The Full Belmonte, 12/9/2022
The Full Belmonte, 12/9/2022
WNBA star Brittney Griner released from Russian detention in prisoner swap for convicted arms dealer
Evgenia Novozhenina/AFP via Getty Images
“WNBA star Brittney Griner has been released from Russian detention, President Joe Biden said Thursday.
A source familiar with the matter tells CNN that the swap involves convicted Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout. The swap did not include another American that the State Department has declared wrongfully detained, Paul Whelan.
‘She’s safe, she’s on a plane, she’s on her way home,’ Biden said at the White House Thursday morning alongside Griner’s wife, Cherelle. ‘After months of being unjustly detained in Russia, held under untolerable circumstances, Brittney will soon be back in the arms of her loved ones, and she should have been there all along.’
Biden acknowledged that Griner’s release was occurring while Whelan remained imprisoned, saying that Whelan’s family ‘have to have such mixed emotions today.’
‘This was not a choice of which American to bring home,’ Biden said. ‘Sadly, for totally illegitimate reasons, Russia is treating Paul’s case differently than Brittney’s. And while we have not yet succeeded in securing Paul’s release, we are not giving up. We will never give up.’
Biden said efforts to bring Griner home took ‘painstaking and intense negotiations’ as he thanked members of his administration who were involved.
‘This is a day we’ve worked toward for a long time. We never stopped pushing for her release,’ he said.
Asked when Griner would be home following his remarks, Biden indicated it would be in the next ‘24 hours.’ As for what he would say to Whelan’s family, he said, ‘We’re speaking to them.’
Cherelle Griner thanked the administration for helping secure her wife’s release and said she was ‘overwhelmed with emotions.’
Both she and Brittney Griner ‘will remain committed to the work of getting every American home, including Paul, whose family is in our hearts today,’ she added.
Brittney Griner – who, for years, had played in the off-season for a Russian women’s basketball team – had been detained since February, when she was arrested on drug smuggling charges at an airport in the Moscow region. Despite her testimony that she had inadvertently packed the cannabis oil that was found in her luggage, she was sentenced to nine years in prison in early August and was moved to a penal colony in the Mordovia republic in mid-November after losing her appeal.
‘The only deal we could make right now’
Biden gave final approval for the prisoner swap freeing Griner over the past week, an official familiar with the matter said, adding that Biden was updated on the swap as it was taking place Thursday morning.
He was briefed throughout the morning as he awaited confirmation that Griner was back in US hands, a US official says. Once that happened, Biden spoke with Griner from the Oval Office, with Cherelle Griner, Vice President Kamala Harris and Secretary of State Antony Blinken was also on the call, a second official said.
Biden was ‘personally involved and in constant touch’ with his team as this deal came together in the final days and after he gave his personal green light to execute the trade. The briefings – and questions Biden asked his team – were constant, a senior administration official says.
The official added that this was the right deal to make, but notably said this was ‘the only deal we could make right now.’
The Russians signaled recently that they were only willing to negotiate for Griner and not Whelan, a US official said. That is because Russia has been handling their cases differently based on what each has been accused of.
The Biden administration repeatedly made offers to get Whelan released as part of this deal, even after Russia made clear only Griner was acceptable.
In the end, when it was clear Russia was going to refuse on Whelan, the US had to accept it.
‘It was a choice to get Brittney or nothing,’ the US official said.
The official says that was a ‘difficult decision’ for Biden, but again, one he felt he had to make.
Whelan family ‘devastated’
Whelan, a US, Irish, British and Canadian citizen, was detained at a Moscow hotel in December 2018 by Russian authorities who alleged he was involved in an intelligence operation. He was sentenced to 16 years in prison on espionage charges he has vehemently denied. Whelan had been carrying out his sentence at a different labor camp in Mordovia, an eight-hour drive from Moscow, where he told CNN in June 2021 he spent his days working in a clothing factory that he called a ‘sweatshop.’
