Your Thursday Evening Briefing

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/21/briefing/biden-covid-jan-6-committee-hearing.html

Version 0 of 1.

(Want to get this newsletter in your inbox? Here’s the sign-up.)

1. The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol returns to prime time tonight.

It will deliver what amounts to a closing argument in its case against Donald Trump, accusing the former commander in chief of dereliction of duty for failing to call off the assault. Two military veterans on the panel will be front and center in leading the questioning. We’ll have live updates here.

“The captain of a ship cannot sit there and watch the ship burned to the waterline and not do anything to stop it,” Representative Elaine Luria, Democrat of Virginia, said in an interview, invoking her 20 years of experience in the Navy. The hearing will also examine why it took so long to deploy the National Guard.

Here’s how to watch tonight’s session, which begins at 8 p.m. Eastern.

Related: Representative Liz Cheney, who has emerged as the lead narrator in the committee, spoke to us about the hearings, which she called “maybe the most important thing I ever do.”

2. President Biden tested positive for the coronavirus.

The 79-year-old president, who is fully vaccinated and twice boosted, was “experiencing very mild symptoms,” including fatigue, a runny nose and a dry cough, according to the White House. He was receiving Paxlovid, an antiviral drug used to minimize the severity of Covid-19. He will isolate at the White House but “continue to carry out all of his duties fully during that time,” the White House said.

It is unclear exactly how Biden got infected, but his positive test comes as cases are rising in the U.S., driven by new, highly contagious subvariants. Additional pandemic aid is stalled in Congress.

In Europe, which is deep in another Covid wave, governments are not cracking down, in large part because they are not seeing a significant uptick in severe cases, hospitalizations or deaths.

3. The European Central Bank raised interest rates for the first time in 11 years.

The half a percentage point increase targeting record high inflation was a bigger jump than expected. The bank also introduced a new measure aimed at limiting the divergence in borrowing costs across the eurozone’s 19 members, an increasingly worrying problem for the bloc.

In other economic news, Russia resumed the flow of natural gas to Germany through a vital pipeline today, but Moscow has signaled that it will keep using energy as leverage over the war in Ukraine. That will keep pressure on European nations to meet the energy demands of their citizens while also encouraging gas-saving measures like lowering thermostats and closing public services like swimming pools.

Related: The E.U.’s plan to ration natural gas 15 percent through next spring is already being met with resistance.

4. Ukraine said it had struck dozens of targets across the south of the country as part of a counteroffensive to reclaim territory.

In all, Ukraine conducted 10 airstrikes using helicopters and fighter jets in and around Kherson Province, which Russian forces seized in March. Officials said the military had attacked more than 200 targets across the region using long-range missiles and artillery, some of which were supplied by the U.S.

Turkey announced a deal between Ukraine and Russia that would allow millions of tons of Ukrainian grain to be exported, alleviating a global food shortage.

Related: The C.I.A. director said that President Vladimir Putin believed that the U.S. would suffer from “attention deficit disorder” and lose interest in the Ukraine war, and Britain’s spy chief said Russian forces “are about to run out of steam.”

5. The House passed legislation to codify access to contraception nationwide.

The measure passed 228 to 195, with eight Republicans in support. It would protect the right to purchase and use contraception.

The vote was the latest election-year move by Democrats to draw a sharp distinction with Republicans on a social issue that has broad support. The bill will almost certainly be blocked by G.O.P. opposition in the Senate.

Here’s a look at where abortion measures are on the ballot during the 2022 midterm cycle.

In other legislative news, more House Republicans than expected — 47 — voted for the Respect for Marriage Act, which would codify federal protections for same-sex couples. There could be a narrow path to enactment.

6. Italy’s president accepted the resignation of Prime Minister Mario Draghi, dissolved Parliament and called for new elections.

Italy now ends a period of relative stability and influence and faces the prospect of a chaotic campaign that a right-wing alliance — which includes a group with neo-fascist roots — is best positioned to win. The government set new elections for Sept. 25.

Draghi, a former president of the European Central Bank, had increased Italy’s international footprint and economic outlook by the sheer force of his credibility. His supporters hoped his centrism would act as a moderating influence on the country’s populist forces.

7. North America’s monarch butterfly has been classified as endangered by a leading wildlife monitor.

The decision by the International Union for Conservation of Nature comes after decades of falling populations driven by losses in the plants they need as caterpillars and in the forests where adults spend the winter, combined with climate change. The use of the herbicide glyphosate on crops also killed milkweed plants, which the butterflies rely on.

In other conservation news, the biodiversity crisis will most directly affect the most fascinating birds. Get ready for a world that “is really simple and brown and boring,” one expert said.

8. Hip. Nitty-gritty. Cool. Woke.

A new dictionary — the Oxford Dictionary of African American English — will attempt to codify Black Americans’ contributions to, and rich relationship with, the English language. In addition to spellings and definitions, the dictionary will collect histories of the words.

“You wouldn’t normally think of a dictionary as a way of telling the story of the evolution of the African American people, but it is,” said Henry Louis Gates Jr., the project’s editor in chief.

In other book news, Michelle Obama will share her approaches to dealing with challenging times in “The Light We Carry,” due out this fall. And here are 13 new books we recommend this week.

9. In 1872, a group of British financiers living in New York gathered on Staten Island to play a game of cricket. The club has not stopped since.

For 150 years, the Staten Island Cricket Club has been a quiet, but durable, fixture. Members now come from virtually every cricketing nation, with strong representation from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and the Caribbean Islands. But the occasional native New Yorker joins, too.

“I still love baseball,” one Staten Island native said, “but I love cricket more, now.”

Another under the radar New York tradition: As the founder and sole employee of Film Noir Cinema, Will Malitek appears to be the final movie rental clerk left in New York City.

10. And finally, chocolate cake for a friend.

While the sound of chewing might drive some people crazy, it makes our Food columnist Eric Kim sleepy. Eating sounds give him a relaxing, tingling sensation in his brain, an auditory-tactile synesthesia that scientists call A.S.M.R., or autonomous sensory meridian response. “For me, that response is instantaneous somnolence,” he writes.

He thought he was “a freak” until he found an online community of A.S.M.R. YouTube producers who ate food in front of the camera. While they never met in person, one of them, Lizzy, became one of his best friends. His favorite video was one of her eating grocery-store chocolate cake. Read Kim’s lovely tribute to his friend, who died in 2019, and try the chocolate cake recipe he developed for Lizzy.

Have a heartwarming night.

Brent Lewis compiled photos for this briefing.

Your Evening Briefing is posted at 6 p.m. Eastern.

Want to catch up on past briefings? You can browse them here.

What did you like? What do you want to see here? Let us know at briefing@nytimes.com.

Here are today’s Mini Crossword, Spelling Bee and Wordle. If you’re in the mood to play more, find all our games here.