Marisa and Scott close out the year by revisiting conversations with two rising political stars from opposite ends of the state: Honey Mahogany, the head of San Francisco's Democratic Party and Robert Garcia, the mayor of Long Beach who recently announced a run for Congress.
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Good morning. It's the final day of the year. We're covering a critical call between President Biden and Vladimir Putin and the pandemic in France.
President Biden talked with Vladimir Putin for 50 minutes.Stefani Reynolds for The New York Times
A call between Biden and Putin
During a 50-minute phone call, Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, warned President Biden that new sanctions over Ukraine would result in a "complete rupture" between the superpowers, a Russian official said. It is unclear whether Putin intends to invade Ukraine, despite having massed 100,000 or so troops at its border.
Biden, according to a terse White House statement, "made clear that the United States and its allies and partners will respond decisively if Russia further invades Ukraine." American officials declined to discuss the substance of the conversation, insisting that, unlike the Russians, they would not negotiate in public.
Intelligence officials from several Western countries in Ukraine said there has been no significant pullback of Russian troops or equipment from the border, and low-level cyberattacks — many seemingly intended to penetrate Ukrainian infrastructure — are continuing.
What's next: Delegations from the U.S. and Russia will meet on Jan. 10, most likely in Geneva.
On the ground: As the Ukrainian government provides guidance on how to tape windows in case of an attack, people in Kyiv, the country's capital, appear largely nonchalant.
As cyclists trained in the background, Covid vaccines were administered in a velodrome west of Paris earlier this month.Christophe Ena/Associated Press
Omicron strains France's pandemic social contract
The deal in France was simple: Get vaccinated and get your normal life back. But the Omicron variant of the coronavirus is straining the social contract that helped drive up vaccination rates. Now, amid new urgency about booster shots, the promised normalcy has proved fleeting, and mistrust in the government is rising.
For Emmanuel Macron, the French president, the stakes are high. Macron has bet on vaccines and a health pass that allowed people to eat and socialize indoors with relative safety. Even now, facing record numbers of new cases, the government has resisted pressure from scientists to impose significant restrictions. Instead, it has shortened the delay between a second shot and a booster from six months to three.
Approval of the government's handling of the crisis peaked in August with the introduction of the health pass but has declined in the past month, according to the polls. A push to vaccinate children ages 5 to 11 has raised new worries, with more than two-thirds of parents opposed to vaccinating their children.
Quotable: "I told myself, great, everybody's going to get vaccinated and, in three months, we'll all be OK, we'll get our freedom back," said one Frenchman who got vaccinated in order to go to the movies or visit friends. He added: "I believed. But I don't believe anymore."
The Prony Resources nickel mine processing plant in Goro, New Caledonia.Adam Dean for The New York Times
Tesla's green ambitions tested in New Caledonia
A tiny French territory between Australia and Fiji is at the center of a key test over whether Western carmakers can sidestep China's dominance over battery power and establish sustainable practices.
Tesla, through a partnership with a large nickel mine in New Caledonia, will directly source much of the key mineral, a major step in what the company says is a broader effort to take control of its supply chain and ensure that its cars are made in an environmentally and socially responsible fashion.
If accomplished, Tesla could lead the way in setting global standards for the electric vehicle revolution, in yet another convention-defying move by the company's founder, Elon Musk. If the effort fails, it will serve as a cautionary tale for how difficult it is to achieve true sustainability.
Sidestepping China: Most of the world's nickel destined for electric vehicle batteries is processed in one place: China. Tesla has plans to produce batteries in Texas and Germany, which would help avoid an overreliance on China.
The shift: Some of Tesla's cars run on batteries made with nickel processed by a Japanese company that has sourced much of its nickel from places like the Philippines, Indonesia and Madagascar, where allegations of environmental and labor breaches are rife.
THE LATEST NEWS
Around the World
Pete Marovich for The New York Times
In his first interview since escaping Afghanistan as the Taliban advanced, its former president, Ashraf Ghani, defended his decision to flee. "I had to sacrifice myself in order to save Kabul," he said.
A leaking boat carrying more than 100 Rohingya refugees was towed ashore in Indonesia days after the government reversed an earlier decision to turn the stranded vessel away.
Every year, many families in Latin America construct or purchase an "año viejo": a human-size doll styled with old clothes that is burned on New Year's Eve to symbolically cast off the old year and bring in the new one.