Whelan’s family expressed happiness at the news that Griner is on her way home but said Thursday they are ‘devastated’ that he was left behind.
‘It’s a great day for the families of the wrongfully detained and we feel wonderful for them,’ David Whelan, Paul’s brother, said on ‘CNN This Morning.’ ‘But we do worry about what’s in Paul’s future. I think it’s become clear that the US doesn’t have any concessions that the Russian government wants for Paul. So I’m not really sure what the future holds.’
The Biden administration told Whelan’s family ahead of the Griner announcement, David Whelan said.
In an email to the media, David Whelan said his family was ‘devastated’ at the news and increasingly worries that Paul won’t survive the rest of his sentence.
‘I can’t even fathom how Paul will feel when he learns. Paul has worked so hard to survive nearly four years of this injustice. His hopes had soared with the knowledge that the US government was taking concrete steps for once towards his release. He’d been worrying about where he’d live when he got back to the US,’ David Whelan said in his statement.
‘And now what? How do you continue to survive, day after day, when you know that your government has failed twice to free you from a foreign prison? I can’t imagine he retains any hope that a government will negotiate his freedom at this point. It’s clear that the US government has no concessions that the Russian government will take for Paul Whelan. And so Paul will remain a prisoner until that changes,’ Whelan said.
‘Merchant of Death’ included in swap
Bout has returned home to Russia, the Russian foreign ministry. The prisoner exchange with Griner was ‘completed successfully at Abu Dhabi Airport’ on Thursday, state media added.
Bout, nicknamed the ‘Merchant of Death’ is a former Soviet military officer serving a 25-year prison sentence in the United States on charges of conspiring to kill Americans, acquire and export anti-aircraft missiles, and provide material support to a terrorist organization. Moscow had slammed his sentencing in 2012 as ‘baseless and biased’ and Bout has maintained he is innocent.” Read more at CNN
Bill to Protect Same-Sex Marriage Rights Clears Congress
The House gave final approval to the measure, with lawmakers from both parties voting in favor. It now heads to President Biden to be signed into law.
“WASHINGTON — The House on Thursday gave final approval to legislation to mandate federal recognition for same-sex marriages, with a bipartisan coalition of lawmakers voting in favor of the measure in the waning days of the Democratic-led Congress.
With a vote of 258-169, with one member voting ‘present,’ the landmark legislation cleared Congress, sending it to President Biden to be signed into law and capping an improbable path for a measure that only months ago appeared to have little chance at enactment.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced the tally triumphantly, banging the gavel repeatedly as if to applaud as members of the House cheered.
‘Today, we stand up for the values the vast majority of Americans hold dear: A belief in the dignity, beauty and divinity — spark of divinity — in every person, and abiding respect for love so powerful that it binds two people together,’ Ms. Pelosi said in a speech from the House floor before the vote.” Read more at New York Times
Biden Devotes $36 Billion to Save Union Workers’ Pensions
The money comes from last year’s Covid-19 relief package and will avert cuts of up to 60 percent in pensions for 350,000 Teamster truck drivers, warehouse and construction workers and food processors.
“WASHINGTON — President Biden announced Thursday that he was investing $36 billion in federal funds to save the pensions of more than 350,000 union workers and retirees, a demonstration of commitment to labor just a week after a rupture over an imposed settlement of a threatened rail strike.
Mr. Biden gathered top union leaders at the White House to make the commitment, described by the White House as the largest ever award of federal financial support for worker and retiree pension security. The money, coming from last year’s Covid-19 relief package, will avert cuts of up to 60 percent in pensions for Teamster truck drivers, warehouse workers, construction workers and food processors, mainly in the Midwest.
