QUICK HITS

1 Playwright dies: Mart Crowley, a Tony Award-winning playwright whose comic tragedy “The Boys in the Band” helped bring openly gay characters onto the stage and screen, emerging as a landmark depiction of gay life more than a year before the Stonewall riots galvanized a national liberation movement, died March 7 at a hospital in Manhattan. He was 84.

2 Customs agent arrested: A Customs and Border Protection Officer smuggled more than a dozen bricks of cocaine from the U.S. Virgin Islands into the United States after he was allowed to bypass security because of his job, prosecutors said Tuesday. The bricks of cocaine amounted to 39.2 pounds, authorities said.

Census begins: The U.S. Census 3 Bureau made a soft launch of the 2020 census website on Monday, making its form available online. On Thursday, the Census Bureau will begin mailing out notices far and wide. The 2020 census is the first in which most people are being encouraged to answer the questions online, though people can still answer the questionnaire by telephone or by mailing back a paper form if they prefer.

4 Ban defeated: British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Conservative government narrowly defeated an attempt led by some of its own lawmakers to ban China’s Huawei from building part of the U.K.’s high-speed telecommunications network.

5 Trip declined: U.S. President Donald Trump will not be going to Moscow for Victory Day celebrations on May 9, the White House announced Tuesday. The White House confirmed that Trump has declined the Kremlin invitation to attend Russia’s Victory Day celebrations on the 75th anniversary of its World War II victory — the nation’s most important holiday.