American author George Saunder has won the 2017 Man Booker Prize, a high-profile literary award, for his first novel, ” Lincoln in the Bardo,” – a fictional account of US President Abraham Lincoln burying his young son.

In his acceptance speech, Saunders, 58, noted that “we live in a strange time,” adding he saw the key question of the era being whether society responded to events with “exclusion and negative projection and violence,” or “with love/.”

Saunders was the second consecutive American writer to win the prize, after the rules were changed in 2014 to allow authors of any book written in English and published in the U.K. to compete.

His novel, set in 1862, a year into the American Civil war, is a blend of historical accounts and imaginative fiction, which sees Lincoln’s son Willie, who died in the White House at age 11, in “Bardo” – a Tibetan form of purgatory.

The judging panel, led by author and member of Britain’s House of Lords Lola Young, praised the “deeply moving” book, saying it was “utterly original”.

Officers who dragged man off UA flight fired

The city of Chicago has said that it fired two airport police officers in connection with the controversial removal of a passenger from a United Airlines plane earlier this year. Video of the April incident went viral online, showing airport officers dragging a bloodied David Dao off a full plane to make room for airline crew needing to be repositioned for future flights.

Inspector General Joseph Ferguson, who heads the midwestern US city’s watchdog office, had been pursuing an internal probe of the officers’ actions.Ferguson revealed that two of the four had been fired and the other two suspended, but did not specify when the disciplinary actions were taken nor reveal the officers’ identities.

“Chicago Department of Aviation (CDA) employees mishandled a non-threatening situation that resulted in the physically violent forcible removal of a passenger,” the inspector general’s public report stated.

New protests after Catalonia leaders jailed

Protesters gathered for a fresh round of demonstrations in Barcelona to demand the release of two leaders of Catalonia’s pro-independence movement who were jailed in a sedition probe.

A Madrid judge has provisionally jailed Jordi Sanchez and Jordi Cuixart, the leaders of grassroots organisations Catalan National Assembly and Omnium Cultural.

The judge ruled they were the orchestrators of massive demonstrations September 20-21 in Barcelona that hindered a police operation against preparations for the October 1 independence referendum.