 A memorial to Yevgeny Prigozhin in Moscow yesterday.Natalia Kolesnikova/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images |
| ‘It’s likely Prigozhin was killed,’ Pentagon says |
| U.S. and other Western officials said that preliminary intelligence reports had led them to believe that an explosion on board a plane linked to the Russian mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin most likely brought down the aircraft on Wednesday, killing all the passengers aboard. The Pentagon said yesterday that “it’s likely Prigozhin was killed.” |
| U.S. and Western officials said the blast could have been caused by a bomb or another device planted on the aircraft, though other possibilities, like adulterated fuel, were also being explored. |
| President Vladimir Putin of Russia, in his first comments since the jet went down, spoke obliquely of Prigozhin’s death, referring to him in the past tense during a televised meeting. “He made some serious mistakes in life, but he also achieved necessary results,” he said. |
| Background: Prigozhin founded and led the Wagner private military group, which made significant battlefield gains in Ukraine, before he staged a brief mutiny against Russia’s military leadership in June. |
| Analysis: Prigozhin’s presumed death is a reminder of all those who have paid a heavy price for standing up to Putin. |
| Other developments in the war: |
| Norway became the third NATO country, after the Netherlands and Denmark, to pledge to donate F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine.The U.S. plans to begin training Ukrainian pilots on F-16s as early as September.Ukraine’s defense ministry said that its special forces had staged a brief raid inside the occupied Crimean Peninsula. |
 China, which dominates the group, pressed hard for its expansion.Pool photo by Alet Pretorius |
| Six countries will join the BRICS club |
| Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia were invited to join the BRICS club of emerging nations, strengthening its role as a geopolitical alternative to Western-led forums. |
| The inclusion of the staunchly anti-Western Iran tilts the bloc — which currently includes Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa — more in opposition to the U.S. The move was also seen as a victory for China, which had pushed back against the reservations expressed by India and Brazil, which wanted to maintain friendly ties with the West. |
| When the six new countries join the bloc in January, it will have six democracies, two authoritarian states, two autocratic monarchies and a theocracy. |
| Analysis: “The group is going down an uncharted path, with new actors that have varied interests,” said Manoj Kewalramani, a China studies fellow at the Takshashila Institution in India. “It’s going to become unwieldy and, dare I say, more ineffective.” |
| Here’s what else to know about BRICS’s new members. |
 Record heat and wildfires have called into question the future of cherished tourist destinations.Petros Giannakouris/Associated Press |
| A heat wave bakes Europe |
| Large areas of southern Europe — in France, Spain and Italy — baked under extreme temperatures yesterday, the latest in a string of heat waves that have scorched the continent over the summer. Many areas sweltered under temperatures of 86 to 95 degrees Fahrenheit, or 30 to 35 degrees Celsius, and some topped 104 degrees. |
| Although it is difficult to link individual events to climate change, scientists say that it is fueling more extreme weather events, and heat waves in Europe have increased in frequency and intensity more quickly than practically anywhere else on the planet. |
| In Greece, firefighters are still battling scores of blazes nationwide. But the threat to Mount Parnitha, a protected wildlife area widely known as the “lungs” of Athens, has provoked special anger among residents. |
| THE LATEST NEWS Around the World |
 Donald Trump is shown in a police booking mug shot released by the Fulton County Sheriff’s Office yesterday.Fulton County Sheriff’s Office |
| Donald Trump turned himself in at a jail in Atlanta to be booked on 13 felony counts related to his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss in Georgia.Japan began releasing into the ocean treated radioactive wastewater from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. China responded by suspending seafood imports from Japan.Turkey’s central bank raised interest rates to 25 percent from 17.5 percent, in a bid to curb stubbornly high inflation. |
| Other Big Stories |
 Pool photo by Daniel Leal |
| King Charles III of Britain announced plans to visit France next month after widespread demonstrations in France postponed a visit planned earlier this year.The political newcomer Vivek Ramaswamy stole the show during the Republican presidential debate, the first to be held ahead of the November 2024 election.North Korea launched a space vehicle carrying the country’s first military reconnaissance satellite, but failed to put it into orbit. |
| What Else Is Happening |
| A dissident fled China on a Jet Ski-type vehicle to reach South Korea, according to a South Korean human rights activist.Several colonies of emperor penguins in Antarctica very likely lost their chicks late last year because of disappearing sea ice, researchers said.Technology disruption typically affected blue-collar occupations. Now, because of A.I., white-collar jobs are more at risk. |
| A Morning Read |
 Michael Marcelle for The New York Times |
| Avi Loeb, above, a theoretical astrophysicist at Harvard University, has been on a single-minded search for extraterrestrial life. His focus has made him famous, yet many in his own field consider him a pariah. |
| Loeb is far from alone in hypothesizing that we may not be alone in the universe, but what sets him apart is his view that aliens from other planets may have already made their way to us. |
| SPORTS NEWS |
| The cost of Premier League soccer: Assessing 2023-24 ticket prices. |
| Generative A.I. in soccer scouting: How clubs are using new methods to identify talent. |
| The golf revolution: What can the sport learn from the rise of pro baseball? |
| ARTS AND IDEAS |
 University of Dundee |
| A Jacobite hero, acne and all |
| Charles Edward Stuart is one of the most romanticized figures in Scottish history: He was a charismatic young prince who stirred a Jacobite uprising in the Scottish Highlands in a last-ditch attempt to restore his family to the British throne. |
| Though the 1745 uprising failed, Prince Charles was immortalized in the popular imagination as a tragic hero, nicknamed Bonnie Prince Charlie for his good looks. |
| However, a new recreation of his face, made by Barbora Vesela, a master’s student of forensic art and facial imaging, seeks to humanize the man behind the legend. It suggests that the prince, who was 24 when he led the uprising, had a plainer appearance, with thinner lips, sunken eyes and acne. One expert said the recreation was “quite realistic.” |
| “I don’t think he’s bad looking,” Vesela said. “I just think that beauty is very subjective, and we definitely have different beauty standards than they would have in the 18th century.” |
| RECOMMENDATIONS |
 Kelly Marshall for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Samantha Seneviratne. Prop Stylist: Paige Hicks. |
| Make the quick Ghanaian street food kosua ne meko, a hard-boiled egg stuffed with a chunky tomato relish. |