The tradition comes from Ecuador, where Indigenous populations burned effigies of feudal leaders at celebrations of the solstice. Political leaders remain regular subjects of the años viejos. (Icons of Steve Harvey, the television host, briefly became more popular after he wrongly crowned Miss Colombia the winner of the 2015 Miss Universe pageant.)
In the second pandemic year, readers of The Times flocked to articles that elevated their cooking skills — and others that simply delighted or disturbed. Here is a selection from the top ten. You can see the full list of our Food section's most-read articles here.
Welcome the New Year with soba noodles, as people do in Japan. The long strands are eaten in hopes of a long and unbroken life (that is, a life like a noodle).
What to Watch
"The Lost Daughter," Maggie Gyllenhaal's directorial debut, is "a sophisticated, elusively plotted psychological thriller," our critic writes.
That's it for today's briefing. And a small programming note: Next week, I'll be temporarily working on The Morning, a sister edition of this newsletter. One of my colleagues will write the briefing until I'm back.
Thanks for a year of reading, and for all of your thoughts, comments and feedback. I'll see you in 2022. — Natasha
DeSantis, an outspoken Republican opponent of vaccination and mask mandates, last held a Covid news briefing on Dec. 17. Covid cases have reached new highs in Florida since then. "It's every man/woman for themselves, because leadership is MIA," one Florida Democrat tweeted. DeSantis' press secretary defended him this week, saying it's no surprise he wants to spend time over the holidays with his young kids and his wife, who is battling cancer.
Good evening. Here's the latest at the end of Thursday.
President Biden and President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia spoke on the phone on Thursday.Stefani Reynolds for The New York Times
1. President Vladimir Putin of Russia warned President Biden that new sanctions over Ukraine would result in a rupture between the superpowers, a Russian official said.
After the 50-minute phone call that had been requested by Putin, a senior White House official told the Washington Post that Putin had wanted to set the "tenor and tone" for diplomatic talks that are scheduled to take place on Jan. 10.
Putin's desire to speak directly with Biden set off speculation about whether Putin was trying to de-escalate a situation largely of his own creation, or whether he was seeking a response to a series of demands about security concerns that, if left unfulfilled, may provide him with a pretext to initiate the military action against Ukraine.
A C.D.C. advisory committee is planning to vote soon on boosters for 12- to 15-year-olds.Tamir Kalifa for The New York Times
2. The F.D.A. plans to allow Pfizer boosters for 12- to 15-year-olds.
Regulators also plan to shorten the period between the second Pfizer dose and the booster, according to people familiar with the deliberations. A booster is also expected to be authorized for children 5 to 11 with immune deficiencies.
The C.D.C. released two studies about vaccinating children. One found that, out of hundreds of pediatric cases last summer, nearly all who became seriously ill had not been fully vaccinated. The other reinforced the safety of the Pfizer vaccine among children 5 to 11.
The U.S. is averaging more than 300,000 new cases a day for the first time. But hospitalizations are growing at a much slower rate. Here's what to know for the holiday weekend. Experts are debating whether daily case counts remain useful, given the use of at-home testing.
The American division of Teva Pharmaceuticals, an Israeli-based company, was found liable.Ammar Awad/Reuters
3. A pharmaceutical company was found guilty in a landmark opioid trial.
Teva Pharmaceuticals USA Inc. and some of its subsidiary companies were found liable for contributing to a public nuisance by inundating New York with pills that killed thousands of people. New York State was also determined to be partly responsible.
The trial, which began in June, was the first of its kind to target the entire opioid supply chain: drug manufacturers, distributors and pharmacy chains.
But a string of settlements left only a few defendants at trial: Teva, a manufacturer of opioids; a handful of its associated companies; and Anda, a distributor that is a subsidiary of Teva.
The new law does not prevent ground ambulance companies from billing patients directly for their services.Annie Mulligan for The New York Times
4. A new ban on surprise medical bills starts next week.
For years, Americans with medical emergencies could receive a nasty surprise: a bill from a doctor they did not choose and who did not accept their insurance. A law that goes into effect Saturday will make many such bills illegal.
