Morning Digest

Thursday, August 20, 2026

35 stories from 8 sources, 69 more held back.

Cubs — MLB.com

Shaw begins rehab assignment; Milner throws a scoreless inning

Shaw landed on the 10-day Injured List on June 29 with a left-hand sprain that he suffered while fouling off a pitch. Shaw, 24, is hitting .246/.322/.415 (105 OPS+) through 56 games with Chicago this season. He also spent time on the IL earlier in the year with back tightness.

Cubs — MLB.com 4:26 AM

The 10 biggest breakouts on the new Top 100 Prospects list

MLB Pipeline gave a full refresh to its Top 100 Prospects list last week -- and each team’s Top 30 -- now that the 2026 draftees have joined their respective organizations. That makes it as good a time as any to look at the biggest breakout players in Minor Leagues. Some of these players were high Draft picks or on the preseason Top 100 Prospects list.

Cubs — MLB.com 11:15 PM

Cubs bolster SS depth, claim Arias from Mets; transfer Maton to 60-day IL

CHICAGO -- With Dansby Swanson currently on the injured list and sidelined for at least the next month, the Cubs’ depth at shortstop has been thinned at a crucial point in the baseball calendar. On Wednesday, the Cubs made a move to boost the depth chart, claiming utility man Gabriel Arias off waivers from the Mets to add a layer of insurance not only at shortstop, but around the infield.

Cubs — MLB.com 11:04 PM

Holmes settles in for solid showing in first Crosstown Classic

CHICAGO -- The crowd inside Wrigley Field roared as the baseball that left Alex Bregman’s bat in the seventh inning on Wednesday afternoon carried high over left field. It seemed destined for the bleachers, but this was one of those days when the wind can transform the old ballpark into a hitter’s nightmare.

Cubs — MLB.com 9:50 PM

RT

Russia and China stand against Japan’s nuclear ambitions – Beijing

Japan ‘playing with fire’ over nuclear ambitions – China. Russia and China are both opposed to Japan’s accelerating militarization and growing debate over acquiring nuclear weapons, Beijing’s ambassador to Moscow, Zhang Hanhui, has said, warning that Tokyo’s policies could trigger a new arms race.

RT 1:49 PM

Bangladesh elects Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir as its new president

Bangladeshi lawmakers have elected Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, a candidate of the ruling Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), as the country’s 23rd president. The former secretary-general of the BNP secured 255 parliamentary votes in the presidential election, while Oli Ahmed, a former army colonel from the Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami-led alliance, received 88 votes.

RT 1:41 PM

Diddy could face criminal charges over Tupac Shakur killing – Telegraph

Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs could face criminal charges linked to the killing of rapper Tupac Shakur in Las Vegas 30 years ago, The Telegraph has reported, citing sources. According to the outlet, prosecutors could take action if the man currently on trial over the murder is convicted.

RT 1:20 PM

The Robot Report

Agtonomy releases new autonomous multi-point turning features - The Robot Report

Off-road physical AI company Agtonomy has expanded its commercial platform with fully autonomous multi-point turning and enhanced passive data collection. The company said this enables farm equipment to execute complex maneuvers in tight headland spaces without human intervention. Agtonomy develops full-autonomy packages that retrofit vehicles from its OEM partners, Kubota and Bobcat.

The Robot Report 12:30 PM

Kollmorgen to give a joint-by-joint guide to humanoid motion at RoboBusiness - The Robot Report

Today, humanoid robot OEMs are facing one central challenge: How do they bridge the gap between a working prototype and a manufacturable, scalable product? according to Kollmorgen. While software iterates in weeks, motion hardware moves from paper to functional sample in months and to volume production in years. That mismatch—not concept design—is often the real bottleneck.

The Robot Report 8:15 PM

ESPN

2027 NHL draft prospect watch list: Top prospects heading into the season

The Hlinka Gretzky Cup and World Junior Showcase wrapped up recently, officially kicking off the 2027 NHL draft cycle. Every year, ESPN puts together a watch list of players to track to start the season. Many, if not all, of the players on this list are likely to be drafted in the top 20.

