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American Prisoners Heading Home

While most of us were watching athletes around the world compete in athletic competitions, a group of international negotiators were teaming up to pull off an Olympian diplomatic feat that has resulted in the largest East-West prisoner swap since the Cold War. WSJ reporter Evan Gershkovich, imprisoned by Putin essentially for being a reporter, and recently sentenced to 16 years, is among those heading home. "Moscow also released former Marine Paul Whelan, journalist Alsu Kurmasheva and Vladimir Kara-Murza, a British-Russian dissident and Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist, sentenced to 25 years in prison on treason-related charges. Russia also released a number of political dissidents. The sweeping deal involved 24 prisoners and at least six countries, and came together after months of negotiations at the highest levels of governments in the U.S., Russia and Germany, whose prisoner, Russian hit man Vadim Krasikov, emerged as the linchpin to the arrangement."

+ Joe Biden was the captain of the diplomatic team, even making calls to move the process forward within hours of announcing his decision to drop out of the presidential race. WSJ (Gift Article) with some amazing background: "Evan Gershkovich’s mother, Ella, arrived for an urgent 10:30 a.m. meeting at the White House with President Biden, on Thursday, the 491st day of son’s detention. She had been told to bring her husband Mikhail and her daughter Danielle in a three-minute call that ended with a strict instruction: Tell no one." Putin Wanted His Hit Man Back. A Mother Wanted Her Journalist Son to Come Home. Before Gershkovich was freed, his captors "had another piece of writing they required from him, an official request for presidential clemency. The text, moreover, should be addressed to Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin. The pro forma printout included a long blank space the prison could fill out if desired, or simply, as expected, leave blank. In the formal high Russian he had honed over 16 months imprisonment, the Journal’s Russia correspondent filled the page. The last line submitted a proposal of his own: After his release, would Putin be willing to sit down for an interview?"

+ A reminder that Putin is trading innocent people he took hostage for criminals. But it's a good day for the innocents freed, the negotiators who worked tirelessly, international cooperation among allies, and American presidential candidates who have never glorified Putin or called the press "truly the enemy of the people." Here's the latest from CNN and WSJ.

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Steep Dip(lomacy)

While the Biden team and other diplomats are celebrating this deal, another far more complex feat of diplomacy is, like the region where its being attempted, teetering on the edge. NYT(Gift Article): Back-to-Back Assassinations in Middle East Scramble Biden’s Hopes for Peace. "'Conventional wisdom last week was that a hostage deal was likely and a war in the north was not,' said Michael Koplow, chief policy officer for the Israel Policy Forum, a research and educational group that favors a two-state solution. 'All of this just demonstrates for the umpteenth time how unpredictable events are and how quickly assessments go out the window.'"

+ It was actually back-to-back-to-back assassinations: "Israel's military says it has confirmed that Hamas's military chief Mohammed Deif was killed in an Israeli air strike in the Gaza Strip last month."

+ "Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would take unilateral measures, regardless of American advice, to repay Hamas for its ghastly Oct. 7 attack on Israel. His goal isn’t making peace with Hamas, but destroying it. And most Israelis probably agree with him." David Ignatius in WaPo: The mediators struggle to keep a lid on a blood feud.

+ Meanwhile, we're starting to get details on just how Ismail Haniyeh was killed, and those details won't leave many terror instigators in Iran resting easy. NYT (Gift Article): Bomb Smuggled Into Tehran Guesthouse Months Ago Killed Hamas Leader. "The bomb had been hidden approximately two months ago in the guesthouse, according to five of the Middle Eastern officials. The guesthouse is run and protected by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps and is part of a large compound, known as Neshat, in an upscale neighborhood of northern Tehran."

+ Here's the latest from CNN.

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To AI or Not to AI

I was fine with AI proofreading a paragraph or two, but maybe this is escalating a little too quickly... "The tool hasn’t been built yet. But Wendler plans to train it on a person’s own medical data, personal messages, and social media posts. He hopes it could not only be more accurate at working out what the patient would want, but also alleviate the stress and emotional burden of difficult decision-making for family members." End-of-life decisions are difficult and distressing. Could AI help? (Either you pull the plug on AI or it will pull the plug on you?)

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Five Ring Circus

Aside from being the best at what we do, there's not a lot that a middle-aged newsletter writer can relate to when it comes to young Olympic athletes. But maybe I've found some common ground. Aches and pains. NYT (Gift Article): How the Olympics Break Athletes’ Bodies. "Wear and tear naturally degrades human bodies, even the most talented ones. But performing at the elite level, especially in high-impact Olympic sports such as wrestling, rugby or gymnastics, inherently has more risks. Shoulders give out. Ligaments tear. And, for some, metal screws and titanium plates become just more hardware in the lifelong pursuit of gold, silver and bronze." (We'll get into my stiff neck and carpal tunnel another time...)

+ French swimmer Léon Marchand got two golds within a couple hours and became the toast of Paris. His coach is a familiar face to American swim fans. "Bob Bowman is the most successful coach in the history of U.S. swimming. He’s the man who discovered Michael Phelps and molded countless other Olympians. And over the past five Summer Games, he’s overseen a period of American swimming supremacy in which Team USA has amassed a combined 67 gold medals. But at La Défense Arena this summer, he’s representing a slightly different shade of red, white and blue."

+ Katie Ledecky has had a few coaches over the years. The results have been the same. She just earned her 8th gold medal after another 1500m win. She won by so much, the camera had to pull back to show where the other racers were. This is not new. "Incredibly, she now owns the 20 fastest times in history of the 1500."

+ Olympic shooters have been winning the style competition at the Games. Turkey's Yusuf Dikec was decidedly dressed down.

+ Giorgia Villa won silver with Italy in the gymnastics women’s team final. But her passion for parmesan has also gained attention. The photos!

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Extra, Extra

Slow Wheels of Justice: "The settlement agreements with the Pentagon, announced Wednesday, bring partial closure to a case that has dragged on for twenty years and become mired in legal gridlock. Many family members of the nearly 3,000 people who died in the September 11, 2001, attacks want the 9/11 defendants put to death, but as a trial became increasingly unlikely, plea bargains were widely viewed as the only way to resolve the case." Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, accused as the main plotter of 9/11, agrees to plead guilty.

+ Where Have All the Gouda Times Gone: Gouda is known for Gouda. That seems like a safe statement. But climate change is changing the reality of what's safe. NYT: Can Gouda’s Cheesemakers Stall a Sinking Future?

+ Cold Snapped: Gouda isn't the only place experiencing unusual weather. Antarctic temperatures soar 50 degrees above norm in long-lasting heat wave. Still, bring a coat. "The heat wave comes in the middle of the Antarctic winter, so temperatures are still hovering around minus-4. Still, the Antarctic temperature anomaly is the largest on the globe, according to weather models."

+ Comic Sans Traffickers: "Law enforcement personnel worked undercover posing as sex buyers in a bid to identify and contact potential trafficking victims, and posted undercover advertisements soliciting sex to hone in on sex buyers, prosecutors said in a news release." 14 arrested at Comic-Con in anti-human trafficking sting in San Diego.

+ Blush with Greatness: "Nicolic’s findings suggest that blushing 'is a consequence of a high level of ambivalent emotional arousal that occurs when a person feels threatened and wants to flee but, at the same time, feels the urge not to give up.'" Karaoke reveals why we blush. (Now scientists just need to figure out why we Karaoke.)

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Bottom of the News

"Turbulence is one of the most unpredictable of all weather phenomena, with severe turbulence becoming more likely with climate change." That's a little background in case you're wondering why Korean Air is no longer serving instant noodles in economy.