Archive

2024

Browsing

Former Michigan State football coach Mel Tucker filed a lawsuit on Wednesday alleging the university and its leaders wrongfully terminated and defamed him amid a sexual harassment scandal last fall.

The 75-page lawsuit filed in federal court in Michigan accuses the university of conducting an ‘improper, biased, and sham investigation’ designed to fire him, violating his right to due process. Tucker, a Black man, also accuses school officials of discriminating against him based on his race. 

‘By improperly weaponizing the University’s investigative procedures against Plaintiff,” the suit claims, “the Defendants have caused, and continue to cause, Plaintiff to experience severe emotional harm and suffering, and have caused hundreds of millions in damages.’

The lawsuit seeks compensation but does not specify a dollar amount.

Messages to MSU spokespeople and attorneys for Tucker seeking comment were not immediately returned.

Interim President Teresa Woodruff, Athletic Director Alan Haller, General Counsel Brian Quinn and all eight members of MSU’s Board of Trustees are named as defendants. 

Brenda Tracy, the woman who accused Tucker of sexual harassment, is not a defendant. She and her attorney declined to comment. 

Tracy, a prominent rape survivor and activist Tucker hired to educate his players about sexual misconduct prevention, filed a complaint against him with the university’s Title IX office in December 2022. She accused Tucker of sexually harassing her on multiple occasions during their yearlong business partnership, including masturbating without her consent during an April 2022 phone call. 

The complaint remained confidential while the university hired an outside attorney to investigate. Meanwhile, Tucker continued coaching, leading the Spartans to a 2-0 start in the 2023 season. 

On Sept. 10, a USA TODAY investigation revealed Tracy’s allegations for the first time publicly. Hours later, Haller and Woodruff called an emergency press conference announcing they were suspending Tucker without pay. 

Tucker’s lawsuit alleges they made knowingly false and damaging statements about him at the press conference, including that “new developments” supported their drastic actions. It accuses both Haller and Woodruff of defamation.

The news sparked a wave of public outrage, including from Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, who said she was shocked and disappointed and demanded answers from her alma mater. 

One week after suspending him, MSU leaders moved to fire Tucker for cause, even though the investigation was not yet complete. In his termination letter, Haller wrote that Tucker breached his contract by engaging in unprofessional and unethical conduct and embarrassing the university. 

‘It is decidedly unprofessional and unethical to flirt, make sexual comments, and masturbate while on the phone with a University vendor,’ Haller wrote. ‘Your unconvincing rationalizations and misguided attempts to shift responsibility cannot and do not excuse your own behavior.”

By firing him for cause, the university canceled the roughly $75 million remaining on the 10-year contract Tucker signed in November 2021. It had made him one of the nation’s highest-paid coaches.

Tucker says the university had no basis to fire him. He accuses the university of firing him only because Tracy provided the confidential case file to USA TODAY.

“Once Tracy’s claims and the illegitimate investigative materials were made public by Tracy herself,” the lawsuit claims, university officials “conspired to establish a pretextual basis to terminate Plaintiff’s contract without a hearing.” 

Despite firing Tucker, the university continued with the sexual harassment case and held a hearing on Oct. 5. Instead of showing up to question Tracy, Tucker and his attorney sent reporters and the university’s board of trustees a trove of text messages between her and her deceased friend and business assistant. Tucker said the messages proved his innocence. 

In January, the investigation by the university’s outside attorneys concluded Tucker more likely than not sexually harassed and exploited Tracy on several occasions before, during and after the now-infamous phone call. They found Tracy’s version of events more plausible, consistent and supported by the evidence and determined the text messages were irrelevant. 

This post appeared first on USA TODAY

After more than five long months, football is finally back.

The 2024 NFL season will begin its preseason schedule on Thursday with the annual Hall of Fame Game in Canton, Ohio. This year’s contest will feature the Chicago Bears against the Houston Texans.

Even though it’s a preseason game, there is always plenty of hype surrounding the Hall of Fame game since it marks the beginning of what will be six-straight months of football. With that, there’s also added excitement for this year’s game. While the No. 1 pick in the 2024 NFL draft, Caleb Williams, won’t see his first action in a Bears uniform until next week, the contest still could create additional buzz for an organization looking to make a rapid turnaround. Meanwhile, a rejuvenated Houston squad has loaded up with the addition of Stefon Diggs. Even if the biggest names don’t play, football fans will still be excited to watch.

Who is playing in 2024 Pro Football Hall of Fame Game?