Under the law, if you are having a medical emergency and go to an urgent care center or emergency room, you can't be charged more than the cost sharing you are accustomed to for in-network services, eliminating the risk that an out-of-network provider will send an extra bill.
Valentina's parents, second from right and third from right, in Los Angeles.Ringo H.W. Chiu/Associated Press
5. The Los Angeles police officer who shot 14-year-old Valentina Orellana-Peralta was identified.
William Dorsey Jones Jr. moved to Los Angeles to make a career in the entertainment industry. When that didn't pan out, he became a police officer — and loved it. The Black officer spoke openly about racism and ran a nonprofit that mentored at-risk youth.
Now he is under scrutiny for a fatal shooting. He raced past his fellow officers, even as one yelled at him to slow down, through the aisles of a clothing store in North Hollywood. When he found the suspect in a violent assault, Jones fired several bullets — including one that killed Valentina, who was in a changing room.
Separately, The Times investigated a Pennsylvania state trooper who is still on the job after shooting and killing three people over nearly 15 years; he is now on desk duty after a fourth fatal shooting.
But it is also well positioned to supply green nickel. As a French territory, New Caledonia is bound by European environmental and labor standards. Its government is led by a coalition that includes Indigenous Kanaks and is eager to protect local rights.
To compete against low-cost rivals, New Caledonia is now positioning itself as a supplier of top-grade nickel for rechargeable batteries. In October, Tesla agreed to buy one-third of the nickel produced by its largest mine over the next five years.
A demonstration of Oculus Go virtual reality headsets at Facebook's conference for developers in 2019.Stephen Lam/Reuters
7. Tech's biggest companies are joining game makers and start-ups across the metaverse.
After 15 years of riding a boom in mobile computing — a long time for the industry to wait for a new tech trend to come along — Meta, Apple, Microsoft and Google are each trying to put a lucrative stake in a virtual world.
But experts say perfecting this technology could take a decade or more. Meta's headsets are cumbersome and sometimes make people sick. Lighter alternatives lack computing power. And the mainstream appeal of virtual reality is still an open question.
The restaurant's abbreviated menu includes spaghetti and meatballs served in an oyster pail and a "'sghetti sandwich."Elaine Cromie for The New York Times
8. The rapper Eminem opened a restaurant in Detroit. We checked it out.
Mom's Spaghetti is named for the famed first verse of "Lose Yourself," a single written for the movie "8 Mile." Spaghetti is not typically a takeout food — noodles take a while to cook — but the pasta is made a day ahead and reheated in woks.
The restaurant's operator says the method blesses the spaghetti with a delectable down-home texture, and the result is, well, downright motherly.
Maggie Gyllenhaal in Manhattan before the screening of "The Lost Daughter," last month.Daniel Arnold for The New York Times
9. Is there such a thing as a women's film or women's filmmaking? With "The Lost Daughter," Maggie Gyllenhaal says the answer is yes.
The actress has long pushed boundaries, but writing and directing "The Lost Daughter," an adaptation of Elena Ferrante's novel of the same title, may be her riskiest role yet.
"When I am let loose, given a little bit of money and space to tell the story I want to tell, it's about motherhood," she said in an interview.
Gyllenhaal's debut as a director is "a sophisticated, elusively plotted psychological thriller," our critic writes.
"Años viejos" for sale on a sidewalk in Guayaquil, Ecuador.Dolores Ochoa/Associated Press
10. And finally, torching the old year to toast the new one.
Many families in Colombia, Ecuador and other parts of Latin America construct an "año viejo": a human-size doll styled with old clothes that is burned on New Year's Eve to symbolically cast off the old year and bring in the new one.
The tradition comes from Ecuador, where Indigenous populations burned effigies of feudal leaders at celebrations of the solstice. Political leaders remain regular subjects of the años viejos, but Steve Harvey, the television host, had a surge in popularity after he wrongly crowned Miss Colombia the winner of the 2015 Miss Universe pageant.
Have a cathartic evening.
Yeong-Ung Yang compiled photos for this briefing.
Your Evening Briefing is posted at 6 p.m. Eastern.
A rare wind-driven wildfire tore through suburban neighborhoods in Colorado on Thursday, burning hundreds of homes and forcing thousands to evacuate, authorities said. The blaze toppled power lines south of Boulder and engulfed 1,600 acres in a few hours, prompting Gov. Jared Polis to declare a state of emergency.
