Today is Saturday, Aug. 16, the 228th day of 2025. There are 137 days left in the year.

Today in history:

On Aug. 16, 2014, Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon declared a state of emergency and imposed a curfew in the St. Louis suburb of Ferguson, where police and protesters repeatedly clashed in the week since a Black 18-year-old, Michael Brown, was shot to death by a white police officer.

Also on this date:

In 1777, American forces won the Battle of Bennington in what was considered a turning point of the Revolutionary War.

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In 1812, Detroit fell to British and Native American forces in the War of 1812.

In 1861, President Abraham Lincoln issued Proclamation 86, which prohibited the states of the Union from engaging in commercial trade with states that were in rebellion — i.e., the Confederacy.

In 1896, gold was discovered in Canada’s Yukon Territory, sparking the “Klondike Fever” that would draw tens of thousands to the region in search of fortune.

In 1948, baseball legend Babe Ruth died in New York at age 53.

In 1954, the first issue of “Sports Illustrated” was released.

In 1962, the Beatles fired their original drummer, Pete Best, replacing him with Ringo Starr.

In 1977, Elvis Presley died at his Graceland estate in Memphis, Tennessee at the age of 42; forty-one years later, in 2018, singer Aretha Franklin, known as the “Queen of Soul,” died in Detroit at the age of 76.

In 1978, James Earl Ray, convicted assassin of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., told a Capitol Hill hearing he did not commit the crime, saying he’d been set up by a mysterious man called “Raoul.”

In 1987, people worldwide began a two-day celebration of the “Harmonic Convergence,” which heralded what believers called the start of a new, purer age of humankind.

In 2020, lightning sparked the August Complex wildfire in California. More than 1,600 square miles — greater than the size of Rhode Island — would burn over the following three months.

Today’s Birthdays:

Actor Julie Newmar is 92.
Film director Bruce Beresford is 85.
Actor Bob Balaban is 80.
Ballerina Suzanne Farrell is 80.
Actor Lesley Ann Warren is 79.
Actor Reginald VelJohnson is 73.
Singer/author/TV personality Kathie Lee Gifford is 72.
Singer J.T. Taylor (Kool and the Gang) is 72.
Movie director James Cameron is 71.
Singer/actor Madonna is 67.
Actor Angela Bassett is 67.
Actor Timothy Hutton is 65.
Actor Steve Carell (kuh-REHL’) is 63.
Country musician Emily Strayer (The Chicks) is 53.
Actor/filmmaker Taika Waititi is 50.
Singer Vanessa Carlton is 45.
Country singer Dan Smyers (Dan & Shay) is 38.
Actor Rumer Willis is 37.
U.S. Olympic gold medal swimmer Caeleb Dressel is 29.
Tennis player Jannik Sinner is 24.

The Tigers made a lot of contact against spot starter Pierson Ohls on Friday. The young right-hander faced 16 batters, and 15 put the ball in play. Worse, seven of them scored.

Colt Keith and Gleyber Torres started the night with singles, and an error by second baseman Luke Keaschall — on a potential double-play ball — opened the floodgates early in Detroit’s 7-0 victory in front of 27,282 at Target Field.

The Twins, who managed only two hits against four Tigers pitchers, have lost the first two of this four-game series against the American League Central leaders and five of their past seven overall, falling 14 games behind the Tigers.

Ohls (0-3) was charged with seven runs on eight hits and a pair of walks in 2⅓ innings, but only three of those runs were earned because Keaschall’s error on a sharp grounder by Kerry Carpenter loaded the bases with no outs, and all three runners wound up scoring on RBI singles by Dillon Dingler, Zach McKinstry and Javier Baez.

Pierson Ohl #62 of the Minnesota Twins pitches against the Detroit Tigers in the first inning of the game at Target Field on Aug. 15, 2025 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. (Photo by Stephen Maturen/Getty Images)

That put the Twins into a 5-0 hole that they never threatened to climb out of, limited to just two hits — one an infield grounder by Keaschall — in six innings by Tigers starter Charlie Morton (8-10).

Morton walked three, hit a batter and struck out five as the Tigers won for the sixth time in eight games.

José Ureña, who started the last time he and Ohls piggy-backed a start, followed with six scoreless innings. He gave up two hits, walked one and fanned three.

Keaschall drew walks in the first and third innings, advancing the third base in the third when Matt Wallner was hit in the left knee by a Morton pitch and Brooks Lee reached on a fielder’s choice. But Royce Lewis was out on a pop foul, and Edouard Julien grounded out 1-3 to end the small threat.

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“If the United States is to deter a nuclear attack,” then-U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara said in a 1967 speech in San Francisco, “it must possess an actual and a credible assured-destruction capability.”

McNamara was elucidating a long-established defense concept known as “mutually assured destruction,” meaning that if one side has the ability to destroy its enemy but knows that it cannot do so without being destroyed itself, and that its enemy can and will act to do precisely that, stability is the result.