It will be the Chicago Bears vs. the Houston Texans.

NFL STATS CENTRAL: The latest NFL scores, schedules, odds, stats and more.

When is Bears vs. Texans Hall of Fame Game?

The Bears and Texans will play Thursday, Aug. 1 at 8 p.m. ET.

Where is Bears vs. Texans Hall of Fame Game? 

The contest will be played at Tom Benson Hall of Fame Stadium in Canton, Ohio.

How to watch Bears vs. Texans Hall of Fame Game

The game will air on ESPN and ABC. It can also be live streamed on ESPN+.

Will Caleb Williams play in Hall of Fame Game vs. Texans?

Fans waiting to get their first glimpse of Williams in a pro setting will have to wait another week, as the quarterback and the rest of the Bears’ starting offense will be held out of Thursday’s game.

Backup Tyson Bagent, a second-year pro who started four games as a rookie, will open the game behind center.

Williams told reporters Monday if it were up to him, he would play because he wants the reps and ‘there’s more pros than cons’ to him playing.

‘I would love to get out there and play,’ Williams said. ‘It’s pretty awesome to be at Canton, but it’s coach’s decision.’

This post appeared first on USA TODAY

PARIS – The case of two Olympic boxers has drawn attention to a thorny issue: Who and what determines which female athletes can compete.

Algerian boxer Imane Khelif and Lin Yu-ting of Taiwan both were disqualified from the 2023 women’s boxing world championships when they reportedly failed gender eligibility tests.

But this week, the International Olympic Committee confirmed the two boxers have been cleared to compete here at the Paris Games, as they both did at the Tokyo Games in 2021. The issues of so-called gender verification or sex testing have fueled discussion at the Olympics as the fighters prepare to enter the ring at North Paris Arena.

Khelif, a silver medalist at the 2022 world championships, is scheduled to fight Thursday against Angela Carini of Italy in the welterweight division at 146 pounds. Lin, a two-time world champion, is scheduled to fight Sitora Turdibekova of Uzbekistan in the featherweight division at 126 pounds.

“Yeah, it’s really tricky,’ Australian boxer Tiana Echegaray told reporters Tuesday when asked about the situation. ‘I don’t know exactly what their circumstances are.’

2024 Olympic medals: Who is leading the medal count? Follow along as we track the medals for every sport.

IOC spokesman Mark Adams indicated Tuesday no personal information about the boxers’ medical histories would be disclosed. ‘They’ve been competing in boxing for a very long time,’ Adams told reporters. “They’ve achieved all the eligibility requirements in terms of sex and age. We’re following the rules in place in Tokyo.’

Who’s in charge of boxing?

At the Summer Olympics, when it comes to gender eligibility, the IOC defers to the international federations that govern each of the 32 sports.

The IOC does provide a framework to the international federations. But it’s “nonbinding.’

In other words, it’s not up to the IOC. And the situation has grown especially complicated with boxing.

Last year the IOC banished the International Boxing Association (IBA), long plagued with scandal and controversy that jeopardized the future of Olympic boxing. In fact, the IOC denied IBA the right to run Olympic boxing during the Tokyo Games in 2021 and instead turned over control to an ad-hoc unit.

With that ad-hoc unit in charge, Kehlif and Lin both competed at the Tokyo Olympics. Neither won a medal.

But the IBA has maintained control of the world championships and gender eligibility rules. And after Lin won gold and Kehlif won bronze at the event in March 2023, officials announced the boxers had failed medical eligibility tests and stripped them of the medals.

IBA president Umar Kremlev said DNA tests “proved they had XY chromosomes and were thus excluded.’

What’s the eligibility criteria?

A passport could be key, based on comments from Adams, the IOC spokesman.

“I would just say that everyone competing in the women’s category is complying with the competition eligibility rules,’ he said. “They are women in their passports and it is stated that is the case.”

Other eligibility standards have hinged on science.

Caster Semenya, a two-time Olympic gold medalist in track and field in 2012 and 2016, was forced to give up competing in the 400 meters because her testosterone levels were too high based on tests administered by World Athletics, the sport’s international federation previously known as the IAAF.

Semenya was assigned female at birth. She said she was told at age 18 that she has XY chromosomes and naturally had high levels of testosterone.

Khelif and Lin have not publicly addressed details of their medical histories regarding the tests.

The issue of eligibility surfaced as a source of controversy in the United States in 2022 when swimmer Lia Thomas became the first openly transgender athlete to win an NCAA championship.

