams.

Last year's winner was Ayad Akhtar's "Disgraced," a play about a successful Pakistani-American lawyer whose dinner party spins out of control. The year before, it was "Water By the Spoonful" by Quiara Alegria Hudes.

The win for "The Flick" continues a recent trend that has off-Broadway and closed shows winning of one theater's greatest prizes, something very unlikely 10 years ago.

A shortage of whitefish in the Great Lakes region resulting partly from the winter deep freeze is coming at an inconvenient time for Jewish families: the Passover holiday, when demand is high because it's a key ingredient in a traditional recipe.

TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. -- A shortage of whitefish in the Great Lakes region resulting partly from the winter deep freeze is coming at an inconvenient time for Jewish families: the Passover holiday, when demand is high because it's a key ingredient in a traditional recipe.

Markets in Chicago and Detroit were among those struggling to fill whitefish orders before the beginning of the eight-day celebration Monday evening, and a representative of a commercial fishing agency said the shortfall extended as far as New York.

"Everybody's pulling their hair out," said Kevin Dean, co-owner of Superior Fish Co., a wholesaler near Detroit whose latest shipment provided just 75 pounds of whitefish although he requested 500 pounds. "I've never seen it this bad this time of year."

The dish that inspires such angst is gefilte fish, which somewhat resembles meat loaf or meatballs. Recipes handed down for generations vary but typically call for ground-up fish and other components such as onions, carrots, eggs and bread crumbs. Other fish such as cod, pike and trout are sometimes a part of the mix, but whitefish is especially popular.

"Just smelling that gefilte fish aroma tells my senses that it's a Jewish holiday," said Jason Miller, a rabbi and director of a kosher food certification agency in West Bloomfield, Mich.

In the Chicago suburb of Skokie, Ill., Ira Kirsche of Hungarian Kosher Foods said his market ordinarily would get 200 to 300 pounds of whitefish daily this time of year but has had to settle for 10 to 20 pounds.

Justin Hiller's family market in suburban Detroit eventually received the 4,000 pounds it needed to meet demand but it was a close call.

"There was a short period a couple of days before Passover where we had to create a waiting list," he said.

Gefilte fish ("gefilte" is a Yiddish word for "stuffed") originated in eastern Europe, where it was an inexpensive and tasty choice for Sabbath and holiday meals, Miller said. Because it could be prepared ahead of time, it provided a way to avoid violating the Jewish law against deboning fish on the Sabbath.

It's also available frozen or in cans or jars. But for many, only homemade will do.

Elyse Fine of Rochester, N.Y., who travels to the Chicago area yearly to prepare Seder meals for extended family, said her family used jar varieties until about 10 years ago when her husband suggested she try producing it from scratch.

"Everybody loved it," Fine said. "Now they don't want me to go back to the jar stuff."

She finally located some whitefish an hour's drive away after coming up short at stores closer to home.

The whitefish shortfall is yet another ripple effect of the bitterly cold winter, which caused more than 90 percent of the Great Lakes surface area to freeze over. In some places, the ice cover was many feet thick, leaving commercial crews stuck in port.

"You have a lot of boats that can't get out to fish, even now," said Chuck Bronte, senior fishery biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Green Bay, Wis.

Native American crews in northern Lake Michigan and Lake Huron, as well as Lake Superior, were able to drop their nets through holes drilled in the ice, said Mark Ebener, fishery assessment biologist with the Chippewa Ottawa Resource Authority, which regulates tribal fishing in the area.

They had some success but the whitefish population has dropped in recent years, making the Passover shortage worse, he said.

The reason is unclear, although some scientists blame invasive mussels, which create food scarcity in aquatic food chains by gobbling vast amounts of plankton.