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General Daily Insight for July 22, 2024

All the world’s a stage! The confident Sun shimmies into its home sign, Leo, at 3:44 am EDT, fueling passions, boosting charisma, and encouraging us to put our best foot forward as we showcase what we can do. The intuitive Moon then empathizes with abundant Jupiter, giving us an eye for idealism and an extra dose of positivity. When the Moon faces off with perfectionist Venus later, our emotions could be hidden to keep up appearances. Be open, even if life isn’t picture perfect.

Aries

March 21 – April 19

You might just have the talent you need today. Regardless of your typical level of access to this wealth of mental resources, you’re more likely to be mentally sharp during these transits. This moment is practically made for you to let your voice, your writing, your willingness to travel, or your talent for technology propel you forward. As long as you use your charisma and creativity to the best of your abilities, you can let the rest of the chips fall where they may!

Taurus

April 20 – May 20

Past traditions genuinely have current value for your life. Your knowledge of a long-followed pattern would be an amazing way to pass on knowledge to someone younger or less experienced than you. This way, you can all breathe new life into old stories. This energy could also highlight your ability to make others feel at home when they’re with you. Being open to what comes your way today, even if it’s something or someone you’d usually avoid, can let you embody tradition without feeling stagnant.

Gemini

May 21 – June 20

Your wit can take you far! As you stay on your toes and exercise your sharp mind, the more that you will be able to notice and open doors to your future. They could involve scholarly or professional pursuits that you’ve always wanted to explore. Don’t forget to remain humble, of course — being too cocky could bother people who’d otherwise support your desire to learn new things or your dream to travel places outside of your local community. Exercise your mind with kindness.

Cancer

June 21 – July 22

Others may see you as a loyal, dependable person, and that can come in handy at this specific time. You might find that someone who’s been paying attention to how you’ve conducted yourself lately is providing you with a way to show that you are the trustworthy person you’ve shown yourself to be in the past. This is not a good time to let your guard slip or to start gossiping! Make a point of acting as a fortress for any secrets you hear.

Leo

July 23 – August 22

You’re being yourself, and that’s really all you can be. You might have a difficult introduction to a group of people, where several people are excited to get to know you, while others are apprehensive about welcoming someone new into the fold. Alternatively, you could encounter avenues to work with people who can further your journey toward the dreams you want to manifest for yourself. Either way, you’ll need to take your goals seriously enough to show up as your best self.

Virgo

August 23 – September 22

You might be letting mysteriousness work for you. You may not be the easiest person to understand, as you might be consistently evolving in a way that’s difficult for others to keep up with. However, your passion will allow you to still be magnetic to others without needing to clamor for their attention or offer immediate explanations. Putting yourself out there can be intimidating, but whether you’re telling jokes in front of a few acquaintances or performing on a stage, you can achieve success.

Libra

September 23 – October 22

You’re letting your friendships speak for themselves. It could be that you’ve recently become aware of how many lives you’ve impacted throughout the course of your history and how you’ve affected all of them. Sometimes this can be an emotional experience. You may want to seize the moment and spend it celebrating with the people you care about, but be wary of exceeding your budget. It’s not about how much money you’re spending on people, it’s about the quality time you spend with them.

Scorpio

October 23 – November 21

You might impress an authority figure without even meaning to. Maybe you’re performing a task or an action that you weren’t expecting to astound anyone or even be seen at all, but a mentor or a boss saw you doing this and thought it was outstanding. This is something that you can and should use to your advantage! Take this chance to grow closer and gain mutual respect. It may even turn into a reason to move up in your career.

Sagittarius

November 22 – December 21

Making a wholehearted effort to improve your outlook on life is vital. The world may seem chock-full of bad news, or your personal life could be stacked with stressors — either way, it would be easy to feel caged by negativity. Thankfully, you can avoid falling into that trap. Look for moments of time you can spend with people that you love, whether you’re all dancing out your feelings or watching a funny movie that lifts your spirits. Don’t let the blues keep you down.

Capricorn

December 22 – January 19

Connecting with others is a great foundation for consistent growth. Contemplate any friends you’ve made recently. The closer that you grow with someone specific, the more you may realize that you like yourself better when you’re around them. This person might be a friend, a personal trainer, a teacher, or merely an acquaintance that you’ve really been clicking with lately. Even if insecurity creeps in and threatens to make things awkward, just stay true to yourself and trust that you’re enough.

Aquarius

January 20 – February 18

Being there for someone else can, in turn, bring the support that you need. Someone may reach out to you for help, and you might promise to be there for them before you even think about it. This can be surprising if you weren’t that close, but your willingness to help them should go a long way. Of course, don’t do it just because you want a reward. Still, there is a good chance that this person will repay your kindness in the future.

Pisces

February 19 – March 20

You’re putting your efforts into making things better in your material and spiritual life. It’s not enough to make progress in the outer world — you must do inner work as well. Check in with yourself regularly to see what’s going on with your soul. You can be as organized and as on top of your game as you want in the material world, but if a tornado is wreaking havoc in your inner life, you won’t feel any better. Find equilibrium, inside and out.

First the perspective: The Miami Heat’s semifinal game in the Las Vegas NBA Summer League on Sunday was bumped from ESPN to ESPN2 by . . . flag football, with the Heat replacing cornhole on the ESPN2 schedule.

Then the reality: There was a game to win and now a chance for a trophy to secure, so the Heat played for keeps, their 102-99 victory on the UNLV campus over the summer roster of the Golden State Warriors putting them into Monday’s championship game against the Memphis Grizzlies (8 p.m. Eastern, ESPN).

“I think the most important thing to think about for these guys is they want it bad,” said Heat assistant Dan Bisaccio, who is guiding the team’s summer roster. “We want to win a championship.”

In improving to 5-0 in Las Vegas, the Heat got balanced contributions across the board, including 23 points and the go-ahead three-point play with 40 seconds left by free-agent guard Josh Christopher.

Two weeks ago, in the first game in the first of their two summer leagues, the Heat fell 105-66 to the Golden State on the Warriors’ home court in San Francisco at the California Classic.

Since then, the Heat now have strung together seven consecutive victories with a roster built around 2024 draft picks Kel’el Ware and Pelle Larsson.

“When we got together, back in San Francisco, and we met as a group that first night,” Bisaccio said, “we talked about being here on Monday and being here to win this championship.”

Larsson, the second-round pick out of Arizona, closed with 19 points, six assists and four rebounds, with Ware, the first-round pick out of Indiana, finishing with 18 points and five rebounds.

“This game means a lot for us,” Larsson said. “We’ve been fighting for a long time.”

This time, the Heat found a determined opponent in Kevin Knox II, the No. 9 pick in the 2018 draft by the New York Knicks, who since has also played for the Atlanta Hawks, Detroit Pistons and Portland Trail Blazers. Knox, the guard out of Kentucky, closed with 31 points and 11 rebounds Sunday.

Beyond the contributions of Larsson and Ware, the Heat also got 15 points and seven assists from guard Isaiah Stevens and14 points from guard Alondes Williams. That helped compensate for an off afternoon for Heat 3-point specialist Cole Swider, who closed 0 for 5 from the field.

With undrafted Keshad Johnson, the Arizona forward who has been signed to a two-way contract, not available, the Heat again opened with a lineup of Ware, Larsson, Swider, Christopher and Stevens.

Johnson remained sidelined with the ankle sprain sustained in Wednesday’s victory over the Dallas Mavericks.

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It was the third consecutive game that Stevens started ahead of Zyon Pullin. Stevens, the undrafted guard out of Colorado State, holds only an Exhibit 10 camp tryout contract. Pullin, the undrafted guard out of Florida, holds one of the Heat’s three two-way contracts. Two-way contracts can be subbed out at any time.

Pullin, who played four scoreless minutes, was part of the Heat’s second wave of substitutions, along with Caleb Daniels, after Williams previously entered.

Swider and Williams, who finished last season on Heat two-way contracts, are without contract offers for the Heat for next season, continuing as unrestricted free agents.

While listed on the Warriors’ summer roster, among those who did not play Sunday for Golden State were 2023 draft picks Brandin Podziemski and Trayce Jackson-Davis. Similarly, Heat 2023 first-round pick Jaime Jaquez Jr. was listed on Sunday’s Heat roster but left the team last week after his two scheduled appearances.

The Heat led 22-19 at the end of the opening period, but then trailed 47-45 at halftime. The game got testy at that point, with Christopher charged with a technical foul after the intermission buzzer. The Warriors then took a 70-65 lead into the fourth quarter.

The Heat went up 88-82 with 4:56 to play on a Christopher 3-pointer, before a Knox layup put the Warriors up 89-88 with 2:46 remaining. The teams then traded baskets before a Stevens layup put the Heat up 92-91, with a Larsson 3-pointer then putting the Heat up 95-91.

Still, the Heat eventually found themselves down 96-95, before Christopher converted a 10-foot jumper, was fouled, and completed the three-point play for a 98-96 Heat lead with 40 seconds to play.

“For Josh, he has nothing to lose,” Bisaccio said of Christopher being in Las Vegas without a contract. “Sometimes when you have nothing to lose, you can play free out there. And that’s something that he’s really done a great job of.”

But Christopher said he also has something to gain.

“The goal hasn’t changed,” he said. “Even from our first game, when we got destroyed, our goals still stayed the same — championship. Here we are.

“Winning is fun and playing together is fun. So hopefully we can do it one more time.”

MIAMI (AP) — Jazz Chisholm Jr. hit a three-run homer, Jake Burger also went deep and the Miami Marlins beat the New York Mets 4-2 on Sunday.

Vidal Bruján had his second career three-hit game for the National League-worst Marlins, who are 5-4 against the NL East rival Mets this season.

“My motivation to get through these 60-plus games is to let people know this is not a cakewalk to come in here,” Chisholm said. “Miami is not going to be a vacation spot.”

Declan Cronin (2-2) threw 1 1/3 innings of scoreless relief against his hometown team. A.J. Puk and Calvin Faucher blanked the Mets for an inning apiece before Tanner Scott closed with a perfect ninth for his 16th save.

Marlins relievers have not allowed a run against the Mets over the last 10 1/3 innings of the series.

“Our bullpen’s great,” Scott said. “Everyone down there, we’re like our own family I guess you could say. Everyone gets along and everyone has great stuff.”

Miami’s Nick Fortes committed three throwing errors, a first by a catcher in club history.

“It was one of those days,” Marlins manager Skip Schumaker said. “Everyone is going to have those.”

The Mets struck out 14 times and went 1 for 8 with runners in scoring position.

“(Saturday) I thought we had some really good at-bats. We hit some balls hard but didn’t find holes,” manager Carlos Mendoza said. “Today we had a hard time putting something together. But overall the at-bats are there. We have good hitters.”

Chisholm’s three-run drive in the fourth inning gave Miami a 3-1 lead. He sent a slider from rookie starter Christian Scott (0-3) into the Mets’ bullpen in right field for his 13th homer.

“That’s the moment I want to be the best,” Chisholm said. “You have the mindset to be the best player every day and those are the moments you have to step up in. Those are my favorite moments.”

New York narrowed the gap on J.D. Martinez’s run-scoring single in the fifth before Burger connected for a 412-foot solo shot off Adrian Houser in the seventh.

Marlins starter Trevor Rogers was lifted after 4 2/3 innings. The left-hander gave up two runs (one earned) and five hits. He walked two and struck out five.

Luis Torrens’ sacrifice fly in the fourth put the Mets ahead 1-0 after Pete Alonso and Mark Vientos hit one-out singles. Fortes tried to pick off Vientos at first base, but the throw struck Vientos on the helmet, allowing Alonso to advance to third.

Vientos stayed on the ground briefly and was tended to by a Mets athletic trainer but remained in the game.

“He’s fine. Scary (moment), but he’s fine,” Mendoza said.

Scott allowed three runs and seven hits over four innings. The right-hander walked two and struck out four. He is winless in nine major league starts.

