The New York Times

A century-old rain record was broken on Tuesday when heavy rainfall triggered flash floods in parts of St. Louis and other areas of Missouri. There were reports of rescues from residences and submerged vehicles on swamped roadways, officials said. And while officials worked to assess the full scope of the damage, Chief Dennis Jenkerson of the St. Louis Fire Department said at a news conference on Tuesday that one person who had been pulled from a flooded vehicle in the southwestern part of the city had died. There was about 8.5 feet of water in the area, he said. Firefighters, he said, had rescued or helped rescue about 70 residents. Property damage was “very significant” in some hard-hit areas, he said, including one section in the western part of the city where 14 or 15 homes had flooded. Jim Sieveking, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in St. Louis, described the rainfall as “historic,” adding that the city’s daily rainfall record, set in August 1915, was broken in five hours. Read the latest on extreme weather at the link in our bio.

After growing explosively to become California’s largest wildfire so far in 2022, a blaze in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada moderated on Sunday, with firefighters able to defend communities a dozen miles from Yosemite National Park. The Oak fire has more than tripled in size since it was ignited on Friday, and has burned a total of 16,800 acres and still could threaten 3,300 homes and businesses. As of Monday morning, seven structures had been destroyed — an earlier estimate had said there were 10 — and more than 3,000 residents had been ordered to evacuate. Cal Fire, the state’s main firefighting agency, said in a statement Sunday night that firefighters had made “good headway” against the blaze and that protective clearing by fire crews was shielding the small communities of Lushmeadows and Mariposa Pines. Read the latest on wildfires in the U.S. at the link in our bio.

In a final public hearing of the summer and one of the most dramatic of the inquiry, the panel investigating the Capitol attack provided a panoramic account on Thursday of how, even as the lives of law enforcement officers, members of Congress and the vice president were under threat, former President Donald Trump could not be moved to act until after it was clear that the riot had failed to disrupt Congress’s session to confirm his election defeat. The committee showed in never-before-seen footage from the White House that Trump had privately refused to concede or condemn the assault on the Capitol as a crime. “I don’t want to say the election’s over!” he angrily told aides as he recorded a video message that had been scripted for him the day after the attack. His daughter, Ivanka, could be heard responding to some of Trump’s edits. An array of former administration officials testified that as a mob of his supporters assaulted the Capitol, Trump sat in his dining room off the Oval Office, watching the violence on television and doing nothing for hours to stop it. The committee called on a cast of witnesses that included top Trump aides, veterans and military leaders, loyal Republicans and even members of Trump’s own family — aiming to make it hard for viewers to dismiss them as tools of a partisan witch hunt. It established that the president willfully rejected their efforts to persuade him to mobilize a response to the deadliest attack on the Capitol in two centuries. Tap the link in our bio to read more from the Jan. 6 hearings.

The image of Senator Josh Hawley, Republican of Missouri, raising his fist in solidarity with a crowd of Trump supporters outside the Capitol on Jan. 6 became an iconic symbol of how he and members of his party had made common cause with members of the mob that ultimately stormed the building. On Thursday night, the congressional committee investigating the attack offered the public another indelible image of Hawley — this time, of the senator running out of the Capitol as it was invaded by the same people he had cheered on hours before. A never-before-seen pair of surveillance videos released by the panel — which drew hearty laughter from spectators inside the hearing room — instantly tore across the internet. Humor aside, the memes touched on a central focus of the committee’s: how the lies of a stolen election spouted by former President Donald J. Trump and spread by his allies in Congress fed the violence that erupted at the Capitol on Jan. 6. Read more from the Jan. 6 hearings at the link in our bio.

Ukraine’s first lady addressed the U.S. Congress on Wednesday, asking for more weapons to defend against what she called the “Russian hunger games” killing children and ripping apart families. “I want to address you not as a first lady but as a daughter and a mother,” Olena Zelenska told the lawmakers. “An unprovoked invasive terrorist war is being waged against my country,” she added. “Russia is destroying our people.” In a rare appearance by a foreign first spouse before Congress, Zelenska showed photographs of children whose lives had been destroyed by the war. She asked the members of Congress for more weapons, including air defense systems, before they leave for their August recess, so that “our kids are not going to be killed.” Her emotional plea garnered a 30-second standing ovation from congressional leaders. As Zelenska exited, several members of Congress offered a handshake. Read our live coverage on the war in Ukraine at the link in our bio.

