Ken Mochizuki, the Seattle author, journalist and educator who introduced Japanese American incarceration to generations of students through children’s literature, died Sept. 20 at his home in Maple Valley, Washington. He was 71 and had esophageal cancer. His body of work, spanning books, journalism and the arts, placed Asian American history at the center of American storytelling.

Filmmaker Lulu Wang has been tapped to helm “Audition,” the upcoming adaptation of Katie Kitamura’s novel starring Lucy Liu and Charles Melton. The film marks Wang’s first return to feature directing since “The Farewell” in 2019. Liu will lead as a celebrated actress whose world unravels when confronted by a young man claiming to be her son, played by Melton.

The Portland Trail Blazers are being sold in a record-breaking $4.25 billion deal signed on Sept. 13, with Panda Express founders Andrew and Peggy Cherng joining the buyer group.

BYD’s Yangwang U9 Xtreme has claimed the title of world’s fastest production car, surpassing the Bugatti Chiron Super Sport 300+ and its previous mark of 304.77 miles per hour (490.48 kilometers per hour). Tested at the ATP Papenburg facility in Germany, the vehicle reached 308.4 mph on Sept. 14. German racing driver Marc Basseng piloted the car during the record-setting run, which was officially verified.

A fossilized skull discovered in central China and dated to roughly 1 million years old has upended the timeline of human evolution. In a study published in the journal Science on Thursday, researchers report that the cranium, known as Yunxian 2, shows that modern humans diverged from ancient relatives about 400,000 years earlier than previously believed, redrawing one of the most fundamental chapters of our species’ history.

Members of the Westminster City Council in Orange County, California, voted on Sept. 24 to condemn local nonprofit VietRISE after a workshop on Vietnamese history featured slides quoting Ho Chi Minh. Officials said the presentation, later posted on Instagram under the title “The August Revolution: Vietnam’s Fight For Freedom,” glorified the former communist leader and disrespected refugees who fled his rule.

Nineteen years after first competing as a child on the debut season of “America’s Got Talent,” Jessica Sanchez returned to the stage and won its Season 20 crown on Wednesday night in Los Angeles. The 30-year-old singer became the first Filipino winner in the show’s history, securing the $1 million prize after the public voted her ahead of freestyle rapper Chris Turner.

“KPop Demon Hunters” director Maggie Kang recently revealed that her Netflix animated hit underwent significant changes during development, originally lacking any musical elements when first pitched.

Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba conveyed this week that recognizing Palestine as a state is “not a matter of ‘if,’ but of ‘when,’” marking the strongest signal yet from Tokyo on Palestinian statehood amid growing international pressure on the Trump administration’s Middle East policy.

A group of teenagers robbed an 11-year-old boy of his iPhone and hundreds of dollars following threats of gun violence in Philadelphia’s Chinatown on Monday.