Morning Digest

Tuesday, August 18, 2026

35 stories from 10 sources, 79 more held back.

RT

South Africa braces for another fuel price surge

South Africa faces new fuel price shock. South Africa is expected to face another fuel price hike in September as the ongoing conflict in the Middle East continues to keep global oil prices elevated, according to the data provided by the Central Energy Fund (CEF), the country's state-owned energy company.

RT 12:39 PM

Hey Ursula, angry voters aren't 'pro-Russian', they're just fed up

Look, Queen Ursula, we need to talk, girlfriend. Yes, I’m addressing you directly, EU Commission President Ursula Von der Leyen, because I’m not going to pretend that there’s anyone in charge in Europe who’s actually elected by the people and crafting EU policy.

RT 12:37 PM

Indian student completes North Pole voyage on Russian icebreaker

A 15-year-old student became India’s sole representative on a recent scientific exploration of the North Pole, beating thousands of others to earn a place in one of the world’s most exclusive expeditions for school students held in Russia. Lucky Rawat, from the town of Chakrata in the northern Indian state of Uttarakhand, completed the ten-day voyage to the top of the world on August 15.

RT 11:54 AM

DR Congo Ebola outbreak becomes deadliest in country’s history

Ebola outbreak reaches grim new record. The ongoing Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DR Congo) has become the deadliest in the country’s history, with the number of fatalities surpassing the toll recorded during the major 2018-2020 epidemic.

RT 10:29 AM

ESPN

Utah Jazz offseason recap, early 2026-27 season preview

The Utah Jazz finished last season with a 22-60 record, tied with the Sacramento Kings at the bottom of the West -- and ahead of only three East teams for the league's worst record -- but began their offseason with the No. 2 pick in the draft. It is tied for the highest they have ever drafted, and they used the pick to select Kansas guard Darryn Peterson.

ESPN 7:45 AM

MLB 2026: Ted Williams, Joey Votto and the art of hitting

On Oct. 9, 1987, a debate more than half a century in the making unfolded on the banks of the Rogue River in Oregon. Ted Williams and Bobby Doerr first met in 1936. Williams was 17 years old, Doerr 18, and even then, before their Hall of Fame careers with the Boston Red Sox had even begun, they disagreed on things.

ESPN 7:42 AM

Eric Moody's draft-day targets: Kyler Murray, Kenny Gainwell among top values

Fantasy football draft season is here, and this is when all the offseason work starts to matter. Average draft position (ADP), projections, trends and advanced metrics all factor into my draft strategy, but I don't rely on spreadsheets alone. I also want to see how players are being used and what they're showing on the field.

ESPN 7:37 AM

WNBA Power Rankings: Can Liberty find way into top four?

The New York Liberty started this season among the favorites to win the WNBA title. But they went 2-8 from June 19 to July 18, dropping to 13-12 overall after a dispiriting 108-88 loss at Indiana to end the stretch. However, that low point seemed to flip a switch.

ESPN 7:35 AM

Men's Bracketology: Duke edges Florida for No. 1 overall

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ESPN 7:33 AM

Cubs — MLB.com

PCA secures 2nd straight 30-30 season -- boosts MVP case -- in epic way

CHICAGO – The chants began before the Cubs could even hit play on the hype video ahead of the bottom of the 10th inning on Monday night. The fans inside Wrigley Field already knew who was due to bat and they sent his famous initials echoing through the old ballpark in anticipation of what could come next. Pete Crow-Armstrong did not let them down.

Cubs — MLB.com 6:12 AM

Key takeaways: Cubs 7, White Sox 5

CHICAGO – With roughly six weeks remaining in the regular season, fans on Chicago’s North and South Sides can realistically dream about October baseball. The Cubs are in the thick of the National League Wild Card race, while the White Sox currently sit atop the American League Central.

Cubs — MLB.com 3:49 AM

After latest trip to IL, could Cabrera shift to Cubs' 'pen?

CHICAGO – The Cubs swung a blockbuster deal to land Edward Cabrera over the offseason due to his top-of-the-rotation potential. His first season with the North Siders has featured frustratingly mixed results and multiple trips to the injured list. The latest setback arrived on Monday, when Cabrera was placed on the 15-day IL due to a second recurrence of a blister issue on his pitching hand.

