Good morning. We're covering reports that Yevgeny Prigozhin might have died in a plane crash and hundreds of wildfires in Greece. |
Plus: The rise of eco-thrillers. |
 | | Yevgeny Prigozhin leaving Rostov-on-Don, Russia, after his aborted mutiny in June.Alexander Ermochenko/Reuters |
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Wagner leader listed as a passenger on crashed plane |
His fate remains unclear. Several Russian news outlets reported, citing anonymous sources, that he was indeed on the plane that crashed. But Grey Zone, a Telegram account associated with Wagner, posted that it remained uncertain whether Prigozhin was dead or alive, and U.S. officials said they were unable to confirm his death. Dmitri Utkin, Wagner's most prominent commander, was also on the passenger manifest. |
Frustrated over the country's military leadership, Prigozhin instigated a short rebellion two months ago with his Wagner forces that posed a threat to President Vladimir Putin. Despite his actions, he appeared to move about freely in the mutiny's aftermath, even meeting with the president on June 29. |
Elsewhere in Russia: Gen. Sergei Surovikin, a former commander of Russia's forces in Ukraine who is believed to be close to Prigozhin, was removed from his post as chief of the Russian Air Force. He reportedly knew about the mutiny in advance. |
 | | Firefighters are intensifying their response to the fires by air and land.Dimitris Alexoudis/EPA, via Shutterstock |
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Greece battles its most widespread wildfires on record |
Officials called the profusion of summer wildfires "the worst" since record-keeping began, noting that 355 new fires broke out in the past five days — 209 of them in the last 24 hours. Firefighters are intensifying their efforts by air and land, but they are facing gale-force winds fueling the fires. |
Context: Greece regularly battles major wildfires that become deadly. But fire-season preparedness measures, like digging firebreaks and clearing out dry grasses, are still lacking in the country, and environmental groups say the government has mishandled the fires and underinvested in firefighting equipment and training. |
 | | The Indian public takes great pride in the accomplishments of the nation's space program.Anupam Nath/Associated Press |
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India has become the first country to reach the southern polar region of the moon in one piece and only the fourth country ever to land on the moon. |
A lander named Vikram and a rover named Pragyan landed safely yesterday on the surface of the moon. India's mission will explore an area of the moon that has yet to be visited and has frozen water that could be a resource for future missions. |
The landing, just days after a failed Russian mission, was broadcast live to tens of millions of people on Indian news channels. "This is an unprecedented moment," Prime Minister Narendra Modi said. "This is the moment for new, developing India." |
 | | via Agence France-Presse — Getty Images |
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 | | Neil Hall/EPA, via Shutterstock |
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 | | Sara Hylton for The New York Times |
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A stroke paralyzed Ann Johnson, above, at 30, robbing her of the ability to speak. Nearly 20 years later, in a milestone of neuroscience and artificial intelligence, her brain activity is being translated into vocalized language, spoken by an avatar on a computer screen. The breakthrough could help others who have lost speech. |
"It let me feel like I was a whole person again," Johnson wrote to our reporter. |
Can eco-thrillers inspire climate action? |
Making an eco-focused movie that people want to watch and that inspires engagement with climate change is a tough formula to crack. |
The new genre of the environmental action film, or eco-thriller, tries to thread that needle, applying the tropes of a heist flick to the mission of curbing the consumption of earth's resources, Ella Riley-Adams writes in T magazine. |
In "How to Blow Up a Pipeline," a group of 20-somethings assemble in West Texas to do what the title says. In the Icelandic film "Woman at War," a 50-year-old choir teacher spends her off hours pulling down power lines that fuel a nearby aluminum smelter. |
The thrill of watching these films is not whether the protagonists are taking the right approach, nor whether they succeed, Riley-Adams writes. The satisfaction comes with seeing them try something, anything, as the world burns. |
 | | Christopher Testani for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Simon Andrews. |
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That's it for today's briefing. Thanks for joining me. — Jonathan |
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