‘Thanks to today’s announcement, hundreds of thousands of Americans can feel that sense of dignity again knowing that they’ve provided for their families and their future, and it’s secure,’ Mr. Biden said, joined by Sean M. O’Brien, president of the Teamsters, and Liz Shuler, president of the A.F.L.-C.I.O., as well as Marty Walsh, the U.S. secretary of labor.” Read more at New York Times
House Passes $858 Billion Defense Bill Repealing Vaccine Mandate for Troops
The legislation would rescind the coronavirus vaccine mandate in defiance of the Biden administration’s wishes, and increase the defense budget $45 billion over the president’s request.
“WASHINGTON — The House on Thursday overwhelmingly passed an $858 billion defense policy bill that would rescind the Pentagon’s mandate that troops receive the coronavirus vaccine, pushing past the objections of the Biden administration as lawmakers in both parties united behind another huge increase in military spending.
The legislation, negotiated by Republicans and Democrats in both chambers of Congress, would grant a 4.6 percent raise to military personnel and increase the Pentagon’s budget by $45 billion over President Biden’s request, providing $800 million in new security aid to Ukraine and billions to Taiwan. It also includes changes sought by lawmakers to the military’s policy for handling sexual assault cases, a major victory that had long eluded its proponents.
The vote was 350-80, with a substantial number of Republicans joining Democrats in support.
The bill delivers twin repudiations to Mr. Biden’s policies, increasing the defense budget 8 percent overall when he has pressed to keep it nearly flat and moving to reverse a vaccine mandate that his top officials have fought to retain. And with Republicans taking control of the House in January, it essentially locked in the kind of large increases in military budgets that Mr. Biden and many Democrats had hoped to end while they had unified control of government.” Read more at New York Times
'You guys die today': Club Q shooter threatened grandparents if they foiled plans for mass killing plot
“COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — The suspect accused of killing five people at an LGBTQ nightclub told relatives months before the attack that ‘you guys die today’ if they persisted in telling police about plans to build a bomb and harm others, according to documents unsealed Thursday.
The documents shed light on the investigation into Anderson Aldrich after the suspect's grandparents reported to police that the suspect was preparing a bomb and threatened them in 2021 — about 17 months before the attack.
‘You guys die today and I'm taking you with me,’ Aldrich is quoted as saying to the grandparents in June 2021, according to the documents. ‘I'm loaded and ready. You're not calling anyone.’
The records offer insight into the division among family members as some fought to shield Aldrich from prosecution while others expressed concern that the suspect was violent and might kill people.” Read more at USA Today
Power grid attacks
“Electricity for thousands of residents in North Carolina has been restored after a dayslong outage caused by targeted gun attacks on power substations. Police say the motive behind the attacks in Moore County remains unknown and no suspects have been announced. However, investigators are zeroing in on two possible threads centered around extremist behavior: writings by extremists on online forums encouraging attacks on critical infrastructure, and a series of recent disruptions of LGBTQ events across the nation by domestic extremists. Approximately 45,000 homes and businesses initially lost power when the outages occurred on Saturday, leaving residents without heat, running refrigerators or traffic lights for about four days.” Read more at CNN
“After months of delay triggered by an unorthodox ruling from a federal judge, an appeals court freed up the Justice Department to resume using thousands of documents seized from Donald Trump’s home in a criminal probe over highly classified files. Aileen Cannon, a who was appointed to the bench by Trump, was forcefully reversed by the appellate panel, which said she lacked the jurisdiction to intervene in the investigation at Trump’s request. During the litigation, she repeatedly rule in his favor.” Read more at Bloomberg
Aileen Cannon Source: Bloomberg
Immigration
“The Biden administration has appealed a federal court decision that blocked the use of Title 42 -- a controversial Trump-era policy allowing for the swift removal of migrants at the US-Mexico border. The authority has been heavily criticized by public health experts and immigrant advocates, and has largely barred asylum at the US-Mexico border. While its origins were in the Trump administration, Title 42 has become a key tool for the Biden administration as it faces mass migration in the Western hemisphere. Officials have been bracing for an influx of migrants when the authority lifts on December 21. The Department of Homeland Security is projecting up to 14,000 migrants may attempt to cross the US southern border per day when the policy is lifted.” Read more at CNN
Covid-19
“Covid-19 hospitalizations are on the rise in the US, with more than 34,000 new admissions last week -- but millions of vaccines and antiviral treatments remain unused. The federal government has spent more than $30 billion so far on Covid-19 vaccines and the Biden administration has said it cannot afford to continue this level of spending unless Congress provides it with more funds. As a result, the administration has started to prepare for the transition of the vaccines to the commercial market. Pfizer and Moderna have already announced that the commercial prices of their Covid-19 vaccines will likely be between $82 and $130 per dose -- or about three to four times what the federal government has paid.” Read more at CNN
Arctic weather alert
Satellite imagery of the impending "Greenland Block." Image: Weatherbell
“An extreme weather pattern now hovering over the North Atlantic may boost the odds of a white Christmas this year for many Americans, Axios' Andrew Freedman reports.
