"R.and R." -rest and recreation -is a term that has slipped into the vernacular from military usage. There is a certain aptness in using the term to describe the New York City writing stint that TIME Beirut Bureau Chief Karsten Prager is undertaking as part of a home leave. Though still hard at work, Prager is taking a well-deserved break from 14 relentless months of observing first-hand the Middle East's most savage internecine conflict. Says Prager: "Beirut was always the place where one took a plane to cover a story somewhere else. The change is . tragic, to put it mildly." He wrote the main Middle East story in this week's issue, and has contributed a personal view of the bloody strife in the Lebanese capital (see box page 27). He has even found time in New York to take in a few movies for the first time in many months and one Broadway play, Equus.

While Prager changes pace, the Beirut beat is being filled by Cairo Bureau Chief Wilton Wynn, who spent four years as an Associated Press correspondent in Beirut before joining TIME and knows the city intimately. With TIME'S Dean Brelis of Athens, Wynn had lately been a more and more frequent visitor to Lebanon, as the conflict demanded a greater share of the world's attention and, naturally, of TIME'S efforts. In this instance, the homecoming was far from joyful.

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Awards are a pleasure all their own, and TIME staffers have won several of late. Hong Kong Correspondent William McWhirter, recently transferred from TIME'S London bureau, has received a coveted John Hancock award for business journalism for his reporting of last September's special story, "Upstairs/Downstairs at the Factory." It portrayed Britain's labor situation and the deep social conflict between workers and owners in the microcosm of one large firm. Associate Editor Peter Stoler has won a Special Achievement award from the Sigma Delta Chi Deadline Club for the cover story "Hypertension: Conquering the Quiet Killer." Three other TIME staffers and contributors last week received Page One awards from the Newspaper Guild of New York. They are: Associate Editor Burton Pines, for a report on the growing conflict between rich and poor nations; Photographer Dirck Halstead, for his color treatment of new international beauties; and Photographer Ken Regan, for his color photos of Boxer Chuck Wepner. The Newspaper Guild of New York also presented TIME itself with an award for the outstanding quality of its Indochina reporting last year.

In addition, the American Bar Association has once again given TIME the Certificate of Merit in its annual Gavel awards competition for legal reporting. Singled out were: "The Crime Wave," a cover story written by Jose M. Ferrer III, James Atwater and John Leo; "The Truth About Hoover," written by Ed Magnuson; and "Curbing It Without Killing It," a story on bringing the Federal Bureau of Investigation under control, written by Frank B. Merrick.

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