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World Tango Stars Take the Stage at Argentine Competition 

Fatima Caracoch and Lucas Brenno Marquez from Buenos Aires hold up their trophies after winning the salon category finals of the World Tango Championship in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Tuesday, Aug. 27, 2024. (AP)
Fatima Caracoch and Lucas Brenno Marquez from Buenos Aires hold up their trophies after winning the salon category finals of the World Tango Championship in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Tuesday, Aug. 27, 2024. (AP)
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World Tango Stars Take the Stage at Argentine Competition 

Fatima Caracoch and Lucas Brenno Marquez from Buenos Aires hold up their trophies after winning the salon category finals of the World Tango Championship in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Tuesday, Aug. 27, 2024. (AP)
Fatima Caracoch and Lucas Brenno Marquez from Buenos Aires hold up their trophies after winning the salon category finals of the World Tango Championship in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Tuesday, Aug. 27, 2024. (AP)

Every night in Buenos Aires, cozy clubs and cavernous halls fill with dancers from around the world who cling to one another in the embrace of Argentine tango, gliding in sync to plaintive tunes of nostalgia, loss and love.

Tango's spotlight moved to the stage this week, as several hundred competitors vied for the world's top titles at the annual Buenos Aires Tango Festival and Competition, which was attended by 10,000 spectators on Tuesday's closing night.

With a record 750 couples from 53 countries, the competition showcased the universal appeal of a dance style that originated among sailors and immigrants in the ports of Argentina and Uruguay around the early 1900s, with roots also in African rhythms.

"Tango unifies everything," said one of the event presenters. "In times of global division, what is better than embracing one another?"

Argentina is revered as the world's hub for tango music and dancing, both in social clubs and in glitzy stage shows.

The participants hailed from places as far flung as Brazil, Colombia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, South Korea, the United States and Ukraine.

But the top honors went to Argentineans.

Ayelen Morando broke into tears and her partner Sebastian Martinez fell to his knees as their names were called as winners of the show tango category.

"This is years of effort, of work, of dreaming, and not giving up," Morando later told reporters, still in the black velvet dress and bejeweled collar she had performed in.

Fatima Caracoch and Brenno Marques fiercely hugged as they won for salon tango.

"It's a mix of feelings, of happiness, of ecstasy, and of achieving an incredible dream," Marques said.

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3 Authors Win $10,000 Prizes for Blending Science and Literature

This combination of images shows cover art for “Ancient Light” by Kimberly Blaeser, left, “Bog Queen” by Anna North, center, and “Forest Euphoria: The Abounding Queerness of Nature” by Patricia Ononiwu Kaishian. (University of Arizona Press/Bloomsbury Publishing/Spiegel & Grau via AP)
This combination of images shows cover art for “Ancient Light” by Kimberly Blaeser, left, “Bog Queen” by Anna North, center, and “Forest Euphoria: The Abounding Queerness of Nature” by Patricia Ononiwu Kaishian. (University of Arizona Press/Bloomsbury Publishing/Spiegel & Grau via AP)
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3 Authors Win $10,000 Prizes for Blending Science and Literature

This combination of images shows cover art for “Ancient Light” by Kimberly Blaeser, left, “Bog Queen” by Anna North, center, and “Forest Euphoria: The Abounding Queerness of Nature” by Patricia Ononiwu Kaishian. (University of Arizona Press/Bloomsbury Publishing/Spiegel & Grau via AP)
This combination of images shows cover art for “Ancient Light” by Kimberly Blaeser, left, “Bog Queen” by Anna North, center, and “Forest Euphoria: The Abounding Queerness of Nature” by Patricia Ononiwu Kaishian. (University of Arizona Press/Bloomsbury Publishing/Spiegel & Grau via AP)

Three authors who demonstrated how scientific research can be wedded to literary grace have been awarded $10,000 prizes.

On Wednesday, the National Book Foundation and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation announced the winners of the fifth annual Science + Literature awards. The books include Kimberly Blaeser's poetry collection, “Ancient Light,” inspired in part by the environmental destruction of Indigenous communities; the novel “Bog Queen” by Anna North, the story of a forensic anthropologist and a 2000-year-old Celtic druid; and a work of nonfiction, Patricia Ononiwu Kaishian's “Forest Euphoria: The Abounding Queerness of Nature.”

“These gifted storytellers shine a scientific and poetic light on the beauties and terrors of nature and what they reveal to us about our deepest selves, our humanity, and our existence on this planet,” Doron Weber, vice president and program director at the Sloan Foundation, said in a statement, The AP news reported.