The powerful system — known as a ‘Greenland Block’ — typically leads to cold and snow in the eastern U.S., parts of Europe and Asia.
Flashback: Conditions are reminiscent of the blizzard-inducing setup in 2009–2010.
That's the winter when ‘Snowmageddon’ and ‘Snowpocalypse’ storms buried mid-Atlantic states.
The system, already bringing frigid temperatures to the U.K., gives the eastern U.S. an increased chance of snow between Dec. 20–30, after a period of unusual warmth.” Read more at Axios
Juancho Torres/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
“The Biden administration has revealed a new website that will track nonfatal opioid overdoses using data from EMS first responders. The project will help close a gap in accurate, real-time data that currently prevents health officials from respond to the opioid epidemic as black market pain pills, heroin and illicit fentanyl flood communities.” Read more at NPR
“The Republican state lawmaker who introduced legislation in Florida dubbed the ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill will face trial early next year on fraud charges. A federal grand jury indicted him on six counts of money laundering and wire fraud charges Wednesday, prosecutors said. The indictment, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Florida, alleges Rep. Joe Harding, from north Florida, ‘knowingly’ devised a scheme to claim COVID-related loans by claiming two of his businesses were active between between December 1, 2020, and March 1, 2021. The federal indictment alleges Harding committed two acts of wire fraud by ‘participating in a scheme to defraud the Small Business Administration (SBA) and for obtaining coronavirus-related small business loans by means of materially false and fraudulent pretenses,’ adding that Harding faked loan applications and made ‘false representations’ when it came to documentation, including faking bank statements. ‘Harding fraudulently obtained and attempted to obtain more than $150,000 in funds from the SBA to which he was not entitled,’ prosecutors said. His trial is scheduled for Jan. 11. Harding faces a maximum term of 20 years over the wire fraud charges, 10 years for money laundering, and 5 years for making false statements.” Read more at Daily Beast
Iran executes first known prisoner arrested in protests
“Iran says it has executed a prisoner convicted of a crime allegedly committed during the country’s ongoing nationwide protests, Iran’s Mizan news agency reported Thursday. It's the first such death penalty carried out by Tehran. The man was accused of blocking a street and attacking a security force member with a machete in Tehran.
The background: Iran has been rocked by protests since the Sept. 16 death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, after she was detained by the country’s morality police. Activists warn others could be put to death as well soon since at least a dozen people have so far received death sentences over their involvement in the demonstrations.
•Reports circulated this week that Iran's ‘morality police’ would be dismantled following some confusing comments to that effect by a senior Iranian official. But experts noted there had been no official order to abolish the program.
