Morning Digest
25 stories from 4 sources, 61 more held back.
India is planning to send its first cargo ship on the Arctic route running along Russia’s northern coast next year, as it seeks to deepen trade with Moscow outside of Western sanctions and without disruptions via the Suez Canal. The 5,600 km Arctic route, or Northern Sea Route (NSR), runs off Russia’s Arctic coastline and is the shortest shipping route between East Asia and Europe.
The Kuril Islands will forever remain Russian land, with Japan looking for trouble by continuing to stick to its claim over the archipelago, former Russian President Dmitry Medvdev has said. The Kuril archipelago came under Soviet control at the end of World War II following Japan’s defeat and was subsequently incorporated into the USSR.
Two adolescent lions who were rescued from the illegal wildlife trade in Israel have been relocated to the Animal Defenders International (ADI) Wildlife Sanctuary in South Africa’s Free State province. The lions, BenTzur and Ori, had been stranded for months due to the conflict in the Middle East, with most flights grounded.
Zambians are voting in presidential, parliamentary, and local elections on Thursday, with incumbent President Hakainde Hichilema seeking a second five-year term as a bitter dispute over the burial of his predecessor and longtime rival, Edgar Lungu, continues to overshadow the campaign.
Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have renewed their assault on the strategically important city of El Obeid, while drone strikes have been reported in several parts of the country, including the capital region, Reuters reported on Wednesday, citing witnesses and local sources.
The US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) plans to equip its officers with special gloves capable of delivering painful electric shocks to people resisting arrest, according to a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) notice.
India showing active interest in Arctic route – Putin. India is among the countries showing active interest in the Northern Sea Route (NSR), Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday, as fast-growing economies in Asia and beyond seek to develop trade with Russia amid Western sanctions.
Ukraine has been blocking Russian proposals to exchange certain prisoners while publicly accusing Moscow of holding up the process, Russian Human Rights Commissioner Yana Lantratova has said.
Israel holds nearly 370 Palestinian children behind bars – rights groups. Nearly 370 Palestinian children are being held in Israeli prisons, many without having been convicted of a crime, RT’s Charlotte Dubenskij reported, citing Palestinian and Israeli rights organizations.
Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski has threatened to reconsider Warsaw’s $50 million annual spending on Elon Musk’s Starlink after the satellite internet provider excluded Polish customers from its European roaming region. Starlink’s new roaming system groups 36 European countries and territories into a single region, allowing customers to use the service across participating states.
Lightning strike sends 16 Ohio inmates to hospital (VIDEO). A lightning strike at an Ohio prison injured 16 inmates, leaving one seriously hurt, as deadly storms swept across the US Midwest, state authorities said.
It's impossible to say for certain, but Ian Machado Garry could be the only active welterweight to unseat champion Islam Makhachev. And for some MMA fans, that's a hard truth to admit.
LOS ANGELES -- Freddie Freeman apparently avoided serious injury Wednesday night when the Los Angeles Dodgers' first baseman took a frightening tumble down the stairs and into the visitors dugout while trying to catch a foul popup in the eighth inning.
On Thursday, the high-end alternative asset and collectibles venture Treasure Trove announced it had acquired a game-worn Joe Montana Super Bowl XXIV jersey for $1,515,000 -- a record price in the NFL's most important collectibles space. The jersey worn by Tom Brady in his final game had held the previous record since it was sold in November 2023 with a $1.39 million price tag.
Congratulations in advance to Oregon. If the Big Ten is to continue its recent streak of a different national champion for each season -- Michigan in 2023, Ohio State in 2024, Indiana in 2025 -- Dan Lanning's Ducks are the most likely beneficiary. This is certainly a heck of a streak, perpetrated by three different coaches and capping three very different cycles.
Set aside, if you can, the endless stream of court cases, rule changes and legislative bills that defined the first nine months of 2026. Because in a few weeks' time, college football will be back. Indeed, the 2026 season is nearly here.
