Your Thursday Evening Briefing

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/18/briefing/trump-search-affidavit-tiktok-audio-meme.html

Version 0 of 1.

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

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

1. A federal judge ordered the Justice Department to redact the affidavit used to search Donald Trump’s Florida home ahead of its possible release.

Bruce Reinhart, the judge, said he was inclined to unseal parts of the affidavit that was used to justify the F.B.I.’s search. Reinhart said it was “very important” that the public have as “much information” as it can about the search. He ordered the government to propose redactions to the affidavit by next Thursday.

The decision appeared to strike a middle course between the Justice Department and a group of news organizations over the affidavit, which most likely contains detailed information about the investigation into Trump’s handling of classified documents. The department had wanted to keep the affidavit under wraps, while the news organizations had requested a full release.

Separately, in the case against Trump’s family business, Allen Weisselberg, a top Trump executive, pleaded guilty to 15 felonies, admitting that he conspired with the Trump Organization to avoid paying taxes. He refused to implicate Trump but is required to testify at the company’s trial if prosecutors choose to call on him.

2. Extreme heat and a devastating drought are exposing vulnerabilities in Europe’s energy system.

In France, warmer rivers have threatened the use of nuclear reactors. In Germany, the Rhine is too low to transport coal. And in Norway, a drought has slowed hydropower reservoir supplies to the lowest point in 25 years. The disruptions follow Russian gas cuts in response to E.U. sanctions over the war in Ukraine.

In China, the most searing heat wave in six decades and a severe drought have dented energy supplies, shut down factories and disrupted access to water for hundreds of thousands of people.

3. António Guterres, the U.N. secretary general, visited Ukraine.

He met with the Ukrainian and Turkish presidents in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv to review the progress of grain exports, which recently resumed after a monthslong blockade, and to discuss risks posed by fighting near Europe’s largest nuclear power plant in Zaporizhzhia.

In the Kiev suburb of Bucha, victims of wartime atrocities are still being buried. Some have no names, only numbers.

In Kharkiv, Russian rocket attacks killed at least 15 civilians. The civilian death toll in the city has surpassed 1,000, according to local officials.

In Greece, a sleepy port town has become a hub for U.S. arms, angering Russia and Turkey. Now, firms with ties to Russia and America are competing for control of the port.

4. The Sun Belt could be an inflation bellwether.

Cities like Phoenix, Atlanta, Miami and Tampa, Fla., have experienced price increases well above 10 percent this year, much higher than the national rate of 8.5 percent in July. Prices in the Southern U.S. have risen at a rate of 9.4 percent overall, the fastest of any region.

While inflation is showing early signs of moderating nationwide, the forces that are causing prices to surge across the South could keep inflation elevated. A rent surge that is worsening inflation across Southern cities is beginning to play out in bigger Northeastern and West Coast cities.

In the housing market, a Black professor who studies housing discrimination said that when a white colleague stood in for him as the owner of his house, its appraisal increased by $278,000.

5. The Big Ten sold its television rights for at least $1 billion a year, the most lucrative deal ever for any college sports league.

The seven-year arrangement promises to fuel the intensifying debate over how universities should treat athletes who are not paid salaries. Jim Harbaugh, the University of Michigan football coach, said last month that the Big Ten should consider sharing television money with athletes.

In other sports news, Deshaun Watson, the Cleveland Browns quarterback accused by more than two dozen women of sexual misconduct, agreed to a suspension of 11 games. He also will pay a record $5 million fine, which will be donated to groups that work to prevent sexual assault.

Related: What does fame mean in sports? We asked sportswriters to explore the topic. And The Athletic considered whether Keanu Reeves is the most underrated athlete in Hollywood.

6. Private Facebook messages are key evidence in a rare prosecution over abortion.

After a teenager in Nebraska terminated her pregnancy in the third trimester using pills, she and her mother are facing criminal charges. Their Facebook messages about the procedure, obtained by the police through a warrant, are part of the case.

According to the police, the abortion took place two months before the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, and the charges rely on Nebraska laws that were in place when Roe was still in effect.

Still, the case raises questions about how abortion-related prosecutions will unfold, fueling fears that women will be prosecuted and that their private communications will be used against them.

Mississippi, which gave rise to the case that overturned abortion rights, is among 17 states that have not adopted a new option to extend new mothers’ Medicaid coverage for a year.

7. Earlier this year, polio seemed almost eradicated. Then it staged a comeback.

Just months after heath experts expressed excitement about the near disappearance of polio worldwide, cases started popping up: first in Malawi, then in Pakistan, Israel and Britain, before the virus — which for centuries has paralyzed legions of children — was located last week in New York City’s wastewater.

The resurgence reflects the difficulty of full eradication, especially in the wake of the Covid pandemic, which disrupted vaccination drives and diverted staff from prevention programs.

Only Type 1 poliovirus remains at large and only in Pakistan and Afghanistan. But the virus is always “a plane ride away,” Dr. Ananda Bandyopadhyay, the deputy director for polio at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, said.

8. An old, inexpensive drug may be the best solution for hair loss.

A seemingly endless list of products — shampoos, lotions and other treatments — make inflated claims about regrowing hair. Some cost thousands of dollars, and experts say that most of them don’t work.

Many dermatologists now favor a different solution: minoxidil, a familiar hair-loss drug, in a new form. Rather than being applied directly to the scalp, it is increasingly being prescribed as very low-dose pills for both male and female pattern baldness, and it costs just pennies per day.

9. Cambodia says it has found dozens of looted artifacts — in Gallery 249 at the Met.

Some of the objects in question were given or sold to the museum by Douglas A.J. Latchford, a British-Thai businessman who had become a leading collector, scholar and dealer in Khmer art — and would later be indicted as an illegal trafficker of Cambodian artifacts.

The Cambodians have enlisted the help of the U.S. Justice Department to press for the return of dozens of artworks from the museum, basing their claim in part on the account of a former looter. The Met says it has a track record of returning items proven to have been looted and is seeking evidence of the claims.

10. And finally, we’re living in the era of the audio meme.

If you have ever browsed TikTok, you probably have heard Chris Gleason’s voice: His mocking dialogue — Nobody’s gonna know. They’re gonna know — has been repeated hundreds of millions of times on other users’ videos. His reach reflects the power of the audio meme, whose cultural currency is now as strong as — if not stronger than — images and text.

Though TikTok didn’t invent the audio meme, its effortless interface may have perfected it. But why we are drawn to noises that deliver limited-to-no-information yet elicit our adoration? Charlotte Shane, in a Times Magazine article, calls it “brainfeel.”

Have a trendy night.

James Gregg 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.