Cubs — MLB.com 11:44 PM

How do Power Rankings look with just 6 weeks(!) left in season?

Some might call these the dog days of summer, but with as much activity and excitement as there has been in baseball for the last week — Field of Dreams! A wild Brewers-Dodgers series featuring the best pitchers on earth — we’ll confess to not feeling particularly dogged down right now. If these are the dog days, sheesh, wait until things get really exciting.

Cubs — MLB.com 2:17 AM

The Rundown AI

Cursor's Origin hits GitHub on its worst day

If you were picking a day to launch a GitHub competitor, you couldn't script a better one than the morning the legacy platform suffered a massive outage. Cursor just managed to hit that window, launching Origin as an alternative to the place the world has held its code for two decades.

The Rundown AI 12:00 AM

Dario Amodei logs on to answer the critics

AI has a trust problem, and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei doesn't think a marketing campaign can fix it. Amodei just made a rare X appearance to answer claims that his AI safety talk is backfiring, framing the warnings as honesty rather than doom and pitching real breakthroughs in areas like medicine as the only route back for public opinion. P.S. — We’re hiring for seven open roles at The Rundown!

The Rundown AI 12:00 AM

Simon Willison

Qwen 3.8 27B scores 52 on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index

Qwen 3.8 27B scores 52 on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index (via) That's the same score as GPT-5.6 Luna (max), and just one point behind GLM-5.2 (max) and DeepSeek V4 Pro 0813 (max) - that GLM is 753B and that DeepSeek is 1.6B parameters, and Luna is size unknown but presumably a whole lot bigger than 27B. Qwen 3.8 27B is a truly astonishing model.

Simon Willison 11:58 PM

Raw America

Cubs — Sun-Times

Cubs' game Saturday will air on Fox Chicago+ because of Bears conflict on Fox 32

Fortunately, the local Fox affiliate has an over-the-air sister station for such occurrences. WPWR-Channel 50, branded as Fox Chicago+, will carry the Cubs’ game, with pregame coverage beginning at 6 p.m. First pitch is scheduled for 6:15 p.m., with Aaron Goldsmith and John Smoltz on the call for a regional audience.

Cubs — Sun-Times 12:45 PM

The Robot Report

Five years of operation shape Diligent Robotics rollout of Moxi 2.0 - The Robot Report

With the new robot, Diligent is also launching its learning flywheel. The Austin, Texas-based company claimed that the proprietary world model learns from the experience of its robot fleet and improves continually with every hospital deployment. “Today, we’re deploying our most sophisticated physical AI platform yet,” stated Andrea Thomaz, founder and CEO of Diligent Robotics.

The Robot Report 9:15 PM

Surgeons use da Vinci surgical robot to perform common cardiac surgery - The Robot Report

Coronary artery bypass grafting, or CABG, is the most common type of cardiac surgery in the world. Despite this, and the heavily invasive nature of the surgery, only 1% of these procedures are performed with the help of robots. At the El Camino Health Heart and Vascular Institute (HVI), surgeons are now performing CABG with Intuitive Surgical‘s da Vinci robotic system.

The Robot Report 8:56 PM

Gravis Robotics raises $200M for autonomous construction - The Robot Report

The construction industry has been slow to automate, but demand for infrastructure repairs, AI data center buildouts, and U.S. reshoring and defense needs could change that. Gravis Robotics today announced that SoftBank is investing $200 million in its Series A round, which it claimed is the largest in construction robotics history.

The Robot Report 1:00 PM

IEEE Spectrum — Robotics

Inside Persona’s Bold Bet On Humanoid Welders In Shipyards

Humanoids desperately need to stop making YouTube videos and get a job already, and Persona AI is one of the few humanoid companies which seems to be entirely focused on making that happen. Persona’s approach has been to carefully select a job that is economically viable for robots right now, and they’ve found one that was also the job of one of the very first industrial robots ever sold: welding.

IEEE Spectrum — Robotics 3:33 PM

Manufacturing Dive

Trump inks MOU allowing US Navy ships to be built overseas

The MOU also orders DOD to replace the aircraft carrier-based Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch Systems and the Advanced Weapons Elevators with “traditional steam and hydraulic systems” during the construction of the aircraft carrier CVN 81, or the USS Doris Miller.

Manufacturing Dive 12:44 PM