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Chief soccer correspondent Rory Smith takes you from the biggest matches to the smallest leagues, covering the tactics, history and personalities of the world's most popular sport.
As we prepare to enter the third year of the pandemic, we have been hoping for more normality and less Covid disruption by now. Case counts are soaring to all-time highs in some parts of the world, and 2022 is shaping up to be just as uncertain as the last 12 months.
That said, we've made huge strides against the coronavirus this year. There are now multiple vaccines that offer powerful protection against the worst effects of Covid, as well as remarkably effective treatments for those who become infected.
Next year will bring more advancements, too, and I'll be here to keep you updated on the science, and to gather the information and advice you need to live your best life during the pandemic.
Today, in the last Coronavirus newsletter of the year, I'm taking a look ahead. I spoke to Times reporters about some of the big pandemic issues they'll be tracking in 2022. Here's what they said.
Living with the virus. This week, Dr. Anthony Fauci was asked whether we had to start to live with the virus and accept some risk of mild infections. His answer was essentially yes.
"We're never going to stop counting tests," he said. But we're going to have to adjust to some controlled spread of the virus, being more sensitive to economic and societal concerns, he said.
My colleague Noah Weiland, a health reporter at The Times, told me that we'd heard comments like this from top officials before, but this time he said it felt particularly notable amid the spread of the Omicron variant. So many people are getting sick, he said, and those who have not may have even resigned themselves to the possibility of an infection sometime in the coming weeks and months.
"What I'll be looking for next year is how the Biden administration reflects that thinking in its policymaking," Noah said. "Will we continue to see the administration and state health officials emphasize protection against mild infections? Or will they transition to more of a longer-term approach, accepting a more considerable degree of risk with less severe infections while trying to allow Americans to resume life as normal?"
Vaccines. There are currently 113 vaccines in clinical trial on humans, and 44 have reached the final stages of testing. But as the virus mutates, it's raising big questions about how effective they will be in the future, and whether new vaccines can be quickly created and manufactured to keep up with the changing virus.
"One thing I'll be looking at is how vaccine makers cope with Omicron and future variants," said my colleague Carl Zimmer, who covers science for The Times. "Will we need a universal booster that protects against all possible variants, or just vaccines specific to Omicron or some other variant?"
Doses in the developing world. My colleague Stephanie Nolen, The Times's global health reporter, said she'll be watching for the clinical trial results from the mRNA vaccine candidates being developed in the global south.
"The whole landscape of vaccine-making could change dramatically in the year ahead," she said. "A few months ago I profiled two mRNA vaccines, one from a biotech company called Gennova in India, and the other from the Chula Vaccine Research Institute in Thailand. Both are designed to be heat stable — so they won't require ultracold refrigeration — and cheap to make, so suitable for developing country settings."
"They could prove key to closing the vaccine access gap, and ending the pandemic," she added. "And if they prove effective for Covid-19, meaning that these vaccine makers have nailed the technology, then it opens the doors for accessible vaccines for a range of other illnesses that primarily afflict the poor."
Covid pills. The U.S. has authorized two Covid pills, convenient at-home treatments that proved effective in staving off severe disease in clinical trials. But my colleague Rebecca Robbins, a business reporter who covers the virus, asks: How much of an impact will these treatments make in the real world?
"In the coming months, I'll be tracking whether these pills from Pfizer and Merck can fulfill their promise," Rebecca said. "In a best-case scenario, these pills will keep many people out of the hospital. But that will hinge on whether there's enough supply, whether they can reach the most vulnerable patients and whether patients can get the pills quickly enough after getting infected. Those things are far from guaranteed."
"I'm going to be keeping a close eye on what scientists are learning about which species are susceptible to the virus and whether any of them might become reservoirs of it," said my colleague Emily Anthes, a science and health reporter. "That might pose risks not just to animal health but also to our own — the virus could mutate in other species and then potentially 'spill back' into humans."
We still plan to give the restaurant we chose for New Year's Eve — with two other couples — business by asking for our dinners to be "take out." We decided not to take a chance on getting Omicron even though we are all triple vaccinated. We are all over 70 and will ask everyone to rapid test before we get together. It just ain't worth the risk.
— Sally Ragin, Longmont, Colo.
