Go for the gold: Your Weekend Briefing

October 17, 2021

Welcome to the Weekend Briefing. We're covering booster shots, President Biden's climate agenda and NASA's next space odyssey.

Nurse Connie Williams administers a Covid-19 Pfizer-BioNTech booster shot in Portland, Ore.Alisha Jucevic for The New York Times

1. Over 100 million fully vaccinated people could be eligible for coronavirus booster shots by the end of the week.

A key F.D.A. advisory panel has concluded a series of votes to recommend boosters for all three coronavirus vaccines used in the U.S. — Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson. The F.D.A. and the C.D.C. have already authorized Pfizer boosters for older and at-risk Americans. Moderna and J.&J. are expected to be authorized next.

On Friday, the panel recommended boosters for all recipients of the J.&J. vaccine, a reflection of its lower efficacy. Many panel members made clear that they believed J.&J. recipients might benefit from the option of a Pfizer or a Moderna booster, something a top F.D.A. official said the agency was considering. Here's what to know about the J.&J. boosters.

Many Americans have yet to get a single dose. Ten New Yorkers told The Times why they resisted — and why they changed their minds. In an Opinion essay, Zeynep Tufecki explored what we know about the unvaccinated.

The Centralia Big Hanaford Power Plant is the last coal-fired plant in Washington State.Evan McGlinn for The New York Times

2. The heart of President Biden's climate agenda is in jeopardy.

A program to rapidly replace the nation's coal- and gas-fired power plants with renewables is likely to be cut from the Democrats' $3.5 trillion social and climate package because Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia opposes it. Manchin has personal financial ties to the coal industry and his state is one of the nation's top producers of coal and gas.

Some House and Senate Democrats are switching to Plan B: a tax on carbon dioxide pollution. That faces its own set of political challenges, given the current rise in inflation and energy prices.

In other politics news, Republicans and Democrats have already raised record-breaking sums for the 2022 midterms. Democrats facing tough re-elections are trying to sell the party's social and climate bill without knowing what pieces will survive and become law.

Only a handful of those arrested for violent acts during the Jan. 6 riot had ties to extremist organizations.

3. During the siege on the U.S. Capitol, seemingly average citizens united in acts of brutality. Amid a flash of violence, seven men stood out.

Although strangers to one another, these men worked as if in concert while grappling with police officers barring entry to the building. One used an American flag to beat an officer being dragged down the Capitol steps.

The group was part of an angry pro-Trump mob roiling outside even as the violence inside the building was winding down. They are now co-defendants facing myriad felonies. "We never should have come here," one thought to himself on the evening of Jan. 6.

Gang members wielding machetes and guns stand in formation in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, in June.Raynald K. Petit Frere/Via Reuters

4. Gang members in Haiti kidnapped as many as 17 American missionaries and their family members as they were leaving an orphanage, Haitian officials said.

Details of the kidnapping remained unclear, but local officials said the Christian missionaries were abducted from a bus in Port-au-Prince that was heading to the airport on Saturday. Haiti has been in a state of political upheaval for years, and kidnappings of the rich and poor alike are alarmingly common. But the abduction of such a large group of Americans shocked officials for its brazenness.

Violence is rampant across the capital, especially in the wake of the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse in July. By some estimates, gangs now control roughly half of the city. They operate at will, kidnapping children on their way to school and pastors in the middle of delivering their services.

Crowds gathered outside Kabul's international airport in August.Jim Huylebroek for The New York Times

5. In the years to come, there will be stories about the people who made it out of Afghanistan after the fall of Kabul. This is Asma's.

Asma, an 8-year-old Afghan girl, was severely burned by a U.S. tear-gas canister while she and her family were trying to reach the airport in Kabul. Soon after, a remarkable intervention involving secret American military commandos, a C.I.A. base and three strangers in the U.S. took shape. Now, as one of those strangers said, "this girl is family to us."

Separately, the Pentagon offered to pay the family of the 10 Afghan civilians killed in a mistaken U.S. drone strike in Kabul. The Pentagon also agreed to help relocate those surviving family members who want to move to the U.S.

