Good evening. Here's the latest at the end of Monday. |
 | | President Biden outlined the U.S. response to the Omicron variant today.Stefani Reynolds for The New York Times |
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1. "A cause for concern, not a cause for panic." |
President Biden tried to reassure Americans in an address today, saying that crucial questions remain about the new Omicron variant of the coronavirus and that the administration was in close touch with vaccine manufacturers. The variant has yet to be detected in the U.S. |
Although it has mutations that scientists fear could make it more infectious and less susceptible to vaccines, evidence to support those fears has yet to be established. It will likely be a week, possibly two weeks, before experts know more. |
 | | Smoke rises above the Islamic State's last holdout in Baghouz, Syria, on March 18, 2019.Giuseppe Cacace/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images |
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2. A U.S. airstrike in Syria that killed civilians is being re-examined. |
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin III ordered a new high-level investigation into the 2019 airstrike that killed dozens of women and children. |
The airstrike, carried out by a classified Special Operations unit, was among the largest episodes of civilian casualties in the yearslong war against ISIS, but the U.S. military had never publicly acknowledged it. A Times investigation this month described allegations that top officials had sought to conceal the casualties. |
 | | Jack Dorsey co-founded Twitter in 2006 and guided it through the tumultuous years of the Trump administration.Alfonso Duran for The New York Times |
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3. Jack Dorsey, co-founder of Twitter, stepped down as chief executive. |
Dorsey, who was fired from his C.E.O. job at Twitter in 2008 but returned in 2015, was replaced by Parag Agrawal, the company's chief technology officer. |
His departure comes a year and a half after he survived an attempted ouster by the activist investor Elliott Management. Twitter shares fell today. |
Dorsey told employees via email that he wanted Twitter to stop being a founder-led company, and he had recently discussed a desire to focus on projects in cryptocurrency and philanthropy. He is also the chief executive of the payments company Square. |
 | | Chris Cuomo, right, advised his brother, Gov. Andrew Cuomo, on how to handle sexual harassment allegations.Associated Press |
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4. Chris Cuomo, the CNN host, played an outsize role in the defense of his brother, the former New York governor. |
Chris Cuomo participated in strategy discussions and ran down a tip on one woman who had accused his brother of sexual harassment. He pleaded to his brother's team to "let me help with the prep," to "trust me" and to "stop hiding" details from him. |
He also insisted to investigators that he had never manipulated coverage or spun other journalists to benefit his brother. |
 | | Taliban officials arrive at a press conference in Kabul in September.Victor J. Blue for The New York Times |
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5. There's $7 billion in Afghan money at the Federal Reserve Bank. Does it belong to the Taliban? |
Back in control of Afghanistan, Taliban leaders say their country's central bank account in New York is rightfully theirs. Family members of Sept. 11 victims, awarded $7 billion in damages in a case against the Taliban and others a decade ago, say it should be theirs. |
 | | Some lenders are using car mileage and resale value to gauge loan risk.An Rong Xu for The New York Times |
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6. Start-ups are digging deeper into data to improve credit scoring. |
Several new companies are collecting all kinds of other data — like bank balances, car mileage, spending habits and college degree details — to determine who ought to get a loan and how much each person should pay. |
FICO scores, the most widely used credit arbiter, leave "millions of people out in the cold and millions more who pay more for credit than they should," said Dave Girouard, chief executive of Upstart, one of the companies. |
 | | Alan Richardson and Karen Tack, the authors of "Hello, Cupcake," saw their signature corn-on-the-cob cupcake on the cover of a magazine in 2011 — but the recipe didn't give them any credit.Timothy Mulcare for The New York Times |
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Recipes, for the most part, can't be copyrighted. But in October, the publisher of the cookbook "Makan," by the prominent British chef Elizabeth Haigh, pulled the book out of circulation, citing "rights issues" after a complaint from the writer of a 2012 cookbook. |
The incident reinvigorated a debate about recipe ownership, leaving many writers and editors wondering how they can — or even if they should — protect their work in a genre that's all about building on what came before. |
 | | Rachel Levit Ruiz |
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8. People don't eat ingredients. They eat food. |
For example, rather than urging people to skip pasta because it's a refined carbohydrate, it might be more effective to tell people to eat it the traditional Italian way, as a small first-course portion. |
And along with its recommendation to eat a wide variety of fruits and vegetables, the association notes that buying them frozen reduces waste, adds convenience and saves money. |
 | | Lee Elder teed off in the first round at the Masters in Augusta, Ga., in 1975. He was the first Black golfer to compete in the tournament.Associated Press |
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9. Lee Elder, the first African-American person to play in the Masters golf tournament, has died. He was 87. |
Elder broke the Masters color barrier in 1975 at age 40 after capturing the 1974 Monsanto Open at the Pensacola Country Club in Florida, where six years earlier he had been refused entrance to the clubhouse and had to dress in a parking lot. |
He played in the Masters six times, won four PGA Tour events and finished second 10 times, playing regularly through 1989 and earning $1.02 million in purses. |
 | | Alexandra Edward, 10, being baptized in the Atlantic Ocean in Palm Beach, Fla. Scott McIntyre for The New York Times |
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10. And finally, baptism is getting a little bit wild. |
Contemporary evangelical baptisms these days have included photographers, selfie stations and T-shirts with slogans like "#washed," "Best day ever," "No turning back" and "Meet the new me." |
The Linwood Baptist church in Kansas uses an inflatable hot tub for baptisms. Another one in Tennessee used a horse trough. A church in Texas calls its regular mass baptism event a "plunge party." |
"We live in an age where people like experiences," Mark Clifton, the pastor of Linwood Baptist, said. |
Have a restorative evening. |
| Angela Jimenez and Yeong-Ung Yang compiled photos for this briefing. |
Your Evening Briefing is posted at 6 p.m. Eastern. |
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