TRAINER’S ROOM

Mets: RHP Kodai Senga (shoulder) threw 79 pitches over three innings Saturday for Triple-A Syracuse in his fourth minor league rehab outing. He allowed five runs and eight hits. If all goes well over the next few days, Senga is expected to make his season debut for the Mets on Friday at home against Atlanta. … LHP Jose Quintana was back with the club after spending the previous two days at the team hotel in Miami because of a fever.

UP NEXT

Mets LHP David Peterson (4-0, 3.09 ERA) starts the finale of the four-game series Monday against RHP Yonny Chirinos (0-1, 5.76).

___

AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/mlb

Singer and rapper Sean Kingston and his mother have been indicted in Florida on federal charges related to a scheme in which they committed more than $1 million worth of fraud, prosecutors said.

Kingston, 34, whose real name is Kisean Anderson, and his mother, Janice Turner, 61, both of Southwest Ranches, appeared in federal court Friday after a grand jury in Miami charged each with one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and five counts of wire fraud, prosecutors said.

The charges were based on their involvement in a scheme to defraud sellers of high-end vehicles, jewelry and other goods purchased through the use of fraudulent documents, according to the U.S. attorney’s office for the Southern District of Florida.

If convicted, each faces a maximum of 20 years in prison on each count, prosecutors said.

A lawyer for Kingston and Turner did not immediately respond to a request for comment Sunday.

As a teenager, Kingston became known for his debut single, “Beautiful Girls,” which used a sample from Ben E. King’s “Stand By Me.” It spent four weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in 2007.

Since then, Kingston has worked with Justin Bieber, Nicki Minaj and Wyclef Jean, but in recent years he has maintained a lower profile.

According to prosecutors, Kingston and Turner “unjustly enriched themselves” by falsely claiming that they had executed bank wire or other monetary transfers as payment for vehicles, jewelry and other high-end items when no such transfers had taken place.

“Through the execution of this scheme, the defendants obtained in excess of $1 million in property,” prosecutors said.

Kingston and Turner were accused of an “organized scheme to defraud” establishments, including a car dealership and a jeweler, of more than $50,000, according to arrest warrants for them. Kingston and Turner were also accused of stealing a Cadillac Escalade from the dealership and $480,000 in jewelry from an individual, according to the warrants.

Kingston is also accused of violating the terms of a two-year probation sentence on felony charges of trafficking stolen property. The probation term is set to expire Oct. 1, 2025.

Turner pleaded guilty in 2006 to charges of bank fraud and filing fraudulent loan applications and was sentenced to 16 months in prison, according to court records. She was released in March 2007.

In May, Kingston was arrested in Fort Irwin, California, and his mother was arrested on the same day after police raided a home listed as Kingston’s residence in Southwest Ranches, Florida, which is west of Fort Lauderdale.

“People love negative energy!” Kingston wrote on Instagram before the arrest. “I am good and so is my mother!..my lawyers are handling everything as we speak.”

On social media after being arrested and posting bail, he thanked his family, friends, legal team and fans for their support.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

By JOSH BOAK, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — Sitting in the Oval Office behind the iconic Resolute desk in 2022, an animated President Joe Biden described the challenge of leading a psychologically traumatized nation.

The United States had endured a life-altering pandemic. There was a jarring burst of inflation and now global conflict with Russia invading Ukraine, as well as the persistent threat to democracy he felt Donald Trump posed.

How could Biden possibly heal that collective trauma?

“Be confident,” he said emphatically in an interview with The Associated Press. “Be confident. Because I am confident.”

But in the ensuing two years, the confidence Biden hoped to instill steadily waned. When the 81-year-old Democratic president showed his age in a disastrous debate against Trump in June, he lost the benefit of the doubt and on Sunday withdrew as his party’s nominee.

In the aftermath of the debate, Democrats who had been united in their resolve to prevent another Trump term suddenly fractured, and Republicans, beset by chaos in Congress and the former president’s criminal conviction, improbably coalesced in defiant unity.

Biden never figured out how to inspire the world’s most powerful country to believe in itself, let alone in him.

He lost the confidence of supporters in the 90-minute debate with Trump, even if pride initially prompted him to override the fears of lawmakers, party elders and donors who were nudging him to drop out. Then Trump survived an assassination attempt in Pennsylvania, and, as if on cue, pumped his fist in strength. Biden, while campaigning in Las Vegas, tested positive for the coronavirus on Wednesday and retreated to his Delaware beach house to recover.

The events of the last three weeks led to an exit Biden never wanted, but Democrats felt it was essential to maximize their chance of winning in November.

Biden seems to have badly misread the breadth of his support. While many Democrats had deep admiration for the president personally, they did not have the same affection for him politically.

Douglas Brinkley, a historian at Rice University, said Biden arrived as a reprieve for a nation exhausted by Trump and the pandemic.

“He was a perfect person for that moment,” said Brinkley, noting that Biden proved in era of polarization that bipartisan lawmaking was still possible. Yet voters viewed him as a placeholder, and he could never transcend the text of his speeches to visually “embody the spirit of the nation with a sense of verve, energy and optimism.”

As his reelection campaign entered its final days, Biden was still trying to prove himself and rally voters around fears that Trump would doom American democracy.

There was never a “Joe Biden Democrat” like there was a “Reagan Republican.” He did not have adoring, movement-style followers, as did Barack Obama or John F. Kennedy. He was not a generational candidate like Bill Clinton. The only barrier-breaking dimension to his election was the fact that he was the oldest person ever elected president.

While he contemplated being in the Oval Office repeatedly from his perch as a senator from Delaware, voters rejected him again and again.

His first run for the White House, in the 1988 cycle, ended with self-inflicted wounds stemming from plagiarism, and he didn’t make it to the first nominating contest. When he ran in 2008, he dropped out after the Iowa caucuses, where he won less than 1% of the vote. In 2016, Obama counseled him not to run, even though he was Obama’s vice president. A Biden victory in 2020 seemed implausible when he finished fourth in Iowa and fifth in New Hampshire before a dramatic rebound in South Carolina.

He won the nomination and then did something rare in American politics: He defeated an incumbent president, Trump, who had been a catalyst for a seething sense of polarization. He then had to withstand the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol by Trump supporters who falsely claimed that the 2020 election had been stolen.

David Axelrod, a former senior adviser to Obama, said history would treat Biden kinder than voters had, not just because of his legislative achievements but because he defeated Trump.

“His legacy is significant beyond all his many accomplishments,” Axelrod said. “He will always be the man who stepped up and defeated a president who placed himself above our democracy.

“That, alone, is an historic accomplishment.”

But Biden could not overcome his age. And when he showed frailty in his steps and his speech, there was no foundation of supporters that could stand by him. It was a humbling end to a half-century career in politics, yet hardly reflective of the full legacy of his time in the White House.

His record includes legislation that will rebuild the country in ways that will likely be seen over the next dozen years, even if voters did not immediately appreciate it.

“It takes time for it to happen,” Biden told BET News on Tuesday. But in that same interview, he also demonstrated why the calls for him to step aside had grown so much louder: He was unable to recall the name of his defense secretary, Lloyd Austin, referring to him as the “Black man.”

Those recent episodes stand in stark contrast to a list of accomplishments most presidents would envy and use as a sturdy foundation for reelection. The optimism about the country’s future that Biden says drove him might materialize following his departure from the national stage.

Harvard University economist Jason Furman, a top aide during the Obama administration, said Biden “came into office when the economy was in the throes of COVID and helped to oversee the transition out of it to an economy that is now growing faster than any of its peer economies, with less inflation than they have.”

Furman noted that Biden increased spending to make longer-term investments in the economy while keeping Jerome Powell as the Federal Reserve chairman, giving the Fed cover to hike rates and bring down inflation without disrupting the labor market.

In March 2021, Biden launched $1.9 trillion in pandemic aid, creating a series of new programs that temporarily halved child poverty, halted evictions and contributed to the addition of 15.7 million jobs. But inflation began to rise shortly thereafter. Biden’s approval rating as measured by the AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research fell from 61% to 39% as of June.

He followed up with a series of executive actions to unsnarl global supply chains and a $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure package that not only replaced aging infrastructure but improved internet access and prepared communities to withstand climate change.

But the infrastructure bill also revealed the challenge Biden faced in getting the public to recognize his achievement because many of the projects will take decades to complete.

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In 2022, Biden and his fellow Democrats followed up with two measures that reinvigorated the future of U.S. manufacturing.

The CHIPS and Science Act provided $52 billion to build factories and create institutions to make computer chips domestically, ensuring that the U.S. would have access to the most advanced semiconductors needed to power economic growth and maintain national security. There was also the Inflation Reduction Act, which provided incentives to shift away from fossil fuels and enabled Medicare to negotiate drug prices.

Biden also sought to compete more aggressively with China and rebuild alliances such as NATO. He completed the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan that resulted in the death of 13 U.S. service members, an effort that was widely criticized.

He also found himself embroiled in a series of global conflicts that exposed further domestic divisions.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in early 2022 worsened inflation as Trump and other Republicans questioned the value of military aid to the Ukrainians. Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack in Israel sparked a war that showed divisions within the Democratic party over whether the United States should continue to support Israel as tens of thousands of Palestinians died in months of counterattacks.

Biden privately lectured aides to focus not on differences when listening to the public but to search for agreement. He hewed to the ideal of bipartisanship even when Democrats broke with the GOP.

And yet, just days before he dropped out of the race, Biden felt that his work was not done and his legacy incomplete.

“I’ve got to finish this job,” he told reporters after a NATO summit.

But the size of the stakes and the fear of a Biden loss resulted in a bet by Democrats that the tasks he began could best be completed by a younger generation.

“History will be kinder to him that voters were at the end,” Axelrod said.

By CHRIS MEGERIAN, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — She’s already broken barriers, and now Kamala Harris could shatter several more after President Joe Biden abruptly ended his reelection bid and endorsed her.

Biden announced Sunday that he was stepping aside after a disastrous debate performance catalyzed fears that the 81-year-old was too frail for a second term.

Harris is the first woman, Black person or person of South Asian descent to serve as vice president. If she becomes the Democratic nominee and defeats Republican candidate Donald Trump in November, she would be the first woman to serve as president.

Biden said Sunday that choosing Harris as his running mate was “the best decision I’ve made” and endorsed her as his successor.

“Democrats — it’s time to come together and beat Trump,” he wrote on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter. “Let’s do this.”

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Harris described Biden’s decision to step aside as a “selfless and patriotic act,” saying he was “putting the American people and our country above everything else.”

“I am honored to have the President’s endorsement and my intention is to earn and win this nomination,” Harris said. “Over the past year, I have traveled across the country, talking with Americans about the clear choice in this momentous election.”

Democratic leaders followed Biden’s lead by swiftly coalescing around Harris on Sunday. However, her nomination is not a foregone conclusion, and there have been suggestions that the party should hold a lightning-fast “mini primary” to consider other candidates before its convention in Chicago next month.

A recent poll from the AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that about 6 in 10 Democrats believe Harris would do a good job in the top slot. About 2 in 10 Democrats don’t believe she would, and another 2 in 10 say they don’t know enough to say.

The poll showed that about 4 in 10 U.S. adults have a favorable opinion of Harris, whose name is pronounced “COMM-a-la,” while about half have an unfavorable opinion.

A former prosecutor and U.S. senator from California, Harris’ own bid for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination imploded before a single primary vote was cast. She later became Biden’s running mate, but she struggled to find her footing after taking office as vice president. Assigned to work on issues involving migration from Central America, she was repeatedly blamed by Republicans for problems with illegal border crossings.

However, Harris found more prominence as the White House’s most outspoken advocate for abortion rights after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022. She has also played a key role in reaching out to young people and voters of color.

In addition, Harris’ steady performance after Biden’s debate debacle solidified her standing among Democrats in recent weeks.

