What A Day - The Questions Surrounding The Death Of Grant Wahl

Episode Date: December 13, 2022

The sports world continues to mourn American soccer journalist Grant Wahl, whose body was returned to the U.S. after he died while covering the World Cup in Qatar. Although whatever caused his sudden death remains a mystery, his family hopes that a pending autopsy will give them answers.Over half a million people have signed a petition calling for New York Governor Kathy Hochul to grant clemency to Nikki Addimando. She's been in prison since 2017 for fatally shooting her longtime partner, which she claims was self-defense.And in headlines: Iran carried out its second execution tied to the mass protests over Mahsa Amini,  China rolled back more of its strict “zero Covid” policies, and scientists have reportedly achieved a major clean energy breakthrough.Show Notes:The Atlantic: “Remembering Grant Wahl, a Champion of American Soccer” – https://tinyurl.com/5n7wxdwmNikki Addimando Clemency – https://westandwithnikki.com/Survived + Punished – https://survivedandpunished.org/Restoration of Rights Project: 50-State Comparison | Pardon Policy & Practice – https://tinyurl.com/3fshtj45What A Day – YouTube – https://www.youtube.com/@whatadaypodcastCrooked Coffee is officially here. Our first blend, What A Morning, is available in medium and dark roasts. Wake up with your own bag at crooked.com/coffeeFollow us on Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/whataday/For a transcript of this episode, please visit crooked.com/whataday

It's Tuesday, December 13th. I'm Josie Duffy Rice. And I'm Traevel Anderson, and this is What A Day, hoping that the arrest of Sam Bankman Freed yesterday serves as a warning to anyone else who wants to become really rich while really young. Yeah, the lesson here is to give all your money to me, and I will take care of it and make sure that you don't get arrested in the Bahamas. You know what, Josie? I'd give you a couple dollars. Thank you! You can't have all my money, but you can have a couple dollars. On today's show, scientists may have unlocked the key to a limitless source of clean energy. Plus, Elon Musk bombed his stand-up comedy debut in San Francisco.

It's what he deserves. But first, more on a story that has a lot of people sad and confused. The sudden death of soccer journalist Grant Wall. On Monday, his body was returned to the United States after he died over the weekend while covering the World Cup in Qatar. And for some people, the fact that he is no longer alive and that we don't know his cause of death is quite suspicious. Yeah, it's a very tragic story and a huge loss. What do we know right now? So as we mentioned on the show yesterday, we know that Wahl was rushed to the hospital on Friday after he collapsed during the quarterfinal match between Argentina and the Netherlands. He was 49 years old and had just celebrated his birthday a few days before.

Wahl, by the way, was a journalist with Sports Illustrated for more than two decades, also had stints at Fox Sports and CBS before starting his own thing, a newsletter and podcast by the name of Football with Grant Wall. One of his colleagues called him, quote, America's preeminent soccer journalist. We also know that Wall said he wasn't feeling

the best earlier in the week before he died. Apparently, he was writing daily articles and recording for his podcast every other day from Qatar throughout the World Cup, sleeping about five hours a night. And so he thought it was all due to exhaustion. He even said in his newsletter that he'd sought medical attention for what he thought might be bronchitis and that he was starting to feel better after taking some standard meds. And it is that information that has people confused Josie because he said he was feeling better and then days later he's dead. And so it's prompted many people to also make note of the fact that Wall had also recently

made headlines during the World Cup after he was detained by security officials and questioned about a rainbow t-shirt he wore to a game in support of LGBTQ rights in a country, Qatar we're talking about, where being gay is a crime. Wahl, whose brother is gay, refused to change his shirt, and they released him 25 minutes later. Folks have also noted that Wahl had recently covered the indifference of Qatari World Cup leadership, who, to him, didn't seem to care about recent migrant worker deaths related to the competition. It's certainly a confounding story. So what exactly is all of this supposed to tell us? Well, that is where the speculation comes into play. You know, even from Wahl's own brother initially, that some sort of foul play might be afoot here,

especially since we still don't know the cause of death yet. So folks are wondering if Wall, having publicly criticized the Qatari government and being a vocal LGBTQ ally, might have made him a target of some sort. Now that allegation is questionable in itself because we know that there are a lot of journalists at the World Cup right now who have also been critical of Qatar and FIFA, the sports organizing body. And so then the question would be, assuming you believe, you know, something is wonky about all of this, why Wall specifically? And there aren't really answers to any of that yet. But none of this speculation was made any better when on Monday, it was announced that a second

