Sydney

BOSTON  -- Celeste Corcoran, 47, of Lowell, Mass., lost both her legs in the marathon explosions. Her daughter Sydney, a 17-year-old high school senior, was also wounded, hit with shrapnel. The two were staying in the same room at Boston Medical Center on Sunday, tended by Celeste's husband, Kevin Corcoran, 48, a truck driver so stoic that he wouldn't admit he, too, had been injured in the bombing. Lacerations on his legs went unattended for two days as he helped his family.

Innocence meets experience, unconvincingly, in the strained redemption drama "33 Postcards. " The movie's awkward mix of familiar setups finds a teenage orphan from China on the sorta-mean streets of Sydney, Australia, inspiring hope in a criminal who has long since repented for his sins. The involvement of Guy Pearce - one of the best, if most unsung, actors of his generation - is among the film's many bafflements. Sixteen-year-old Mei Mei (Zhu Lin) has spent most of her life in a peaceful valley in Zhejiang province.

I am writing to you with regard to "Grill Me Kangaroo Down, Sport" (April 13). I am an expatriate Australian of nine years. On the one hand, I found this article, on the whole, very interesting and informative. On the other hand, I was enraged by the first paragraph. The author, Margo Pfeiff, obviously had no eye for fine dining back in the 1970s. Sydney then was more culinary aware, with fine dining and extensive ethnic cuisine, than Los Angeles was. Sydney was, and still is, a cosmopolitan city, with a vast array of ethnic and seafood restaurants.

BOSTON  -- Celeste Corcoran, 47, of Lowell, Mass., lost both her legs in the marathon explosions. Her daughter Sydney, a 17-year-old high school senior, was also wounded, hit with shrapnel. The two were staying in the same room at Boston Medical Center on Sunday, tended by Celeste's husband, Kevin Corcoran, 48, a truck driver so stoic that he wouldn't admit he, too, had been injured in the bombing. Lacerations on his legs went unattended for two days as he helped his family.

Police today launched a massive search for a robber in Sydney profiting from fear of the fatal disease AIDS. The "AIDS Bandit," very pale and coughing and wheezing, brandishes a full syringe as his weapon and threatens to inject employees at small stores with the AIDS virus if they don't hand over the contents of the cash register. None of his victims have resisted.

Parts of Sydney and surrounding areas were declared natural disaster zones after a windstorm packing gusts of up to 70 mph caused massive damage, uprooting trees and leaving 78,000 homes without power. Emergency workers struggled to restore services and clean up damage caused by the storm, which swept a 185-mile stretch of coastline in and around Sydney, Australia's largest city.

WHEN I had a conference to attend in Sydney, Australia, in July, we planned to eat well during our stay. We ate gourmet for a week -- with only one place duplicated in S. Irene Virbila's list ["Oz at the Head of the Table," Sept. 25]. We did get to Tetsuya's, but not, as Virbila comments, by making reservations months in advance. We asked our hotel concierge if he could try to get us in -- whatever night was available during that week -- and we were there two nights later enjoying an amazing experience.

Regina Jacobs of Oakland and Deena Drossin of Alamosa, Colo., might not run in the women's 5,000 meters in the Olympic Games in Sydney, but they put on a heck of a show in the event in the U.S. Olympic track and field trials at Cal State Sacramento on Friday night. Jacobs, a 1981 graduate of what is now Campbell Hall High, followed Drossin's stiff pace for the first 3,600 meters before surging into the lead and finishing in a U.S. record time of 14:45.35. Drossin placed second in 15:11.55.

Shaun Powell of Newsday is stunned by the politeness and cheery greetings he is getting from Olympic Games volunteers in Sydney. "My fellow New Yorkers, I am tired of this. Tired of complete strangers asking me--no, ordering me--to have a swell time. This kind of attitude is one of many reasons why Sydney is hopelessly and drastically different than the city I left two weeks ago. ". . . If you stay here long enough, the place gets to you.

Bob Baum of the Associated Press, writing from Sydney: "If this is Marion Jones' Olympic fairy tale, the slippers are ready. "Not glass exactly, but clear, extremely expensive plastic. Actually, they're just half-shoes. No heel. Jones doesn't need one because her heels never touch the ground when she's sprinting. "It is touted as the lightest track shoe ever--3.5 ounces--and the first without a heel." * Trivia time: Five players hold the NFL record for touchdown passes in a game with seven.