Let us know how you're dealing with the pandemic. Send us a response here, and we may feature it in an upcoming newsletter.
We're off tomorrow for New Year's Eve. As the year comes to a close, I'd like to take a moment to thank all of you who read this newsletter. Your emails and comments make us better, and they continue to make us tear up, laugh and smile. Thanks for reading, and see you next year.
As Covid-19 cases among children continue to rise, the Food and Drug Administration plans to broaden eligibility for Pfizer-BioNTech booster shots to children ages 12 to 15 in the coming days, a person with knowledge of the plan said. Nearly 199,000 cases among children were reported for the week that ended Dec. 23.
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Good morning. We're covering a call between Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin over Ukraine and a strict lockdown in a big Chinese city, now in its second week.
Russian service members performed combat exercises in the Rostov region of Russia, near the Ukrainian border last week.Sergey Pivovarov/Reuters
Biden and Putin talk about tensions over Ukraine
President Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin, the Russian leader, were holding an important phone call on Thursday, speaking for the second time in less than a month about the crisis at the Ukrainian border.
News of the call, which was requested by Putin, set off speculation about whether Putin was trying to de-escalate a situation largely of his own creation, or whether he was seeking a response to a series of demands that, if left unfulfilled, may provide him with the pretext for military action in Ukraine.
Putin was likely to push Biden on a proposed treaty in which Moscow demanded assurances that Ukraine would never join NATO and that the alliance would not place offensive arms in the former Soviet states.
The discussion follows weeks of negotiating. Antony Blinken, the U.S. secretary of state, spoke with Volodymyr Zelensky, the president of Ukraine, along with his British, French and German counterparts, in an effort to make clear that the U.S. would not negotiate a new European map with the Russians.
What's next: Delegations from the U.S. and Russia will meet on Jan. 10, most likely in Geneva.
On the ground: Intelligence officials from several Western countries say that there has been no significant pullback of Russian troops or equipment from the border, and that low-level cyberattacks — many seemingly intended to penetrate Ukrainian infrastructure — are continuing.
Related: As the Ukrainian government designates bomb shelters and provides guidance on how to tape windows in case of an attack, people in Kyiv, the country's capital, appear largely nonchalant.
A sanitation worker swept a deserted road in Xi'an, China, amid a coronavirus lockdown on Tuesday.Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
China keeps a major city locked down
As a growing number of nations have moved away from lockdowns, China has doubled down on its "zero Covid" strategy.
Xi'an is one of the largest Chinese cities to be locked down since the authorities sealed off Wuhan. Daily testing is required for many citizens and the city was sprayed with clouds of disinfectant for a "full-scale" deep cleaning.
On social media, residents have complained of having trouble ordering food, with the hashtag "Grocery shopping in Xi'an is hard" getting 300 million views on Weibo. Censors deleted some of the posts, but officials acknowledged that the new restrictions had contributed to logistics and staffing problems.
Mine trucks transport ore at Prony Resources Nickel Mine in Prony, New Caledonia.Adam Dean for The New York Times
Tesla's green ambitions tested on Pacific islands
A tiny French territory suspended between Australia and Fiji is at the center of a key test over whether Western carmakers can sidestep China's dominance over battery power and establish sustainable practices.
Tesla, through a partnership with a large nickel mine in New Caledonia, will directly source much of the key mineral, a major step in an broader effort by the company to take control of its supply chain and ensure that its cars are made in an environmentally and socially responsible fashion.
If accomplished, Tesla could lead the way in setting global standards for the electric vehicle revolution, in yet another convention-defying move by the company's founder, Elon Musk. If the effort fails, it will serve as a cautionary tale of how difficult it is to achieve true sustainability.
Environment: New Caledonia is one of the world's largest carbon emitters per capita. But if the Tesla model succeeds, carbon emissions would plummet, with renewable energies powering the nickel processing facility. But nickel has been at the heart of politics in New Caledonia for centuries, and Tesla will have to contend with this freighted history.
Sidestepping China: Most of the world's nickel destined for electric vehicle batteries is processed in one place: China. Tesla has plans to produce batteries in Texas and Germany, which would help avoid an overreliance on China.
The shift: Some of Tesla's cars run on batteries made with nickel processed by a Japanese firm that has sourced much of its nickel from places like the Philippines, Indonesia and Madagascar, where allegations of environmental and labor breaches are rife.
