Your Monday Evening Briefing – The New York Times | #datingscams | #russianliovescams | #lovescams

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Good evening. Here’s the latest at the end of Monday.

2. Until recently, China and Taiwan pursued harsh “zero Covid” policies. Amid Omicron surges, however, they took divergent paths.

Chinese authorities have required testing and quarantines for confirmed cases and close contacts. Shanghai has been locked down for more than a month. In Beijing, apartment complexes and neighborhoods have been sealed off.

In Taiwan, despite rising case counts, people with mild infections are allowed to isolate at home. Incoming travelers don’t need long quarantines. Officials say the “new Taiwan model” is a move toward “coexisting with the virus.” Since the outbreak began in April, 78 people have died there.

In other Covid news, former heads of state and Nobel laureates asked the U.S. to commit $5 billion to the global pandemic fight.

3. Stocks plunged again.

The S&P 500 fell 3.2 percent, part of a stretch of selling that has become the market’s longest such decline in more than a decade. The index is down 16.3 percent on the year, a roller coaster that is approaching a bear market (defined as a decline of 20 percent from the market’s last peak). Factors include the Fed’s recent decision to slow the economy, China’s pandemic lockdowns, the war in Ukraine and more.

6. A top U.N. official stepped down after The New York Times ran a story about unusual dealings in her department.

In 2014, Grete Faremo took over the U.N. Office for Project Services, a low-profile agency that helps other U.N. agencies handle logistics. At a party in 2015 she met a British businessman, David Kendrick, and his 22-year-old daughter Daisy, who said they would help her run her office like an investment bank.

Most of the $61 million she gave them went directly to companies that the Kendricks own, including a $3 million grant to a conservation group run by Daisy Kendrick, which produced a pop song with the singer Joss Stone about oceans.

7. In 78 years, she hasn’t consulted a cookbook.

But Emily Meggett has just published her own: “Gullah Geechee Home Cooking: Recipes From the Matriarch of Edisto Island.”

Meggett was born in South Carolina; Edisto is one of a string of coastal islands on which slaves created their own Creole language, known as Gullah, and an accompanying culture known as Gullah Geechee. At 89, she is considered by many to be the most important Gullah Geechee cook alive.

In her book, Meggett offers up the philosophy that’s kept her going: “Every morning I say, ‘God, lead me to one needy soul today,’” she said, “and then I go and put my pot on the stove.”

In other cooking news, “Zabar’s: A Family Story, with Recipes” looks at the famed deli. Chopped liver recipe, anyone?

8. Tom House, a legendary pitching coach, reinvented himself in his 70s with his app for young players.

House, who helped legendary pitchers like Randy Johnson and Nolan Ryan play into their forties, developed Mustard out of his concern over the fact that most 13-year-olds today quit organized sports before high school.

Designed to help correct pitchers’ mechanical flaws and democratize access to sophisticated coaching, the Mustard app is built from tens of thousands of three-dimensional models, and can analyze users’ uploaded videos.

In other sports news, the horse racing world got a welcome boost when Rich Strike triumphed over 80-to-1 odds at the Kentucky Derby on Saturday.

9. After two years of unprecedented challenges, the Tonys are back.

Nominations honoring Broadway’s best work during the pandemic — for shows which opened between Feb. 20, 2020, and May 4, 2022 — were announced this morning, after a weeklong delay due to the coronavirus. (The Tonys honored shows from the short 2019-2020 theater season, last year.

The big winners: “A Strange Loop,” Michael R. Jackson’s Pulitzer Prize winner, got 11 nominations. “MJ,” a musical about another Michael Jackson, got 10, as did “Paradise Square.” “For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/ When the Rainbow Is Enuf,” a much-praised revival that has struggled to find an audience, got seven nominations.

Some big stars got nods, like Ruth Negga for “Macbeth,” Sam Rockwell for “American Buffalo” and Hugh Jackman for “The Music Man.” But Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick, both in “Plaza Suite,” and Beanie Feldstein, in “Funny Girl,” were snubbed. The awards ceremony will be broadcast June 12 on CBS.

10. And finally, a new Time Lord will pilot the TARDIS.

When the BBC series “Doctor Who” airs in 2023, Ncuti Gatwa, a star of the Netflix series “Sex Education,” will become the 14th Doctor, and the first Black actor to take the lead role in the show’s six decades on the air.

Gatwa, 29, a Rwandan-Scottish actor, will replace Jodie Whittaker, the first female Doctor, as the supernaturally resourceful, oft-reincarnated alien who journeys through dimensions in a police phone booth.

“This role is an institution,” he said of the Doctor. “It’s so iconic and it means a lot to so many people, including myself, and so it makes everyone feel seen as well.”

Have a timeless evening.

Eve Edelheit compiled photos for this briefing.