journalist, a local photojournalist, also recently died covering the World Cup. There's no proof that the two deaths are related, but the timing for many is uncanny. And let's face the facts, right? Qatar is an authoritarian monarchy and they don't take too kindly to the hashtag gay agenda. as some Qataris have noted, as we wait to learn more about the causes of death for both men, it would behoove us not to lean on stereotypes about Arab and Muslim countries. Folks can get real xenophobic, for example, and not only is that not needed, but it's not productive to figuring out how Wal died. But like I said, his body and possessions are back in the U.S. His brother said on Twitter that he and Wal's wife will take the body for a medical examination and autopsy. So we'll be sure to keep y'all posted as we learn more.

Yeah, it's such a huge loss and so sad for his family. Now on to another story. We are nearing the end of the year. And just like I did last year, I wanted to check in on one of the most important powers, our president. And many of our governors have, clemency power. I especially wanted to look at the fight for clemency for a woman named Nikki Adamondo, which is happening as we speak. Nikki has been in prison in New York State since 2017 when she was arrested for shooting and killing Chris Grover. Grover was Nikki's longtime partner, the father of her children, and had a history of seriously, seriously abusing Nikki.

Some very upsetting details, so fast forward by a minute or so if you don't want to hear. The abuse that Nikki suffered included a dislocated shoulder, severe genital trauma, bite marks, and strangulation marks. And Grover even uploaded public videos of him essentially torturing her to popular porn websites. The day before the fatal shooting, Nikki told Grover that she wanted to take a break and take the kids and get away from him for a while. Grover responded by loading a handgun in front of her and telling her how he would kill her and make it look like suicide. Then he threatened to kill her and kill himself so that the kids would have no one. She says he pointed a gun at her and the two struggled and that she ended up shooting him. Wow. So now this, to me at least, seems like a clear example of self-defense, but I know it hasn't been interpreted that way.

Yeah, you would think that. And it's especially important to keep in mind, right? Like the abuse that she suffered was documented by the people in her lives, her therapist, her doctors, her midwife, her family, her friends. But instead, she was charged with murder and sentenced to 19 years to life. And that's not super uncommon. We see all the time that women especially are charged with murder after they defend themselves against an abusive partner. That sentence was eventually overturned and Nikki was resentenced to seven and a half years, which is obviously way better than 19 years to life. But she's still in prison, right? Meanwhile, her kids are seven and nine and have had to grow up without either of their parents. It's a lot. You know, she should have never gone to prison at all.

Over half a million people have signed a petition for her release. And there's a big effort right now to push Governor Kathy Hochul to grant her clemency and let her out of prison so that she can finally mother her children and try to recover from what she suffered. So now, is there a reason that the fight for her release is happening right now? Yeah. Well, we often see clemency grants at like the end of the year. That's especially true when the people with clemency power are nearing the end of their term. And so both of those kind of apply right now in New York, right? Governor Hochul is ending her first term since becoming governor. Now would be kind of a natural time for her to pardon Nikki or commute her sentence. Gotcha. So now what about across

the country? How is clemency looking there? Yeah, it really depends on the state. But in general, we don't see the clemency power exercise like it once was, right? It used to be that governors and the president would grant clemency to thousands of people sometimes. Like it was a very used power. But as we've seen mass incarceration increase, we've seen the power of clemency used less and less, which feels like the opposite of what should be happening. In Alabama, for example, in just the past few years, the clemency rate has dropped by 80%. Every so often, you'll see a governor or board of pardons grant like a significant number of people clemency, but it's so much rarer than it once was. And there are a lot of reasons for that. Some states have removed clemency power from the governor. They've made it harder to grant clemency, for example. But the main reason is probably just politics. Public officials are scared of granting clemency because what if they pardon someone who later does something wrong again? Right. They're scared of the political fallout. This is the same old tough on crime kind of politics play that we've seen for 40 years nowcy to anyone in his first year of office. And that obviously has changed, especially given the marijuana pardons we saw earlier this year. So, you know, what does his record look like now?