THE LATEST NEWS
Asia Pacific
Ashraf Ghani, then the president of Afghanistan, at a campaign rally in Kabul in 2019.Jim Huylebroek for The New York Times
In his first interview since escaping Afghanistan, former President Ashraf Ghani defended his decision to flee Kabul as the Taliban advanced, saying, "I had to sacrifice myself in order to save Kabul."
The ruling Myanmar military has again turned to a strategy of massacres and village burnings as a tool to accomplish its goals, The Associated Press reported.
What Else Is Happening
Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislane Maxwell.U.S. District Court For The Southern District of New York/AFP, via Getty Images
Ghislaine Maxwell, the former companion to the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, was found guilty of conspiring with him for at least a decade to recruit, groom and sexually abuse underage girls.
In parts of Latin America, burning rag dolls was used to symbolically banish the woes of the year gone by. Nowadays, former President Donald Trump and Hugo Chávez, the former Venezuelan leader, are some of the most common faces being burned.
A Morning Read
The mirror of the James Webb Space Telescope in 2016.Kevin Lamarque/Reuters
With partisan politics, ethnic conflicts and border disputes dividing many countries across a world grappling with a deadly pandemic, the story of the launch of the James Webb Space Telescope seems to have defied the odds. The spacecraft — launched to search for habitable planets and to seek out the earliest, most distant stars and galaxies — was a potent reminder that international cooperation on grand-scale projects was still possible.
From left: A fisherman feeding whale sharks in Tan-awan, Philippines; wild boars in Haifa, Israel; a Lucha Libre wrestler dancing in Mexico City.From left: Hannah Reyes Morales for The New York Times, Dan Balilty for The New York Time, Alejandro Cegarra for The New York Times
Our most popular dispatches of 2021
This year, as the world reopened cautiously, our correspondents ventured out in search of stories that would astonish, delight, provoke and enlighten. They then sent back dispatches from 40 countries on six continents.
In one, our Berlin correspondent Melissa Eddy told the story of an ex-dairy farm in Germany that was turned into an animal retirement home, where the cows and pigs live peacefully — provoking questions about how we eat.
In another, our South Asia bureau chief, Mujib Mashal, who grew up in Kabul, wrote about returning there just before the Taliban's victory, and taking in the end of one era and the fearful start of another.
Ghislaine Maxwell's entire defense strategy hinged on shaming and dismantling the testimony of the four women who told jurors the British socialite enabled and participated in their sexual abuse, former prosecutor Maggy Krell writes for NBC News THINK. Perhaps Maxwell's defense team should have paid more attention to R. Kelly or Harvey Weinstein's trial, Krell writes, because as the jury's guilty verdict proves, victim-blaming just doesn't appear to be as effective as it once was.
A little ingenuity and the right rapid authoring tool go a long way. This guide features 8 eLearning activities you can create by repurposing existing resources to stretch your budget and reduce development time.
In today's times, when technological use has reached unprecedented levels, an LMS is the right software for information dispersal in companies owing to easy access.
Your company is always looking for ways to cut costs without cutting corners. In this article, I share tips to use the rapid authoring tool import video feature to stretch your budget and reduce on-the-job risks.
NVIDIA Inception is one of the largest startup ecosystems in the world — and its thousands of members achieved impressive feats in 2021, bringing AI and data science to an array of industries.
NVIDIA Inception nurtures cutting-edge AI, data science and HPC startups with go-to-market support, expertise and technology. This year, the program surpassed 9,000 members — about two-thirds of the total number of AI startups in the world, as estimated by Pitchbook.
Tel Aviv startup Greeneye is developing AI for precision spraying of crops, reducing use of herbicides by as much as 90 percent. Its system uses the NVIDIA Jetson platform to target herbicides on individual weeds in milliseconds, decreasing water and soil contamination. The company is working with corn and soybean farmers in the midwest U.S. to deploy its AI-driven smart sprayers on tractors.
Self-driving truck company Plus, based in Silicon Valley, is building an autonomous vehicle platform that can be retrofitted to existing trucks or added to new vehicles by manufacturers. A software-defined system built on NVIDIA DRIVE Orin, the PlusDrive platform uses lidar, radar and cameras to gather data about a truck's surroundings, plan its course and control the vehicle.