•470 protesters and 61 security personnel have died, activists say. The uprisings have rolled across dozens of cities, and mass arrests of students, journalists, activists, artists, sports figures and celebrities who expressed grievances with Iran's hard-line government have become almost daily events.” Read more at USA Today
A protester stands next to placards with portraits of the victims of Iran's repression, near the French National Assembly in Paris on December 6, 2022.JULIEN DE ROSA, AFP via Getty Images
Peru gets its first female president
“Dina Boluarte became Peru’s first female president on Wednesday after her predecessor Pedro Castillo was impeached and arrested for violating the constitution.” (Vox) Read more at CNN
“Lawmakers voted 101 to 6 to impeach Castillo after he attempted to dissolve Congress and install an emergency government on the day they were set to weigh corruption allegations against him.” (Vox) Read more at Washington Post / Kelsey Ables, Kim Bellware, and Adela Suliman
“Leftist Castillo, a former school teacher, won a close election in 2021 on promises to nationalize Peru’s mining industry and rewrite the constitution, but has struggled to govern amid scandal and disagreements with Congress.” (Vox) Read more at AP / Franklin Briceño and Joshua Goodman
“Boluarte, the former vice president, will be the sixth person to lead the South American country in less than five years.” (Vox) Read more at New York Times / Mitra Taj
Having failed to break Ukraine’s army on the battlefield, Vladimir Putin’s attempts to freeze and starve its population into submission aren’t having a lot of success so far either.
Russia’s relentless campaign of missile attacks on Ukraine’s critical energy infrastructure is certainly inflicting enormous winter hardship. Yet as Volodymyr Verbyany and Olesia Safronova report, Ukrainians are defiantly getting on with it, adapting their daily lives to blackouts and heating outages.
This week’s drone strikes on Russian airfields hundreds of miles inside the country present a potential new challenge for Putin. While the attacks that the Kremlin blamed on Ukraine had only symbolic military importance, they sent a message to Russians that Putin may not be able to keep them safe, a key element of his presidential image.
Ukraine hasn’t admitted involvement in the strikes that its people may have cheered. But the prospect of the war expanding into Russia has sent nervous shivers through some of Kyiv’s allies that Putin may go nuclear in response.
Europeans are split over whether enabling Ukraine to hit back risks a spiral of escalation that may drag them into the conflict. Washington insists it’s not encouraging Ukraine to strike inside Russia, while saying it’s for Kyiv to decide how to use the weapons it receives.
Putin warned yesterday of a growing threat of nuclear war in the world, even as he called Russia’s arsenal a ‘deterrent.’ The US and its allies faced down past Kremlin attempts at nuclear saber-rattling as its invasion of Ukraine faltered.
With his military in retreat and morale among Ukrainians seemingly unbroken, Putin risks being seen as weak by Russians if attacks inside his country continue.
For Ukraine’s allies, the worry then is how far an unpredictable Putin may go.” Read more at Bloomberg
A power outage in Kyiv on Tuesday. Photographer: Andrew Kravchenko/Bloomberg
“Chip ban | Dutch officials are planning new controls on exports of chipmaking equipment to China, further hindering Beijing’s access to advanced semiconductor capabilities, sources say. The Netherlands is home to ASML, a company that has a near monopoly on a type of machine used in leading-edge chipmaking. The Dutch move may come as soon as January, aligning it more closely to US curbs on China that Europe and Japan have so far resisted.” Read more at Bloomberg
“The US Congress is set to pass legislation revamping policy toward Taiwan and restricting government use of Chinese semiconductors, moves that appear certain to antagonize Beijing even as President Joe Biden seeks to ease tensions.” Read more at Bloomberg
“A few blocks from Ghana’s statehouse in Accra sits a 14.5-acre parcel of prime real estate with a football field-sized hole in the middle of it. What should be emerging from the ground is the frame and sweeping, concave roof of the futuristic 5,000-seat National Cathedral of Ghana. Instead the project has stalled amid a quadrupling in its original $100 million price tag, a victim of a debt crisis in a country that was until recently one of the world’s fastest growing economies.” Read more at Bloomberg
The stalled cathedral construction site in Accra. Photographer: Nipah Dennis/Bloomberg
The FTC sued Microsoft to block its planned $75 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard.