Ruth Dickey, executive director of the National Book Foundation, said in a statement that the new winners continue the awards' mission to highlight “diverse voices in science writing that ... enlighten, challenge, and engage readers everywhere.”

The Book Foundation presents the National Book Awards, one of the literary world's most prestigious events. The Sloan Foundation has a long history of supporting books that join science and the humanities, including Kai Bird's and Martin J. Sherwin’s Pulitzer Prize-winning “American Prometheus,” which director Christopher Nolan adapted into the Oscar-winning “Oppenheimer.”

“At a time when science is under attack, it has become more urgent to elevate books that bring together the art of literature with the wonders of science,” Daisy Hernández, this year's chair of the awards committee and a 2022 Science + Literature honoree, said in a statement.

Varieties

Meteorologists Blame a Stretched Polar Vortex, Moisture, Lack of Sea Ice for Dangerous Winter Blast

Ice forms along the Lake Michigan shore as People walk their dogs on a beach, Tuesday, Jan. 20, 2026, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Kiichiro Sato)
Ice forms along the Lake Michigan shore as People walk their dogs on a beach, Tuesday, Jan. 20, 2026, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Kiichiro Sato)
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Meteorologists Blame a Stretched Polar Vortex, Moisture, Lack of Sea Ice for Dangerous Winter Blast

Ice forms along the Lake Michigan shore as People walk their dogs on a beach, Tuesday, Jan. 20, 2026, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Kiichiro Sato)
Ice forms along the Lake Michigan shore as People walk their dogs on a beach, Tuesday, Jan. 20, 2026, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Kiichiro Sato)

Warm Arctic waters and cold continental land are combining to stretch the dreaded polar vortex in a way that will send much of the United States a devastating dose of winter later this week with swaths of painful subzero temperatures, heavy snow and powerline-toppling ice.

Meteorologists said the eastern two-thirds of the nation is threatened with a winter storm that could rival the damage of a major hurricane and has some origins in an Arctic that is warming from climate change. They warn that the frigid weather is likely to stick around through the rest of January and into early February, meaning the snow and ice that accumulates will take a long time to melt.

Wednesday’s forecast has the storm stretching from New Mexico to New England, threatening at least 250 million people.

“I think people are underestimating just how bad it’s going to be,” said former National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration chief scientist Ryan Maue, now a private meteorologist.

The polar vortex, a patch of bitter cold air that often stays penned up in northern Canada and Alaska, is being elongated by a wave in the upper atmosphere that goes back to a relatively ice-free part of the Arctic and snow-buried Siberia. As the bone-chilling temperatures sweep through the US, they'll meet with moisture from off California and the Gulf of Mexico to set up crippling ice and snow in many areas.

Origins of the system in a warming Arctic The origins of the system begin in the Arctic, where relatively warmer temperatures add energy to the polar vortex and help push its cold air south.

“The atmosphere is aligned perfectly that the pattern is locked into this warm Arctic, cold continent," Maue said. "And it’s not just here for us in North America, but the landmass of Eastern Europe to Siberia is also exceptionally cold. The whole hemisphere has gone into the deep freeze.”

As far back as October 2025, changes in the Arctic and low sea ice were setting up conditions for the kind of stretched polar vortex that brings severe winter weather to the US, said winter weather expert Judah Cohen, an MIT research scientist. Heavy Siberian snowfall added to the push-and-pull of weather that warps the shape of the normally mostly circular air pattern. Those conditions “kind of loaded the dice a bit'' for a stretching of the polar vortex, he said, The AP news reported.

Cohen co-authored a July 2025 study that found more stretched polar vortex events linked to severe winter weather bursts in the central and eastern US over the past decade. Cohen said part of the reason is that dramatically low sea ice in the Barents and Kara seas in the Arctic helps set up a pattern of waves that end up causing US cold bursts. A warmer Arctic is causing sea ice in that region to shrink faster than other places, studies have found.

Arctic sea ice is at a record low extent for this time of year, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center.

Where the winter blast will strike The center of the stretched polar vortex will be somewhere above Duluth, Minnesota, by Friday morning, ushering in “long-lasting brutal cold,” Maue said. Temperatures in the North and Midwest will get about as cold as possible, even down to minus 25 or 30 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 32 to minus 34 degrees Celsius), Maue said. The average low temperature for the Lower 48 states will dance around 11 or 12 degrees (minus 12 to minus 11 degrees Celsius) on Saturday, Sunday and Monday, Maue said.

Two Great Lakes — Erie and Ontario — may freeze up, which would at least reduce the famed lake-effect snow a bit, Maue said.

