Wynne Davis

Dinner parties often come with expectations and stress, but author Alison Roman wants you to know it doesn't have to be that way.

In her new cookbook, Nothing Fancy, Roman stresses that preparing dinner for others doesn't have to be a piece of performance art. It's dinner and doesn't have to be perfection.

"I feel like taking the word entertaining out of something just immediately alleviates anxiety, because what I realized is also when you rebrand it as having people over, it not only makes you feel less anxious, but your guests, [too]," Roman says.

Walter Mercado, the popular astrologer who endeared himself to millions of Hispanic television viewers for more than three decades, died Saturday in Puerto Rico. He was 87.

Sofía Luquis, a spokeswoman for the Auxilio Mutuo Hospital in San Juan, confirmed Mercado's death with The Associated Press and said he died from kidney failure.

Mercado was well-known across Latin America and in the United States for his horoscope readings and predictions.

The Houston Astros beat the Washington Nationals 8-1 in Game 4 of the World Series to tie it up 2-2.

After losing the first two games at home, the Astros came back to win Game 3 in Washington and continued that momentum through Game 4.

Second-baseman José Altuve was the first Astro to get on base in the first inning while facing Washington's starting pitcher Patrick Corbin. Left-fielder Michael Brantley came up next with another single before third baseman Alex Bregman hit an RBI that gave the Astros their first run of the night.

Kenya's Brigid Kosgei won the Chicago Marathon on Sunday with a time of 2 hours 14 minutes 4 seconds, breaking the previous world record by 81 seconds.

At 25, the Kenyan defended her title after winning last year's event, and put almost 7 minutes between herself and her competition. Both from Ethopia, Ababel Yeshaneh finished second with a time of 2:20:51 and Gelete Burka came in third at 2:20:55.

The previous world record time of 2:15:25 was set by Britain's Paula Radcliffe in 2003 at the London Marathon.

After yet another standout performance, star gymnast Simone Biles can now add two more signature moves that bear her name to her already lengthy list of accomplishments.

In order for a gymnast to have a move named after them, they must submit it for consideration and successfully land it at a major competition, such as the world championships or the Olympics.

Updated at 7:45 a.m. ET Monday

Police in Kansas City, Kan., have arrested one of two men suspected of killing four people in a shooting at a bar early Sunday morning. Five others were injured during the gunfire.

Officers took Javier Alatorre into custody late Sunday afternoon, the Kansas City Police Department says. His suspected accomplice, Hugo Villanueva-Morales, remains at large and "should be considered armed and dangerous, according to the department.

Anti-government protests in Hong Kong continued on Sunday as tens of thousands of demonstrators took to the streets to defy the ban on face masks that went into effect just days earlier.

Hong Kong's chief executive Carrie Lam announced Friday that she would use colonial-era emergency powers to enforce the ban that targets those wearing face masks at public gatherings. Lam is the first to invoke those powers in more than 50 years.

A weekend of protests in Hong Kong ended peacefully on Sunday night, marking a change from the violence that emerged during demonstrations in more recent days.

Massive crowds gathered in Victoria Park earlier on Sunday for a rally that was approved by police, before marching through the city's streets. From there, demonstrators made there way to Hong Kong's Central district, despite not having an approved permit to do so.

Updated at 5:42 p.m. ET

Approximately 10,000 people were left homeless in Bangladesh's capital city, Dhaka, after a fire burned through hundreds of shanties in a slum on Friday night.

Many residents, most of whom are low-wage garment-factory workers, were celebrating the Muslim holiday Eid al-Adha and were not home when the fire broke out. While some people sustained injuries, no deaths have been reported, according to the BBC. The cause of the fire has yet to be determined.

Updated at 9:05 p.m. ET

Puerto Rico Gov. Ricardo Rosselló announced Sunday that he will not seek reelection in 2020.

The announcement follows days of protests across the island sparked by leaked messages between Rosselló and his staff. The messages were widely condemned as homophobic and misogynistic.

Here's something to think about on this Fourth of July: If you are born in the United States, citizenship is a birthright, but if you immigrate to this country, the work of the citizenship process culminates in the reciting of an oath.

The U.S. citizenship oath consists of 140 words. Some of those are more contemporary, others more archaic. That's because the idea of the citizenship oath is almost as old as the Constitution itself.

A day after the synagogue he founded was attacked, Rabbi Yisroel Goldstein recounted the events of the shooting that left one woman dead and three others injured.

The shooting occurred on Saturday at the Chabad of Poway synagogue prior to a scheduled Passover celebration.

The alleged shooter, 19-year-old John T. Earnest, was booked on one count of murder in the first degree and three counts of attempted murder in the first degree, according the San Diego County Sheriff's Department.

Richard Lugar, the former Indiana senator whose work in pursuit of nuclear nonproliferation helped cement his place as one of the Republican Party's most influential voices on foreign policy, died Sunday at the age of 87.

When a redacted version of special counsel Robert Mueller's report on Russian interference in the 2016 election was released to the public and Congress on Thursday, the effects of Russian influence efforts through social media became clearer.

Part of the information in the report included examples of material that Russian trolls used, and one particular image stood out to Ronnie Hipshire, a retired coal miner in West Virginia.

