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Good evening. Here's the latest at the end of Monday. |
 | | Secretary of State Colin Powell in 2004.Doug Mills/The New York Times |
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1. Colin Powell, decorated general and national security leader, died today of complications from the coronavirus. |
Powell, 84, had been vaccinated and was being treated at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Md. A spokeswoman said his immune system had been compromised by multiple myeloma, a rare blood cancer. |
Powell served as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and as secretary of state, and was the country's first Black national security adviser. He was also the architect of the Persian Gulf war in 1991. By the time he retired from the military in 1993, he was the most popular public figure in America. |
But his 2003 speech at the U.N., which helped pave the way for the U.S. to go to war in Iraq, became a source of lifelong regret. |
 | | Demonstrators gathered in support of abortion rights in Austin, Texas, earlier this month.Ilana Panich-Linsman for The New York Times |
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2. The Supreme Court signaled it may act quickly on the Texas abortion law. |
Justice Samuel Alito Jr., who oversees the federal appeals court responsible for Texas, asked officials there to file their response to the Justice Department's application by Thursday at noon. The court could rule in the following days. |
The challenged law, in force since the beginning of September, effectively prohibits abortions after around six weeks of pregnancy. |
 | | A medical worker prepared a vaccine in San Rafael, Calf., in September.Jim Wilson/The New York Times |
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3. The F.D.A. is planning to allow "mix and match" boosters this week. |
A federally funded "mix and match" study presented last week found that recipients of Johnson & Johnson's single-dose shot who received a Moderna booster saw their antibody levels rise 76-fold in 15 days, compared with only a fourfold rise after an extra dose of J.&J. Experts, though, emphasized that the new data was based on small groups of volunteers and short-term findings. |
The move could provide flexibility to doctors and other vaccinators and reduce the appeal of the J.&J. vaccine. The government would not recommend one shot over another, and it might note that using the same vaccine as a booster when possible is preferable. |
 | | A vaccine clinic in Detroit.Emily Elconin for The New York Times |
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The top five states in new daily cases per capita are led by Alaska, according to a New York Times database. The next four are Montana, Wyoming, North Dakota and Idaho. The five states with the fastest rising caseloads are Vermont, Colorado, New Hampshire, Michigan and Minnesota. |
 | | Military helicopters flying over the Kremlin during a rehearsal for a Victory Day parade in 2020.Sergey Ponomarev for The New York Times |
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5. Russia broke off diplomatic ties with NATO. |
The immediate impetus for the Russian move was a spy scandal. Earlier this month, NATO ordered eight Russian diplomats to leave Belgium by Nov. 1, saying they were undeclared intelligence officers. The alliance also reduced the size of the Russian representative office for the third time since 2015. |
The breakoff comes as President Biden is seeking to strengthen the Atlantic alliance after former President Donald Trump denigrated its members as freeloaders on American military spending and threatened to withdraw. |
 | | Jeff Bezos in 2017.Kyle Johnson for The New York Times |
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6. Lawmakers are questioning whether Amazon misled or lied to Congress. |
Last year, Jeff Bezos and other executives told the House Judiciary Committee that the company did not look at data from single sellers on its site while planning its own products. They also said Amazon did not purposefully give its products an edge in search results. |
"At best, this reporting confirms that Amazon's representatives misled the committee," said the group of five lawmakers. "At worst, it demonstrates that they may have lied to Congress in possible violation of federal criminal law." |
An Amazon spokeswoman denied that any misleading statements were made. |
 | | Barista training at a Starbucks in Cheektowaga, N.Y. Libby March for The New York Times |
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7. A nationwide increase in unionization efforts hits Starbucks. |
None of the nearly 9,000 corporate-owned Starbucks locations in the U.S. are unionized. Backers of a drive at three Buffalo-area stores filed for a union election in August — and since then, they say, moves by management have had a chilling effect. |
The company brought in a corporate executive, "support managers" from out of state and additional workers. A recent visit to one of the stores found at least nine baristas behind the counter but only a handful of customers. Starbucks says the additional staffing is a standard company practice. |
Starbucks is also seeking to persuade the National Labor Relations Board to require that workers at all 20 Buffalo-area stores take part in the union election, rather than allow stores to vote individually. The board is likely to set an election date in the coming weeks. |
 | | The William Edmondson "Martha and Mary" sculpture.Bill Jacobson |
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8. A holy grail of American folk art. |
John Foster, an art enthusiast, was driving through St. Louis in 2019 when he spotted something unusual on the front porch of a home: a 10-inch stone carving of a pair of seated women. |
One of the owners of the sculpture, Sally Bliss, had inherited the piece from her first husband's parents — one of whom was related to a founder of MoMA — but she didn't realize its provenance. |
Bliss and her husband sold the piece for an undisclosed price to KAWS, an artist and board member of the American Folk Art Museum. Now restored, the sculpture will go on display at the museum in January. |
 | | The Supreme Court.Stefani Reynolds for The New York Times |
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9. A "reign of error" for a Supreme Court typo. |
An opinion in a 1928 property rights case said, in part, that "any legitimate use is property within the protection of the Constitution." But its author meant to say "properly," not "property," changing the meaning significantly. |
The slip opinion — preliminary and subject to editing — was quietly amended, but much of the legal world didn't notice. The wrong version has appeared in at least 14 court decisions (as recently as last year), 11 appellate briefs and a Supreme Court argument, according to a law professor who discovered the mistake. |
 | | A simulation suggesting the effects of a one-megaton nuclear blast on an asteroid approximately 300 feet in size.Animation by King et al. |
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10. And finally, how a nuclear bomb could save the Earth. |
Using high-fidelity simulations, scientists reported in a recent study that an asteroid as long as 330 feet could be annihilated by a one-megaton nuclear device if the asteroid is attacked at least two months before impact. |
Though the orbits of almost every asteroid two-thirds of a mile across or larger have been precisely mapped out, NASA estimates there are 17,000 near-Earth asteroids 460 feet or larger that have yet to be found. |
| Angela Jimenez compiled photos for this briefing. |
Your Evening Briefing is posted at 6 p.m. Eastern. |
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