ESPN 10:25 AM

How Georgia turned Sanford Stadium into a soccer pitch

On Thursday night, thousands of fans will flock to Sanford Stadium to watch Georgia play football. The venerable 93,033-seat venue will instead host Georgia's women's soccer squad as it takes on James Madison in nonconference play. And records are in reach: The NCAA's attendance records of 14,410 for women's soccer and 22,512 for men's soccer have stood for 27 and 46 years, respectively.

ESPN 10:21 AM

Paige Bueckers, Azzi Fudd offer rare comments about relationship

The Dallas Wings teammates spoke about their relationship and their experiences playing under legendary UConn coach Geno Auriemma in the three-part docuseries titled "The Dynasty: UConn Huskies." In the docuseries' trailer, which was released Tuesday, Bueckers and Fudd made rare comments about their relationship.

ESPN 9:52 AM

From Knicks to Yankees, Nick Jonas finds the perfect song

First, it was the New York Knicks' first NBA title in 53 years. Then it was the "American royal wedding" between pop star Taylor Swift and Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce keeping the historic Madison Square Garden busy this summer. However, summer at the world's most famous arena isn't over yet.

ESPN 9:52 AM

Women's college basketball recruiting: Top 25 players regardless of class

How do the best girls' high school players stack up against each other? Four NCAA live periods have come and gone, and this summer's circuit champions have been crowned in the EYBL (Sports Academy Swish), Under Armour Next (Northwest Blazers), adidas 3ssb (7 Days) and Select Power 24 (YKS).

ESPN 9:51 AM

Simon Willison

A quote from Jeremy Morrell

My hypothesis is that there is a new opportunity for Extensible Software on the web. LLMs radically lower the cost of authoring extensions, and modern sandbox primitives lower the deployment cost and provide good security boundaries. We can build our app as a solid, accountable core, and allow users to safely extend it in many directions by having LLMs fill in the missing pieces.

Simon Willison 10:56 PM

Conceptual integrity and counting lines of code

Last week I recorded an episode of the Talking Postgres podcast with Claire Giordano on the subject of “How AI is changing software development”. We had a really great conversation. Here are a couple of my highlights from a lightly edited transcript (prompt to Claude: “very minor edits to remove disfluencies”).

Simon Willison 10:46 PM

Raw America

Revealed: Shocking Video Shows McConnell in Addled State Before Hospitalization

Donald Trump was caught on camera this week holding a “cheat sheet” in the Oval Office, the same kind of note card Republicans once said was proof Joe Biden had dementia. Newly surfaced video shows Republican Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky sitting almost completely motionless for hours during a Senate vote session just days before he completely vanished from public view.

Raw America 10:40 PM

Revealed: Natalie Harp’s Brazen Move Against Melania

A new book claims Trump White House staffer Natalie Harp was perhaps the biggest driving force behind the destruction of the East Wing of the White House, which houses the First Lady’s office. New FCC documents show Chairman Brendan Carr has been in constant contact with right-wing media executives and White House officials while refusing to discuss any of it in public.

Raw America 3:51 PM

Cubs — Sun-Times

Splittsville! Stellar Cubs-White Sox season series ends tied 3-3

Chicago baseball fans might not love it, but they won’t forget it. With the White Sox beating the Cubs 3-0 Wednesday at Wrigley Field, the best Crosstown season series of ’em all ended in a 3-3 deadlock. Yes, you read that correctly — the best, since interleague play began in the major leagues in 1997.

Cubs — Sun-Times 6:16 PM

Manufacturing Dive

Bristol Myers Squibb to build $2.3B manufacturing campus in Houston

The project, slated for Generation Park in Houston, is part of Bristol Myers Squibb’s larger plan to invest $40 billion in the United States through 2030 across research and development, technology and domestic manufacturing. The company said it designed the Houston campus to be modular and multimodal, allowing for flexibility as demand shifts to certain medicines over others.

Manufacturing Dive 11:34 AM

Nearly 60 members of Congress call for aluminum pricing investigation

Many regions across the world have physical premiums over the global benchmark price of aluminum. Despite its name, the Midwest Premium functions as the nationwide premium for aluminum in the U.S. market. Premiums are broadly viewed as surcharges to account for factors including regional transportation costs and tariffs.

Manufacturing Dive 10:14 AM