TASK DEFINITION: Given a document, find the main entity about whom the author is writing. Write the full name if mentioned in the text. Note that URLs in the text have been replaced with [Link].
PROBLEM: Back in 2000   Rich Cohen  went on a mission.
The magazine writer  put on the literary map two years earlier with the book "Tough Jews " flew to Chicago to chronicle the legendary losing of  his  favorite baseball team for the esteemed pages of Harper's. It was such an unlikely assignment that the Cubs' hitting coach  Hall of Fame slugger Billy Williams  was convinced there was no such magazine as Harper's;  Cohen  must have made it up to get free tickets.
 Cohen 's observations included Mark Grace's smoking habits (a cigarette at his locker before and after every game)  Joe Girardi's naked body ("old-fashioned  a body from the Great Depression: thick torso and heavy arms  social realism  a WPA poster")  and Sammy Sosa's daily boombox battles with his teammates. They liked loud Pearl Jam. He liked even louder salsa music.  Cohen  wrote: "Today  and each day  it ended with the Pearl Jam turned down and turned off. It was not hard to tell how Sosa's teammates felt about this."
The Cubs lost seven straight games while  Cohen  was on their trail  reinforcing everything  he  was there to see: misery  piled up for generations. The piece is essential reading for any Cubs fan  precisely because  Cohen  is one of us  trying to make sense of it all: "For every Cub fan  there is a season  an inning  an at bat  when all hope is lost  when  at long last  he becomes disillusioned and realizes with dread certainty that no matter how good its prospects the team will never win."
Now  at last   Cohen  gets to update the story.
But how did we get here? Why did such futility endure? What scars were wrought across generations of the fan base? These are the questions  Cohen  takes up  and  he  hints at  his  own scars as early as the dedication. It is to  his  four sons  who "will grow up with the nonsensical idea that the Chicago Cubs are a great baseball team."
To those of us who suffered long enough —  Cohen   me  probably you (any White Sox fan stumbling onto this presumably bailed paragraphs ago) — it still sometimes doesn't quite seem possible. That shared sentiment is part of the book's power.  Cohen  tells a story that is all of ours: "When I was 13  I began going to Cubs games on my own. This was my first taste of adulthood. I've associated Wrigley Field with freedom ever since."
Jessica Medoff / Farrar  Straus and Giroux Magazine writer Rich Cohen chronicles the Cubs’ journey to a World Series championship in “The Chicago Cubs: Story of a Curse.” Magazine writer Rich Cohen chronicles the Cubs’ journey to a World Series championship in “The Chicago Cubs: Story of a Curse.” (Jessica Medoff / Farrar  Straus and Giroux) (Jessica Medoff / Farrar  Straus and Giroux)
Weaving between history lesson  memoir and fairly faithful sports reporting  "The Chicago Cubs: Story of a Curse" is a brisk and engaging read. It's hard to say much new or novel about the Cubs — probably no team has had more words spent in a bid to understand it — but  Cohen  does  his  best and employs an advantage even beyond  his  skilled storytelling:  He  has lived a life of good fortune.
Not only has  he  been on the front lines for Harper's  Sports Illustrated  Vanity Fair  Rolling Stone and The New Yorker  but also we learn that  Cohen 's father  legendary negotiation expert Herb Cohen  was friendly with former Dodgers manager Tommy Lasorda (we get an amusing personal anecdote from it) and Ernie Banks (an even better personal anecdote).
Along the way   Cohen  grapples with the hiccups — '84  '89  '03  '07 and '08 — along with the question of why the Cubs could never pull it out. The answer  of course  is not a literal curse. There may be no single answer  but  Cohen  sifts through a handful of compelling options. The "schizo" ballpark  which offered no true home field advantage. Bad ownership (meaning  in part  the Tribune Company — sorry everyone!). Bad organizational culture. It's not a new insight  but it's a fascinating one: In Chapter 11  current Cubs owner Tom Ricketts says winning the World Series is a fluke. Once you're in the playoffs  he says  any team can win it: "The fact is  when you go back and look  you'll see there's little correlation between how many games you win during a season and how far you go in the postseason. Almost zero." Simply  all the Cubs needed to do all these years was build a core of talent to consistently reach the playoffs. Then a World Series would inevitably have happened. Instead  the franchise was doomed by a lack of vision.