You're here for the sweet, sweet computer rankings, and I understand, but we're going to start with a quick aside: I first need to defend the concept of preseason numbers. SMU Mustangs coach Rhett Lashlee is one of the brightest in the business.
It was a quiet offseason for the New Orleans Pelicans following a 26-56 record in 2025-26. The team did make a coaching change, hiring former Orlando Magic head coach Jamahl Mosley in May, but made little difference-making transactions to a squad that has won fewer than 30 games for two consecutive seasons.
The Dallas Mavericks, 18 months removed from arguably the most shocking trade in NBA history, are on a path back to postseason contention. And this summer has featured a host of changes that the franchise hopes can achieve that goal sooner rather than later.
More than four months later, we asked 17 ESPN MLB experts to give their ranking of the top 50 players in the sport this season. We averaged those lists to create an in-season update to our MLB Rank to give us a chance not only to take a look at who has excelled this season.
For the first time in nearly two months, the Los Angeles Dodgers aren't the top team in baseball. Instead, the National League Central-leading Milwaukee Brewers take the No. 1 spot in this week's MLB Power Rankings -- ending a Dodgers run that dates back to Week 12.
Week 13 of the Premier Lacrosse League season is in Philadelphia, with Subaru Park hosting three PLL games along with the inaugural WLL championship between the Maryland Charm and California Palms. This is the final weekend of the regular season, with teams making the final push for positioning.
Calling Grok a frontier model might have sounded ridiculous a year ago, but SpaceXAI’s latest model is paving a trajectory that likely doesn’t have rivals laughing anymore.
Trump’s company is selling paying customers early access to his official posts. Now, a new lawsuit claims that’s unconstitutional. Sailors on the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln have reportedly tried to jump overboard as Trump’s Iran war drags on with no end in sight.
New details are emerging about Donald Trump’s secret flight out of Turkey last month in a decoy jet, with a new report finding that he made sure his favorite young blonde staffer came with him while top Cabinet officials got left behind. Texas Republican Senate candidate Ken Paxton got publicly humiliated on a phone town hall when a voter asked him why he cheated on his wife.
India is planning to send its first cargo ship on the Arctic route running along Russia’s northern coast next year, as it seeks to deepen trade with Moscow outside of Western sanctions and without disruptions via the Suez Canal. The 5,600 km Arctic route, or Northern Sea Route (NSR), runs off Russia’s Arctic coastline and is the shortest shipping route between East Asia and Europe.
The Kuril Islands will forever remain Russian land, with Japan looking for trouble by continuing to stick to its claim over the archipelago, former Russian President Dmitry Medvdev has said. The Kuril archipelago came under Soviet control at the end of World War II following Japan’s defeat and was subsequently incorporated into the USSR.
Two adolescent lions who were rescued from the illegal wildlife trade in Israel have been relocated to the Animal Defenders International (ADI) Wildlife Sanctuary in South Africa’s Free State province. The lions, BenTzur and Ori, had been stranded for months due to the conflict in the Middle East, with most flights grounded.
Zambians are voting in presidential, parliamentary, and local elections on Thursday, with incumbent President Hakainde Hichilema seeking a second five-year term as a bitter dispute over the burial of his predecessor and longtime rival, Edgar Lungu, continues to overshadow the campaign.
Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have renewed their assault on the strategically important city of El Obeid, while drone strikes have been reported in several parts of the country, including the capital region, Reuters reported on Wednesday, citing witnesses and local sources.
The US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) plans to equip its officers with special gloves capable of delivering painful electric shocks to people resisting arrest, according to a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) notice.
India showing active interest in Arctic route – Putin. India is among the countries showing active interest in the Northern Sea Route (NSR), Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday, as fast-growing economies in Asia and beyond seek to develop trade with Russia amid Western sanctions.
Ukraine has been blocking Russian proposals to exchange certain prisoners while publicly accusing Moscow of holding up the process, Russian Human Rights Commissioner Yana Lantratova has said.
