Former Cardinals reliever Jordan Hicks is a free agent, and a reunion could be had. However, there are other former Cardinals who could be of much more help.

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An attempted uprising by Russian mercenary fighters has revealed cracks in Vladimir Putin's authority, a top US official has said. The mutiny by the Wagner Group, which saw its leader Yevgeny Prigozhin order his troops to march on Moscow, left the Russian president hiding from public view on Sunday after being forced into an amnesty deal. Though the astonishing revolt was short-lived, with mercenary fighters withdrawing under the agreement that saw Mr Prigozhin exiled to Belarus, it has raised questions about Mr Putin’s grip on power. Mr Putin has not commented publicly since the deal was struck to de-escalate one of the biggest challenges since he rose to power more than two decades ago. He said he was giving top priority to the conflict in Ukraine in excerpts from an interview aired by state television on Sunday, but it appeared to have been recorded before the mutiny. Speaking on Sunday, US secretary of state Anthony Blinken said the revolt was a “direct challenge of Putin’s authority”. Mr Blinken said the turmoil has weakened Mr Putin in ways that could aid Ukraine’s counteroffensive. Mr Blinken told US media: “We’ve seen more cracks emerge in the Russian façade. It is too soon to tell exactly where they go... but certainly, we have all sorts of new questions that Putin is going to have to address in the weeks and months ahead.” The Wagner Group’s forces were just 120 miles from Moscow before the rebellion was called off to avoid shedding Russian blood. Mr Prigozhin had said his “march” on Moscow was intended to remove corrupt and incompetent Russian commanders he blames for botching the war in Ukraine. Mr Prigozhin has for months accused Russian defence minister Sergei Shoigu and the chief of the general staff, Valery Gerasimov, of incompetence and of withholding ammunition from his fighters as they battled to take Bakhmut in Ukraine. This month, Mr Prigozhin defied orders to place his troops under defence ministry command. He launched the rebellion on Friday after alleging the military had killed some of his men in an air strike - a claim denied by the defence ministry. Mr Prigozhin, 62, was seen leaving the district military headquarters in Rostov, hundreds of miles south of Moscow, late on Saturday in a sport utility vehicle. His whereabouts on Sunday were not known. The deal brokered by Belarus president Alexander Lukashenko also means Wagner fighters who joined the “march for justice” will face no action. In an earlier televised address on Saturday, Mr Putin said the rebellion put Russia‘s very existence under threat. “We are fighting for the lives and security of our people, for our sovereignty and independence, for the right to remain Russia, a state with a thousand-year history,” Mr Putin said, vowing punishment for those behind “an armed insurrection”. In his daily address on Sunday, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky said Mr Putin is “obviously very afraid” and is “probably hiding”, while his defence minister Oleksii Reznikov said the 36-hour mutiny shows Russian authorities are “weak”. Mr Reznikov said: “Had a phone conversation with my friend and colleague Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III “We talked about recent events in Russia. We agree that the Russian authorities are weak and that withdrawing Russian troops from Ukraine is the best choice for the Kremlin. Russia would be better served to address its own issues.” He added: “We also discussed the #UAarmy‘s counteroffensive and the next steps in strengthening our Defence Forces. Things are moving in the right direction. Ukraine will win.” Meanwhile, the Institute for the Study of War said Russia struggled to respond clearly and coherently to the threat from the Wagner Group. It said the incident has highlighted “internal security weaknesses likely due to surprise and the impact of heavy losses in Ukraine” Commons defence committee chair Tobias Ellwood told the i newspaper: “Putin’s days are clearly numbered, he might survive the initial wound for a period of time but as Russian history shows, often it triggers a series of subsequent events that lead to the leader’s downfall. “Power is ebbing away. The Wagner Group may be neutered, Prighozin exiled, but Putin is definitely weaker and the hawks are now circling.” Read More Ukraine says Wagner’s mutiny proves Putin’s fragility – but this war ends on the battlefield US Secretary of State Antony Blinken says ‘we haven’t seen the last act’ in Russia’s Wagner rebellion Russia-Ukraine war live: Wagner rebellion shows Putin’s power is finally cracking, US says The Body in the Woods | An Independent TV Original Documentary The harrowing discovery at centre of The Independent’s new documentary

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Doctors found an 80-year-old woman in Russia has lived her entire life with an inch-long needle in her brain. A local radiologist discovered a three-centimetre needle inside the octogenarian’s brain during an X-ray scan, said the Ministry of Health in Sakhalin in a Telegram post on Wednesday. The tiny needle was located in the parietal lobe of the unnamed woman’s brain, according to the ministry. While it did not disclose the exact date of discovery, it said the needle was found this year. The needle was lodged inside her brain since she was born. Doctors believe she had survived a failed infanticide attempt by her parents. In the Soviet era during the famine of the 1930s, desperate parents struggling with poverty would insert a needle into the soft spot of a baby’s head – the fontanelle – where the skull hadn’t entirely developed. It would then close, obscuring the needle, but the newborn would eventually die. “Such incidents were not uncommon during the years of starvation: a thin needle would be inserted into a newborn’s fontanel to damage the brain,” the local health department of the remote Russian region wrote on its Telegram channel. “The fontanelle quickly closed up, covering up evidence of the crime, and the baby died.” Such an attempt, believed to have been carried out on the woman who was likely born around 1943, did not lead to the intended effect. The woman had, however, occasionally complained of headaches. While doctors have decided against surgery to pull the needle, fearing it could harm the patient, “her condition is being monitored by primary care physicians”, said the ministry’s statement, adding that she was not at risk. Sakhalin is an island of 50,000 people located 6.5km off the southeastern coast in Russia and 40km of north Japan’s Hokkaido. Its control was split between the former Soviet Union and the then Japanese Empire in 1905, following a war between the two sides. The Soviet Union had seized the Japanese portion of the island in the final days of the Second World War in 1945. Read More ‘Alive and wriggling’ parasitic worm removed from brain of Australian woman Dog thought to have a brain tumour turns out to have a 7cm needle stuck in neck Pope links plight of Ukrainians today to Stalin's 'genocide' The Body in the Woods | An Independent TV Original Documentary The harrowing discovery at centre of The Independent’s new documentary

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