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


1. Donald Trump was subpoenaed months before the F.B.I. search.
The subpoena was first disclosed by the conservative journalist whom Trump had designated as one of his representatives to the National Archives. It was received this spring in search of documents that federal investigators believed Trump had failed to turn over when he returned boxes of material improperly taken from the White House.


The existence of the subpoena helps to flesh out the sequence of events that led to the search of Trump’s Florida home on Monday by F.B.I. agents and suggests that the Justice Department tried other methods to account for the material.


2. Russia installed cages in a theater in Mariupol, Ukraine, as it appeared to prepare for show trials.


3. Gas prices fell below $4 a gallon, their lowest level since March.
The national average cost of a gallon of regular gasoline is now $3.99 — a number that has fallen for 58 consecutive days. The average price is still higher than it was a year ago but well below a peak of nearly $5.02 in mid-June.


On Thursday, OPEC revised down its forecast for global oil demand this year. As energy costs feed into broad measures of inflation, the drop is also good news for policymakers who have struggled to contain rising prices.


4. A gunman tried to breach Cincinnati’s F.B.I. office.
The man tried to breach an entrance around 9 a.m., but an alarm was set off, and agents responded. Officials said the man was wearing body armor and exchanged gunfire with law enforcement officers after fleeing the area.
Surrounding highways were shut down amid a standoff, which officials said had ended, but the status and the motives of the man remained unclear. We have live updates.
The attack came just days after F.B.I. agents served a search warrant at the Florida home of former President Trump, but there was no immediate indication that the incident in Ohio was related to the Trump search.


5. Palestinian prisoners in Israel are using hunger strikes to seek freedom.
Since the Arab-Israeli war of 1967, Israel has incarcerated thousands of Palestinians, holding some without charges or trial based on secret evidence. To fight back, many of those detainees have turned to hunger strikes.
The strikes have left the Israeli authorities in a bind, largely unable to act against the prisoners or to stop the images of emaciated strikers from publicly circulating. This has drawn criticism of Israel from around the world, including the United Nations.
In other international news, Rishi Sunak hopes to replace Boris Johnson as Britain’s prime minister. But his sterling résumé has worked against him.


6. A push from progressives to modify their messaging.
Democrats have grappled with how to define their message throughout the midterm campaign. Now, a coalition of progressive organizations has settled on what it hopes will be a unified pitch from the left: protect the fundamental freedoms that “Trump Republicans” are trying to take away.
The initial $5 million investment for the campaign’s paid media is modest, but the fact that the left is embracing language associated with conservatives is striking. It’s the latest evidence that Democrats at every level are seeking to reclaim language about personal liberty, a dynamic that grew out of the overturning of Roe v. Wade and continues to intensify.
On the right, a new class of Trump-aligned Republicans could shape policies on abortion, climate change and same-sex marriage.


7. Arctic warming is happening even faster than anticipated.
New analysis showed that the region, over the past four decades, has been heating up four times faster than the global average, not the commonly reported two to three times. Some parts, notably a sea north of Norway and Russia, are warming up to seven times faster.


The result is faster melting of the Greenland ice sheet, which leads to greater sea-level rise. It also affects atmospheric circulation in North America and elsewhere, with impacts on weather like extreme rainfall and heat, although some impacts are debated among scientists.
In other climate news, rising temperatures, raging wildfires and extreme weather are endangering a treasured summer pastime: outdoor theater performances.


8. The ‘boy bosses’ of Silicon Valley are headed out.
Founders at Twitter, Airbnb, Pinterest, Instacart and Peloton have all left their companies in the past year alone. Investors anticipate more to come.


It was Mark Zuckerberg who pioneered the modern boy boss. For a time, investors treated Zuckerberg-like founders, who fought for ownership rights that kept them in control, as visionary heroes. They took advantage, staying in the top jobs even as the companies outgrew their skills and dragging their feet on taking their companies public. They were given the benefit of the doubt — something female founders rarely got.


But when the stock market dropped this year, venture capitalists urged Silicon Valley’s prized young companies to cut costs and began to talk of “wartime C.E.O.s.”


9. The cookie jar grew up.
Let’s admit it: Our attention spans are obliterated. And while there are countless books, coaches, courses, podcasts and forums about beating your phone addiction and eliminating distractions, you do not need any of these things. What you need is a box.
Place your phone (or computer or sinister object) inside the box, set the timer embedded in the lid for a minute to 10 days. Then proceed with your day, or simply enjoy a period of idleness, where all the finest human experiences occur: joy, creativity, tranquillity, progress.
Related: Changing these default settings might make you happier with your tech.


10. And finally, listen to the cricket song that serenaded dinosaurs.
Insects are a staple of summer’s score, and have been for millions of years. One of the noisier groups has been a suite of singing insects from the Jurassic period — but they left few direct descendants, making it difficult to decipher what these Mesozoic maestros sounded like.
But a recent study found that a rare cricket, P. obscura, sings a similar tune. The insect, which has never been observed singing in the wild and is known solely from a single specimen discovered in India in 1869, may unlock secrets of what nature sounded like when dinosaurs roamed.
Researchers used lasers to recreate digital, 3-D models of the specimen’s wings and ran them through sonic tests to recreate their sound.
Have a melodious evening.
Brent Lewis compiled photos for this briefing.
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Source: New York Times

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