Good evening. Here's the latest at the end of Monday. |
 | | New Yorkers wait for Covid-19 tests in the Times Square subway station.Scott Heins/Getty Images |
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1. Virus caseloads have surpassed the winter peak of early 2021 in some parts of the U.S. |
The highly contagious Omicron variant has sent cases skyrocketing. To minimize disruptions, the C.D.C. halved the recommended isolation period for infected Americans: It's now five days, down from 10. |
 | | Officers at the clothing store where Valentina Orellana-Peralta and Daniel Elena Lopez died. Ringo H.W. Chiu/Associated Press |
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2. A 14-year-old girl was fatally shot last week in Los Angeles. Her name was Valentina Orellana-Peralta. |
A police officer appears to have fired the bullet that pierced the wall of a dressing room, killing her. The police had responded to multiple radio calls about an assault with a deadly weapon at a clothing store. Police also fatally shot a man, Daniel Elena Lopez, whom they said they found assaulting a woman when they arrived. |
The Police Department is expected to release audio from 911 calls and body camera footage, and it pledged to conduct an investigation. |
Separately, a Times investigation found that paid experts often exonerate police officers when people die in their custody. Many have accused the experts of slanting the science and dangerously emboldening officers to act aggressively. |
 | | Followers of Muqtada al-Sadr celebrated in Baghdad after initial results of Iraq's parliamentary elections in October.Khalid Mohammed/Associated Press |
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3. An influential Shiite cleric is poised to lead Iraq after a court certified the results of October's parliamentary vote. |
The U.S. regards the cleric, Muqtada al-Sadr, as a possible ally. An Iraqi nationalist, his forces once battled the Americans, who ordered him killed before deciding not to kill him. Now he is viewed as more hostile to Iran and more amenable to negotiations. |
The court decision upset the traditional balance of the entrenched Shiite powers that have long dominated national politics. Iran-backed Shiite Muslim militias, which lost seats and called the election fraudulent, had challenged his victory. |
Separately, Somalia's president suspended the country's prime minister amid corruption investigations, a sharp escalation in a political dispute that threatens to further destabilize the region. |
 | | A family placed flowers outside Archbishop Desmond Tutu's home on Sunday.Joao Silva/The New York Times |
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4. South Africa is mourning Desmond Tutu, the cleric and anti-apartheid activist who died on Sunday at 90. |
Tutu remained a voice of moral conscience on social justice, gay rights and environmentalism in the decades after the system of institutionalized segregation crumbled in South Africa. His death was met with an outpouring of tributes in South Africa and from around the world. |
South Africa began a week of mourning today. His funeral will be held on Jan. 1 at the cathedral where Tutu, a Nobel laureate, served as the country's first Black archbishop. |
 | | Winsome Sears, Virginia's lieutenant governor-elect, is trying to change the face of the Republican party.Sarahbeth Maney/The New York Times |
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5. Is a new type of Republican rising? |
Winsome Sears, the incoming lieutenant governor of Virginia, is a deeply conservative Black woman and a Jamaican immigrant who supports Donald Trump. She won despite a long-shot, underfunded campaign, and she embodies a central question: Is she an outlier? Or is she the vanguard of a major political realignment, one that dissolves longtime realities of race and partisan identification? |
"The only way to change things is to win elections," she told The Times. "And who better to help make that change but me? I look like the strategy." |
Separately, Dr. Mehmet Oz, a candidate in Pennsylvania's Republican primary for Senate, has long dispensed dubious medical advice on his daytime show and on Fox News. |
 | | "Capitalism and commercial interest is not at odds with doing good for the world," said Kabir Barday, chief executive of OneTrust, which helps companies comply with online regulations.David Walter Banks for The New York Times |
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6. Global internet privacy rules are confusing. A new industry helps companies navigate them. |
Many of the new firms in this booming market owe their start to the European Union's digital privacy law, passed in 2016, which pushes websites to catalog personal data and ask users to agree to being tracked online. In 2018, California passed its own law. Other states soon followed suit. |
The complex, fragmented regulations created a gold rush. OneTrust, a leader in the field — it helps companies add the banners asking for tracking consent — has been valued by investors at $5.3 billion. |
"If a business can show that they're trustworthy and respectful and transparent in how they collect that data, guess what," said Kabir Barday, chief executive of OneTrust, "consumers provide them the data." |
 | | "We are contemplating getting out," said Steve Charter, a rancher in Montana. "We are not getting our share of the consumer dollars."Erin Schaff/The New York Times |
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7. Beef prices are soaring, and Americans are eating more meat than ever. |
But smaller cattle ranchers aren't seeing profits. Instead, after years of consolidation, four meatpackers dominate the $66 billion beef cattle industry. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, their market share has increased to 85 percent today from 36 percent in the 1980s. |
"You're feeding America and going broke doing it," said Coy Young, a fifth-generation rancher who plans to sell off his herd early next year. |
Separately, mining the minerals needed for a green energy revolution could devastate tribal lands. As conflicts brew across the American West, the Biden administration will be forced to choose. |
 | | Global stars gathered at The Red Sea International Film Festival, held this month in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.Iman Al-Dabbagh for The New York Times |
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8. Saudi Arabia is becoming a hub for film, bankrolling new movies and hosting festivals. |
Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is hoping to use the new entertainment industry to shake off the kingdom's staid image. As other Arab states with richer artistic histories falter, Saudi Arabia, flush with oil money, sees an opening. |
But it is decades behind in building a creative class. Saudi cinemas only reopened in 2018, after a 35-year ban. The socially conservative monarchy, where alcohol is banned and the government jails dissenters, also keeps professionals at bay. |
 | | Nicole Kidman plays Lucille Ball next to Javier Bardem, who embodies Desi Arnaz, in "Being the Ricardos."Glen Wilson/ Amazon Original |
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9. "I've got to be funny, and funny's hard," said Nicole Kidman, describing her preparations to play Lucille Ball, the star of "I Love Lucy." |
But "Being the Ricardos," a comedy-drama written and directed by Aaron Sorkin, is hardly slapstick. Kidman worked with a movement coach to capture Lucy Ricardo's character, but she also spent months finding common ground with Ball. |
Like Ball, Kidman has been pigeonholed and underestimated. Like Ball, her husband has suffered from substance dependence. Like Ball, she's wound her way through Hollywood, trying to make her mark. |
"Lucy's a character — that's not Lucille," Kidman told The Times. "Lucille is extraordinary because she was knocked down, got back up and just doggedly kept at things." |
10. And this year's best Metropolitan Diary. |
In 1976, The Times invited readers to share stories of New York: observations, anecdotes, maybe an overheard snippet. Today, the diaries live in the New York Today newsletter. (Here's where to subscribe.) |
"Lady, are you walking as far as 72nd Street?" he asked me. I nodded. He reached under his cart and pulled out a light blue windbreaker. "Could you please take this to my wife?" he said. "She has a hot dog cart just like this one." |
Have a serendipitous night. |
| Laurence Tan compiled photos for this briefing. |
Your Evening Briefing is posted at 6 p.m. Eastern. |
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