Wildfires Rage in Southwestern France More than 2,000 firefighters from around France were battling raging wildfires on Tuesday in the Gironde area of the country’s southwest. The flames have burned nearly 80 square miles of forest and forced over 37,000 people to evacuate in the past week. Investigators suspect that one fire was set intentionally. Residents were being evacuated on Tuesday from the southeastern flank of one of the main wildfires in the Gironde region, the authorities said. Vincent Ferrier, a local official in Langon, an area of Gironde, told reporters that the blaze had been stabilized to its north but could expand to the south because of shifting winds. Europe is experiencing a record-setting heat wave across the continent. Read the latest at the link in our bio.

A sinkhole appeared in the Bronx on Monday as rain and high winds rolled through New York City, growing throughout the evening and swallowing a parked van. At about 58 feet long, 15 feet wide and 20 feet deep, the hole had room for plenty more. It opened in the Morris Park neighborhood along Radcliff Avenue and Pierce Avenue about 4:15 p.m., according to the Fire Department. No injuries were reported. The sinkhole damaged a water main, cutting service to 70 homes; all but 20 had it restored by Tuesday morning. Water was being provided to residents at two city-run Water on the Go fountains in the area. Read more at the link in our bio.

Extreme Temperatures Feed Wildfires in Europe Fires were raging on Monday in France and Spain, adding misery for those already suffering in relentless heat. Spain is battling at least 30 wildfires in the south and the northwest. The blazes have consumed about 80 square miles of woods and brush and have forced the evacuation of thousands of people. Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez of Spain said on Monday that he had visited areas affected by wildfires in the western region of Extremadura. “Climate change kills,” Sánchez said. “All these waves of wildfires have behind them heat waves caused by the climatic emergency that the planet is experiencing.” Firefighters in the Gironde region of France are still struggling to contain two blazes that have burned nearly 60 square miles of dry pine forest and forced over 30,000 people to evacuate. Read the latest on the extreme heat in Europe at the link in our bio.

Family Holds Funeral for 4-Year-Old Girl Killed in Russian Missile Attack Liza Dmytriyeva, a 4-year-old with Down syndrome, died when a flash of fire and metallic shrapnel erupted near her and her mother during a walk in Vinnytsia, Ukraine. The strike killed 22 others, including two more children, and wounded 140 people. Liza’s mother, Iryna, lost a leg and remains unconscious. Read the latest from the Russian invasion of Ukraine at the link in our bio.

Mexican Activists Distribute Abortion Pills to U.S. With U.S. states criminalizing abortion, activists in Mexico have been flooded with requests for abortion medication. We went inside the distribution effort. Tap the link in our bio to read more about how activists are working to build a cross-border network of more than 100 volunteers to hand deliver abortion pills to women in need in the U.S. Video by @paulamonacofelipe , @migueltov , @s.messalti , @rarecanary and @brentmcdonaldnyt

At the end of a meeting between President Biden and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia, an NBC News reporter, Peter Alexander, shouted “Jamal Khashoggi, will you apologize to his family?” but Prince Mohammed and Biden ignored the question. Alexander wrote on Twitter that a Saudi aide then “grabbed my arm tightly.” The prince is believed to be responsible for the 2018 murder of Khashoggi, a Saudi dissident journalist and permanent resident of the U.S. Read the latest on Biden’s trip to the Middle East at the link in our bio.

Dozens of people who had been initially reporting missing had all been accounted for by Thursday afternoon, after powerful storms swept through southwestern Virginia, bringing heavy flooding and landslides and damaging more than 100 homes, officials said. More than 4.5 inches of rain fell on Buchanan County, which borders Kentucky and West Virginia in southwestern Virginia, on Tuesday night, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The area lies inside the Appalachian Mountains and the mountain ridges acted like a funnel for the rain, as the Dismal River rose quickly and overflowed onto roads. Homes were swept off their foundations and people were forced to wade through waist-deep water to reach safety. Read more at the link in our bio.