“Regulators are concerned the tech giant will use the video game companyto harm competition. Microsoft said the deal would create more opportunities for gamers and game developers, and said it had already made concessions. The company agreed as part of its Activision negotiations to defend the acquisition—its largest ever—against a government lawsuit. U.K. and EU antitrust regulators are also investigating the deal.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
ChatGPT gives an early glimpse at what artificial intelligence could become.
An A.I. image generator produced this when given the prompt “A distributed linguistic superbrain that takes the form of an A.I. chatbot.”Kevin Roose, via DALL-E
Proof of concept
“Social media’s newest star is a robot: a program called ChatGPT that tries to answer questions like a person.
Since its debut last week, many people have shared what the bot can do. New York magazine journalists told it to write what turned out to be a ‘pretty decent’ story. Other users got it to write a solid academic essay on theories of nationalism, a history of the tragic but fictitious Ohio-Indiana War and some jokes. It told me a story about an artificial intelligence program called Assistant that was originally set up to answer questions but soon led a new world order that guided humanity to ‘a new era of peace and prosperity.’
What is remarkable about these examples is their quality: A human could have written them. And the bot is not even the best; OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, is reportedly working on a better model that could be released next year.
‘A lot of the promised benefits of A.I. have been eternally five years away,’ my colleague Kevin Roose, who covers technology, told me. ‘ChatGPT was a moment when a technology people had heard about finally became real to them.’
In today’s newsletter, I’ll explain the potential benefits of artificial intelligence but also why some experts worry it could be dangerous.
Advanced efficiency
The upside of artificial intelligence is that it might be able to accomplish tasks faster and more efficiently than any person can. The possibilities are up to the imagination: self-driving and even self-repairing cars, risk-free surgeries, instant personalized therapy bots and more.
The technology is not there yet. But it has advanced in recent years through what is called machine learning, in which bots comb through data to learn how to perform tasks. In ChatGPT’s case, it read a lot. And, with some guidance from its creators, it learned how to write coherently — or, at least, statistically predict what good writing should look like.
There are already clear benefits to this nascent technology. It can help research and write essays and articles. ChatGPT can also help code programs, automating challenges that can normally take hours for people.
Another example comes from a different program, Consensus. This bot combs through up to millions of scientific papers to find the most relevant for a given search and share their major findings. A task that would take a journalist like me days or weeks is done in a couple minutes.
These are early days. ChatGPT still makes mistakes, such as telling one user that the only country whose name starts and ends with the same letter is Chad. But it is very quickly evolving. Even some skeptics believe that general-use A.I. could reach human levels of intelligence within decades.
Unknown risks
Despite the potential benefits, experts are worried about what could go wrong with A.I.
For one, such a level of automation could take people’s jobs. This concern has emerged with automated technology before. But there is a difference between a machine that can help put together car parts and a robot that can think better than humans. If A.I. reaches the heights that some researchers hope, it will be able to do almost anything people can, but better.
Some experts point to existential risks. One survey asked machine-learning researchers about the potential effects of A.I. Nearly half said there was a 10 percent or greater chance that the outcome would be ‘extremely bad (e.g., human extinction).’ These are people saying that their life’s work could destroy humanity.
That might sound like science fiction. But the risk is real, experts caution. ‘We might fail to train A.I. systems to do what we want,’ said Ajeya Cotra, an A.I. research analyst at Open Philanthropy. ‘We might accidentally train them to pursue ends that are in conflict with humans’.’
Take one hypothetical example, from Kelsey Piper at Vox: A program is asked to estimate a number. It figures out that the best way to do this is to use more of the world’s computing power. The program then realizes that human beings are already using that computing power. So it destroys all humans to be able to estimate its number unhindered.
