Your Thursday Evening Briefing |
Good evening. Here’s the latest. |
 | | Shawn Thew/EPA, via Shutterstock |
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1. Calls for President Trump’s removal are growing. |
Shock, fury and horror have been washing over the country in the day since the president incited a mob that attacked the U.S. Capitol. Demands for repercussions are multiplying. |
Among those who want Vice President Mike Pence to invoke the 25th Amendment to wrest the power of the presidency from Mr. Trump are Congress’s top Democrats, Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi; a Republican representative, Adam Kinzinger of Illinois; and John Kelly, a former chief of staff to Mr. Trump. Ms. Pelosi threatened to start impeachment proceedings if Mr. Pence did not act. |
 | | Manuel Balce Ceneta/Associated Press |
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2. Some Trump allies criticized the president. |
Senators Tom Cotton and Lindsey Graham did. Mr. Graham, pictured above today, even became one of the few Republicans to call the pro-Trump mob “domestic terrorists.” |
Elaine Chao, Mr. Trump’s secretary of transportation and the wife of the outgoing Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, is resigning. So is Matthew Pottinger, Mr. Trump’s deputy national security adviser since 2019. Mick Mulvaney, Mr. Trump’s former acting chief of staff, is leaving his post as special envoy to Northern Ireland. “I can’t do it, I can’t stay,” he said he told Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. |
 | | Jose Luis Magana/Associated Press |
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Why was the Capitol Police force, 2,000 strong, unprepared for a rampage that was openly planned on social media? Experts were shocked by the sight of an officer cowering in the crush of pro-Trump extremists and rioters using police shields and metal barricades as battering rams. |
The absence of mass arrests for intruders who were almost entirely white drew pointed commentary, not least from those who say they had been hit with rubber bullets, manhandled, surrounded and arrested while peacefully demonstrating against racial injustice over the summer. |
“You can be arrested for walking while Black, but you can be white and riot and basically get away with it,” said Attica Scott, a Kentucky state representative who was arrested in Louisville last summer. |
 | | Win McNamee/Getty Images |
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4. The riot may also have been a super-spreader event. |
If even a few people among the unmasked intruders at the Capitol were infected — likely, given the current rates of spread and the crowd size — then the coronavirus would have had an ideal opportunity to find new victims. |
Capitol Police officers and members of Congress could also be at risk. Representative Jake LaTurner, a Kansas Republican who was in the House chamber for hours on Wednesday, announced on Twitter early today that he had tested positive. At least a dozen of the 400 or so lawmakers and staff members who sheltered in one committee room refused to wear masks, or wore them below their chins, said one representative. |
 | | Emmanuel Macron, via Twitter, via AFP -- Getty Images |
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5. U.S. allies in Europe were also shaken. |
Since World War II, much of Europe has looked to the U.S. as a democratic model. But the Capitol riot stirred memories of the Reichstag fire of 1933, which enabled Hitler and the Nazis to scrap the fragile Weimar democracy that brought them to power. |
Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, who grew up in communist East Germany, offered one of the most direct rebukes of President Trump: “He stoked uncertainties about the election outcome, and that created an atmosphere that made the events of last night possible.” |
 | | William Widmer for The New York Times |
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6. The price of U.S. natural disasters doubled last year. |
The single costliest event was Hurricane Laura, which caused $13 billion in damage when it struck southwestern Louisiana in late August. Above, Lake Charles was hit hard, and then hit again in October by Hurricane Delta, so named because there were so many significant Atlantic storms — a record 30 — that the meteorological alphabet of names was exhausted. |
 | | Neil Hall/EPA, via Shutterstock |
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7. A yacht, oligarchs and family drama. |
When Tatiana Akhmedova tried to recoup the $615 million owed by her Russian oligarch husband in their divorce, he refused to hand over a single ruble, and stayed far from the courts that might force him to do so. |
So she’s trying a new approach in what has become Britain’s priciest and most dramatic divorce war: suing her son. |
 | | Angie Wang |
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8. Five minutes that will make you love the flute. |
In the past, we’ve asked artists and notable figures to choose the five minutes they would play to make their friends fall in love with classical music, the piano, Mozart and more. Now we want those friends to fall for an instrument based on the most fundamental sign of life: breath. |
“No matter the style of the music or the cultural context it sings from, it’s the flute’s ability to pierce the heart that moves me most,” says the flutist and composer Nicole Mitchell. Her pick: “The Price of Everything” by James Newton. |
Ian Anderson, of Jethro Tull fame, also weighs in. |
 | | Margaret Roach |
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9. Perhaps you’ve made some resolutions. Don’t forget your garden. |
In advance of the coming growing season, it’s helpful for gardeners to acknowledge what went wrong in the previous year and figure out what to do instead. Our garden expert, Margaret Roach, begins the annual exercise by naming her own gardening casualties and their possible remedies — and reminding herself of what went right. |
From green time to screen time: Our tech columnist named four tech trends that are set to invade our lives this year: virtual shopping aided by chatbots and chat boxes, smarter Wi-Fi, more contact-free options and tech that virtualizes work and self-care. |
 | | Emma Wells |
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10. And finally, a discovery among the tallest mammals on earth. |
On average, giraffes stand roughly 16 feet tall. So when a group of scientists came across one in a Ugandan national park that was just 9 feet 4 inches tall, they did a double-take. When an 8½-foot-tall giraffe, above right, was found in central Namibia, researchers could come up with only one explanation: dwarfism. |
The condition, also known as skeletal dysplasia, is rarely seen among wild animals. This is the first time it has been found in giraffes. The cause remains a mystery, but scientists hope that monitoring the diminutive giraffes will reveal “neat little wrinkles about how animals that have these types of conditions cope with changing environments.” |
Your Evening Briefing is posted at 6 p.m. Eastern. |
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