Your Tuesday Briefing

Jan. 6 panel refers Trump for criminal prosecution

The House committee investigating the attack on the Capitol accused Donald Trump of inciting insurrection, conspiracy to defraud the U.S. and two other federal crimes. The panel recommended that he face criminal charges — the first time in U.S. history that Congress has referred a former president for criminal prosecution.

The committee’s referrals do not carry legal weight or compel the Justice Department to take any action. The charges would carry lengthy prison sentences, if federal prosecutors chose to pursue them and he were convicted. The panel also referred five of Trump’s allies to the Justice Department for prosecution, including Mark Meadows, his final chief of staff, and Rudy Giuliani, one of his lawyers.

In an executive summary from its final report into the Capitol attack, the committee singled out Trump as the primary cause of the mob violence. “None of the events of January 6th would have happened without him,” the the bipartisan panel wrote. It detailed his relentless drive to remain in power after he had lost the 2020 election, and it identified co-conspirators. The full report is expected tomorrow.

More headaches: For Trump, the coming week will be among the most consequential of his political career. Another House committee will meet today to discuss whether to release Trump’s tax returns. The events shine a spotlight on Trump’s refusal to cede power and on a subject he has guarded for decades: the actual size of his personal wealth and his sources of income.

China’s pandemic U-turn

After micromanaging the coronavirus strategy for nearly three years, China’s leader, Xi Jinping, has suddenly left a bewildered populace to improvise after the abrupt abandoning of the “zero Covid” policy this month. Now China faces a surge of infections, and Xi has left officials scrambling to manage the disarray and uncertainty.

China’s party-run media has cast the shift as a stressful but well-considered exit, possible only because of the mildness of the Omicron variant and opening the way back to good economic times.

In reality, an examination of how the shift unfolded in the city of Chongqing and elsewhere reveals a government overtaken by a cascade of Covid outbreaks, confusion over directives, economic woes and then rare political protests. The government is racing to approve vaccines and to obtain Western medicines after shunning them, and infections have exploded.

Analysis: “It’s overall been quite chaotic, and of course part of that is the number coming down positive — about one-third of people, to judge from my friends,” said Tan Gangqiang, a psychological counselor in Chongqing who has helped people manage the stresses of lockdowns, and now, of sudden opening.

Twitter bots: Bots pushing adult content drowned out posts from people protesting Covid restrictions in China, a Times investigation found.

Putin visits Belarus

Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, made a rare visit to Belarus yesterday to strengthen his bond with the country’s president, Aleksandr Lukashenko, who has been under growing pressure from Moscow to provide more support for the war in Ukraine. The visit came as Russia’s nighttime bombardment campaign against Ukraine’s infrastructure continued.

Appearing together after their talks, both leaders spoke about the need to withstand Western economic pressure. Putin said that the two had also discussed a “unified defense space,” without describing what that would entail, and that they would continue joint military exercises. Defense ministers from Russia and Belarus signed an agreement this month to strengthen their ties.

The trip is likely to heighten concerns in Ukraine about the possibility of a fresh ground offensive that could use Belarus as a launching pad, and particularly one aimed at trying to seize the capital, Kyiv, which is only about 55 miles from the Belarusian border, or at disrupting the flow of Western arms and aid into Ukraine from Poland.

In other news from the war:

• The Ukrainian military is now using drones to guide Russian soldiers who want to surrender.

• Diane Foley, an American whose son was killed by members of ISIS, has become a vocal advocate for Americans held overseas and has pressured the White House under three presidents to put such cases at the top of the national priority list.

THE LATEST NEWS

Around the World

• Pope Francis will return three ancient pieces of the Parthenon, currently in the Vatican Museum, to Greece.

• Cyril Ramaphosa, the South African leader, secured enough support to win a second term as leader of the governing African National Congress, despite an ongoing scandal.

• A British court upheld the government’s contentious policy of deporting asylum seekers to Rwanda.