When you subscribe to The New York Times, you're helping support journalists who are uncovering stories around the world, holding power to account and keeping the public informed. Become a subscriber today.

Instagram said the loss of teenage users to other social media platforms was an "existential threat."Yana Paskova for The New York Times

6. "If we lose the teen foothold in the U.S., we lose the pipeline."

Internal documents reveal Instagram's desperate fight to keep young users. Starting in 2018, it earmarked almost its entire global annual marketing budget — slated at $390 million this year — to targeting teenagers, which it relies on to use the app three to four hours a day. It particularly emphasized a category called "early high school," which it classified as 13- to 15-year-olds.

Facebook hoped Instagram would entice more young people to all of its apps, replenishing the social network's aging user base, according to the documents. But they also show that Facebook has since abandoned aspirations of becoming a teen destination. The disclosures underscore how much is at stake as the social media giant seeks to address an outcry over Instagram's effects on users' mental health.

The Rev. Salvatore Cubito blesses Samuel De Luca during his baptism in Catania, Italy, this month.Gianni Cipriano for The New York Times

7. Sicily has a godfather problem.

A diocese in Sicily has imposed a three-year prohibition on naming godparents. Church officials argue that the once-essential figure in a child's Catholic education has lost all spiritual significance, becoming instead an opportunity to fortify family (and sometimes mob) ties. Italian prosecutors have tracked baptisms to map out how underworld bosses spread influence.

In Venezuela, a crime boss and his gang are part of an unusual social reintegration project that has brought relative calm — and success — to the town of Sabaneta: helping a family-run rum company go from bankruptcy to exporting an award-winning vintage.

NASA's Lucy spacecraft launched yesterday from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.Steve Nesius/Reuters

8. NASA embarked on a vast odyssey to study a group of asteroids that may help scientists better understand how life emerged on Earth.

A robotic explorer named Lucy (a nod to the 3.2 million-year-old skeleton that revealed secrets of human evolution) will meander through deep space to find new clues about the creation of our solar system. Over 12 years, Lucy's four-billion-mile path across Jupiter's orbit will bring her close to clusters of asteroids known as Trojan swarms — some of the solar system's least understood objects.

Back on terra firma, hyperlocal researchers, armed with nets and notebooks, are helping to shed light on the decline of pollinators.

Brussels sprouts stir-fried without a wok.Sang An for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Simon Andrews. Prop Stylist: Paige Hicks.

9. Preserving culinary traditions requires adapting to the realities of daily life.

That was Genevieve Ko's experience trying to capture wok hei without a wok. The term, which translates to "the breath of a wok," describes the taste of singed smokiness. To mimic the effect, she used a sizzling hot skillet to make caramelized and tender vegetables in under 10 minutes.

For Yotam Ottolenghi, no dish is so ubiquitous and comes in so many variations as fried chicken. He offers his spin on a westernized Chinese lemon chicken. And in this week's edition of The Veggie, Tejal Rao writes about the flexibility of roasted squash.

And in case you missed it: These are the 50 restaurants our Food staff is most excited about right now.

Brian Stauffer

10. And finally, settle into a great story.

Murder, power and mystery in the South Carolina Lowcountry. The passion of Questlove. John le Carré's last completed spy novel. All these and more await you in The Weekender.

Our editors also suggest these 10 new books, new music from Adele and others, "Art in Bloom" on Discovery+ and these narrated articles. The Book Review also needs your help picking the best book of the past 125 years.

Did you follow the news this week? Test your knowledge. And here's the front page of our Sunday paper, the Sunday Review from Opinion and today's Mini Crossword and Spelling Bee. If you're in the mood to play more, find all our games here.

Have a page-turning week.

David Poller compiled photos for this briefing.

Your Weekend Briefing is published Sundays at 6:30 a.m. Eastern.

Correction: Last weekend's briefing misstated the surname of Sam Anthony's father. It is Nelson, not Allen.

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