(Want to get this newsletter in your inbox? Here’s the sign-up.) Good evening, and happy holidays. Here’s the latest at the end of Friday.2. On the eve of the biggest holidays in Europe, exhaustion with the pandemic is rising. So is resignation that the virus is endemic.This week, the rough outlines of how Europe might manage its latest outbreak were taking shape, driven by politics and people’s desperation to move on. Full lockdowns have mainly given way to less intrusive — and less protective — measures. And there is general acceptance that the virus is something that people must learn to live with, maybe for years to come.In Saudi Arabia, Christmas, once officially banned, is coming out of hiding in the kingdom, as its ultra-constrictive religious rules are eased.
3. Democrats say they are serious about state elections. But are they too late?As Democrats gear up for what most acknowledge will be a difficult midterm election in 2022, state-level races are becoming a central focus of American politics. The lasting effects of new congressional maps and election laws have raised the stakes. But selling rank-and-file Democrats on the importance of offices like state senator has proved daunting. The party tends to suffer disproportionately from “roll-off,” in which voters fail to complete their ballots, withholding their votes from candidates at the bottom of the ticket.What do the president, vice president, former president and party leaders want in 2022? We made our best guess.
4. A venerable Burmese-Irish family known for its charitable foundation has secretly helped equip Myanmar’s brutal military.An investigation of the Kyaw Thaung family by The Times reveals a vast web of military procurement that was strategically hidden from the public. For all their efforts to differentiate themselves from the drug lords and business cronies who dominated Myanmar’s economy, the Kyaw Thaungs were quietly profiting from their military ties.Their partnership with the Tatmadaw, Myanmar’s military, deepened even as its generals committed ethnic cleansing against Rohingya Muslims. And it continued into this year, when the army staged a coup and seized full power of the country. One of the family’s companies donated more than $40,000 to the Tatmadaw for what the U.N. described as a cover-up of the site of genocide.5. You can probably use a vacation.Many office workers have continually delayed their paid time off in hopes of a real, non-Covid-tainted vacation: Last year, one-third of Americans’ paid time off went unused, on average. And burnout is creeping in. Some workers are quietly asking permission to rest. Others know that their break is overdue, and now they’re getting nudges from the boss: Log off.For this week’s Corner Office column, we spoke to Shar Dubey, the chief executive of the Match group, which runs online dating sites including Match.com, OKCupid and Tinder, about her taking a stand on the restrictive Texas abortion law. “Taking us backward while much of the world is moving forward? That didn’t sit well with me.”
6. In 2016, a man paid $30 at an estate sale in Concord, Mass., for a drawing. It could be a Renaissance work worth millions.A panel of experts at the British Museum in London now believe the yellowing picture of the Virgin Mary and Child is by the renowned German artist Albrecht Dürer — one of the most extraordinary discoveries of Renaissance artwork in years.Separately, a consortium of British libraries and museums successfully raised more than $20 million to buy a “lost” library containing rare manuscripts by the Brontës, Robert Burns, Walter Scott and Jane Austen.
7. All astronomers want for Christmas is a successful launch of the James Webb Space Telescope.The $10 billion telescope, with one of the most fraught development timelines of any space program, will succeed the Hubble Space Telescope and become humanity’s most powerful scientific instrument for studying the formation of our universe and distant worlds in our galaxy.8. Book-wrapt: the exhilarating comfort of a well-stocked library.The term was coined by Reid Byers, a computer systems architect and private library historian to describe the way physical books continue to beguile us. Covering the walls — 500 books ensure that a room “will begin to feel like a library,” he said — they nourish the senses, slay boredom and relieve distress. We visited several collectors who refuse to let their collections go.Many of you probably have a Harry Potter or two on your shelves. J.K. Rowling, the series’s author, writes about the magic of things lost and found in her new children’s book, “The Christmas Pig.” “How many times have I been asked whether I believe in magic? On the day I finished ‘The Christmas Pig,’ for a few shining moments I really did,” she writes. Read her essay to find out why.