Even before Biden’s endorsement, Harris was widely viewed as the favorite to replace him on the ticket. With her foreign policy experience and national name recognition, she has a head start over potential challengers, including California Gov. Gavin Newsom, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro.

Harris will seek to avoid the fate of Hubert Humphrey, who as vice president won the Democratic nomination in 1968 after President Lyndon Johnson declined to run for reelection amid national dissatisfaction over the Vietnam War. Humphrey lost that year to Republican Richard Nixon.

Nixon resigned in 1974 during the Watergate scandal and was replaced by Vice President Gerald Ford. Ford never won a term of his own.

Vice presidents are always in line to step into the top job if the president dies or is incapacitated. However, Harris has faced an unusual level of scrutiny because of Biden’s age. He was the oldest president in history, taking office at 78 and announcing his reelection bid at 80. Harris is 59.

She addressed the question of succession in an interview with The Associated Press during a trip to Jakarta in September 2023.

“Joe Biden is going to be fine, so that is not going to come to fruition,” she stated. “But let us also understand that every vice president — every vice president — understands that when they take the oath they must be very clear about the responsibility they may have to take over the job of being president.”

“I’m no different.”

Harris was born Oct. 20, 1964, in Oakland, California, to parents who met as civil rights activists. Her hometown and nearby Berkeley were at the heart of the racial and social justice movements of the time, and Harris was both a product and a beneficiary.

She spoke often about attending demonstrations in a stroller and growing up around adults “who spent full time marching and shouting about this thing called justice.” In first grade, she was bused to school as part of the second class to integrate Berkeley public education.

Harris’ parents divorced when she was young, and she was raised by her mother alongside her younger sister, Maya. She attended Howard University, a historically Black school in Washington, and joined the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority, which became a source of sisterhood and political support over the years.

After graduating, Harris returned to the San Francisco Bay Area for law school and chose a career as a prosecutor, a move that surprised her activist family.

She said she believed that working for change inside the system was just as important as agitating from outside. By 2003, she was running for her first political office, taking on the longtime San Francisco district attorney.

Few city residents knew her name, and Harris set up an ironing board as a table outside grocery stores to meet people. She won and quickly showed a willingness to chart her own path. Months into her tenure, Harris declined to seek the death penalty for the killer of a young police officer slain in the line of duty, fraying her relationship with city cops.

The episode did not stop her political ascent. In late 2007, while still serving as district attorney, she was knocking on doors in Iowa for then-candidate Barack Obama. After he became president, Obama endorsed her in her 2010 race for California attorney general.

Once elected to statewide office, she pledged to uphold the death penalty despite her moral opposition to it. She refused to defend Proposition 8, a voter-backed initiative banning same-sex marriage. Harris also played a key role in a $25 billion settlement with the nation’s mortgage lenders following the foreclosure crisis.

As killings of young Black men by police received more attention, Harris implemented some changes, including tracking racial data in police stops, but didn’t pursue more aggressive measures such as requiring independent prosecutors to investigate police shootings.

Harris’ record as a prosecutor would eventually dog her when she launched a presidential bid in 2019, as some progressives and younger voters demanded swifter change. But during her time on the job, she also forged a fortuitous relationship with Beau Biden, Joe Biden’s son who was then Delaware’s attorney general. Beau Biden died of brain cancer in 2015, and his friendship with Harris figured heavily years later as his father chose Harris to be his running mate.

Harris married entertainment lawyer Douglas Emhoff in 2014, and she became stepmother to Emhoff’s two children, Ella and Cole, who referred to her as “Momala.”

Harris had a rare opportunity to advance politically when Sen. Barbara Boxer, who had served more than two decades, announced she would not run again in 2016.

In office, Harris quickly became part of the Democratic resistance to Trump and gained recognition for her pointed questioning of his nominees. In one memorable moment, she pressed now-Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh on whether he knew any laws that gave government the power to regulate a man’s body. He did not, and the line of questioning galvanized women and abortion rights activists.

A little more than two years after becoming a senator, Harris announced her campaign for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination. But her campaign was marred by infighting and she failed to gain traction, ultimately dropping out before the Iowa caucuses.

Eight months later, Biden selected Harris as his running mate. As he introduced her to the nation, Biden reflected on what her nomination meant for “little Black and brown girls who so often feel overlooked and undervalued in their communities.”

“Today, just maybe, they’re seeing themselves for the first time in a new way, as the stuff of presidents and vice presidents,” he said.

South Florida Democrats reacted with praise for President Joe Biden as he announced Sunday he was ending his presidential campaign.

“His presidency really is a master class in character and courage,” said U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Weston. “There’s just never going to be another leader like Joe Biden in my lifetime.”

The view from the region’s Republicans was far different. Within minutes of Biden’s announcement, Republicans said his decision to stand down as a candidate shows he isn’t fit to remain as president and should resign immediately.

Wasserman Schultz — the senior Democrat in the Florida congressional delegation, a former chair of the Democratic National Committee, and decades-long believer in Biden — was emotional during a telephone interview Sunday shortly after Biden announced his decision not to run for reelection.

“I have a mix of sadness and pride in Joe Biden’s patriotism and valor and selflessness. He’s proven time and time again that he is the best that the United States of America has to offer,” she said. “He’s earned and deserves my support and the support of the American people.”

The development hit hard, Wasserman Schultz said, because “Joe Biden was easily one of the most accomplished presidents of our lifetime. He came from a working-class background, and was counted out and rose like a Phoenix time and time again. He earned the presidency through hard work and perseverance, and Joe Biden is pure goodness. I feel like I got kicked in the gut right now.”

Her support for Biden goes back to his first presidential campaign, in 1988, when she was a student at the University of Florida. She endorsed his 2020 presidential candidacy when many doubted he’d win the party’s nomination.

Republican demands

U.S. Rep. Brian Mast, a Republican who represents northern Palm Beach, Martin and St. Lucie counties, and U.S. Rep. Carlos Gimenez, a Miami-Dade County Republican, demanded that Biden immediately resign the presidency.

“If Joe Biden isn’t capable enough to seek re-election, he’s not capable enough to remain serving as our President,” Gimenez wrote on social media. “For the good of the country, @JoeBiden should step down and resign.”

Mast wrote that Biden is “Unfit to stand trial. Unfit to run. Unfit to be president for 1 more second.”

The trial comment is a reference to the report from a special counsel investigating classified documents that if charges were pressed a jury might see Biden as a “sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.”

Mast and Gimenez are both strong supporters of former President Donald Trump.

Wasserman Schultz said people wouldn’t put any credence in their statements. Their demand that Biden immediately resign was “spoken by two people who support the convicted felon and adjudicated rapist to replace him for president. I certainly don’t think the American people will think much of their opinion.”

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U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz, the Panhandle Republican, trolled the Democrats on social media by reposting a statement the party issued on the night of the night of the June 27 debate declaring Biden was “the winner of tonight’s debate.”

“Why did the winner just drop out?” Gaetz asked Sunday.

Democratic praise

Democrats were effusive in their praise.

State Sen. Shevrin Jones, chair of the Miami-Dade Democratic Party, said in a statement that Biden “is the greatest president of our lifetime. The nation is forever indebted and grateful for his years of service.” Jones is also a member of the Democratic National Committee and Biden campaign surrogate for 2024.

Florida Democratic Party Chair Nikki Fried said Biden has “been one of the greatest presidents in American history.”

U.S. Rep. Jared Moskowitz, a Broward-Palm Beach county Democrat, said, ““He is a patriot! And one of the most successful public servants in American History. His record of service may never be seen again,” Moskowitz wrote in a social media post. He added that Biden “will be remembered as a selfless guardian of democracy.”

U.S. Rep. Lois Frankel, a Democrat whose Palm Beach County district includes Trump’s home at his Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, said in a statement that she was “tremendously thankful for all President Biden has done and continues to do so for our country and the world. His decency and patriotism have been a mark of his extraordinary service.”

State. Rep. Christine Hunschofsky, who represents northwest Broward, said on social media that Biden “has been an exceptional President who never forgot where he came from and always put the American people first in all of his decisions. He has been one of the most compassionate and effective presidents in our history.”

Hunschofsky was elected by her colleagues to become Democratic leader of the Florida House of Representatives after the 2026 elections.

Going forward

The Democrats have been in turmoil since Biden’s disastrous performance at a late-June debate with Trump, with a growing list of elected officials, donors and political pundits calling on Biden to bow out of the race.

U.S. Rep. Frederica Wilson, a South Broward/Miami-Dade County Democrat, said she supports Vice President Kamala Harris, endorsed by Biden to take his place, becoming the Democratic presidential nominee.

Harris has been “an extraordinary vice president,” Wilson said in a social media post.

“She is tested, ready and I’m proud to stand with our next President of the United States,” Wilson wrote. She endorsed Harris for the 2020 presidential nomination; after Harris withdrew, Wilson endorsed Biden.

Moskowitz and Wasserman Schultz said they, too, were endorsing Harris. So did Florida Senate Democratic Leader Lauren Book, of Broward. Hunschofsky said she would be “working hard” to elect Harris as president and Jones said Harris has his “full support.”

U.S. Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick, a Broward-Palm Beach county Democrat praised Biden’s patriotism, record “and incredible contribution to our nation over the last 50 years of service.”

Unlike their three South Florida Democratic congressional colleagues, Frankel and Cherfilus-McCormick did not immediately endorse Harris. “The time to discuss process and what’s next, will come,” Cherfilus-McCormick wrote.

Jayden D’Onofrio, chair of Florida Future Leaders, a group that formed this year to register and mobilize younger voters said in a statement that “youth voters will turnout en masse for Kamala Harris to be our first woman president.”

Wasserman Schultz said the Democrats, led by Harris, could recover and win in November.

“We need to coalesce quickly around Vice President Harris as our party’s nominee. This should be a smooth transition because she’s obviously already part of the ticket. We have an opportunity to come together around her to continue leading and moving forward and advancing the president’s legacy, an incredible record,” and, she said, ensure Trump doesn’t again become president.

State Sen. Tina Polsky, a Broward-Palm Beach county Democrat, posted that her phone has been “blowing up with volunteer requests, donation notifications and enthusiasm for our future” led by Harris.

Gimenez expressed skepticism about Harris in another social media post. “Kamala Harris’ approval rating is 38%. Let that sink in,” he wrote.

Gov. Ron DeSantis, who unsuccessfully sought the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, was critical of Harris in a social media post.

“Kamala Harris was complicit in a massive coverup to hide and deny the fact that Joe Biden was not capable of discharging the duties of the office. She also was the the border czar during the worst border crisis in American history,” DeSantis said. “Democrats are just rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.”

Senate candidates

Gimenez and Mast were soon joined by U.S. Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla..

“Let me be clear, if Joe Biden can’t run for re-election, he is not capable of serving as president for the next six months and needs to resign today,” Scott said in a statement.

Scott, who has supported Trump since his 2016 campaign for president asserted that Harris and others have known since Biden took office that “he was not fit to be president and lied to the American people in an effort to hold onto their power…. Over those four years, we have seen immense damage done to our country.”

Scott said the “Democrats’ hypocrisy knows no bounds. The same people who spent years saying President Trump and Republicans are a threat to democracy, just pushed out the sitting president from running for re-election because they don’t think he can win.”

Former U.S. Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, a Democrat seeking her party’s nomination to challenge Scott in November, said in a statement that because of Biden’s and Harris’s leadership “America has never been stronger.”

“President Biden has defined what it means to be a patriot and dedicated public servant,” Mucarsel-Powell said, adding that he is “putting the good of the American people and our democracy first.”

Mucarsel-Powell said Democrats “must follow his example and stand united behind” Harris.

Scott responded said Mucarsel-Powell’s endorsement shows she is “fighting to bring California socialism to Florida.” Mucarsel-Powell responded by declaring that Scott “is a fraud who lies any chance he gets.”

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

Anthony Man can be reached at aman@sunsentinel.com and can be found @browardpolitics on Bluesky, Threads, Facebook and Mastodon.

