Evening Briefing: FDA panel backs Moderna boosters

October 14, 2021

By Remy Tumin

Good evening. Here's the latest at the end of Thursday.

Matthew Thomas received his second dose of the Moderna vaccine in April at Leupp Field Clinic in Leupp, Ariz.Sharon Chischilly for The New York Times

1. More booster shots may soon be on the way for millions of Americans.

An F.D.A. advisory panel voted to recommend a third shot of the Moderna vaccine for people 65 and older as well as for younger adults at high risk because of their medical conditions or jobs, the same groups that became eligible for a Pfizer-BioNTech booster last month. The third Moderna injection would be a half-dose.

Regulators are not obligated to follow the panel's recommendations, but they typically do. The committee will vote on Johnson & Johnson's request to authorize its booster tomorrow.

After a brutal summer surge, U.S. virus cases are down more than 40 percent since August, and hopes are rising that the worst is finally behind us. But scientists warned it was too soon to abandon basic precautions.

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Shiite fighters loyal to Hezbollah and the Amal political movements clashed in the area of Tayouneh.Ibrahim Amro/AFP — Getty Images

2. Beirut was rocked by the worst sectarian fighting in years.

Six people were killed and dozens were injured during clashes between militias that briefly turned Beirut neighborhoods into a war zone. The violence broke out at a protest led by two Shiite Muslim parties — Hezbollah and the Amal Movement.

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The protesters were calling for the removal of the judge charged with investigating the huge explosion at the Beirut port last year. The fighting was a new low in Lebanon's descent into political and economic crises.

A continent away, a 37-year-old man was charged in a bow-and-arrow rampage in a small Norwegian town that killed five people. The authorities said it was an apparent act of terrorism.

Steve Bannon, a former top adviser to Donald Trump, spoke in New York last year.Eduardo Munoz Alvarez/Associated Press

3. The House committee investigating the Capitol riot will vote next week to recommend that Stephen Bannon face criminal contempt charges for not complying with a subpoena.

The move would escalate what is shaping up to be a major legal battle between the select committee and Donald Trump over access to crucial witnesses and documents that could shed light on what precipitated the pro-Trump mob attack. Bannon, a former top adviser to Trump, had informed the panel that he would defy the subpoena in accordance with a directive from Trump.

The committee issued a subpoena yesterday to a former Justice Department official under Trump who was involved in Trump's frenzied efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election. In a related case, a federal judge held top jail officials in Washington, D.C., in contempt of court for improperly delaying medical treatment for a defendant in custody for the Jan. 6 attack.

Robert Galbraith/Reuters

4. LinkedIn said it would end service in China after the platform censored posts to keep operating but still came under government scrutiny.

Citing "a significantly more challenging operating environment and greater compliance requirements," the move completes the fracture between American social networks and China. LinkedIn, which is owned by Microsoft, said it would offer a new app for the Chinese market focused solely on job postings.

Twitter and Facebook have been blocked in the country for years, and Google left more than a decade ago.

In other business news, the S&P 500 had its best day since March, snapping a recent malaise with a 1.7 percent gain after positive earnings and inflation reports.

Robert Durst, the subject of HBO's "The Jinx," appeared in a Los Angeles courtroom today.Los Angeles County Superior Court, via Reuters

5. Robert Durst was sentenced to life in prison for the execution-style killing in 2000 of a close confidante.

The 78-year-old Durst, whose life story inspired both a Hollywood movie and an HBO documentary, will not be eligible for parole. A jury convicted him of first-degree murder in Los Angeles last month for shooting Susan Berman, a journalist and screenwriter who served as his publicist, to stop her from telling investigators what she knew about the 1982 disappearance of his first wife. The case was decades in the making.

In another case, the South Carolina lawyer Alex Murdaugh was charged with swindling millions from the sons of his housekeeper after her death. Murdaugh has undergone a dramatic downfall since his wife and son were shot in an unsolved killing in June.

Saudi Aramco's natural gas plant in Hawiyah in June. Amr Nabil/Associated Press

6. Western energy giants are slowing down oil and gas production as they switch to renewable energy. State-owned oil companies see an opportunity.

In the Middle East, Africa and Latin America, government-owned energy companies are increasing oil and natural gas production as U.S. and European companies pare supply because of climate concerns. The huge shift means it could take decades for global fossil fuel supplies to decline unless there is a sharp drop in demand for such fuels.

Separately, ahead of a crucial climate summit in Glasgow, countries are gathering this week to try to stop a biodiversity collapse that many scientists say could equal climate change as an existential crisis.

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Corey Seager scored against Buster Posey during Game 4 of their division series on Tuesday.Harry How/Getty Images

7. All season long, the Los Angeles Dodgers have been chasing the San Francisco Giants. Now a spot in the National League Championship Series is on the line.

Rivals for more than a century, the teams will face off tonight in San Francisco for a winner-take-all game. The first true postseason matchup between these rivals since 1889 has lived up to expectations, and it is the only division series that will have required the teams to go the distance. First pitch is at 9:07 p.m. Eastern and we'll have live updates here.

Brian Cox in the new season of "Succession," premiering Sunday on HBO.Graeme Hunter/HBO

8. The new season of "Succession" shows that being rich is nothing like it used to be.

Unlike "Dynasty," "Dallas" and other bygone soap operas about the unhappy superrich, the niche sensation of "Succession" is "a bitter acquired taste, like expensive imported licorice, with twisted pleasures but little wish fulfillment," our TV critic writes. The HBO drama returns on Sunday after a two-year pandemic-induced hiatus.

Our film critic recommends Ridley Scott's "The Last Duel," based on a true story of a lady, a knight and a squire in 14th-century France — with a #MeToo twist. Starring Matt Damon, Adam Driver and Jodi Comer, the film may be the big screen's first medieval feminist revenge saga.

A southern sea otter grooming in waters of the lower Elkhorn Slough in California.Kiliii Yüyan

9. Hungry sea otters enhance the sex lives of sea grass, a new study found.

Sea otters digging for clams dislodge eelgrass roots and stimulate sexual reproduction among the vegetation. In turn, that sexual activity boosts eelgrass genetic diversity and improves the resilience of the ecosystems in which both the otters and the eelgrass live. The findings highlight the importance of restoring missing predators to marine ecosystems.

In other news about animals, most scale worms are built like tiny armored tanks in order to crawl along the seafloor. But scientists discovered that some have evolved less muscle mass and elongated appendages that stroke through the water like oars.

Collier Schorr

10. And finally, four unique talents.

T Magazine's 2021 Greats issue celebrates four talents — an actress, an artist, a playwright and a fashion designer — who have helped make and change culture. All these people share the belief that a fundamental part of making art is an engagement with the larger world.

Inspired by New York City's punk scenes, the fashion designer Anna Sui has created an inimitable aesthetic all her own. The actress Juliette Binoche has spent her decades-long career examining vulnerability and how to convey it. The work of the visual artist and writer Glenn Ligon is united by its inquiry into what it means to be American. And the playwright Lynn Nottage is constantly on a mission to reform her industry.

Have an exceptional night.

Bryan Denton compiled photos for this briefing.

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