Christians around the world gathered on Sunday to mark the end of Holy Week and celebrate Easter.

Festivities took on many forms. While some worshippers reenacted the Passion of the Christ, others gathered for candlelit services or colorful processions.

The world's largest plane by wingspan took its first flight on Saturday above the Mojave Desert in California.

With a wingspan wider than the length of an American football field, the plane features six turbofan engines, a dual fuselage design and was made using parts from two Boeing jets, according to The New York Times.

Tiger Woods won his fifth Masters title on Sunday, marking an incredible comeback from injury and personal hardship that ended a nearly 11-year-long championship drought.

Woods finished the final round of his 22nd Masters appearance 13 under par, winning the tournament by a single stroke over Xander Schauffele, Dustin Johnson and Brooks Koepka, who were tied for second place.

Updated at 8:38 p.m. ET

Severe weather that moved across the southern U.S. on Saturday left at least eight people dead, injured dozens of others and ravaged numerous homes in its path.

Two children, ages 3 and 8, were killed in eastern Texas when a tree fell on the car in which they were traveling. Angelina County Sheriff Greg Sanches said in a statement that the children, who were in the car with their parents during the storm, were pronounced dead on the scene.

Protesters filled London's streets and packed Parliament Square on Saturday to demand a second referendum vote on Brexit.

The original deadline for Britain to leave the European Union was March 29, but Prime Minister Theresa May secured a little more time from EU leaders to find a deal that both parties agree on.

A cruise ship off Norway's western coast was evacuating its 1,300 passengers after losing power and issuing a mayday call on Saturday.

Helicopters and boats were helping with the evacuation, which is expected to continue for many hours, The Associated Press reported.

Updated at 9:00 a.m. ET Sunday

As the floodwaters from Cyclone Idai have started to recede, the death toll has risen to more than 600 across Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Malawi and is expected to continue to grow.

Updated Oct. 21, 2019

As a new Congress prepares to convene in a deeply polarized capital, many Americans are worried that divisiveness is becoming a national contagion.

On social media, as well as in real life, the will to listen to the other side appears to be lost. There's a lot of talk about civility — and incivility — and who gets to define what those words actually mean.

So we want to know: how is all of this playing out where you live?

Roll over Spot, Buddy and Rover. Say hello to Cardi B, Harry and Groot! These are just some of 2018's popular names for dogs.

Kate Jaffe is a dog name curator for Rover, the dog and cat service provider. She says that this year pop culture dog name names are in.

"We saw the royal wedding surging as inspiration for dog names," she says. "In fact, dogs named Harry and Meghan were both up about 130 percent this year."

Updated on Dec. 17:

Did the old owners of your home leave some Christmas lights or maybe a large inflatable snowman behind? Sometimes a new home comes with the expectation of preserving holiday decorating traditions of owners past.

Maybe you received a "welcome to the neighborhood" basket with a note letting you know your house always had a specific holiday decoration that everyone loves.

Gibbon Ridge at the National Zoo is a little less lively this weekend after Muneca, a 51-year-old white-cheeked gibbon, was euthanized on Friday.

Muneca lived a long life for a gibbon, which typically live to be around 30 in the wild. The zoo says that at 51, Muneca was the oldest of her species in the Association of Zoos and Aquariums' Species Survival Plan population.

White-cheeked gibbons are critically endangered and the population decreased by an estimated 80 percent throughout Muneca's lifetime because of loss of habitat.

Updated 12:34 p.m. ET, Sunday, Sept. 9

Naomi Osaka claimed her first Grand Slam title on Saturday after defeating Serena Williams 6-2, 6-4, in the final of the U.S. Open. With the victory, Osaka became the first Japanese woman to win a Grand Slam singles title.

When Vogue unveiled its annual fashion issue earlier this month, the Internet took notice — not just because Beyoncé graced the cover but also because of the photographer behind the image.

That credit goes to Tyler Mitchell, a 23-year-old from Atlanta who became the first African-American photographer to shoot a Vogue cover in the magazine's 125-year history.

India's southern state of Kerala may get some much needed relief in the coming days as the forecast shows less rain for the area that has been dealing with deadly monsoon floods for more than a week.

More than 350 people have died and at least 800,000 others have been displaced, according to The Associated Press. But there are fears that the number of dead could increase as rescue and recovery efforts continue.

Reporting from Mumbai, NPR's Lauren Frayer says that, "tens of thousands of people have been rescued from flooded homes ... but many more are stranded."

Less than a month after an earthquake killed hundreds of people, the Indonesian island of Lombok experienced a series of quakes on Sunday.

The U.S. Geological Survey measured a 6.9 magnitude quake late Sunday evening local time. That quake came after two others earlier in the day that registered at magnitudes 6.3 and 5.4 respectively, according to The Associated Press.

A man who was driving his pregnant wife to the hospital on Wednesday was detained because of an outstanding warrant for his arrest in Mexico related to a homicide case, according to immigration officials.

Joel Arrona-Lara and his wife, María del Carmen Venegas, had scheduled a cesarean section and were headed to the hospital when they stopped for gas in San Bernardino, Calif.

After pulling into the gas station, surveillance footage shows two other vehicles pulling in and surrounding the couple's van on either side.