Evening Briefing: Omicron dampens New Year’s Eve

December 31, 2021

By Whet Moser

Writer/Editor, Briefings

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

Times Square in Manhattan on Friday.Gabby Jones for The New York Times

1. Omicron is dampening New Year's Eve.

In New York City, the Times Square celebration will be capped at 15,000 revelers. Parties at Shibuya Crossing in Tokyo, Trafalgar Square in London, the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin and the Champs-Élysées in Paris were canceled or scaled down.

Pope Francis canceled his traditional visit to the Nativity scene in St. Peter's Square. India is entering 2022 with curfews; Paris reintroduced an outdoor mask mandate.

Chicago and Las Vegas neither canceled nor pared back plans. South Africans are without curfew restrictions for the first time during the pandemic. And in Sydney, which was locked down this year for 107 straight days, the fireworks display over its Opera House went on, as the city seemed ready to move on and muddle through.

Here are live updates, and photos from around the world.

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A view of the aftermath of the Marshall fire in Superior, Colo., on Friday.Erin Schaff/The New York Times

2. Fires in Colorado burned up to 1,000 homes in the Denver suburbs, the most destructive blaze in the state's history.

Wildfires swept through suburban neighborhoods in Boulder County, Colo., on Thursday, fanned by powerful winds with gusts of nearly 110 miles per hour.

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The authorities suspect the fire, which burned about 6,000 acres and forced the evacuation of tens of thousands of residents, was caused by a downed power line.

Wildfires in the American West have been worsening. Here's how to prepare for and evacuate from a wildfire, and how to help the victims.

Coronavirus testing at a mobile site in Brooklyn on Tuesday.Dieu-Nalio Chéry for The New York Times

3. Studies suggest that the Omicron variant spares the lungs.

New studies are providing the first indication of why Omicron causes milder disease than previous coronavirus variants.

In studies on mice and hamsters, Omicron produced less damaging infections, often limited largely to the upper airway. Previous variants would often cause scarring and serious breathing difficulty in the lungs.

A report from the U.K. found that people who contracted it were about half as likely as those infected with the Delta variant to need hospital care, and one-third as likely to need emergency care.

In the U.S., scientists predict the Omicron wave will peak in January and may cause a significant strain on hospitals.

Betty White as Sue Ann Nivens, center, on "The Mary Tyler Moore Show."CBS Photo Archive, via Getty Images

4. Betty White, who created two of the most memorable characters in sitcom history, died at 99.

White began her broadcast career by saying one word on a popular radio comedy: "Parkay," the name of the sponsor. She broke into television in 1949 on a local talk show, and had a few shows of her own in the 1950s.

But her breakthrough came after age 50, playing the nymphomaniacal Sue Ann Nivens on "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" from 1973 to 1977, for which she won two Emmys.

She won another Emmy in 1986 for her second iconic role, as the sweet but dim Rose on "Golden Girls." Her final Emmy, in 2010, came after she hosted an episode of "Saturday Night Live."

"I've been working steady for 63 years," she said in 2010. "But everybody says, 'Oh, it's such a renaissance.' Maybe I went away and didn't know it."

Buildings on Rikers Island in September. Jail guards endured more than 2,000 assaults this year.Uli Seit for The New York Times

5. Decades of mismanagement are behind the violence at one of America's most expensive jail complexes.

Rikers Island in New York City has been gripped by its worst crisis since the crack epidemic of the early 1990s. More than 16 men have died in the jail system this year. Some detainees roam unsupervised; others go without food or basic health care.

The failures are stark, given the cost: more than $400,000 per inmate annually, which is more than six times the average in the nation's other biggest cities. New York City has the best-staffed jail system in the country, but the most dangerous jobs often fall to the officers with the least experience.

The departing mayor, Bill de Blasio, leaves behind the biggest city work force ever.

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A police officer observes the main pedestrian street in Shanghai in November.Alex Plavevski/EPA, via Shutterstock

6. Chinese police track critics around the world on Twitter and Facebook.

One government contractor told The Times that he had been assigned to investigate a group that included Chinese undergraduates studying in the U.S., a Chinese American policy analyst who is a U.S. citizen and journalists who previously worked in China.

He said that he used voter registries, driver's license records and hacked databases on the dark web to pinpoint the people behind social media posts that are critical of Beijing.

Consequences can be steep. When a Chinese student living in Taiwan criticized China this year, he said, both of his parents disappeared for 10 days.

Separately, Evergrande, the troubled Chinese property developer, said that it is ready to start building again just weeks after being declared in default. Buyers are skeptical.

Rachel Drori, founder and CEO of Daily Harvest in Los Angeles.Maggie Shannon for The New York Times

7. 2021 humbled C.E.O.s.

Business leaders are trained to "shoot, move and communicate." But the pandemic has rewritten the leadership playbook. Timelines, confidence and strategic plans gave way to "I don't know."

But the stock market has been largely able to ignore the chaos because of underlying policies that kept it buoyant. Investors can now say goodbye to all that.

Economically speaking, 2021 was … interesting. Here's what we learned.

Trisha Krauss

8. Our quarantine comforts no longer work.

Americans have spared little expense turning their homes into cozy havens. And they're done with it. Even the fluffiest throw pillows start to feel suffocating.

What's next? Olga Mecking, the author of "Niksen: Embracing the Dutch Art of Doing Nothing," suggests that we've seen the limits of individual wellness trends and might try not trying. "You don't have to make sourdough bread," she said. "You don't have to do anything, really."

January 2022 arrives as our methods of keeping time feel as if they are breaking. A pianist, a physicist and a (giant) clock maker told us how they make sense of time's mystery.

Sayaka Mitoh

9. When an eel climbs a ramp to eat squid from a clamp, that's a moray.

Sea slugs that dump their bodies. A bird that makes tools to compensate for its broken beak. Meet the most fascinating animals of 2021.

Our year in pictures captured a volatile world through the universal language of photography.

To make your 2022 easier, check out Wirecutter's year in review, which covers readers' top five picks (including an air purifier and N95 masks), how to shop sustainably and more.

If you're still looking for a recipe to close out 2021, here are some options. Plus a New Year's ritual for Black American families — black-eyed peas and greens.

Braulio Rocha showing photographs at a Montreal synagogue.Nasuna Stuart-Ulin for The New York Times

10. And finally, a Catholic Portuguese janitor is now the bar mitzvah photography king of Montreal.

Braulio Rocha was about to begin his daily floor mopping routine when he heard a frantic voice: The photographer assigned to shoot a bris hadn't shown up. Rocha had recently arrived in Canada from Madeira with $50 in savings and a beat-up old Canon camera.

He offered to fill in. Six years later, Rocha is now so in demand that he sometimes shoots five bar and bat mitzvah ceremonies a week, and employs a team of eight assistant photographers.

"I remember thinking, 'You're just a janitor,'" he said. "But I said to myself, 'It's now or never.' I guess you could say I'm the Canadian dream."

Have a celebratory evening and a happy New Year.

Erin Kelly compiled photos for this briefing.

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