Something like that argument is being applied to gerrymandering, which is applying nuclear-level destruction to American democracy at both state and federal levels. And it is proliferating.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom used the phrase “fight fire with fire” when he said he planned to work with the California legislature and congressional representatives on a plan that would temporarily set aside California’s independent redistricting commission. The aim is to draw a map that would offset any gains the GOP makes in Texas, where President Donald Trump and Gov. Greg Abbott are trying to force a gerrymandered, mid-decade congressional map through the Texas legislature with the aim of maintaining Republican control of the U.S. House.

That action in Texas, of course, explains why Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker was holding a news conference this month with Texas Democrats who had fled the Lone Star State to try to prevent, well, their own mutually assured destruction. After other Texans in exile made their way to New York City for a separate news conference, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said that “if Republicans are willing to rewrite these rules to give themselves an advantage, then they’re leaving us no choice, we must do the same.”

Closer to home, Pritzker assailed what was happening in Texas as a “corrupt” act, likely to “silence millions of voters,” with nary a sense of irony, as if his own party was squeaky clean on the matter in Illinois, which is hardly the case.

Illinois Republicans, or what is left of them, roared at the hypocrisy, given that the Illinois version of gerrymandering, as egregiously implemented in 2021, has effectively disempowered Republicans, and thus Republican voters, to the point that very few of them even see a point in running for office in Illinois districts anymore, beyond the safe Republican islands. That’s despite 44% of Illinoisans voting for Trump in 2024.

The problem with applying the language of assured mutual destruction is that democracy does not die in a nuclear flash, to be avoided at all costs. It dies progressively, eaten away by incremental loss of trust.

We’ve railed against gerrymandering on both state and federal levels before, of course, and not just to lament the cowardice on gerrymandering displayed by the Illinois Supreme Court, as well the U.S. Supreme Court’s lamentable 2019 decision in Rucho v. Common Cause that removed federal courts as a crucial check on partisan gerrymandering. At the time, Chief Justice John Roberts clearly recognized the threat gerrymandering posed to democracy, but the 5-4 court majority he led ruled that the only lawful remedies were political, as distinct from federal judicial intervention.

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Already that decision has not aged well.

We’re back on the topic today to say that the events of the last few days only have deepened our conviction that gerrymandering is a real and present threat to American democracy that must be stopped before yet more damage is done. We also are here to say that phrases like “fire with fire” and “all’s fair in love and war” are nothing more than lazy, partisan thinking, tempting as they may be to utter.

This isn’t about one side laying down its arms, or refusing to do so. It’s about building a structure with bipartisan buy-in so both are able to do so at once. We like to believe that could still be done in America.

— The Chicago Tribune

Edouard Julien was not beating his chest on Friday, the day after he took reigning American League Cy Young Award winner Tarik Skubal deep in a 4-3 extra-inning loss to Detroit at Target Field.

Julien did, however, acknowledge an injection of confidence.

“Best pitcher in the game,” he noted.

The clout wound up in the plaza behind the right-field bleachers, and was the first by a left-handed hitter against the lefty Skubal all season. Julien also singled and sliced a hard liner into left against Skubal, the AL ERA leader (2.42 in 24 starts) and a favorite to repeat as the league Cy Young winner.

“Ed had a great day,” manager Rocco Baldelli said after the game.

It’s the kind of attention Julien has been trying to demand since returning from a long stint at Class AAA St. Paul after the July 31 trade deadline. After a promising and productive rookie season in 2023, Julien struggled to adjust to pitching that had adjusted to him in 2024.

He made the team out of training camp this season but was optioned to St. Paul after hitting .198 in 29 games. But he found his swing with the Saints, hitting .276 with 21 extra-base hits (11 home runs) in 70 games.

A second baseman for most of his major league games, Julien played first on Thursday and again on Friday. Asked about it, he said, “I honestly don’t think about any of that stuff.”

“I’m just ready every day to try and help the team win, and whatever position they play me at, I’m going to be a guy that gives them some good at-bats and be a good hitter,” he said. “I’m trying to be as good a hitter as I can be, get on base and hit for power. That’s all I’m trying to do.”

Good day for López

Right-hander Pablo López, working his way back from a teres major strain in his right shoulder, pitched two simulated innings against teammates before Friday’s game against Detroit at Target Field.

The veteran said he threw 35 to 40 pitches against teammates Julien, Ryan Fitzgerald and Austin Martin.

“Everything felt good with the delivery, the mechanics, the execution, the pounding the zone, that mentality,” López said. “So, I think everything’s good. I wanted to check all those boxes.”

Lopez said he had hoped to be pitching in games by this time but is pleased with his rehabilitation. If he feels good on Saturday, he should be on pace to throw again in five or six days and build up to 65 pitches.

The goal is to build up five innings and 80 pitches. Then, López said, “I’ll be able to get a few starts in (September), get some peace of mind going into the offseason.”

Briefly

Outfielder Alan Roden, acquired in the trade that sent Louie Varland to Toronto, jammed a thumb a few days ago and re-injured it while sliding head-first into home plate on Thursday. Manager Rocco Baldelli said he’s going to get an MRI on the thumb. … Right-hander David Festa, out with a shoulder impingement, said he’s making progress in his rehab and fully intends to return and “finish the season strong.”

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