At the time, the NCAA required transgender female athletes to have undergone one year of testosterone suppression treatment to be eligible to compete on a women’s team in any sport. The NCAA has been under pressure to update its guidelines after the NAIA banned all transgender athletes from competing in women’s sports.

The Court of Arbitration for Sport upheld a decision in June by World Aquatics, the international federation for swimming, that prevented Thomas from competing in elite competitions through World Aquatics or USA Swimming.

Who are these two boxers?

Lin, 28, has been fighting as an amateur for more than a decade, according to BoxRec, a widely regarded boxing site.

She made her official amateur debut about three months shy of her 18th birthday, winning at the 2013 AIBA World Women’s Championships. She won gold medals at the world championships in 2019 and 2022.

At 5-foot-9, she often has enjoyed a height advantage while amassing a record of 40-14 with one knockout. The record does not reflect the four fights she won at the 2023 world championships before her disqualification, which resulted in the outcome of the fights being changed to “no contest.’’

She lost her last fight – a split-decision defeat against Brazil’s Jucielen Cerqueira Romeu in April at the 2024 USA Boxing International Invitational in Pueblo, Colorado.

Khelif, 25, made her amateur debut at the 2018 Balkan Women’s Tournament. She won a silver medal at the 2022 world championships.

At 5-foot-10, she also has enjoyed a height advantage while amassing a record of 36-9 with four knockouts, according to BoxRec. That does not include the three fights she won at the 2023 world championships before her disqualification resulted in the fights being changed to “no contest.’’

In one of those fights, Khelif stopped her opponent by TKO.

This post appeared first on USA TODAY

NANTERRE, France — As Katie Ledecky did what Katie Ledecky does, churning back and forth, lap after lap, building her lead quickly to that magical moment when it’s clear she cannot be beaten, a sense of calm came over her. 

She knew she was going to be in the water for a very long time, 15 1/2 minutes as it turned out, swimming one of her two specialities, the 1,500-meter freestyle. She was moving quickly, of course, but this was going to last a while, and why not?  

There was no need to rush history.

When she touched the wall and slapped the water, an uncharacteristic moment of exuberance for the self-effacing superstar, Ledecky had won by more than 10 seconds, one-third of the length of the pool. Her time was her eighth fastest ever, 15 minutes 30.02 seconds, an Olympic record. She now has the 20 fastest times ever swum in the 1,500, an event she hasn’t lost since she was a young student swimming in a regional meet near her home in the Maryland suburbs of Washington, D.C., 14 years ago.

It was another one of those Ledecky moments where she’s in the finishing photo with none of her competitors in sight. But it also was so much more. For the fourth consecutive Olympics, Ledecky has won a gold medal, a remarkable combination of dominance and longevity. With the victory, she won her eighth Olympic gold medal, tying her with swimmer Jenny Thompson for the most gold medals won by an American woman in any Olympic sport, ever. And she has two more opportunities to add to her gold medal total here and pass Thompson, in the 4 x 200 freestyle relay and the 800 meters, an event she has won three times in the Olympics.

The magnitude of the moment was not lost on Ledecky. 

“Each one means a lot,” she said of the eight golds, the first of which was won 12 years ago when she was a little-known 15-year-old at the London Games. “Each one is challenging in its own way. I try not to really dwell on history or the magnitude of things. I’ll just let you guys (journalists) do that.”

And we will. This sport (or any sport, actually) has never seen anyone quite like Ledecky, whose range runs from the 200-meter sprint to the 1,500-meter marathon. And she’s not done yet. No matter how she ends these Olympics — likely with two more medals for a grand total of four this week — she has said numerous times that she intends to keep competing and go for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics, when she will be 31.

For Ledecky, the longest race in the pool is not only a grueling physical test but also a fascinating mental challenge. She said she uses various “tricks” to stay calm as her mind wanders through the long minutes in the water, but she has also had to battle some unusual doubts over the past few days. 

She wasn’t particularly pleased with her bronze-medal-winning time in the 400 freestyle Saturday, nor with her qualifying times in the prelims for the 400 and on Tuesday for the 1,500.

“I just was kind of feeling like those first three swims, each one of them felt faster than the time,” she said. “And I think doubts enter your mind, you just try to stay positive through it all.”

She said it has been that way all year for her in training at the University of Florida, where she practices with some of the world’s best male distance swimmers under the tutelage of coach Anthony Nesty, a 1988 Olympic gold medalist himself.