Israel holds nearly 370 Palestinian children behind bars – rights groups. Nearly 370 Palestinian children are being held in Israeli prisons, many without having been convicted of a crime, RT’s Charlotte Dubenskij reported, citing Palestinian and Israeli rights organizations.
Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski has threatened to reconsider Warsaw’s $50 million annual spending on Elon Musk’s Starlink after the satellite internet provider excluded Polish customers from its European roaming region. Starlink’s new roaming system groups 36 European countries and territories into a single region, allowing customers to use the service across participating states.
Lightning strike sends 16 Ohio inmates to hospital (VIDEO). A lightning strike at an Ohio prison injured 16 inmates, leaving one seriously hurt, as deadly storms swept across the US Midwest, state authorities said.
It's impossible to say for certain, but Ian Machado Garry could be the only active welterweight to unseat champion Islam Makhachev. And for some MMA fans, that's a hard truth to admit.
LOS ANGELES -- Freddie Freeman apparently avoided serious injury Wednesday night when the Los Angeles Dodgers' first baseman took a frightening tumble down the stairs and into the visitors dugout while trying to catch a foul popup in the eighth inning.
On Thursday, the high-end alternative asset and collectibles venture Treasure Trove announced it had acquired a game-worn Joe Montana Super Bowl XXIV jersey for $1,515,000 -- a record price in the NFL's most important collectibles space. The jersey worn by Tom Brady in his final game had held the previous record since it was sold in November 2023 with a $1.39 million price tag.
Congratulations in advance to Oregon. If the Big Ten is to continue its recent streak of a different national champion for each season -- Michigan in 2023, Ohio State in 2024, Indiana in 2025 -- Dan Lanning's Ducks are the most likely beneficiary. This is certainly a heck of a streak, perpetrated by three different coaches and capping three very different cycles.
Set aside, if you can, the endless stream of court cases, rule changes and legislative bills that defined the first nine months of 2026. Because in a few weeks' time, college football will be back. Indeed, the 2026 season is nearly here.
You're here for the sweet, sweet computer rankings, and I understand, but we're going to start with a quick aside: I first need to defend the concept of preseason numbers. SMU Mustangs coach Rhett Lashlee is one of the brightest in the business.
It was a quiet offseason for the New Orleans Pelicans following a 26-56 record in 2025-26. The team did make a coaching change, hiring former Orlando Magic head coach Jamahl Mosley in May, but made little difference-making transactions to a squad that has won fewer than 30 games for two consecutive seasons.
The Dallas Mavericks, 18 months removed from arguably the most shocking trade in NBA history, are on a path back to postseason contention. And this summer has featured a host of changes that the franchise hopes can achieve that goal sooner rather than later.
More than four months later, we asked 17 ESPN MLB experts to give their ranking of the top 50 players in the sport this season. We averaged those lists to create an in-season update to our MLB Rank to give us a chance not only to take a look at who has excelled this season.
For the first time in nearly two months, the Los Angeles Dodgers aren't the top team in baseball. Instead, the National League Central-leading Milwaukee Brewers take the No. 1 spot in this week's MLB Power Rankings -- ending a Dodgers run that dates back to Week 12.
Week 13 of the Premier Lacrosse League season is in Philadelphia, with Subaru Park hosting three PLL games along with the inaugural WLL championship between the Maryland Charm and California Palms. This is the final weekend of the regular season, with teams making the final push for positioning.
Trump’s company is selling paying customers early access to his official posts. Now, a new lawsuit claims that’s unconstitutional. Sailors on the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln have reportedly tried to jump overboard as Trump’s Iran war drags on with no end in sight.
New details are emerging about Donald Trump’s secret flight out of Turkey last month in a decoy jet, with a new report finding that he made sure his favorite young blonde staffer came with him while top Cabinet officials got left behind. Texas Republican Senate candidate Ken Paxton got publicly humiliated on a phone town hall when a voter asked him why he cheated on his wife.
Calling Grok a frontier model might have sounded ridiculous a year ago, but SpaceXAI’s latest model is paving a trajectory that likely doesn’t have rivals laughing anymore.