U.K.-based Peptone has developed a protein drug discovery engine that helps scientists find protein variants with promising therapeutic properties. The startup uses generative AI models and complex simulations running on NVIDIA DGX A100 GPUs to model unstructured proteins, which are involved in cancer, inflammatory diseases and neurodegenerative diseases.
Fotokite, based in Zurich, used the NVIDIA Jetson platform to build an autonomous tethered drone that gives first responders an aerial perspective during fires, search-and-rescue missions or medical emergencies. The system's thermal camera can help firefighters locate hotspots that need attention, find the safest location to enter or exit a structure, and guide firefighters on whether their hoses are targeting the right points.
Beijing-based Heartdub digitizes textiles and uses AI to simulate how clothes look on the human body, enabling creators to display and verify designs virtually. Its physics engine, which takes advantage of NVIDIA Quadro RTX 8000 GPUs and NVIDIA HDR InfiniBand networking, can lessen the number of physical samples needed, reduce waste from excess fabric and minimize unsold inventory.
It's the final countdown for what's been a big year for cloud gaming. For the last GFN Thursday of the year, we're taking a look at some of the GeForce NOW community's top picks of games that joined the GeForce NOW library in 2021.
Plus, check out the last batch of games coming to the cloud this year, with seven new additions streaming this week.
Bringing Gaming to Gamers
This year, the GeForce NOW library has reached over 1,100 PC games streaming on the service, including nearly 100 free-to-play options. Plus, new titles come to the cloud every GFN Thursday, meaning more players can play more games that they own.
Whether they're playing on underpowered PCs, Macs, Chromebooks, SHIELD TVs, Android devices, iPhones or iPads, there's a PC game for every player to stream instantly from this ever-expanding library — at legendary GeForce levels of performance.
Pumped Up Picks
To round out a year full of great gaming and new title additions, the GeForce NOW community shared some of their picks to play on the cloud.
Members are having a blast strapping on Star-Lord's boots for an original adventure in Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy, and have shared their love for the game.
"Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy looks absolutely stunning on GeForce NOW," said DrSpaceman. "The colorful, alien worlds are so vibrant with RTX ON and the game plays like a dream."
"Playing this game on the 3080 tier is just beautiful," said Bill from NerdNest.tv. "The art direction is top notch."
Gamers are also delighted to befriend charming spirit companions and enjoy a rich tale in Kena: Bridge of Spirits, and thrilled to overthrow a corrupt government in Far Cry 6.
"Kena: Bridge of Spirits was by far one of my favorite games, due to the graphics, visuals and the storyline," said VetCloudGaming. "The visuals were amazing and reminded me of a film."
For fun with friends, players are squading up to explore, build, craft and battle in the MMO New World or become the Vikings they were born to be in Valheim.
"New World has to be the biggest surprise game of the year," said Marchief from Cloud Gaming Xtreme. "So many people wanted it, and now it's on GeForce NOW."
If stretching 2021 to include an extra month from the end of last year — members are taking Cyberpunk 2077 to the next level with cinematic quality by turning RTX ON for a glamorous game and gritty story.
Cyberpunk 2077 in 4K on the Shield with my 3080 membership
Other games we've seen mentioned frequently include PowerWash Simulator and Gas Station Simulator for entertaining scenarios with wacky outcomes. Games like No Man's Sky and Icarus are popular options for those looking for a challenge to explore and survive. And members wanting to become an unstoppable warrior should try Warframe for a sci-fi, story-driven, free-to-play game.
The Power to Play With GeForce RTX 3080
Another big win for GeForce NOW members this year is the ability to play all of these titles using the newest generation of cloud gaming with a GeForce NOW RTX 3080 membership.
RTX 3080 memberships turn nearly any device into a gaming rig capable of streaming at up to 1440p resolution and 120 frames per second on PCs, native 1440p or 1600p at 120 FPS on Macs, and 4K HDR at 60 FPS on SHIELD TV, with ultra-low latency that goes head-to-head with many local gaming experiences.
It also comes with the longest gaming session length available of eight hours, full control to customize in-game graphics settings, as well as RTX ON rendering environments in cinematic quality for supported games.
Besides powering up your ultimate cloud gaming experience on GeForce NOW, for a limited time, get the gift of a copy of Crysis Remastered free with the purchase of an RTX 3080 membership or six-month Priority membership. Terms and conditions apply.