National Weather Service meteorologist Zack Taylor of the national Weather Prediction Center said most areas east of the Rockies will be impacted by the bitter cold, snow or ice. Treacherous freezing rain could stretch from the southern plains through the mid-South and into the Carolinas, he said.

“We’re looking at the potential for impactful ice accumulation. So the kind of ice accumulation that could cause significant or widespread power outages or potentially significant tree damage,” he said.

And if you don't get ice, you could get “another significant swath of heavy snow,” Taylor said. He said it was too early to predict how many inches will fall, but “significant snowfall accumulations” could hit "the Ozarks region, Tennessee and Ohio valleys, the central Appalachians, and then into the mid-Atlantic, and perhaps into the portions of the northeast.”

Maue said in the mid-Atlantic around the nation's capital, there's a possibility that “you can get two blizzards on top of each other in the next 14 days.”

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How to Protect Yourself from Food Poisoning

Food poisoning usually resolves within a few days without severe symptoms (Pexels)
Food poisoning usually resolves within a few days without severe symptoms (Pexels)
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How to Protect Yourself from Food Poisoning

Food poisoning usually resolves within a few days without severe symptoms (Pexels)
Food poisoning usually resolves within a few days without severe symptoms (Pexels)

Many people around the world suffer from food poisoning, a condition that occurs after consuming contaminated food or beverages.

Symptoms of food poisoning may appear in some people immediately after eating contaminated food, while others may not experience them until several days later.

Food poisoning usually resolves within a few days without severe or long-lasting symptoms. Treatment focuses on drinking enough fluids and reducing symptoms like nausea and diarrhea. Prevention strategies, such as eating well-cooked and properly stored food, can reduce the risk of food poisoning.

Symptoms of Food Poisoning

The symptoms of food poisoning are very similar to those of viral gastroenteritis. Symptoms may disappear in as little as 24 hours or last for up to a week.

According to the Health website, symptoms of food poisoning include:

Diarrhea

Fever

Nausea

Stomach cramps

Vomiting

Symptoms in infants and children include:

Changes in mental state, such as increased nervousness

Lack of energy

Diarrhea that lasts more than 24 hours

Frequent loose stools or vomiting

Some symptoms of food poisoning are more severe and require medical attention. These symptoms include:

Blood in the stool

Diarrhea that lasts more than three days

Symptoms of dehydration, such as severe dry mouth, little or no urination, and dizziness

A high fever above 39 degrees Celsius

Persistent vomiting that prevents you from drinking fluids

Causes

Food poisoning most often results from eating food or beverages contaminated with bacteria, viruses, or parasites. The cause can be determined by knowing what you ate or drank and how quickly symptoms appeared.

Potential causes of food poisoning include:

Escherichia coli (E. coli): A bacterium that causes symptoms about three to four days after eating raw or undercooked ground beef, vegetables, or sprouts. Unpasteurized milk is another possible source of E. coli.

Salmonella: A bacterium that causes symptoms from six hours to six days after eating raw fruits or vegetables, or raw or undercooked meat or eggs. Unpasteurized milk is another possible source of Salmonella.

Staphylococcus aureus: A bacterium that causes symptoms 30 minutes to eight hours after consuming food that was handled improperly, such as sliced meats or sandwiches.

Vibrio: A bacterium that causes symptoms within 24 hours, usually from eating raw or undercooked shellfish.

Norovirus: A virus that causes symptoms 12 to 48 hours after touching contaminated cooking surfaces or eating contaminated green leafy vegetables, fruits, or shellfish. Norovirus may also cause intestinal infections.

Food poisoning can also occur from exposure to:

Parasites such as protozoa, nematodes, and tapeworms

Mold or toxins

Food allergies that trigger the immune system to respond after eating certain foods, including nuts, eggs, fish, wheat, and soybeans

Ways to Prevent Food Poisoning

Food poisoning cannot always be prevented, but you can reduce the risk by following food safety recommendations:

Wash your hands frequently while preparing and handling food.

Sanitize and wash cooking surfaces regularly.

Use separate surfaces for preparing raw meats.

Wash fruits and vegetables before eating, cutting, or cooking them.

Use a food thermometer to ensure food is cooked to the proper internal temperature. For example, cook meat to an internal temperature of at least 60 degrees Celsius or higher, depending on the type of meat.

Refrigerate perishable foods within two hours of cooking them, and store them in airtight containers when necessary to limit bacterial growth.

If the outside temperature is above 32 degrees Celsius, do not leave foods that may spoil unrefrigerated for more than one hour (for example, during a picnic).

When traveling, always drink bottled or treated water to reduce the risk of traveler’s diarrhea, a condition that may occur when traveling to places with untreated water sources.