Friday, December 9 top stories
It is Friday, December 9. Here are today’s top stories.
Brittney Griner lands in Texas
Brittney Griner landed in San Antonio at about 5:30 am today after she was freed from a Russian jail in a prisoner exchange. U.S. officials said she is in very good spirits and appears to be in good health. She used to have long locs but they were cut off. There is a video that shows her smiling on a plane when she was told that she would be going home to the U.S.
On the other side, Viktor Bout, a Russian arms dealer who was the trade for Griner, arrived in Moscow. He was serving a 25-year prison sentence at a jail in Illinois after a conviction in 2012. He was arrested in 2008 after he tried to sell arms to a DEA agent who was posing as a Colombian rebel who wanted to use the weapons against U.S. forces in the country.
The Biden administration said it was a hard decision to let Bout go. They said he served about half of his sentence and would have come out at some point in the future so they are glad that they could get Griner home.
Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del) said he’s worried that in the future, Americans will be “scooped up” and held as leverage for prisoner exchanges of people that we would rather not have to release.
Update on Athena Strand death
The FedEx contract driver who is accused of kidnapping and murdering a 7-year-old girl named Athena Strand in Wise County, Texas last week told police that he accidentally hit the girl when he was backing up to deliver a package at the girl’s father’s home and then put her in the truck out of panic. The driver, Tanner Lynn Horner, said he killed the girl by strangulation because she was going to tell her father that she was hit by the truck.
Police said they have surveillance video from inside the truck that shows the driver talking to the girl. The driver led police to the girl’s body after she was missing for several days.
The driver was delivering a Christmas present for the girl, a box of Barbie dolls. The girl went outside after she got into an argument with her stepmother. The stepmother didn’t realize that she was missing because she thought she went outside to stay in her makeshift bedroom in a converted shed. There was construction at the home so that’s why the girl was sleeping in a shed.
Horner is charged with capital murder and aggravated kidnapping. The District Attorney’s office said they would seek the death penalty.
“Boy in the Box” homicide victim is identified
Philadelphia police identified a 4-year-old homicide victim from 1947, who is known as the “Boy in the Box,” as Joseph A. Zarelli. The boy was found dead in a cardboard box and his identity has been unknown for all this time, but new forensic genetic genealogy methods helped with a breakthrough to identify him. The boy’s DNA was used to track down family members.
Police said they don’t know who is responsible for Joseph’s death, but his identification could help to narrow down potential suspects. The boy likely died from blunt force injuries.
Axios said in the future there may be more unsolved cases that will have meaningful progress due to forensic genetic genealogy techniques.
Joseph’s gravestone has the title, “America’s Unknown Child.” But now his name is known.
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New AI bot called ChatGPT
There is a new AI chatbot called ChatGPT that is rising in popularity as an alternative to Google. ChatGPT works like a text conversation or an emailed conversation. You type in a question, such as “What is Deaf Culture?” ChatGPT will answer in a simple paragraph. This is different from a Google search because you would get various links that you have to click on in order to read information. Basically, ChatGPT picks an answer for you but there’s no way to know if it’s right or wrong. The response to my question was accurate.
Axios said ChatGPT was developed by a company called OpenAI. Over one million people have signed up for an account. One drawback of ChatGPT is that it doesn’t tell where it’s getting its information from and can be “confidently wrong.”
If you’re curious about the bot, you can check it out at www.openai.com.
Fauci says lowlife trolls harassing his family
Dr. Anthony Fauci, who led the U.S. response to the coronavirus pandemic, said his family is experiencing harassment from lowlife trolls. He said at least two people are currently in jail for making threats against his life.
Fauci became a big target for those who had conspiracy theories about the coronavirus or the vaccine.
Fauci said he is especially disturbed by the attacks against his wife and children because they are completely uninvolved, but he is trying his best to not let things distract him from serving the American public.
Fauci plans to step down from his leadership role at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases later this month. He is 81 years old.
Sinema abandons Democratic Party, becomes independent
Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema announced today that she is leaving the Democratic Party and is registering as an independent.
Axios said it is a “political earthquake that will shake up the Senate — and a gut punch for Democrats just three days after they secured a 51-49 majority.”
Sinema said she wants to represent Arizonans who believe in common-sense solutions rather than “party doctrine.”
The White House said the decision doesn’t change the New Democratic majority control of the Senate and they expect to continue to work with Sinema as they have in the past.
That is all the top stories for this week. Have a good weekend and stay with the light.
https://abcnews.go.com/International/live-updates/brittney-griner-prisoner-swap/?id=94768055
https://www.reuters.com/world/russia-arms-dealer-bout-arrives-moscow-hugs-mother-wife-tv-2022-12-08/
https://edition.cnn.com/2022/12/08/us/texas-athena-strand-kidnapping-christmas-present/index.html
https://www.axios.com/2022/12/09/kyrsten-sinema-democratic-party-independent-senate
https://www.axios.com/2022/12/09/how-chatgpt-could-disrupt-the-business-of-search