End Games for 2021
Battle it out with the best using martial-arts-inspired melee combat and get hooked onto NARAKA: BLADEPOINT, now supported on Epic Games Store.
The following seven titles come to the cloud this week to close out a year packed full of gaming:
We make every effort to launch games on GeForce NOW as close to their release as possible, but, in some instances, games may not be available immediately.
Stay tuned and look out for new announcements at CES to see how we're kicking off 2022. Tell us what you want to see next for GeForce NOW on Twitter or in the comments below.
Every weekday, we recommend one piece of exceptional writing from The Times — a narrative or essay that takes you someplace you might not expect to go.
We know a few folks will be spending New Years in the comfort of their own home, and Gap has you covered with some cute, trendy, and affordable plus size loungewear!
A planner will and can help you keep your thoughts all together and help keep you motivated, so we've rounded up a few 2022 planners to help you get your whole life.
The world is full of doers, all busy and buzzing about just doing things, while the rest – people like Lane Parker — take a more measured approach, calmly weighing just when to do most anything.
Most people consider procrastination a four-letter word. To me, ASAP is a four-letter word. But we're almost four months into the new year, so I'm starting to think seriously about making my New Year's resolutions, and I think one of those resolutions should be conquering my procrastination habit.
Procrastination is as old as the Pyramids. Literally. According to a book on procrastination, which I have not gotten around to finishing, the Egyptians had two words that can be translated as "procrastinate." One word is pro-procrastination, the other anti. "Procrastinate" comes from two Latin words: "forward" and "of tomorrow."
It's too bad dictionaries define the word negatively, because procrastination is neither laziness nor idleness. What might look like inaction to the casual observer is actually a prolonged internal period of preparing to begin, all the while knowing that, as Dilbert said, "Most problems go away if you wait long enough." And let's not forget procrastination's positive by-products — all the dusting, organizing, rearranging.
We procrastinators are encouraged to carpe our diems. "Never put off till tomorrow what you can do today." To which Mark Twain wisely replied, "Never put off till tomorrow what may be done the day after tomorrow just as well." In addition to remembering Twain's advice, we can summon our inner Scarlett O'Haras, or quote the handyman from the film 'Tremors', who explains, "We plan ahead. That way we don't do anything right now."
Recently I discovered an online article insisting that I had not a procrastination problem but rather an impulsivity problem. If the author had he just postponed submitting the piece, he would have had time to realize that he was describing distraction, not procrastination.
Although I like the idea of being "of tomorrow," I know I should live for today. I've thought seriously about this. I've slept on it – for many nights. And I've decided that, yes, I will. I will seize the day.
Tomorrow.
With a Perspective, I'm Lane Parker.
Lane Parker is a writer and editor in San Francisco.
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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Thursday issued an advisory urging all travelers — vaccinated and unvaccinated — to avoid cruise ship travel amid a record-breaking Covid surge driven by the omicron variant in many states across the United States.
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2021 has been an eventful year for African creativity. With the world still reeling from the effects of coronavirus and vaccine inequality particularly affecting Africa, Africans seem to have found solace in Afrobeat songs in the year 2021. This year, we witnessed Afrobeat gain more momentum than it ever has. From multiple songs from West…
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Go Solar Group is joining with Titan Solar Power as part of its national installation team. Founded in Utah, Go Solar Group has commercial and residential solar installation crews in Nevada, Texas and New Mexico.
Go Solar Group’s installation partnership with Titan Solar Power expands its solar installation access to Arizona, Colorado, Florida, California, Missouri, Illinois, New Jersey, Virginia, Georgia, and North and South Carolina.
In 2022, Titan Solar Power plans to expand its installation reach to include Oklahoma, Nebraska, Arkansas, Louisiana, Tennessee and Alabama, which will also further expand Go Solar Group’s installation outreach.
“We’re proud to have Titan Solar Power as our national installation partner because, in addition to their strong track record and reputation, they share our vision and core values of putting the customer first, honesty, integrity and continual improvement,” notes Scott Cramer, Go Solar Group's president and co-founder. “With our new sales and operating leadership, the partnership will let us increase the number of healthy, connected and empowered homes via residential solar throughout the Midwest and eastern U.S.”
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