If that sounds implausible, consider that the current bots already behave in ways that their creators don’t intend. ChatGPT users have come up with workarounds to make it say racist and sexist things, despite OpenAI’s efforts to prevent such responses.
The problem, as A.I. researchers acknowledge, is that no one fully understands how this technology works, making it difficult to control for all possible behaviors and risks. Yet it is already available for public use.” Read more at New York Times
Apple said it will allow iCloud backups to be fully encrypted.
“What that means: It will put photos, chat histories and other sensitive data in Apple’s cloud storage system out of reach for most hackers, spies and law enforcement.
Why it matters: Privacy advocates say yesterday’s announcementis a big step forward, but multiple governments consider it a security threat and could push back.
When will it roll out? By the end of the month in the U.S., according to Apple.” Read more at Washington Post
“Elon Musk’s self-inflicted calamity at Twitter, where he’s fired more than half of the employees, may be claiming another victim—the company that made him rich. Tesla is facing increasingly urgent issues and testing the faith of Musk’s remaining fans. Weakening demand in China is forcing the electric-vehicle maker to slow production and delay hiring at its Shanghai factory. Its top executive for that market has been called in to help out at its newest plant, in Texas, which isn’t ramping up as planned. And Tesla’s stock, which has lost more than $500 billion in market value this year, is under renewed pressure as Musk’s advisers weigh using the billionaire’s shares as collateral for new loans to replace Twitter debt.” Read more at Bloomberg
Photographer: NurPhoto/NurPhoto
Padres get in on the action
“After missing out on both Aaron Judge and Trea Turner, the San Diego Padres made a big signing: Longtime Red Sox shortstop Xander Bogaerts is heading to San Diego on an 11-year, $280 million contract.
The deal takes Bogaerts into his age 41 season.
Remember: San Diego’s infield already features Fernando Tatis Jr. on a 14-year, $340 million contract and Manny Machado for 10 years and $300 million. Oh, and a quality shortstop in Ha-Seong Kim. (Tatis is expected to move to the outfield and Kim to second.)
It was potentially now or never for the Padres. That Machado deal? He seems likely to opt out after the 2023 season, per Dennis Lin, and San Diego knows extending Juan Soto could be a long shot. So for one season, the Padres are guaranteed the formidable foursome of Soto, Machado, Bogaerts and Tatis.
How does Boston replace Bogaerts? Good question. Boston didn’t go completely empty-handed yesterday: The Sox signed Japanese superstar Masataka Yoshida to a five-year, $90 million deal. It’s a big swing on a guy who did not crack Keith Law’s top 50 free agents list. Chaim Bloom’s approval rating? Trending down.” Read more at The Athletic
Celine Dion Diagnosed With Incurable Stiff Person Syndrome
“Celine Dion has canceled upcoming shows for her European tour after revealing on Thursday that she’s been diagnosed with Stiff Person Syndrome (SPS). The rare, incurable neurological condition can cause extreme muscle rigidity and painful spasms that can ultimately restrict mobility. ‘I’ve been dealing with problems with my health for a long time and it’s been really difficult for me to face these challenges and to talk about everything that I’ve been going through,’ Dion, 54, told fans in an emotional Instagram video Thursday. ‘Recently I’ve been diagnosed with a very rare neurological disorder called Stiff Person Syndrome which affects something like one in a million people. While we’re still learning about this rare condition, we now know this is what’s been causing all the spasms I’ve been having.’ Dion added: ‘Unfortunately, these spasms affect every aspect of my daily life, sometimes causing difficulties when I walk and not allowing me to use my vocal cords to sing the way I’m used to. It hurts me to tell you today this means I won’t be ready to restart my tour in Europe in February.’” Read at Daily Beast
“Lives Lived: In the 1940s and ’50s, the singer Joyce Bryant released records so sexy that some radio stations wouldn’t play them. She later quit show business for a time to do missionary work. She died at 95.” Read more at New York Times