Yeah, Biden has definitely stepped it up since last year. So as you may remember, as you mentioned, he granted a full and unconditional pardon for everyone with federal convictions for simple marijuana possession, which affected 6,500 people. No one was actually serving time for that offense alone. So it didn't actually get anyone out of prison, right? But it did matter. It's not nothing. He's also commuted 79 other sentences. He's pardoned three people. So this is a big improvement from zero, like can only go up from there. But there is still a lot that this man can do. I mean, there are somewhere between 15 and 20,000 clemency petitions outstanding to President Biden. And it would be really great to see him go even bigger. I mean, he still has two weeks left in the year. But if not this year, there's always next year. Clemency is really one of the greatest powers and kind of most

remarkable powers an executive has. And it would be great to see them using it more. So we will add details about clemency and about the movement around criminalized survivors of intimate partner violence called Survived and Punished in our show notes. Meanwhile, for more on Nikki, there's a great podcast by Justine Vanderloon called Believe Her. I highly recommend checking it out. And we will keep you posted about new pardons from the president. But in the meantime, that is the latest for now. Let's get to some headlines. The Iranian government on Monday executed another prisoner connected to the ongoing protests over the police killing of Masa Amini. Majid Reza Ranavard was accused of fatally stabbing two security officers last month and was publicly hanged for those charges yesterday.

This comes just a few days after the execution of another protester for allegedly assaulting police during the mass protests. As we've mentioned before, activists warn that more jailed protesters could face execution in the future. The Chinese government continues to roll back some of its strict zero COVID policies. Officials yesterday announced the deactivation of a national smartphone app that's been used over the past three years to track people's movements. It used that data to identify whether someone had been in a high risk area for COVID infection. But this and other rollbacks come as China faces a potential surge in COVID cases.

And there's now growing concern that the country's healthcare system could soon be overwhelmed as hospitals around China are reportedly scrambling to get enough ICU beds and equipment. The Department of Energy is expected to announce a major scientific breakthrough today that could revolutionize clean energy. According to multiple reports, researchers at the Lawrence Livermore Lab in California have successfully produced net energy in a nuclear fusion reactor. Full disclosure, I'm not a nuclear physicist, but here's why this is a big deal. Traditional nuclear power comes from a process called fission, which releases energy when atoms are blown apart. Fusion is when atoms are smashed together. That's the same process that happens in the core of the sun. The key difference here is that nuclear

fission produces dangerous radioactive waste. Fusion does not. Scientists around the world have been trying to figure this out since the 1950s because it promises to be one of the most powerful non-polluting sources of renewable energy on the planet. But we are likely many, many, many years away from being able to scale this up to power electric grids, for example. Some experts say that by then, it might be too late anyway

to reverse the effects of climate change. So good news, but we'll see. We will see. And the harmful effects of CrossFit on the brain were put on display once again this weekend, as Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene said she would have, quote, won the January 6th insurrection. Didn't know that it was a battle or a game, but here we are. Here's audio of her comments about the attack on the Capitol,

which she made at a dinner organized by the New York Young Republicans Club on Saturday. And I gotta tell you something, if Steve Bannon and I had organized that, we would have won. Not to mention, it would have been harmed. Yikes. It's such a weird thing to just like throw in there. Right. Green did not clarify what she meant by won or why she thinks unkempt podcaster Steve Bannon would be good at guerrilla warfare. But this is all pretty rich coming from someone who texted former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows on January 6th asking him to calm the riots. A spokesperson for the White House on Monday called Green's remarks a, quote, slap in the face to those who lost their loved ones the day of the violent attack, to which Green responded by saying, quote, the White House needs to learn how sarcasm works.

She might need to learn how sarcasm works. I gotta say, doesn't look good. Taylor Swift has finally been able to shake off a five-year-long copyright lawsuit. Songwriters Sean Hall and Nathan Butler sued Swift back in 2017, alleging that the pop star took lyrics from the group 3LW's 2001 Billboard hit, Play Is Gonna Play, if you don't know it, learn it, and used them in her 2017 song, Shake It Off. Swift sang, because the player's gonna play, play, play, play, play, and the hater's gonna hate, hate hate hate meanwhile 3lw's lyrics are play as they're gonna play and haters they're gonna hate following me okay i went all these years without ever once saying that taylor swift lyric what a day has ended by streak so definitely similar sentiments here play as playing haters hating but as a judge astutely pointed out in

2018 while dismissing the case, quote, the concept of actors acting in accordance with their essential nature is not at all creative. It is banal. Folks, judges gonna judge. Still, the case was revived in 2019 and was set to go to trial next month until Swift,

Butler, and Hall agreed to a surprise settlement yesterday with terms that have not yet been disclosed. We are all just praying that Taylor Swift made it through this without having to sell her private jet. I'm just hopeful that the wonderful ladies of 3LW got some coins out of this because they deserve, okay? Justice for 3LW. For all of us that were on Napster in 2001, this is big news. Napster? I was a LimeWire girl. LimeWire, yeah, I was too.