With President Biden throwing his support to Vice President Kamala Harris to take over his campaign for the presidency, all eyes are on the Oakland, California, native who worked her way through California politics to become next in line for the nation’s top job.

Unless Democrats instead call for weighing other candidates at the Democratic National Convention next month — a possibility former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi floated earlier this week — Harris, 59, would be the heir apparent.

To her close friends and supporters who walked precincts in San Francisco when she was running for district attorney, raised money to help get her elected to state attorney general and the U.S. Senate, and knocked on doors in swing states to help the Biden-Harris ticket win in 2020, Harris is ready to lead the country.

“There’s no one more seasoned. There’s no one tougher,” said Lateefah Simon, a superdelegate to the Chicago Democratic National Convention who is running for Congress to fill Rep. Barbara Lee’s seat in Oakland. She considers herself Harris’s mentee since her early San Francisco days in the District Attorney’s office. “Everyone who has worked with her, from the young 20-year-olds to the very seasoned politicians, will tell you that she runs a tight ship and really, only the strong survive at that level.”

 

She withstood Trump’s attacks during the 2020 election when he called her “nasty” and “a monster” and put off Mike Pence during the vice presidential debate with the withering line “I’m speaking” — a comment that turned into a t-shirt slogan. She became the first woman and first woman of color to hold the vice presidency.

But Harris’s tepid polling numbers, sometimes lackluster speeches, and delayed ability to distinguish her role as vice president have some Democrats worried she can beat Trump and the growing MAGA movement. Her own primary campaign for president in 2020 was disorganized and short-lived.

“I hear very few people arguing that Harris shouldn’t be the nominee,” said political analyst Dan Schnur. “The much more frequent argument is that she should be one of several candidates to compete for the nomination rather than having it simply given to her.”

In announcing he was ending his campaign, Biden praised Harris, calling his decision to choose her as his 2020 running mate “the best decision I’ve made.”

“Today I want to offer my full support and endorsement for Kamala to be the nominee of our party this year. Democrats — it’s time to come together and beat Trump.”

Trump in his first post on his Truth social media platform about Biden ending his campaign didn’t mention Harris, saying only that “Crooked Joe Biden was not fit to run for President, and is certainly not fit to serve — And never was!”

Harris, whose parents met during protest rallies in Berkeley, California, was raised in an upstairs Berkeley apartment, where neighbor Regina Shelton with posters of Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglas on the wall often babysat Harris and her sister. Harris was sworn in as vice president on Shelton’s family bible.

She’s distinguished herself as a fighter on the abortion issue and an advocate for Biden’s policies for the war in Gaza, campaigning for Biden across the country in recent months. Since Biden’s disastrous June debate performance, she had refused to indulge in speculation she might take his place on the November ballot.

That didn’t stop the speculation.

In a hypothetical national matchup, a CNN poll conducted in early July before the assassination attempt on Trump, still showed Harris trailing Trump, 45% for Harris to 47% for Trump, but by such a small margin that Harris could be within striking distance. She also received stronger support from women and independents than Biden, the poll showed.

But is there anyone with a better chance than Harris to beat Trump, especially with only four months left before the November general election?

Surveys ranking other Democrats whose names have been floated as possible Biden replacements show them all trailing slightly farther behind Trump than Harris, with California Gov. Gavin Newsom at 43% to Trump’s 47% and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer at 42% to Trump’s 48%.

Although Newsom has appeared to posture for the presidency over the past year, debating Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, sitting for a no-holds-barred interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity and calling for a constitutional amendment to enshrine gun safety laws, he has said he would not challenge Harris. They are longtime friends and political allies, and they have often been seen together through the years rubbing elbows at political events and surveying the aftermath of California wildfires.

Newsom, in a Sunday social media post on X, said Biden “will go down in history as one of the most impactful and selfless presidents.”

Any effort to push Newsom to the top of the ticket — or anyone else — could throw the party into disarray, pundits say.

An open or brokered convention would be disastrous, said Sonoma State political science professor David McCuan. But he wouldn’t put it beyond the Democratic Party.

“At a convention, you often display the fissures or fractures within the party,” he said. “Republicans don’t worry about those fractures until after they win. They’re all about winning. Democrats like to go through the process of group therapy in front of the television cameras that display all of their fractures, and that family looks pretty dysfunctional.”

As he puts it, “they’re more worried about grieving their weaknesses in front of the cameras than they are about winning.”

A competitive convention would be “absolute chaos,” said Schnur, a former GOP strategist. “The question is, would the chaos irreparably fracture the party or energize it?”

Each scenario comes with numerous risks.

“Black female voters have been the most loyal Democratic constituency for many, many years,” Schnur said. “There’s an open question as to whether many of those voters would stay home if they felt that Harris had been unfairly passed over.”

At the same time, “if you believe that this election is going to be decided by a small number of working class, blue-collar voters in three Rust Belt states, there are a lot of Democrats who worry that the former district attorney of San Francisco might not be the best candidate to reach those voters.”

Amelia Ashley-Ward, publisher of San Francisco’s oldest black newspaper, the Sun-Reporter, downplayed critics who say Harris can’t beat Trump.

“I don’t know why they keep saying she can’t win because she’s demonstrated time and time before that she can,” Ashley-Ward said.

She remembers chartering a cable car during Harris’s 2003 District Attorney campaign when she beat a two-term incumbent.

“We rolled for four hours across the city while she would jump on and off and introduce herself to people. We had bullhorns. It was magnetic,” Ashley-Ward said. “They went crazy over her.”

What exactly happens at the August convention remains to be seen. But Simon, the super delegate, said she’d be ready to support her party. And if Harris is the nominee,  “I will be with the biggest Kamala Harris sign in the crowd.”

By BILL BARROW, Associated Press

ATLANTA (AP) — With President Joe Biden ending his reelection bid and endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris, Democrats now must navigate a shift that is unprecedented this late in an election year.

Democrats are set to hold their convention in Chicago on Aug. 19-22. What was supposed to be a coronation for Biden now becomes an open contest in which nearly 4,700 delegates will be responsible for picking a new standard-bearer to challenge Republican Donald Trump in the fall.

The path ahead is neither easy nor obvious, even with Biden endorsing Harris. There are unanswered questions about logistics, money and political fallout.

Can Biden redirect his delegates?

Biden won every state primary and caucus earlier this year and only lost the territory of American Samoa. At least 3,896 delegates had been pledged to support him.

Current party rules do not permit Biden to pass them to another candidate. Politically, though, his endorsement is likely to be influential.

What could happen at the convention?

With Biden stepping aside, Democrats technically start with an open convention. But realistically, his endorsement pushes Democrats into murky territory.

The immediate burden is on Harris to solidify support across almost 4,000 delegates from the states, territories and District of Columbia, plus more than 700 so-called superdelegates that include party leaders, certain elected officials and former presidents and vice presidents.

Will anyone challenge Harris?

Even before Biden announced his decision, Democrats floated California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer as potential contenders in addition to Harris. Yet some Democrats argued publicly, and many privately, that it would be a no-brainer to elevate the first woman, first Black woman and first person of south Asian descent to hold national office.

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Given how important Black voters -– and Black women especially -– were to Biden’s nomination and his choice of Harris as running mate, it would be risky, to say the least, for Democrats to pass her over for a white nominee. Democrats already faced historical headwinds before Biden’s withdrawal. Newsom and Whitmer, both of whom are white, and any other Democrat would also have to weigh the short-term and long-term benefits of challenging Harris now versus preserving goodwill for a future presidential primary.

Yet, fair or not, Harris also has not been viewed as an especially beloved or empowered vice president. The best scenario for her and Democrats is to quickly shore up support and project a united front. Democrats could even go forward with their plans for an early virtual vote – a move they’d planned to make sure Biden was selected ahead of Ohio’s general election ballot deadline.

What happens to Biden’s campaign money?

Biden’s campaign recently reported $91 million cash on hand. Allied Democratic campaign committees brought the total at his disposal to more than $240 million. Campaign finance experts agree generally that Harris could control all those funds since the campaign was set up in her name as well as Biden’s. If Democrats do nominate someone other than Harris, party accounts could still benefit the nominee, but the Biden-Harris account would have more restrictions. For example, legal experts say it could become an independent expenditure political action committee but not simply transfer its balance to a different nominee.

How will a vice presidential nomination work?

The vice presidential nomination is always a separate convention vote. In routine years, the convention ratifies the choice of the nominee. If Harris closes ranks quickly, she could name her choice and have the delegates ratify it. In an extended fight, though, the vice presidency could become part of horse-trading — again, a return to conventions of an earlier era.

Can Republicans keep Harris off state ballots?

Any curveball during a U.S. presidential campaign is certain to produce a flurry of state and federal lawsuits in this hyper-partisan era, and some conservatives have threatened just that.

State laws, though, typically do not prescribe how parties choose their nominees for president. And some GOP figures – Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine and Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey – have worked already this year to ensure their party did not deny Democrats’ routine ballot access.

By Pat Graham, AP Sports Writer

From Simone Biles to Sha’Carri Richardson and Diana Taurasi to Katie Ledecky, Team USA will provide some of the biggest star power at the 2024 Olympic Games.

And it will be the women leading the way as the U.S. looks to top the overall medal table for the eighth consecutive Summer Games.

FILE – Sha’Carri Richardson, of the United States, celebrates after winning the gold medal in the final of the Women’s 100-meters during the World Athletics Championships in Budapest, Hungary, Aug. 21, 2023. (AP Photo/Petr David Josek, File)

The nearly 600 athletes going to the Paris Olympics include more than 250 returning Olympians and 122 Olympic medalists. Golfers Xander Schauffele and Nelly Korda, along with surfer Carissa Moore, are among the numerous Olympians set to defend their titles in France.

It’s a loaded U.S. roster where the women outnumber the men 314 to 278 — at last count — and ages range from 16 to 59. The most decorated member of Team USA in Paris will be Ledecky, who’s trying to add to her collection of 10 medals (seven golds).

Comebacks and redemption

Biles is back in action after pulling out of multiple gymnastics finals in Tokyo to protect her mental health and safety. There’s Richardson making her Olympic debut after a much-debated absence three years ago because of a positive marijuana test.

The 27-year-old Biles leads a U.S. women’s gymnastics team filled with familiar faces and looking for redemption in Paris. The team settled for silver three years ago behind the Russian athletes competing as the Russian Olympic Committee.

Simone Biles celebrates as she is announced as a member of the Olympic Team on Day Four of the 2024 U.S. Olympic Team Gymnastics Trials at Target Center on June 30, 2024 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. (Photo by Elsa/Getty Images)

Richardson has become a media sensation for her speed, charisma and perseverance. The 100-meter world champion earned a spot for Tokyo in 2021 but was banned following her positive test for marijuana. It sparked an intense debate about whether she was being unfairly singled out for taking a substance that doesn’t improve performance.

The 24-year-old Richardson, who graces the cover of Vogue magazine, said she was “overwhelmed with the emotions of just joy” after making the team.

Star power on the court

On the court, hoops royalty LeBron James and Taurasi lead their teams. And it’s no surprise that the men’s and women’s basketball squads brimming with talent are heavy favorites to bring home the gold.

United States forward LeBron James watches play from the bench during the second half of an exhibition basketball game against Canada, Wednesday, July 10, 2024, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/Steve Marcus)

James, Joel Embiid, Kevin Durant and Steph Curry join forces to lead a U.S. contingent going for a fifth straight Olympic title. A’ja Wilson, Brittney Griner and Taurasi headline a women’s squad that has won seven consecutive Olympic gold medals. Taurasi has been a part of five of them.

FILE – Kevin Durant poses for a photo with his gold medal during the medal ceremony for basketball game at the 2020 Summer Olympics, Aug. 7, 2021, in Tokyo, Japan. (AP Photo/Eric Gay, File) Who else is on the Team USA roster?