Kevin and Celeste Corcoran had already survived one trauma two years ago when a car struck their daughter, Sydney, and left her with a fractured skull. Sydney, now an 18-year-old senior at Lowell High School in Lowell, Mass., fought hard to recover, and was bound for Middlesex Community College this fall. On Monday, Sydney and her parents were standing near the finish line at the Boston Marathon when two explosions ripped through the street, said Paul Corcoran, her great-uncle.

Though it hardly needs it, the Sydney Opera House in Australia got a boost in exposure this week from two very different partners -- Etihad Airways of the United Arab Emirates, and talk-show host Ellen DeGeneres. This week, DeGeneres told her Australian fans via Twitter to congregate at the Sydney Opera House on Tuesday to compete for a free flight to Los Angeles to attend a taping of her show. Reports in the Australian media said approximately 250 people gathered at the famous building to participate in a dance-off competition.

The International Olympic Committee released the following statement Thursday regarding its decision to strip Lance Armstrong of the bronze medal he received in 2000: "Following the recent decisions of [ the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency] and the [International Cycling Union, or UCI] regarding the competitive cycling results of Lance Armstrong, the IOC has disqualified Armstrong from the events in which he competed at the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games, namely, the men's individual road race, where he finished 13th, and the men's individual time trial, where he finished 3rd and was awarded with a bronze medal and a certificate.

Andrew Upton is staying on at the Sydney Theatre Company, assuming the position of sole artistic director starting in January. For the last four years, Upton and his wife, actress Cate Blanchett, have served as co-artistic directors of Australia's most prominent theater company. Upton's decision to continue leading the company has come as a surprise because he and Blanchett had announced their decision to both step down at the end of 2013. The couple was recently in New York for the company's staging of Chekhov's "Uncle Vanya," starring Richard Roxburgh, Blanchett, Hugo Weaving and Jacki Weaver.

NEW YORK - Anton Chekhov is always with us in the theater. But this summer his work has been especially prevalent, serving as an inspirational model for such contemporary playwrights as Tracy Letts, Andrew Upton and Annie Baker. Having recently returned from a stifling hot busman's holiday in New York where I saw two productions of "Uncle Vanya," the Baker adaptation at Soho Rep and the Upton adaptation courtesy of the Sydney Theatre Company at the Lincoln Center Festival starring Cate Blanchett, I can't help pondering the meaning of this Chekhovian preponderance.

On the surface, Cate Blanchett would seem to be the least Chekhovian human being on the planet. No idle longing for Moscow for this international stage and screen star, whose frequent flier mileage must have broken the million mark since she and her husband, writer Andrew Upton, took over the Sydney Theatre Company in 2008 and became intercontinental barnstormers. Yet there she is, this paragon of professional fulfillment, garnering raves at home and abroad for her performance in Chekhov's "Uncle Vanya" as a trophy wife who has backed herself into a domestic corner by marrying a cranky codger professor.

Kevin and Celeste Corcoran had already survived one trauma two years ago when a car struck their daughter, Sydney, and left her with a fractured skull. Sydney, now an 18-year-old senior at Lowell High School in Lowell, Mass., fought hard to recover, and was bound for Middlesex Community College this fall. On Monday, Sydney and her parents were standing near the finish line at the Boston Marathon when two explosions ripped through the street, said Paul Corcoran, her great-uncle.

Innocence meets experience, unconvincingly, in the strained redemption drama "33 Postcards. " The movie's awkward mix of familiar setups finds a teenage orphan from China on the sorta-mean streets of Sydney, Australia, inspiring hope in a criminal who has long since repented for his sins. The involvement of Guy Pearce - one of the best, if most unsung, actors of his generation - is among the film's many bafflements. Sixteen-year-old Mei Mei (Zhu Lin) has spent most of her life in a peaceful valley in Zhejiang province.

You never forget the first time, Sydney Leroux says. In her case it came when she was just 13, after a bet with her mother over how many goals she would score in a national soccer tournament. For Shannon Boxx it happened in college - and it, too, came on a dare after she led Notre Dame to an NCAA soccer championship. Yet for both women their first and subsequent tattoos have become indelible markers of accomplishment on a road each hopes will lead to a gold medal in the London Olympics this summer.

After taking in the view from the Sydney Tower Eye, we took the elevator to the fifth floor and Food on Five, the food-court floor of the Westfield Sydney Shopping Centre. There were more than 20 specialty and international cuisine store-front restaurants. Dinner for two was less than $15. We ate there two more times with excellent meals. The only caution is that some weekday nights most close at 5:30. Westfield Sydney Shopping Centre, http://www.westfield.com.au/sydney/store-profiles/cafes-restaurants/level5 Alan Johnson Seal Beach