A custodian tells a reporter that clearing the school lot during a February storm is "a Sisyphean job. I finish one row and the first row is buried again." What does "Sisyphean" mean here?

A union newsletter calls the steward who handed management the members' bargaining notes "a Judas." What does the label mean there?

A headline calls Saturday's final between a 90-student rural school and the state's largest academy "a David-and-Goliath match." What does the phrase mean there?

A city-hall reporter writes that the council "crossed the Rubicon" the night it signed the demolition contract. What does the phrase mean there?

A dispatcher's log calls the forty-hour effort to reopen the highway after the ice storm "a Herculean job." What does the phrase mean there?

A privacy blog calls the free flashlight app "a Trojan horse" that ships with a location tracker inside it. What does the phrase mean there?

A music podcast says the producer "has the Midas touch" after her third straight hit record. What does the phrase mean there?

A safety board memo calls the engineer who filed six ignored warnings about the valve "the plant's Cassandra." What does the label mean there?

A theater review calls the lead "a Narcissus who plays every scene to the mirror at the back of the set." What does the label mean there?

A magazine calls the family's four-year, six-country search for a transplant surgeon "an odyssey." What does the word mean there?

A profile says the bakery, gutted by fire two years ago, "has risen like a phoenix from the ashes." What does the phrase mean there?

A lawyer tells a client that the two-year suit cost more in fees than the disputed contract was ever worth: "a Pyrrhic victory." What does the phrase mean there?

A police log credits "a good Samaritan" with pulling a driver from a flooded underpass and leaving before officers arrived. What does the phrase mean there?

A tenants' letter says the new hallway cameras and keycard logs mean "Big Brother has moved into the building." What does the phrase mean there?

A columnist writes that the quarterback's fumbling in wet weather is "his Achilles heel." Where does the story behind that phrase come from?

A science writer says the lab's new gene-editing tool "opens Pandora's box." Where does the story behind that phrase come from?

A teacher's note calls marking the same corrections week after week "Sisyphean." Where does the story behind that word come from?

A training brochure describes each senior engineer as "a mentor" to two apprentices. Where does the word itself come from?

A retail analyst says the chain's managers "saw the writing on the wall" two years before the stores closed. Where does the story behind that phrase come from?

A crowd chants that the captain who signed for the rival club is "a Judas." Where does that name come from?

A tech reporter frames the six-person startup's suit against the manufacturer as "David versus Goliath." Where does that story come from?

A profile says the senator "crossed the Rubicon" when she voted against a president of her own party. Where does that phrase come from?

A veterans' advocate says that needing a diagnosis to qualify for the exam that produces the diagnosis is "a catch-22." Where does that phrase come from?

A charity's appeal letter jokes that "nobody wants to be the office Scrooge this December." Where does that name come from?

A district drops one attendance rule and within a month faces two lawsuits, a union grievance, and three replacement rules it cannot undo. Which allusion fits that story?

Sales fall for six straight quarters, the lease is not renewed, and the manager starts job-hunting before any closure is announced. Which allusion fits what she did?

Every job posting requires two years of experience, and no employer will supply that experience without a previous job. Which allusion fits that situation?

A biologist tells a water board for ten years that the reservoir is silting up. The board ignores her, and the reservoir silts up. Which allusion fits her role?

A bankrupt regional airline is broken up and sold off, then relaunched by its former mechanics and flying profitably three years later. Which allusion fits that story?

A town wins a nine-year lawsuit over water rights, spends more on lawyers than the rights are worth, and closes two schools to pay the bill. Which allusion fits that outcome?

Two drivers pass a cyclist lying beside the road. A third stops, drives him to a clinic, pays the bill and leaves no name. Which allusion fits the third driver?

A company installs software that records every keystroke, screenshot and idle minute on staff laptops, at home as well as in the office. Which allusion fits it?

A review says the laptop "is fast, bright and beautifully built, and its hinge is its Achilles heel." What does the allusion imply, read with the rest of the sentence?

A tribute says the coach "was a mentor to nineteen assistants who now run their own programs, and he never won a conference title." What does the allusion imply about him?

A tenants' association writes that the landlord "is a Scrooge who has left the boiler broken through two winters." What does the allusion imply about him?

A city report calls replacing the bridge deck in one summer "a Herculean task, and the crew finished it in eleven weeks." What does the allusion imply, read with the rest of the sentence?

An editorial says the bill's free-breakfast program is "a Trojan horse, and page 40 cuts every school library in the state." What does the allusion imply about the bill?

A profile says the developer "has the Midas touch, and his last three partners left the firm inside a year." What does the allusion imply about him?

A bandmate says the singer "is a Narcissus who recut his own vocal forty times and never once listened to our takes." What does the allusion imply about him?

A citizenship story calls her route to a passport "a nine-year odyssey through three consulates and two appeals." What does the allusion imply about the process?