Decorated swimmers Ledecky and Caeleb Dressel are on deck to shine again in the pool, and majors winners and world No. 1 golfers Scottie Scheffler and Korda take to the links.

FILE – Katie Ledecky swims during a Women’s 800 freestyle preliminary heat, June 21, 2024, at the US Swimming Olympic Trials in Indianapolis. (AP Photo/Michael Conroy, File)

“We’re telling these stories — we’re laughing, we’re crying, we’re cheering them on,” said Lyndsay Signor, senior vice president of consumer engagement at NBC Sports. “So that really warrants both the combination of the athletes themselves and the celebrities we’ve partnered with.”

NBC has been airing promotional Olympic material around the clock. There’s Biles being interviewed by singer SZA. Other athletes featured in spots include Richardson, sprinter Noah Lyles, 400-meter hurdles world-record holder Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone, Ledecky and reigning Olympic all-around gymnastics winner Suni Lee.

The U.S. women’s soccer team, led by new coach Emma Hayes, chases after its first Olympic gold since 2012 and Victor Montalvo — “B-Boy Victor” — will be a contender when breaking makes its Olympic debut in Paris. Coco Gauff is among the favorites to bring home a medal on the clay courts at Roland Garros, the site of the French Open.

Medal forecast

That abundance of star power is why Nielsen’s Gracenote forecasts the U.S. hauling in 123 medals. That’s ahead of China (87), Britain (62) and France (56). This could be the eighth straight Summer Games where the Americans have topped the medal table.

“If American athletes win, that drives ratings and endorsements, and makes it attractive for American corporations to invest in the Olympic movement,” said Dr. Yoav Dubinsky, an instructor of sports business from the Lundquist College of Business at the University of Oregon. “All part of the story of American lifestyle. Their successes, and at times failures or adversities, contribute to Brand America.”

Olympic entertainers

NBC brought in Academy Award-winning director Steven Spielberg to narrate a short film titled, “Land of Stories,” where the Olympics set a scene to tell tales.

Even more stars will participate in the network’s coverage as celebrities Snoop Dogg, Kelly Clarkson, Peyton Manning, Colin Jost, Leslie Jones and Jimmy Fallon make appearances.

Play entertainer, Snoop Dogg gets a pole vault lesson during the U.S. Track and Field Olympic Team Trials Sunday, June 23, 2024, in Eugene, Ore. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)

Snoop already is trotting out his tracksuits to get in some work. The 52-year-old hip-hop star ran a 200-meter race against Ato Boldon and Wallace Spearmon at the Olympic track trials in Eugene, Oregon, last month.

His time was 34.44 seconds. Usain Bolt’s world record of 19.19 remains safe.

“(Snoop) has really brought a perspective that’s not only fun and interesting,” Signor said, “it’s lovable as well.”

By Graham Dunbar, AP Sports Writer

GENEVA (AP) — The founder of the modern Olympics and former IOC president, Pierre de Coubertin, once said women competing in the Games would be “impractical, uninteresting, unaesthetic and improper.”

Over a century later, the 2024 Paris Olympic Games are targeting gender parity in the same city where women made their Olympic debut in 1900.

The IOC set a goal of a 50-50 split among the more than 11,000 men and women, including backups, registered to compete from July 26 to Aug. 11. However, the latest numbers from the IOC suggest organizers might fall just short of that target.

Slightly more medal events for men than women

There is still a slight edge toward men among the 329 medal events at the Paris Olympics. The IOC has said there are 157 men’s events, 152 women’s events and 20 mixed-gender events.

Of the 32 sports, 28 are “ fully gender equal,” the IOC said, including the new event of breaking to music. Rhythmic gymnastics is still for women only but men are allowed to compete in artistic swimming.

FILE – Faith Kipyegon, of Kenya leads 1500m Women Final, during the Kenya track and field Paris 2024 Olympics trials, at the Nyayo National Stadium Nairobi, Kenya Saturday, June 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Brian Inganga)

Mixed-gender team events were strongly pushed. In Tokyo three years ago, vivid images were created by debuts for 4×400 meters mixed relay on the track and 4×100 mixed medley relay in swimming.

“There is nothing more equal than a male and female competing as one team on the same field of play towards the same sports performance,” the IOC’s sports director, Kit McConnell, has said.

How many athletes entered to compete in Paris?

One week before the opening ceremony, the official IOC database for the Paris Olympics showed 11,215 athletes, including backups, registered to compete: 5,712 in men’s events and 5,503 in women’s events or a 51-49% split.

In track and field, which has qualifying standards the athletes much reach, there were 50 more registered for the men’s events than women’s: 1,091-1,041. In swimming, the difference was 464-393.

In soccer, with 16 teams in the men’s tournament and just 12 in the women’s, the athlete tally was 351-264. The wrestling entry has 193 men and 96 women, with a men-only category in Greco-Roman.

In equestrian, where men and women compete in the same events, entries were 154-96.

No men were registered in artistic swimming or rhythmic gymnastics, which have a total of 200 women. There’s no men’s category in rhythmic gymnastics.

Which teams have more athletes in women’s events?

As the biggest team at the Paris Olympics, the United States has the most competitors in women’s events with 338, or 53% of its 638-strong delegation, according to the IOC’s games database this week.

The 38 fewer men is partly because the U.S. qualified a squad of 19 in women’s field hockey but didn’t qualify in the men’s competition, and registered nine women in artistic swimming.

France, with invitations to compete in every team event, had 293 female athletes registered. Australia had 276, China 259 and Germany 239.

FILE – The Olympic rings are mounted on the Eiffel Tower Friday, June 7, 2024 in Paris. (AP Photo//Thomas Padilla, File)

Other teams, albeit with many fewer athletes, have more women on their squads.

Guam, a U.S. island territory east of the Philippines, led the way with 87.5% women — seven in its team of eight athletes, according to the IOC database. Guam’s seven women are in six different sports. Nicaragua is set to arrive with 86% women — six of its seven athletes — and Sierra Leone with 80%.

Kosovo’s strength in women’s judo — four of its total team of nine athletes — lifts its percentage of women to 77%. North Korea, Laos and Vietnam each has 75% female athletes on their teams.

Which teams have the fewest women?

Six of the 205 official Olympic teams had no elite-level female athlete registered to compete: Belize, Guinea-Bissau, Iraq, Liechtenstein, Nauru and Somalia.

Qatar, which wants to host the 2036 Olympics, has just one woman in its 14-athlete team or 7%. Half the Qatari team represents men’s track and field, including the defending champion in high jump Mutaz Essa Barshim.

Mali and South Sudan are at 7%. Mali will send 22 male soccer players and South Sudan 12 athletes in men’s basketball.

El Salvador has one woman among eight athletes (12.5%).

Two nonbinary athletes competing

The registered entries to women’s events in Paris include two athletes who identify as nonbinary and transgender.

Nikki Hiltz won the 1,500 meters event at the U.S. track and field trials last month and will make their Olympic debut at Stade de France.

Nikki Hiltz wins the women’s 1500-meter final during the U.S. Track and Field Olympic Team Trials, Sunday, June 30, 2024, in Eugene, Ore. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)

Quinn won Olympic gold with the Canadian soccer team in Tokyo three years ago and returns to help defend the title.

When did women first compete in Olympics?

Paris hosted the first female athletes at the 1900 Olympics — in the second modern Games — with 22 of the 997 athletes in competition, or 2.2% of the total. The modern Olympics began in 1896 in Athens.

Women competed in tennis and golf, plus team events of sailing, croquet and equestrian in Paris.

Charlotte Cooper of Britain was the first female individual gold medalist in tennis singles.

Gender parity over the decades

Just 4.4% of the athletes were women when Paris again hosted the Olympics exactly 100 years ago. In 1924, the “Chariots of Fire” Olympics, there were 135 women competing among 3,089 athletes, according to the IOC’s research.

The number rose to 9.5% at the 1932 Los Angeles Olympics, dropped to 8.4% in Berlin four years later, and got back to 9.5% when the Summer Games were held in London in 1948.

The Olympic rings are seen on the Eiffel Tower, Sunday, July 14, 2024, in Paris. (AP Photo/Aurelien Morissard)

The rise included a bump to 20.7% female athletes in Montreal in 1976 and got close to 23% when the Games returned to Los Angeles in 1984. That’s when rhythmic gymnastics and artistic swimming, then called synchronized, made their debuts.

The IOC put pressure on Olympic teams that traditionally sent only men to complete. Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Brunei included women for the first time at the 2012 London Olympics. That’s where 44.2% of the athletes competed in women’s events at the Olympics. The number rose to 45% in Rio 2016 and reached 48% at the Tokyo Games, where teams were encouraged to select a man and a woman to be flag-bearers at the opening ceremony.

How did we get here?

The IOC formally committed to “foster gender quality” as part of a package of wide-ranging reforms pushed in December 2014 by the recently-elected president Thomas Bach.

The IOC’s sports department worked with the sports’ governing bodies to remove some men’s medal events and add more for women. The federations have since achieved more equity on the field of play for female athletes than for women in their own offices.

A 2020 review of the 31 sports governing bodies at the Tokyo Olympics found only one achieved 40% women on its board and 18 had female representation of 25% or less.

By GREG BEACHAM, AP Sports Writer

Boxing is already on the Olympic ropes after an epic fight between its banished governing body and the IOC. Although the sport has been a staple of Olympic programs for over a century, it could be dropped before the Los Angeles Games if big changes in governance don’t happen in the next year.

The fights are still on in Paris this month, but this Olympic tournament will look like nothing fans have seen in decades — for better in some ways, and probably for worse in others.

Twelve years after women’s boxing made its Olympic debut with just 36 fighters in three weight classes in London, the sport likely has achieved gender parity, reaching the overall Olympic movement’s goal. Give or take a few last-minute additions or dropouts, half of the 248 boxers in Paris will be women fighting in six weight classes.

FILE – Turkey’s Buse Naz Cakiroglu, right, exchanges punches with Bulgaria’s Stoyka Zhelyazkova Krasteva during their women’s flyweight 51-kg boxing gold medal match at the 2020 Summer Olympics, Saturday, Aug. 7, 2021, in Tokyo, Japan. A sport that has been a staple of Olympic programs for over a century, boxing could be dropped before the Los Angeles Games if big changes in governance don’t happen in the next year or two. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II, File)

But this milestone was reached by sharply cutting the number of male boxers in an overall field that will be the smallest for Olympic boxing since 1956. While there will be 23 more women fighting in Paris than in Tokyo three years ago, there will also be a whopping 63 fewer men, and they’re fighting in only seven weight classes — the fewest since 1908.

In fact, Paris will have dozens fewer boxers than in every other Games in the 21st century. The 248 fighters in Paris are a shadow of the Olympic-record 432 who participated in Seoul in 1988, and it’s even down sharply from the 289 boxers who participated in Tokyo.

USA Boxing head coach Billy Walsh has been an ardent proponent of the women’s sport ever since he coached Katie Taylor of his native Ireland to a gold medal in London, and he says the addition of three women’s weight classes in Paris is “fantastic.”

FILE – USA Boxing head coach Billy Walsh takes part in drills during a media day for the team in a gym located in a converted Macy’s Department store Monday, June 7, 2021, in Colorado Springs, Colo. Walsh has been an ardent supporter of the women’s sport ever since he coached Katie Taylor of his native Ireland to a gold medal in the Olympic debut of women’s boxing in London, and he says the addition of three women’s weight classes in Paris is “fantastic.” (AP Photo/David Zalubowski, File)

Walsh still recognizes the drawbacks to the sport’s growth when it comes up against the IOC’s typically firm cap on total Olympic participants. It’s rare to add more athletes to a traditional Olympic sport, particularly while the IOC is adding trendy new sports to each Games.

“It is sad in a sense for the men,” said Walsh, who competed for Ireland in the Seoul Olympics in 1988. “Because when I boxed, they had 12 (men’s) weight divisions. They went down to 10, and then down to eight, and now we’re down to seven.”