• In poorer neighborhoods in Britain, the cost-of-living crisis is exacerbating energy problems and financial worries.

Other Big Stories

• Nearly every country at a U.N. biodiversity summit agreed to preserve 30 percent of the planet’s land and oceans by 2030.

• The actress Amber Heard agreed to settle a long-running legal dispute with her ex-husband, Johnny Depp, for $1 million.

• Sam Bankman-Fried, the indicted founder of the FTX cryptocurrency exchange, agreed to be extradited to the U.S. from the Bahamas.

• After nine days of deliberations, a jury found the former Hollywood film producer Harvey Weinstein guilty of raping one woman.

What Else Is Happening

• Twitter users, in a poll posted by Elon Musk himself, said Musk should step down from his role as the company’s chief executive.

• Epic Games, which makes the game Fortnite, agreed to pay $520 million for collecting children’s data and tricking players into purchases.

• The naming of the James Webb Space Telescope has turned into a fight over historical homophobia at NASA.

A Morning Read

A striking painting of a young Joan Didion hung in the writer’s home for years — but its provenance (and its painter) remained a mystery. Then, the publicity created by a posthumous auction of her belongings brought the first clues in years, and the answer.

SPORTS NEWS FROM THE ATHLETIC

Thank you, Lionel Messi and Kylian Mbappé: Given the stakes, Messi and Mbappé engineered quite possibly the greatest game’s greatest game. Columnist Alan Shearer didn’t want it to end.

Messi’s World Cup was a victory for Qatar: In an unusual ending, the global superstar lifted the trophy dressed like a member of Qatar’s elite. What more could the hosts possibly ask for?

What should you follow now?: If you’re missing the World Cup already and need to get your fix of soccer’s biggest stars, here’s a team-by-team breakdown of where to look.

ARTS AND IDEAS

A long-awaited sequel

When “Avatar” came out in 2009, it was a bona fide blockbuster, bringing in more than $2.8 billion in ticket sales worldwide and becoming the highest-grossing movie of all time. Now, more than a decade later, the first of several long-awaited sequels is out in theaters around the globe.

“Avatar: The Way of Water” hits some familiar beats but once again dazzles with inventive visuals, A.O. Scott writes his review. The whole thing carries an air of nostalgia, he writes, adding, “Even the anticipation of seeing something genuinely new at the multiplex feels like an artifact of an earlier time, before streaming and the Marvel Universe took over.”

The film represents a milestone for visual effects with its use of a technique called underwater performance capture. Only two shots in the entire film contain no visual effects.

In international markets, “The Way of Water” had a healthy opening total of $300.5 million, but in North America, opening-weekend ticket sales fell short of expectations; the film collected about $134 million over the first three days. Still, audiences were extremely positive about the movie, which runs more than three hours, giving it an A grade in exit polls.

For more: Though the first “Avatar” was a huge commercial hit, its most oft-cited claim to fame is a surprising lack of cultural impact. For The Times Magazine, Jamie Lauren Keiles explores the mystery of the vanishing blockbuster.

PLAY, WATCH, EAT

What to Cook

Lighten your spirits and your meal with this crisp winter salad.

What to Watch

“The Quiet Girl,” a luminous drama in Irish Gaelic, is Ireland’s Academy Award entry for best international feature.

What to Read

In her novel “Lucy by the Sea,” Elizabeth Strout asks: What happens when ex-spouses go into quarantine together?

Now Time to Play

Here’s today’s Mini Crossword, and a clue: “I can row a boat. ___?” (groaner joke) (five letters).

And here are today’s Wordle and the Spelling Bee.

You can find all our puzzles here.

That’s it for today’s briefing. Thanks for joining me. — Natasha

P.S. Andrea Stevens, a “meticulous, erudite, merciless” former longtime editor for The Times, died last week. Our thoughts are with her family and friends.

“The Daily” is about the World Cup.

Send thoughts, feedback and anything else to Natasha and the team at [email protected].