SOLUTION: Rich Cohen

PROBLEM: Goldsmith Akis Goumas  is currently attempting to replicate the stone in hard wax or burnt clay to understand the movements  shape and size of the handheld tools used.
In tracing the tool marks on the sealstone   Goumas  speculates that the craftsman may have used a rotating wooden lathe with a sharp edge to engrave the stone.
 He  thinks one artisan did the basic  three-dimensional engraving while another completed the secondary work.
"It isn't one craftsman's work because we can see different qualities of dexterity in the synthesis "  he  told CNN over email.
While  Goumas  may soon have answers as to how  it  was fashioned 3 500 years ago  Stocker says we will probably never know how  it  came into the Griffin Warrior's possession.

SOLUTION: Goldsmith Akis Goumas

PROBLEM: WASHINGTON (AP)  â Donald Trump Jr.  refused to tell lawmakers about conversations  he  had with  his  father regarding a 2016 Trump Tower meeting with a Russian lawyer after emails detailing the meeting had become public  according to the top Democrat on the House intelligence committee.
Speaking to the committee behind closed doors on Wednesday as part of its investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election   Trump Jr.  said  he  didn't tell the president about the meeting between Trump campaign officials and Russians when it happened and  he  declined to elaborate on what  he  ultimately told  him  after the meeting became public.
California Rep. Adam Schiff said that  Trump Jr.  said he couldn't speak about the conversations with his father this summer because of attorney-client privilege  telling the committee a lawyer was present when he spoke to his father about the June 2016 meeting and the emails that led up to it.
The Trump Tower meeting is a matter of keen interest to special counsel Robert Mueller  who is also investigating the meddling and whether there was any obstruction of justice.  Trump Jr.  and Jared Kushner  Trump's son-in-law  attended the meeting with several Russian operatives under the impression that they might receive damaging information about the Democratic presidential candidate  Hillary Clinton.
Mueller is also interested in the White House response to the meeting once it became public. The White House has said the president was involved in drafting an early statement saying the meeting primarily concerned a Russian adoption program  but emails later released by  Trump Jr.  showed  he  enthusiastically agreed to the sit-down with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya and others after  he  was promised dirt on  his  father's rival.  Trump Jr.  later said the promised material never materialized.
 Trump Jr.  said during Wednesday's eight-hour interview that  he  spoke with President Donald Trump's communications aide Hope Hicks as early reports of the meeting emerged  according to one person familiar with the interview. The New York Times was first to report the existence of the meeting last July  and  Trump Jr.  released the emails detailing the planning for it several days later.
Rep. Adam Schiff  D-Calif.  ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee  speaks to media after a House Intelligence Committee meeting where President Donald Trump's oldest son  Donald Trump Jr.  was interviewed behind closed doors on Capitol Hill in Washington  Wednesday  Dec. 6  2017. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
 Trump Jr.  also told the intelligence panel that  he  didn't tell  his  father about the 2016 meeting at the time that it happened  according to the person familiar with  his  interview. The person was not authorized to speak about the testimony and asked not to be identified.
Both the House and the Senate intelligence committees have been interested in the Trump Tower meeting and have interviewed several participants. The Senate Judiciary Committee is also investigating the meeting  and interviewed  Trump Jr.  behind closed doors in September.
In that interview   Trump Jr.  cast the 2016 meeting as simply an opportunity to learn about Clinton's "fitness  character or qualifications " insisting to investigators that  he  did not collude with Russia to hurt Clinton's campaign.
The Senate intelligence committee also hopes to interview  Trump Jr.  before the end of the year.
Kushner has spoken to both intelligence committees. The panels have also interviewed Ike Kaveladze  who was at the meeting as a representative of a Russian developer who once partnered with  Trump  to bring the Miss Universe pageant to Moscow  and Rinat Akhmetshin  a Russian-American lobbyist. A translator who was in attendance has also spoken to congressional investigators.
Rep. Trey Gowdy  R-S.C.  a member of the House Intelligence Committee  heads to a closed-door session with the president's oldest son  Donald Trump Jr.  on Capitol Hill in Washington  Wednesday  Dec. 6  2017. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
Lawmakers were also expected to ask  Trump Jr.  about  his  communications with WikiLeaks during and after the campaign.  Trump Jr.  released messages last month that showed  him  responding to the WikiLeaks' Twitter account three times  at one point agreeing to "ask around" about a political action committee WikiLeaks had mentioned.  He  also asked the site about a rumor about an upcoming leak  and tweeted a link that the account sent  him .
Also Wednesday  the House intelligence panel released a transcript of an interview last week with Erik Prince  the founder of the security firm Blackwater and a prominent  Trump  supporter.
According to the transcript  which was partially redacted   Prince  told the panel  he  met a Russian with ties to President Vladimir Putin in the Seychelles islands earlier this year  but  he  denies  he  was representing  Trump  in the exchange.

SOLUTION:
Donald Trump Jr.