Good evening. Here's the latest at the end of Tuesday. |
 | | President Joe Biden delivers remarks on Covid-19 at the White House in Washington on Tuesday.Stefani Reynolds for The New York Times |
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1. President Biden outlined his plan to combat the Omicron variant. |
In a White House address, Biden said his administration would distribute 500 million rapid tests free to the public beginning in January, directed his defense secretary to deploy 1,000 military medical professionals and announced new vaccination and testing sites. |
"I know you're tired, really, and I know you're frustrated," Biden said, adding, "We all want this to be over, but we're still in it." |
Most school districts have said they would continue in-person learning. There are only about 600 shuttered schools or districts among the nation's 13,000 districts and 98,000 public schools. |
 | | Representative Scott Perry speaking at a "Stop the Steal" rally in Pennsylvania last year.Gabriela Bhaskar for The New York Times |
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2. Representative Scott Perry said he was refusing to meet with the Jan. 6 committee. |
The Pennsylvania Republican, who was closely involved in former President Donald Trump's effort to overturn the 2020 election, called the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol "illegitimate." |
The committee sent a letter on Monday seeking testimony and documents from Perry, the first public step the panel has taken to try to get information from any of the Republican members of Congress who were deeply involved in Trump's effort to stay in power. |
Phil Waldron, a former Army colonel with a background in information warfare, has also been subpoenaed by the committee. His story is a case study in how pro-Trump fringe players managed to get a hearing for conspiracy theories at the highest level during the presidential transition. |
 | | President-elect Gabriel Boric of Chile in Santiago on Sunday.Javier Torres/Agence France-Presse, via Getty Images |
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3. At 25, Gabriel Boric was a shaggy-haired activist. At 35, he's the president-elect of Chile. |
He never completed his law degree — protests got in the way. Now, his government will oversee the final stages of the writing of a new constitution to replace the dictatorship-era document that continues to define Chile. |
"If Chile was the cradle of neoliberalism it will also be its grave," Boric shouted before a crowd after his primary win earlier this year. |
 | | Charles Lieber leaving federal court in Boston last year.Katherine Taylor/Reuters |
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4. The trial of a Nobel favorite offers a peek inside a U.S. clampdown. |
A jury found Lieber guilty just before our deadline, finding that his failure to disclose Chinese funding that could be viewed as a conflict of interest by the U.S. government. The verdict may be an indicator of whether the Justice Department will proceed with the prosecutions of other researchers. |
 | | Members of Yunarmiya in Noginsk, near Moscow.Sergey Ponomarev for The New York Times |
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5. The Kremlin is militarizing Russian society. |
Over the past eight years, the government has promoted the idea that the motherland is surrounded by enemies, through national institutions like schools, the military, the news media and the Orthodox Church. |
"The authorities are actively selling the idea of war," Dmitri Muratov, the newspaper editor who shared the Nobel Peace Prize this year, said in his acceptance speech in Oslo this month. |
 | | Union members and supporters during a rally of striking Kellogg workers in Battle Creek, Mich., on Friday.Emily Elconin/Reuters |
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6. Kellogg workers ratified a new contract, ending a strike that began in early October. |
The contract dispute, which affected four of the company's U.S. cereal plants, revolved partly around the company's two-tier compensation system, in which workers hired after 2015 typically received lower wages and less generous benefits. |
The agreement will grant veteran pay and benefit status to all workers with four or more years' experience at Kellogg. Newer workers will see their wages immediately rise to just over $24 an hour. |
On Tuesday, employees at the well-regarded New York City firm SHoP Architects took a step nearly unheard-of in their field: Over half signed cards pledging support for a union. |
 | | Abbie Herbert, a TikTok influencer, at home in Wexford, Pa.Ross Mantle for The New York Times |
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7. TikTok has one billion users. A growing number of them are brands. |
In reports shared with advertisers and obtained by The Times, TikTok said that Gen Z users watched an average of more than 233 TikToks a day. TikTok told one agency that 48 percent of millennial mothers were on the platform. |
Retailers, who view the platform as sunnier than Facebook and more authentic than Instagram, are present like never before — certainly more than last holiday season, when President Donald Trump was threatening to ban TikTok because of its Chinese parent company. |
For many users, TikTok is a music discovery platform. Four of the app's voices on pop joined our Popcast podcast to talk about their favorite releases of the year, and taste in the age of the algorithm. |
 | | Champion Pizza on the Lower East Side of Manhattan.OK McCausland for The New York Times |
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8. New York City's $1 pizza slices are inflation's latest victim. |
Dollar-slice businesses are a fiercely competitive staple of the city's food scene, with razor-thin profit margins that depend entirely on volume and cost efficiency. |
But it wasn't all Covid: A severe drought in parts of the U.S. and Canada decimated wheat crops, driving up flour prices, and a winter freeze in Texas earlier this year curtailed the production of resin, a raw ingredient in plastic straws and packaging materials like shrink wrap. |
 | | The baserunning of the Chicago Cubs' Jávier Baez in Pittsburgh on May 27 was the nuttiest M.L.B. play in 2021.Gene J. Puskar/Associated Press |
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9. Relive the 18 best sports highlights of 2021. |
With Covid uncertainty on the rise, we may not know what sports will look like in 2022. But 2021 had it all — including world records, no-look shots, extraordinary goals, trick baserunning and come-from-behind victories. If your favorite sport gets sidelined, you can watch these moments instead. |
Meanwhile, it was another grim year for the Arizona Coyotes, the N.H.L.'s least valuable team. Over the last 26 seasons, the franchise has at times been bankrupt and ownerless. Now the City of Glendale is kicking the Coyotes — who have the worst record in hockey — out of their arena at the end of the season. |
 | | A City College of New York professor opened a box to reveal bundles of $50 and $100 bills.The City College of New York |
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10. And finally, a mystery box full of $180,000 in cash. |
When he returned to teaching in person this semester, Vinod Menon, a physics professor at City College of New York in Harlem, looked through a pile of office mail and found a cardboard box the size of a toaster. |
Inside was a huge pile of $50 and $100 bills. A letter explained that the cash was a donation meant to help needy physics and math students at City College, because the donor had "long ago" taken advantage of its "excellent educational opportunity" to get two degrees in physics, which helped lead to "a long, productive, immensely rewarding" scientific career. |
The note was unsigned, and the name on the return address, Kyle Paisley, seems to be fake. Based on information on the bands bundling the cash, federal agents determined that it had been withdrawn from several banks in Maryland in recent years and was not connected to criminal activity. |
Have a surprising evening. |
| Angela Jimenez compiled photos for this briefing. |
Your Evening Briefing is posted at 6 p.m. Eastern. |
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