In Rio de Janeiro eight years ago, 250 men had the career-defining honor of being Olympic boxers. That number has been halved just eight years later, with 124 men competing at three fewer weights than in Rio.

Men’s boxing in Paris will have its fewest weight classes since 1908 in London, where the second boxing tournament in the modern Olympics was contested at just five weights. Three years earlier in Tokyo, men’s boxing already dropped to eight weight classes for the first time since 1948.

That means there is no longer an Olympic weight class between 71 kilograms (156 pounds) and 80 kilograms (176 pounds). Professional middleweights fight at 160 pounds, and super middleweights weigh in at 168 pounds, but any fighter who couldn’t go down or up to the Olympic limits was out of luck.

FILE – Arlen Lopez, of Cuba, right, reacts after defeating Great Britain’s Benjamin Whittaker in the light heavy weight 75-81kg finals boxing match at the 2020 Summer Olympics, Wednesday, Aug. 4, 2021, in Tokyo, Japan. A sport that has been a staple of Olympic programs for over a century, boxing could be dropped before the Los Angeles Games if big changes in governance don’t happen in the next year or two. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II, File)

That’s a concern to Walsh and many others around the sport. The elimination of weight classes encourages fighters to stretch the limits of their bodies to see if they can fit into a less-than-ideal weight class for qualification — and that can lead to mismatches up and down the scales.

“When we’ve narrowed down the numbers, it’s also put a big gap in the weight divisions,” Walsh said. “There’s so much gap now. There’s a reason why there are (weight classes). It’s because of the power of the punch. These guys are hurting you. There’s damage you can do. If some guy is barely making the welterweight division, he’s got 10 kilos he has to put on, and the other guy is coming down from four or five kilos above that, it’s a lot of power in the punch. It’s a combat sport, and people do get hurt, do get injured. I worry about that.”

Fewer overall fighters means smaller teams for many nations — and fewer chances to win gold, even for the traditional powers of the sport.

The U.S., which has won the most total medals and gold medals in Olympic history, qualified eight fighters for Paris under a challenging new qualification system administered by the IOC task force overseeing the tournament. The American team will have fewer fighters than Australia — which had an extraordinarily easy path to Paris under the new system — Brazil, Ireland or modern amateur boxing powers Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan.

Cuba, which ranks right behind the U.S. in Olympic achievements, improbably will have only five fighters in Paris after two men failed to clinch a spot during the final qualifying tournament. Cuba also has no women on its team for the fourth straight Olympics, even though the nation belatedly lifted its internal ban on the women’s sport in late 2022.

Yet the small Cuban delegation includes two-time gold medalists Arlen López and Julio César La Cruz. They’ll both try to join Hungary’s László Papp and fellow Cubans Teofilo Stevenson and Félix Savón as the only three-time Olympic boxing champions.

The smaller field will lead to a different kind of competition in Paris: Fewer bouts with higher stakes. That could be exciting, particularly when fresher fighters move into the medal rounds, which will be held at the famed Roland Garros tennis complex.

Many fighters only need to win two bouts to clinch an Olympic medal, including every man fighting at heavyweight and super heavyweight. Both of those divisions have only 16 competitors, and no weight class in Paris has more than 22 fighters.

The tournament won’t even run for the entire Olympiad: For the first time in decades, boxing competition will conclude one day before the closing ceremony.

“It’s going to be different, that’s for sure,” Walsh said. “But it will be exciting.”

By EDDIE PELLS, AP National Writer

There are big races, and then there are the Olympics.

When Sha’Carri Richardson, Noah Lyles and all the other fastest runners and best jumpers and throwers of 2024 line up for the Olympic track and field meet, little of what they’ve done on the road to Paris will mean much. What will matter is how they respond to pressure when the spotlight is on.

Will they end up shining as brightly as a Usain Bolt or Carl Lewis, whose knack for performing when Olympic gold medals were at stake turned them into larger-than-life icons?

Or will they be more like Jamaican sprinter Shericka Jackson and American hurdler Grant Holloway, among the best performers of their generation but still looking to parlay all that talent into a spot at the top of the Olympic podium?

“Right now, I do not hold a gold medal in the Olympics,” said Lyles, who counts the bronze medal he won in the 200 meters at the Tokyo Games among his biggest disappointments. “I have multiple world championships, and national championships, as well. The only one that’s missing from the list is an Olympic gold. And I’m planning on leaving with a lot of those.”

The dramas involving Richardson, Lyles and everyone else will play out in 48 events spread over 10 days, with most of the action taking place at the Stade de France, starting Aug. 2. As an added bonus, there will be a bonus: a first-of-its-kind $50,000 payout to all 48 gold medalists, courtesy of World Athletics, the organization that runs global track.

The near 2,200 athletes competing in the Olympics’ biggest sport are well aware that the money is great, but the gold medal brings an air of immortality that only an Olympic title can.

“The moment only comes once every four years,” Holloway said. “If you’re not training to be an Olympic gold medalist, then what the hell are you doing? That’s my mentality.”

Richardson’s first Olympics

Richardson makes her Olympic debut after her much-discussed absence from the last Olympics due to a positive marijuana test.

Her current form, her status as the reigning world champion, along with the absence of two-time defending champion Elaine Thompson-Herah, all make Richardson the sprinter to beat in the women’s 100. But it won’t be a gimme.

Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce is heading to her fifth (and final) Olympics and has won this race twice. Jackson is a 200 specialist (see below) but also one of the fastest in the world at this distance.

FILE – Noah Lyles celebrates after winning the men’s 100-meter final during the U.S. Track and Field Olympic Team Trials Sunday, June 23, 2024, in Eugene, Ore. When Noah Lyles and all the other fastest runners and best jumpers and throwers of 2024 line up for the Olympic track and field meet, little of what they’ve done on the road to Paris will mean much. What will matter is how they respond to pressure when the spotlight is on.(AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall, File) Lyles tries to win the sprint double

Lyles attributes a lot of his bad finish in 2021 to depression that kept him from focusing . That race is the only 200-meter sprint he’s lost at a major championship.

By the time the 200 final comes around on Aug. 8, the 100 will be in the rearview mirror and we’ll know if Lyles has a chance to complete a sprint double, a la Bolt, and Lewis before him. Lyles is the reigning world champ at 100, but he’s less seasoned at that distance.

Just last month, another Jamaican, Kishane Thompson, ran 9.77 to head into his first Olympics with the world’s best time. Also, Jamaica’s Oblique Seville beat Lyles head-to-head at a meet in Kingston in June. But a tune-up in Kingston and the Olympics in Paris are two different animals.

Distance demons

In Tokyo, Sifan Hassan of the Netherlands pulled off one of the most amazing feat s in Olympic history by winning medals in the 1,500 (bronze), 5,000 (gold) and 10,000 meters (gold).

She’s coming back for more, and has even floated the idea that she might do those three, then add the marathon, which takes place on the last day of the Olympics, to her schedule.

“I will decide a week before,” Hassan said in a recent interview. “Maybe I’m gonna have great training somehow, somewhere.”

As always, Hassan, and her quest for medals, will face a stern challenge Faith Kipyegon of Kenya, who is the reigning world champion at 1,500 and 5,000 meters. Kipyegon broke her own world record at 1,500 in an Olympic tune-up this month, finishing in 3:49.04.

Holloway’s bad race

Holloway is a three-time world champion in the 110 hurdles, and a favorite to win on Aug. 8. He was a favorite three years ago in Tokyo too, but weakened down the stretch, and fell to Hansle Parchment of Jamaica.

Holloway is 9-3 in head-to-head matchups with Parchment, and even 2-1 against him at the Olympics. But the two victories came in preliminary rounds and that loss came with the gold medal on the line.

Jackson’s bad day

Jackson is the only woman other than the late Florence Griffith Joyner to run the 200 meters in 21.48 or faster. So, why hasn’t most of the world heard of her?

At the last Olympics, she put on the brakes too early in her opening heat, finished fourth and never even got to race in the final for the gold. It’s a mistake she called the most devastating of her career, and one that has fueled her run to Paris.

Now, more trouble. She failed to finish a July 9 tune-up race in Hungary, and it was unclear if she is healthy going into the Olympics. If Jackson isn’t in the lineup, American Gabby Thomas, who comes in with this year’s fastest time (21.78) and a bronze medal from Tokyo, would be the clear favorite.

Jumping for Ukraine

Anyone who says sports and politics do not intersect might want to tune in Aug. 4, when Ukrainian high jumper Yaroslava Mahuchikh takes the field.

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Mahuchikh is coming in just a few weeks after breaking a 37-year-old world record in her event, jumping 2.10 meters at an Olympic tune-up in Paris.

World Athletics has not allowed Russians in international meets since the war with Ukraine broke out. It means Maria Lasitskene will not be on hand to defend her Olympic title. Lasitskene also wasn’t present last year when Mahuchikh won the title on an emotional closing day at world championships.

By HOWARD FENDRICH, AP Tennis Writer

PARIS (AP) — All the way back when he first discussed the likelihood that 2024 would be his final season as a professional tennis player, Rafael Nadal made sure to refer to the Paris Olympics as “one of the important competitions I would like to be at.”

If, indeed, this is his last hurrah, and if, indeed, he does make it to the Summer Games a little more than a year after hip surgery — neither of which is an absolute certainty — it would be fitting that the site of the French Open is also the site of this goodbye.

No event, at least in this sport, defines an athlete’s legacy the way the clay-court Grand Slam tournament does for Nadal. And the opposite is true, too, which is why there is a statue of the 38-year-old Spaniard at Roland Garros, the site of a record 14 of his 22 major trophies and where the Olympic tennis matches begin on July 27.

Rafael Nadal skipped Wimbledon before the Olympics

Nadal skipped Wimbledon in order to avoid going from clay to grass and back to clay at the Paris Games, where he has been planning to team in doubles with Carlos Alcaraz, the 21-year-old coming off back-to-back major titles at Roland Garros and the All England Club.

And even though the idea that Nadal could add to his gold medals — in singles at Beijing in 2008, and in doubles with Marc López at Rio de Janeiro in 2016 — seems far-fetched, just the sight of him back in Paris will mean a lot to him and his fans.

“My body has been a jungle for two years. You don’t know what to expect,” said Nadal, who has been able to play only 16 matches since the start of last year, going 8-8, including a first-round loss at the French Open this May. “I wake up one day and I (felt like I had) a snake biting me. Another day, a tiger.”

The Paris Games will mark Andy Murray’s adieu

Another popular, and successful, figure in men’s tennis whose body has let him down lately, Andy Murray of Britain, says this Olympics will mark his adieu.

The 37-year-old Murray, a three-time Slam champion, is the only athlete with two singles golds in the sport — from London in 2012 and Rio four years later. After having hip replacement surgery in 2019, and various other injuries more recently, he withdrew from singles at Wimbledon because he needed a procedure to remove a cyst from his spine last month.

“It’s great that they’ll be at the Olympics one last time. Any chance to see those guys on a court again should be celebrated,” U.S. coach Bob Bryan said. “They’re both working through tough times with injuries, but they’re showing that resilience and that will to fight and be on the court.”

FILE – Coco Gauff of the U.S. plays a shot against Poland’s Iga Swiatek during their semifinal match of the French Open tennis tournament at the Roland Garros stadium in Paris, Thursday, June 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Jean-Francois Badias, File) Novak Djokovic, Iga Swiatek and Coco Gauff seek Olympic gold

While Murray and Nadal both own golds, the best of the best in tennis do not always leave an Olympics with the top prizes.

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Novak Djokovic of Serbia, for example, will be trying to fill that one gap on his otherwise-impeccable resume, which includes 24 Grand Slam trophies and more weeks at No. 1 in the rankings than anyone.

Also eyeing a first gold will be such stars of the sport as Iga Swiatek of Poland, who has won the French Open four of the past five years, and Coco Gauff of the United States, the reigning U.S. Open champion and runner-up to Swiatek at Roland Garros in 2022.

