Officials to drain reflecting pool

Officials to drain reflecting pool

WASHINGTON

Officials in Washington plan to drain the Lincoln Memorial’s reflecting pool for an annual cleaning.

National Park Service spokesman Mike Litterst said in a statement that the draining began last week, and the work is expected to take between 30 and 60 days.

The National Park Service says the reflecting pool is more than 150 feet wide and more than 2,000 feet long and contains 6.7 million gallons of water.

Reservations open for Restaurant Week

NEW YORK

Diners can start booking reservations for the 372 New York City restaurants participating in Restaurant Week.

The Restaurant Week promotion runs Jan. 18 through Feb. 5.

Participating restaurants will offer a three-course dinner for $38 and a three-course lunch for $25.

There are restaurants from all five boroughs representing dozens of cuisines.

Museum has record attendance in 2015

LOUISVILLE, Ky.

The Louisville Slugger Museum and Factory says it is celebrating a record number of visitors.

In a statement, museum officials said 314,149 people visited the museum and factory in 2015.

That number eclipsed the former record of 303,037 guests in 2013.

Vice President Anne Jewell said it’s exciting to have such momentum going into 2016, when the museum celebrates its 20th anniversary.

The statement said several factors contributed to the high attendance, including a popular exhibit of trading cards and longer summer hours.

Geography quiz

Q. The Red River forms a border between Oklahoma and which state?

A. Texas. Also called the Red River of the South, it begins in the Texas Panhandle and eventually empties roughly 1,360 miles later into the Atchafalaya and Mississippi rivers.

Contest offers writing time in Hemingway studio

Anybody can tour the house in Key West, Fla., where Ernest Hemingway lived in the 1930s. Now a new contest is offering one lucky and talented writer a chance to work in the studio where Hemingway wrote.

The winner of the Florida Keys Flash Fiction Contest gets to spend up to 10 days of writing time in the studio at the Ernest Hemingway Home & Museum, plus 21 nights at a residency cottage at The Studios of Key West. The prize also includes $1,500 for air travel, a $500 debit card for meals and incidentals, a VIP pass to local attractions and admission to events at the Hemingway Days Festival, July 19-24.

Entries of no more than 500 words may be submitted at www.fla-keys.com/flashfiction until March 31. Check the site for rules and eligibility.

Hemingway, winner of the 1954 Nobel Prize for literature, wrote some of his most famous works in Key West, including “The Green Hills of Africa,” “The Snows of Kilimanjaro” and “For Whom the Bell Tolls.”

Combined dispatches