My ranking of the top 50 free agents this offseason will run on Monday over at the Athletic, and I’ll do a Q&A that day or the day after, depending on my schedule.
Over at Endless Mode, I reviewed the new two-player game Leaders, which is pretty meh in his basic mode but really shines in expert mode, where players get to draft the character tokens they’ll use in the game versus the semi-random setup in the original.
And now, the links…
- Longreads first: ProPublica goes deep on the delusional born-again Christian in charge of the North Carolina Supreme Court.
- The best piece I’ve read this week, and one of the best all year, is this New York Times investigative report on the underpowered fight against sex trafficking on Figueroa Street in Los Angeles. It’s a very humanist look at the real victims here, the trafficked girls, and how they end up coerced into sex work.
- Suriname has long been a carbon-negative country, as the nation’s share of the Amazon rain forest absorbs more carbon dioxide than the poor population of the country can produce. That may change as the country pursues an offshore oil-drilling initiative, claiming they’ll use the funds to build a sustainable green economy.
- Salon’s Amanda Marcotte explores how the far-right group the Proud Boys invented antifa.
- Radley Balko explores how false accusations of child molestation destroyed a preschool teacher’s life, even after they were ruled unfounded. Jordan Silverman ended up losing custody of his sons and saw his health and career wrecked by the allegations and vindictive parents who wouldn’t accept the official ruling.
- The Intercept reports on a Tennessee man who was jailed for posting memes mocking murdered right-wing demagogue Charlie Kirk. The great Phil Williams of News Channel 5 interviewed the sheriff involved, who did not acquit himself well and seems unaware of what the Constitution says.
- Videos circulating online appear to show mass executions in Sudan’s Darfur region after the Rapid Support Forces, a breakaway faction of the country’s military, took control. Yale’s Humanitarian Research Lab estimates that the RSF killed 10,000 people in three days.
- The BBC looks at the probably stolen election in Cameroon, where dictator Paul Biya, who has ruled the African nation for 43 years, claimed victory and a new term that will run until he’s 99 years old. An opposition leader who also claimed victory has led the country, and there have been protests for at least the last three days.
- The lab-leak conspiracy theory was already dead, but here’s another nail for its coffin: Scientists found another Covid virus in Brazilian bats, proving that the mutation that allowed SARS-CoV-2 to infect humans is a natural phenomenon.
- The Guardian obtained a leaked document showing that Amazon sought to hide how much water its data centers use. Crypto, AI, they’re all disasters for the environment.
- Bacteria are evolving to become resistant to antibiotics faster than we’re developing the drugs.
- Meanwhile, Florida is trying to kill its own citizens by ending all childhood vaccination mandates. It took less than a year for rollbacks in vaccination rates and mandates to lead to measles outbreaks. Florida is going to be the epicenter of outbreaks of multiple diseases within the next twelve months, and there’s no keeping them within the state’s borders.
- I mentioned last week how Indiana University had shut down its student newspaper because the paper dared to print the news. Many alumni pulled their donations in response, and the school relented. You have the power to do something, somewhere.
- Middlebury College student Lia Smith, a trans woman, was found dead last week after she committed suicide. Middlebury had kicked her off their swimming and diving team as they complied in advance with the Administration’s war on trans people.
- A white man in Alabama planned attacks on multiple synagogues and possibly public figures, and then planned to commit suicide by cop, according to officials involved in his arrest this past week.
- The Guardian also has the details on a maybe-new scam where moped riders bump a potential mark’s car and then demand to see the victim’s driver’s license and/or insurance documents so they can open up new insurance policies in the victim’s name and submit bogus claims. I say “maybe-new” because this sounds like a twist on several other scams involving staged accidents.
- John Roberts’ legacy as Chief Justice may be determined by one ruling he made in 2024 – and it’s probably not the legacy he thinks he’ll leave.
- Board game news: The Kickstarter for Cascadia: Alpine Lakes, a standalone follow-up to the Spiel-winning Cascadia, is already over $200K and has a month to go.
- The Kickstarter for Wonderland’s War Duel, a two-player version of the acclaimed (and very hard to find) 2022 game Wonderland’s War, has just five days left.
Always appreciate your baseball journalism. Some of the best in the game. I didn’t realize anyone still questioned the lab leak method. I thought the question was whether it was intentionally released or if leaked.
That’s incorrect; no serious epidemiologist or related scientist believes in the lab-leak conspiracy theory. It has been disproven repeatedly, as in this study, but bothsidesism within the media have led folks like you to be confused about the facts – and there’s real harm from that.
I should also say that even among the most vocal lab leak proponents who are still scientists (non-epidemiologists), none claim that it was intentionally leaked. Claiming that it was deliberate or a bioweapon is flat earther territory.
Thanks for sharing Emily Bumgaertner Nuun’s piece on sex trafficking in LA. So important, and so beautifully told. The last 5-minutes almost had a Flannery O’Connor aura to them.
re: lab leak, I don’t know enough to firmly stake a claim, but to say that I think we need to leave more room for doubt across the board. It might remedy our urge to bludgeon each other with false certainties.
There is no doubt, though. The virus evolved naturally and spilled over into humans via the so-called ‘wet markets’ in Wuhan. There is so much evidence to support this, and no evidence to the contrary. The issue isn’t needing “more room for doubt;” it’s the tsunami of misinformation combined with a lack of critical thinking skills.