She missed out on the Tokyo Olympics three years ago because she tested positive for COVID-19 right before she was supposed to travel to Japan.

“I’ve been trying to put myself in the mindset of just enjoying the experiences,” Gauff said, “because you’re only going to have your first Olympics once.”

Not every top tennis player will be at the Summer Games

As a sport with plenty of prizes on offer nearly every week, and four Grand Slam events per year, tennis does not place the same emphasis on the Olympics as sports such as athletics, gymnastics and swimming do. So some of the most accomplished and high-ranked athletes will be skipping Paris.

That includes Aryna Sabalenka of Belarus, a two-time Australian Open champion who is No. 3 in the world, two-time Wimbledon runner-up Ons Jabeur of Tunisia, and Americans such as Ben Shelton and Frances Tiafoe, who were semifinalists in recent years at the U.S. Open. The year’s last Slam starts less than a month after the Olympics end.

“You’ve got to look big picture. U.S. Open is right there. It’s going to be super hot this summer. I just kind of want to be there, practicing in that. And I care way more about the Open and being as prepared for the Open as possible,” Tiafoe said. “That was kind of it.”

By PAUL NEWBERRY, AP National Writer

Most of the big stars from the last Olympics will be back at the pool in Paris.

Caeleb Dressel. Katie Ledecky. Ariarne Titmus. Emma McKeon.

But the local favorite might just shine brightest of them all.

France’s Léon Marchand has drawn comparisons to the great Michael Phelps, a link that was only strengthened by Phelps’ longtime coach, Bob Bowman, overseeing the 22-year-old’s rise to prominence.

At last summer’s world championships in Fukuoka, Marchand broke Phelps’ 15-year-old world record in the 400-meter individual medley, to go along with victories in the 200 IM and 200 butterfly — two more of Phelps’ signature events.

“Leon has several things that make him a great,” Bowman said. “He has speed and he has endurance. So he kind of has the whole package that you want, and so far he’s done well under pressure, which is the other piece of that equation. He has it all really.”

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Marchand will also have the home-pool advantage in Paris, where the swimming will be contested in a temporary facility set up inside the La Défense Arena, the 30,000-seat home of the rugby club Racing 92.

The place figures to be especially loud every time Marchand steps up on the blocks.

“I get to swim the (400) IM against the world record holder in his home country,” said Carson Foster, the top American hopeful. “That atmosphere is going to be electric.”

Marchand, who swam for Bowman at Arizona State, competed in four events at the Tokyo Games, with a best showing of sixth in the 400 individual medley.

But he emerged as one of the sport’s rising stars at the 2022 world championships in Budapest, and his performance the following year in Fukuoka only raised the stakes heading into his home-country Olympics.

“When I came back from Tokyo, I was like, ‘Damn, this is like a game-changer. Now I can actually beat those guys pretty soon,’” Marchand said. ”I know I can train better. I know I can improve this.”

DOPING CONCERNS

Swimming has faced many doping scandals over the years, going all the way back to the East Germans’ rise to prominence in the 1970s that was powered by state-sponsored doping.

Now, all eyes are on the Chinese after reports that nearly two dozen of their top swimmers tested positive for banned substances ahead of the Tokyo Olympics but were allowed to compete. Five of those swimmers went on to win medals, including three golds.

It was also revealed that three of those same Chinese swimmers had previously tested positive for a different substance but faced no ramifications.

Ledecky said many swimmers have lost faith in the World Anti-Doping Agency and can’t help but wonder if the competition in Paris will be fair.

Phelps, who won a record 23 gold medals during his career, went before the U.S. Congress to express his concerns.

“It is clear to me that any attempts of reform at WADA have fallen short, and there are still deeply rooted, systemic problems that prove detrimental to the integrity of international sports and athletes’ right to fair competition, time and time again,” he said.

Katie Ledecky gets ready for the Women’s 800 freestyle finals Saturday, June 22, 2024, at the US Swimming Olympic Trials in Indianapolis. (AP Photo/Michael Conroy) BIG RIVALS

The United States and Australia have long been the world’s most prominent swimming nations, fueling a rivalry that will heat up again in Paris.

While the Americans traditionally have the deepest team, the Aussies have proven to be formidable foes in recent years — especially on the women’s side.

At the 2023 worlds, the team from Down Under captured 13 gold medals in swimming. The U.S. won seven, though it did lead the overall medals table 38-25.

Mollie O’Callaghan and Kaylee McKeown each won a pair of gold medals in Fukuoka, Titmus knocked off Ledecky again in the 400 freestyle, and the Aussies bested the Americans in both freestyle relays.

Australia currently holds seven world records in women’s events, including Titmus’ marks in the 200 and 400 freestyle.

“Certainly, the Australians are some of the best, if not the best, in the world,” American women’s coach Todd DeSorbo said. “There’s a lot of events for us in the U.S. where we’ve got nothing to lose. I think that when you’re the group, the team, the individual that has nothing to lose, you’re the most dangerous.”

CAN’T MISS RACE

The most anticipated event at the pool will come on the first night.

The women’s 400 freestyle will feature defending Olympic gold medalist Titmus, 2016 champion Ledecky and Canadian phenom Summer McIntosh.

Titmus is the favorite to repeat after setting a world record last summer in Fukuoka, but Ledecky and McIntosh are determined to give her a run for the top spot on the podium.

Ledecky already has six individual gold medals, more than any other female swimmer, and she’ll be favored to capture at least two more in Paris in the 800 and 1,500 free. She’d love to grab another by knocking off Titmus after settling for the runner-up spot in Tokyo and at the 2023 worlds.

McIntosh is only 17 but has already set world record in both the 400 freestyle and the 400 individual medley.

COMEBACK TRAIL

Dressel, the tattooed American who won five gold medals in Tokyo, is among many swimmers stars who took time away from the pool amid an increased focus on swimming’s mental and physical toll.

Fellow American Simone Manuel, the first Black woman to capture an individual gold in swimming, was sidelined for months as she recovered from overtraining syndrome. Hungarian butterfly gold medalist Kristóf Milák and British breaststroke king Adam Peaty also took long breaks to deal with personal issues.

Dressel qualified for two individual events in Paris, but he won’t get a chance to defend his gold medal in the 100 freestyle after finishing third in that race at the U.S. trials.

He conceded that his quest to recapture a love of swimming is still a bit elusive.

“I’m working on it,” said Dressel, who walked away from the sport in the midst of the 2022 worlds and didn’t return until the following year. “I’m trying to find those moments and really relish in them.”

DIRTY WATER

The 10-kilometer marathon races will be contested in the River Seine, raising concerns about dirty water.

Paris organizers have maintained that the water won’t be hazardous during the Olympics, but that hasn’t assuaged concerns after heavy rains sent bacteria-laden waste into the river.

Dirty water is a familiar issue at the Olympics, most notably when open water was held during the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Games along the beaches of Copacabana.

“We were supposed to have an Olympic test event there last summer, and that got canceled,” said American Katie Grimes, who will compete in both pool and open water events in Paris. “I’m sure they know what they’re doing. They’ve had a long time to figure this out. Hopefully, there’s a backup plan just in case.”

By VICTORIA MILKO, Associated Press

This month some of the world’s best surfers will travel to Tahiti, French Polynesia, to compete for Olympic gold on what is known as one of the heaviest waves in the world. Called Teahupo’o, the wave has unique properties that make it difficult to ride, having claimed the life of at least one surfer. Here’s a look at the dynamics of the wave and the 2024 Paris Olympics’ surfing competition.

The legendary wave ‘at the end of the road’

Located on the lush mountainous southwestern coast of Tahiti, Teahupo’o is often referred to as “the end of the road” in the surfing community. The nickname is both literal and figurative: The wave is located where roads end on the island, but it is also considered a crown jewel in surfing destinations due to its remote location, unique properties and thrilling rides.

FILE – A wave at Teahupo’o crashes onto the coral reef in Tahiti, French Polynesia, Thursday, Jan. 11, 2024. (AP Photo/Daniel Cole, File) Dynamics of the wave

How the wave forms is considered a natural marvel: The pitch and shape of the barrels of water come from Southern Ocean swells that bend and race along a large, shallow reef. The wave leaves from a sloped bottom, hurling toward the reef and breaking below sea level.

The left-handed waves are usually between 6 to 10 feet high but at times have exceeded 20 feet. The ride is short — lasting between 200 to 300 feet — but extremely fast and intense.

FILE – The surf breaks onto the lagoon in Teahupo’o, Tahiti, French Polynesia, Saturday, Jan. 13, 2024. Teahupo’o will host the surfing competitions during the Paris 2024 Olympic Games. (AP Photo/Daniel Cole, File)

Because of this combination of factors, it’s considered a difficult wave to ride and has claimed the life of at least one surfer. In fact, the name of the wave loosely translates into English as “pile of skulls,” reminding even the world’s most seasoned surfers to proceed with caution.

How scoring works in Olympic surfing

During surfers’ heats, a judging panel scores each wave ride on a scale of 1 to 10 based on a combination of factors, including speed, maneuvers and degree of difficulty. For each ride, the highest and lowest scores are discarded, with the surfer given the average of the three scores remaining.

FILE – The coral reef is visible beneath the water in Teahupo’o, Tahiti, French Polynesia, Jan. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Daniel Cole, File)

Surfers are allowed to catch as many waves as they want in a heat, but wave selection can be crucial, especially given the unpredictable nature of the ocean.

By WILL GRAVES, AP National Writer

Simone Biles and the rest of the U.S. women’s Olympic gymnastics team don’t need to be reminded of what happened in Tokyo three years ago. Mostly because nearly all of them lived it.

Biles, reigning Olympic all-around champion Sunisa Lee, 2020 Olympic silver medalist Jordan Chiles and 2020 floor exercise champion Jade Carey were all there inside a nearly empty and oddly silent Ariake Gymnastics Centre during a memorable two weeks that altered the course of each of their careers and in ways both big and small led them back to the Games.

They are older now — Biles is 27, Carey is 24, Chiles is 23 and Lee is 21 — and eager for what they are calling a shot at redemption.

“Everybody probably looks at the team, like ‘OK, they went to Tokyo and this, this and this happened. And what are they going to do here in Paris?’” Biles said. “But for us, I know we’re stronger than what we showed in Tokyo.”

Simone Biles takes a selfie with Suni Lee, left, Hezly Rivera (blocked), Jordan Chiles and Jade Carey, right, at the United States Gymnastics Olympic Trials on Sunday, June 30, 2024, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)

Biles arrived in Japan as the face of the Games. She left without the gold medals most expected and instead at the center of the conversation about the intersection between mental health and sports.

Lee became a somewhat unexpected champion after Biles pulled out of multiple finals, a victory she struggled to believe she had rightfully earned. Carey packed a gold medal in her carry-on coming home but admits it felt weird competing as an individual after following an unusual path to the Games. Chiles cherished the team silver the Americans captured while Biles watched from the sideline but allowed she wasn’t at her best during the meet.

They’re all back — along with newcomer Hezly Rivera, just 16 — in hopes of authoring a different ending this time around.

“I think we really want a team gold,” said Lee, who overcame multiple kidney-related health issues to finish second behind Biles at the U.S. Olympic trials.

The American women are favored to win with defending champion Russia unable to participate as part of the fallout of the war with Ukraine. It just might not come as easy as Biles and company have made it seem while winning every major international competition (save, very notably, for one) since the 2011 world championships.

Brazil and powerhouse Rebeca Andrade have made massive strides over the last decade. France, China and Great Britain all have legitimate shots at making the podium.

Still, Biles knows a portion of those who tune in to watch will be waiting to see if what happened in Tokyo will repeat itself. She’s taking steps to make sure she’s in a better place this time around, including therapy, though she stressed the only reason she’s back is because she feels she owes it to herself.