BearShare for anyone out there? No, I never even knew about BearShare. Listen, us talking about our illicit practices downloading music on a podcast, love that for us. Yeah. You know, I'm pretty sure the statute of limitations is over,

but if it's not, I never said this. And those are the headlines. We will be back after some ads to discuss the rocky stand-up comedy debut of Elon Musk. It's Tuesday, WOD Squad, and today we're doing a segment called Bad Sound. Take a listen to today's clip. Dave, what should I say? Don't say nothing. Okay. today's clip. Let's see which story you decimate next, motherfucker. You shut the fuck up with your moves. There's something better that you can do.

Who would have thought the best thing you can do? Ugh. They're annoying. Both of them. They're both unbearable. That was, of course, a cutting-edge live performance from Twitter owner Elon Musk and comedian Dave Chappelle. Chappelle inexplicably brought Musk on stage this past Sunday for a show at San Francisco's Chase Center

following a weekend in which Musk ranted online about people's preferred pronouns, Dr. Anthony Fauci, and the, quote, woke mind virus. Clearly, the San Francisco crowd was not picking up what Musk was putting down, and as you heard, Chappelle got mad at the crowd for not being nicer to his billionaire guest. Later, after one Twitter user described the scene as a, quote, crowd full of

boos, Musk argued that it was actually, quote, 90% cheers and 10% boos. So Josie, what are your thoughts on this clip? I want to start with the fact that Musk also claimed that a fight broke out right when he got on stage and that's why people were booing. Just great denial. I just love it. He deleted that tweet, by the way. But also, I just don't understand what would possess someone to invite Elon Musk on stage. But I do understand that you would think if you were willing to go see Dave Chappelle live at this point, after everything we know about Dave Chappelle, that maybe you'd be into Elon Musk. Maybe that'd be like your vibe. So it's even wilder to me that it felt like 90 percent booze to me, at least 70 percent.

Well, so that's the interesting part, right? thing that we have dealt with with that gentleman um over the last year in particular i can see dave chappelle thinking that his fans would be super into seeing elon musk on stage i can't too but i'm like what are you gonna do just bring up a rich guy like he's not funny like it's so weird to just bring up a rich guy on stage it doesn't make any sense he could have like waved from the audience like why is he up here why is he up here he obviously didn't know what to do dave what It's so weird to just bring up a rich guy on stage. It doesn't make any sense. He could have like waved from the audience. Like, why is he up here? Why is he up here? He obviously didn't know what to do.

Dave, what should I say? Well, I don't know. You could stop wreaking havoc in people's lives. I don't know. I found it just the weirdest judgment from top to bottom. But I do love hearing Elon Musk booed. I love it. Absolutely.

Okay. I feel like it took 10 years off my life. And I'm not going to make any accusations, but I do want to say that clip kept suspiciously disappearing from Twitter yesterday. Just wouldn't load sometimes. And so. I wonder why. I wonder why. However, if there was a clip of me getting booed and I owned social media platform, I too would probably delete that clip. So I guess that's one thing I do understand. That was bad sound.

One more thing before we go. Crooked and Duolingo, one of the world's most popular language learning apps, have teamed up to bring you Radiolingo, a brand new limited series podcast. It investigates all the ways that language shapes our world, from swearing to subtitles and everything in between. You can hear the first four episodes of Radio Lingo right now. Check it out and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes drop every Tuesday. That is all for today. If you like the show, make sure you subscribe, leave a review, fuse some atoms, and tell your friends to listen. And if you're into reading and not just taylor swift lyrics through a legal lens like me what today is also a nightly newsletter check it out and subscribe at cricket.com slash subscribe

i'm treyville anderson i'm josie duffy rice and get your reps in elon musk maybe he will have a better career as a comedian than a tech giant person. Yeah. And then people can just pay $8 to go see him do his comedy. And then we can just stop the rest of it. Absolutely. I'm down with that plan. What a Day is a production of Crooked Media. It's recorded and mixed by Bill Lance. Jazzy Marine and Raven Yamamoto are our associate producers.

Our head writer is John Milstein, and our executive producer is Lita Martinez. Our theme music is by Colin Gilliard and Kachaka. Thank you.