Your Friday Evening Briefing |
Good evening. Here's the latest. |
 | | Anna Moneymaker for The New York Times |
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1. "America is back, the trans-Atlantic alliance is back." |
President Biden used his first public engagement with America's European allies to call for a return to international collaboration, an attempt to expunge the past four years without once naming his predecessor. |
"We must demonstrate that democracies can still deliver for our people in this changed world," Mr. Biden told the Munich Security Conference. "We have to prove that our model isn't a relic of history." |
Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director general of the World Health Organization, warned that the world could be "back at square one" if developing countries were left behind. Members of the G7 pledged $7.5 billion to an international vaccine effort. Worldwide, more than 190 million people have been vaccinated, but almost none in Africa. |
 | | Mary Altaffer/Associated Press |
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2. The race to vaccinate as many Americans as possible continues in fits and starts. |
Millions of doses of Covid-19 vaccine are still sitting in freezers, with excess doses allocated to nursing homes or stockpiled for later use. Now an effort is underway to free up those doses. |
But winter storms in the U.S. brought vaccinations to a near-halt this week, just as distribution was gaining steam. The White House said that six million doses had been held up, and asked local officials to make up for the lost time in the coming days. |
There were also two positive developments this week that could expand access to the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine: A study in Israel showed that the vaccine is robustly effective after the first shot, raising the possibility that regulators could authorize delaying a second dose, and Pfizer said its vaccine does not always need ultracold storage. |
 | | Nitashia Johnson for The New York Times |
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3. Warm air is finally moving toward Texas. |
President Biden said that he would sign a major disaster declaration for Texas ahead of a potential visit to the state sometime next week. Here's how you can help. |
 | | Jeenah Moon/Reuters |
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4. Erik Prince, a Trump ally and former Blackwater head, violated an arms embargo by sending weapons to a militia commander in Libya, according to a U.N. report. |
A confidential U.N. report obtained by The Times and delivered by investigators to the Security Council on Thursday reveals how Mr. Prince deployed a force of foreign mercenaries, armed with attack aircraft, gunboats and cyberwarfare capabilities, to eastern Libya at the height of a major battle in 2019. |
Mr. Prince, a former Navy SEAL and the brother of Betsy DeVos, former President Donald Trump's education secretary, became a symbol of the excesses of privatized American military force when his Blackwater contractors killed 17 Iraqi civilians in 2007. |
 | | Frank Augstein/Associated Press |
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5. Britain's Supreme Court ruled that Uber drivers must be classified as workers entitled to a minimum wage and time off, in a major victory for labor activists. |
The case, and others like it, may loosen the stays of the gig economy in the U.K. and elsewhere. In the U.S., low-wage Amazon workers have also been winning unionization battles during the pandemic, even as the e-commerce giant has hired more workers in a single year than any other company in history. |
Philosophically, these cases often come down to one question: Is a tech company like any other employer? Now, as worker victories stockpile, signs point to a soft "yes." |
 | | Steve Karnowski/Associated Press |
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6. Your quick pandemic dinner might pack more of a punch than intended. |
Annie's Homegrown has begun removing ortho-phthalates from its food manufacturing equipment and packaging. The chemical, found in mass-market macaroni and cheese packets, is believed to cause health problems and reproductive issues. |
The presence of the chemicals rattled consumers who rely on the food staple, especially parents. But a complete purge may prove challenging. Phthalates can be found just about everywhere in the food manufacturing process. And they tend to collect in foods with a high-fat content, like cheese. |
 | | Tolga Akmen/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images |
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7. Just call them Harry and Meghan. |
Last year, Prince Harry and his wife, Meghan, announced they wanted to step back from royal duties. On Friday, Buckingham Palace announced the formal split, stripping Harry of his honorary military titles. |
The rupture follows years of deep strife between Queen Elizabeth II and her grandson's growing family. The royal family has been notoriously frosty to Meghan, a biracial American actress. So have the British tabloids, griping about the photo the couple posted to announce they are expecting a second child. |
 | | Robert Deutsch/USA Today Sports, via Reuters |
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8. The women's singles final at the Australian Open will feature the most relatable high-octane servers with hammering groundstrokes that you'd ever want to meet (just not on a court). |
On Sunday, Novak Djokovic, the reigning champion and world No. 1, will play Daniil Medvedev in his ninth Australian Open final. Despite quarantine restrictions, an injury and a smashed racket, the tournament has given Djokovic the chance to right his ship. |
And is it farewell to Serena Williams, who lost to Osaka in the semifinals? She'll be back, our columnist predicts. |
 | | Evan Jenkins for The New York Times |
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9. Want to train your puppy? These days, it's a dog-eat-dog world. |
The pandemic has made the difficult task of training a puppy even harder. As owners cut back on social interactions, dogs can take longer to acclimate to other people and other pups. Working from home can create unhealthy dependencies and puppy separation anxiety. And interrupted human schedules make for more unpredictable bathroom breaks for our canine pals. |
 | | Djeneba Aduayom for The New York Times |
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10. And finally, take a virtual trip to Carnival. |
Booming music, glittering costumes, a feeling of freedom: From Brooklyn to London to Toronto and beyond, Carnival has become a joy-fest of renewal, resistance and remembering for Caribbean immigrants. Because the festivities are canceled this year, The Times put together a project commemorating the event and its history. |
Your Evening Briefing is posted at 6 p.m. Eastern. |
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