“Nobody’s forcing me to do it,” Biles said. “I wake up every day and choose to grind in the gym and come out here and perform for myself just to remind myself that I can still do it.”

All she’s done since returning last summer following a two-year break was win her sixth world all-around championship while continuing to push her sport into places no one else dares go.

Biles, who married Chicago Bears safety Jonathan Owens in 2023, has brushed aside whether this will be her last time competing under the Olympic rings. That’s too far down the road. She and the rest of the U.S. team to “honor” the village that led them back to the unique spotlight only the Games provides.

“I feel like even for myself, I’m like, ‘Oh my gosh, I’m still doing it. I’m still capable,’” she said. “So let’s go.”

A rivalry renewed

Like their female teammates, the Russian men are also out of the mix to defend the Olympic title they won in a taut final three years ago.

That leaves China and Japan to duel for the top spot at Accor Arena. The Japanese are led by defending all-around gold medalist Daiki Hashimoto, who has spent the last three years cementing his status as a worthy heir to countryman Kohei Uchimura, considered perhaps the greatest men’s gymnast of all time.

Hashimoto has won each of the last two world all-around championships, though China (2022) and Japan (2023) have split the last two team titles.

FILE – Fred Richard performs on the pommel horse during the U.S. Gymnastics Championships, Thursday, May 30, 2024, in Fort Worth, Texas. The 20-year-old Richard headlines a U.S. men’s team that has a chance to finish on the Olympic podium for the first time since 2008. (AP Photo/LM Otero, File) Closing the gap

A resurgent U.S. men’s program hopes to reach the Olympic podium for the first time since earning bronze in Beijing 16 years ago. The Americans finished third at worlds last fall, and a young team led by 20-year-old Frederick Richard, who believes what happens in Paris could just be the start.

“(We want to) give everything this Olympics and show that we have the potential we can bring home medals and that it’s (go hard) to make sure it’s not about medals anymore,” he said. “It’s about gold medals for 2028.”

An unlikely comeback

The American women are the first team in modern Olympic history to feature multiple all-around champions on its roster.

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While Biles’ presence was seemingly assured the moment she came back, the road has been far bumpier for Lee. The last 18 months have seen her deal with massive weight fluctuations related to her kidney problems that limited her training and led her to telling longtime coach Jess Graba that she was ready to quit.

Only, she didn’t. Instead, Lee and her team of medical professionals were able to get a handle on her treatment, opening the door for Paris.

Biles’ presence also means Lee won’t feel the pressure to become the first Olympic champion in more than 56 years to repeat. Instead, she is hoping to come home with gold on the balance beam, an event that showcases her uncommon grace.

“I need to be gold because I feel like I always make the final and then I always mess up,” she said with a laugh. “But it’s still annoying.”

By DOUG FERGUSON, AP Golf Writer

One of the best indications that golf was starting to catch on as an Olympic sport came from a player who never even made it to the podium.

Rory McIlroy was part of a seven-man playoff for the bronze medal at the Tokyo Games, eliminated on the third of four extra holes. He said when it was over, “I never tried so hard to finish third.”

McIlroy was among those who skipped the Olympics when golf returned to the program in 2016 at Rio de Janeiro. He said then he wouldn’t be watching golf, only “the stuff that matters.” The next time around, he was all in.

And he’s not alone. Only two eligible players are sitting out the men’s competition when it begins Aug. 1 at Le Golf National outside Paris.

One is Bernd Wiesberger of Austria, who withdrew from the Tokyo Games right after he moved into position to make it. The other is Cristobal del Solar of Chile, who plays on the Korn Ferry Tour and doesn’t want to miss a week if it jeopardizes his chance to get a PGA Tour card.

In most cases, the competition was fierce just to get to the Paris Games.

“Qualifying was my first goal this year,” defending gold medalist Xander Schauffele said. “It’s a very hard team to qualify for on the U.S. side.”

The Americans have two players in the top 10 who won’t be going, including U.S. Open champion Bryson DeChambeau.

Of course, there are no excuses for skipping this year. Rio de Janeiro carried the threat of the Zika virus. The Tokyo Games were postponed one year because of the COVID-19 pandemic, meaning no spectators, no opportunity for athletes to attend other events and daily coronavirus testing.

Still to be determined is the value of gold, silver and bronze.

Given the endless golf schedule, the silver claret jug from the British Open will be awarded just 11 days before the pursuit of a gold medal.

“For track and field, gymnastics, winning a gold medal from when you were a kid was the top of the top,” said Schauffele, who won his first major this year at the PGA Championship. “People ask me now about a major and a gold medal. Growing up, it was about watching the majors. Maybe in 50 years it will be different.

“But there’s added emphasis on trying to win one,” he said of an Olympic gold. “It’s starting to pull some of its own weight. And I imagine it will be pulling more and more.”

The gold medalists from Rio de Janeiro (Justin Rose and Inbee Park) and Tokyo (Schauffele and Nelly Korda) all have major championship hardware at home.

FILE – Nelly Korda, of the United States, bites her gold medal of the women’s golf event at the 2020 Summer Olympics, Saturday, Aug. 7, 2021, at the Kasumigaseki Country Club in Kawagoe, Japan. Korda will be a strong favorite to win another gold at the Paris Games. (AP Photo/Andy Wong, File)

Schauffele and Korda will be among the contenders to give golf back-to-back gold medalists, a difficult task in golf regardless of the brand of trophy.

Scottie Scheffler remains the clear favorite everywhere he goes, already a six-time winner against the best fields in golf, including the Masters and The Players Championship. The gap between Scheffler and the rest of golf in the world ranking is a size not seen since the peak years of Tiger Woods.

“Playing for your country is always extremely exciting. Especially I think it will be extra special doing it on the Olympic stage,” Scheffler said. “It’s also good bragging rights for people when they tell me golf’s not a sport. I can say it’s an Olympic sport.”

Korda is more of a mystery.

The American, who will be 26 when the women’s competition begins, was unbeatable in March and April as she tied an LPGA record with five consecutive victories, including her second major at the Chevron Championship.

But then she took a 10 on one hole in the U.S. Women’s Open and shot 80, missing the cut. She missed another cut in Michigan, and then shot 81 in the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship and missed another cut in a major.

Typical of golf these days, there is a LIV Golf effect. Seven players from the Saudi-funded league will be in the Olympics. The list starts with Jon Rahm, the two-time major winner who defected to LIV at the end of last year. His world ranking was high enough that it didn’t affect his Olympic standing.

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The same can’t be said of DeChambeau, who this year tied for sixth in the Masters, was the runner-up to Schauffele at the PGA Championship and beat McIlroy at the U.S. Open. Because majors are the only events where he can accrue world ranking points, it left him out of the top four Americans who get to play.

The Olympic ranking is based on the world ranking, and countries get a maximum of four players provided they are among the top 15 in the world.

Joaquin Niemann of Chile and Abraham Ancer of Mexico were among those who played where they could — mainly the Asian Tour — to get whatever ranking points they could. Ancer narrowly made it back for his second Olympics.

The venue will be familiar to a handful of players and a television audience. Le Golf National has hosted the French Open 29 times — three past champions, including Tommy Fleetwood, will be in the Olympics — and more famously it hosted the Ryder Cup in 2018.

Five players from that Ryder Cup will be at the Olympics, all of them European, including Rahm and McIlroy.

They are playing for the flag, yes, but they are playing for themselves and a medal. In that respect, it’s just like any another tournament except it comes around only once every four years. That makes it special, whether a player has won a major or not.

“You’re playing for a medal, for bragging rights. It’s the rawest form of competition and it has an old-school feeling to it when you play the game because you love it,” Schauffele said.

With the 2024 NFL season fast approaching, the South Florida Sun Sentinel ends its look at 10 storylines to watch for ahead of the Miami Dolphins’ first day of training camp, which is Tuesday.

Dolphins coach Mike McDaniel isn’t one who hides from ugly numbers. For example, as a reminder that the Dolphins organization hasn’t won a playoff game in 24 years, McDaniel scheduled offseason meetings at :24 on the hour … 7:24, 9:24, and so on.

McDaniel knew questions about the playoff victory drought would arise at some point, so he wanted to confront the issue.

“To me, you do that to empower guys to know what’s coming,” McDaniel said. “To understand it, to not run from it.”

Here’s another ugly number the Dolphins must confront: 4-10.

It’s Miami’s record in December and January games in the two-year McDaniel era.

Worse, Miami is 1-7 on the road in December and January.

If the Dolphins reverse those trends, the possibilities could be endless.

Home playoff games in favorable weather.

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Maybe an AFC East title … a first-round playoff bye.

Perhaps even hosting the AFC Championship game and earning a Super Bowl berth.

It’s all possible with December and January success.

Kansas City, the two-time defending Super Bowl champion, is 13-4 over the past two years in December and January.

San Francisco is 14-3.

Buffalo is 12-2.

Baltimore is 8-5.

Jacksonville is 7-7.

Philadelphia is 7-8.

The New York Jets are 3-9.

Miami, with four victories, is keeping bad company when it comes to late-season success.

How do the Dolphins prepare for late-season success in training camp?

Here are a few ideas:

— Strategy. Perhaps a more diverse offense that incorporates the slot wide receiver and tight end more in the passing game, which should happen this season, and a power running game would help the offense become more unpredictable.

— Philosophy. Perhaps becoming a more balanced, complementary offense/defense would benefit the Dolphins better than relying so heavily on the high-scoring offense.

— Attitude. Perhaps becoming more physical, and emphasizing a mindset that focuses on winning in situations such as short yardage, goal line, cold weather and away from Hard Rock Stadium, would pay late-season dividends.

Of course, health is always a factor late in the season. Some guys are worn down while others are sidelined with injuries.

The Dolphins have been crushed by the latter.

Key offensive players ranging from uarterback Tua Tagovailoa, receiver Tyreek Hill and left tackle Terron Armstead, and key defensive players ranging from edge rushers Bradley Chubb and Jaelan Phillips to former cornerback Xavien Howard and ex-linebacker Jerome Baker have missed late-season games due to injury.

But most of those injuries weren’t caused by muscle fatigue, wear and tear, or anything of that nature. They were just injuries that occur in the course of football.

In reality there doesn’t seem to be much McDaniel can do physically to address late-season injuries in training camp aside from limiting participation for a few key players such as Tagovailoa, Hill and Jaylen Waddle, running back Raheem Mostert, Armstead, defensive lineman Calais Campbell, safety Jordan Poyer and others.

But again, fewer snaps in August doesn’t necessarily translate to fresher legs in December.

Regardless, somehow the Dolphins must change their approach to December/January football.

The Dolphins, as McDaniel likes to say, are a process-oriented team (as opposed to results oriented). To that extent, offensive coordinator Frank Smith said the offense is working on staying consistent throughout the season.

“It’s just making sure … that we’re setting the foundation now to make sure that we can carry things longer through the season,” he said. “I wouldn’t say there’s really like one thing, because we did have a lot of success. But I mean, ultimately, for us, it’s just the execution.”

Miami has five December/January games this season, three on the road.

The Dolphins host the New York Jets (Dec. 8), visit Houston (Dec. 15), host San Francisco (Dec. 22), visit Cleveland (Dec. 29) and end the season at the New York Jets (Jan. 5).

If the Dolphins can post a winning record in December and January, there’s a decent chance they’d get a home playoff game.

And if that happens, the sky’s the limit.

Previously addressed

What can we expect from Anthony Weaver’s Dolphins defense?

Are Dolphins relying on too many 30-somethings as key players?

Who generates early season pass rush for Dolphins if Chubb, Phillips — or both — are sidelined?

What should we expect from Dolphins’ offense in Year 3?

How much will losses of Robert Hunt, Christian Wilkins hurt the Dolphins?

Is there another step for the Dolphins’ run game to take?

Which newcomers on Dolphins’ defense will have the biggest impact?

What are the key position battles to watch for on the Dolphins?

Will Tua’s contract situation with Dolphins affect his on-field performance?