“Coach Nesty and all my coaches do a really good job keeping me steady, keeping me on track, reminding me to trust the process,” she said. “I felt like I finally put together a swim (in the 1,500) that matched how I felt and was in line with what I felt I was capable of, just finally having a swim, a time, that I could feel pretty happy with.”

As she was racing Wednesday night, she said she kept her thoughts “very simple” to stay calm. “The voice in my head has been consistent over the years in its tone and its positivity that I try to have in these final races. Just a very positive good voice today that definitely helped me along.”

What did she think of during all that time with her head in the water?

“My mind wandered a lot,” she said. ‘I was thinking a lot about my teammates back home that I train with everyday. Three years ago in Tokyo, I was repeating my grandmothers’ names in my head a lot. Today I kind of settled on the boys’ names, the boys at Florida that I train with every day. Just thinking of all the practices we’ve done and all the confidence I get from training, being next to them and racing them. That’s the energy I wanted to channel into this race.”

But 15 1/2 minutes requires a lot of thoughts.

“Mentally I was using all the tricks that I’ve used through all these years of distance swimming,” she said. “I have a lot of tricks in my back pocket, counting down all the number of 50s left, thinking about people in my life, my teammates, my family, my friends, so many different things that are going through your head.”

But then all that thinking stopped and the celebrating began. She touched the wall, saw the excellent time, pounded the water and took it all in as the crowd roared for the greatest female swimmer of all time.

“I expected it of myself,” she said later. “It’s not easy to always follow through and get the job done. There are moments of doubt, there are hard days in training where you doubt yourself and you just have to push through and trust in your training and trust that everything will come together in the end, and I’m happy that it did today.”

This post appeared first on USA TODAY

Simone Biles looks to add to her record Olympic haul when she competes in the all-around final with teammate Suni Lee.

Biles, who already has more Olympic medals than any American gymnast in history, has eight Olympic medals after the United States took home gold in the gymnastics team final, despite injuring her calf during the qualifiers.

In Tokyo, Biles won silver in the team event and bronze on the beam. In her first Olympic competition in the 2016 Rio games, she won bronze on the beam and won four gold medals in the team, all-around, vault, and floor events.

Is Simone Biles competing today?

On Thursday, Biles is scheduled to compete in the all-around final, which consists of vault, uneven bars, balance beam and floor exercise rotations.

2024 Olympic medals: Who is leading the medal count? Follow along as we track the medals for every sport.

Simone Biles Paris Olympics schedule

Thursday, Aug. 1 — All-around event

Saturday, Aug. 3 — Vault event

Monday, Aug. 5 — Balance beam finals and floor exercise finals

The USA TODAY app gets you to the heart of the news — fast. Download for award-winning coverage, crosswords, audio storytelling, the eNewspaper and more.

Most decorated American women’s Olympic athlete

Biles now has more Olympic medals than any other American gymnast.

Simone Biles career Olympic medals

Rio de Janeiro 2016

Gold: Team
Gold: All-around
Gold: Vault
Gold: Floor
Bronze: Balance beam

Tokyo 2021

Silver: Team
Bronze: Balance beam

Paris 2024

Gold: Team

This post appeared first on USA TODAY

PARIS – The official start of the Olympic track and field competition began Thursday with the men’s and women’s 20km race walk.

Stade de France is the home for track and field during the Paris Olympics, but the race walk was held at the Trocadéro adjacent to the Eiffel Tower, which offered a spectacular view for spectators and athletes.

The men’s competition was delayed 30 minutes to 2 a.m. ET due to rainy conditions. The women’s competition started at 3:50 a.m. ET.

On the men’s side, Ecuador’s Brian Daniel Pintado won the gold easily in 1:18:55 and celebrated as he crossed the finish line. Caio Bonfim of Brazil came in second at 1:19:09 and Spain’s Álvaro Martín finished third with a time of 1:19:11.

‘I have competed in three Olympic Games, and now I’m an Olympic champion. It’s a dream come true,’ Pintado said. ‘It was insane. In the last few meters, I realized I was completely alone, and seeing the finish line I just kept thinking, I’m the Olympic champion, it’s me.’

2024 Olympic medals: Who is leading the medal count? Follow along as we track the medals for every sport.

Get Olympics updates in your texts! Join USA TODAY Sports’ WhatsApp Channel

For the women, China’s Yang Jiayu won the competition with a winning time of 1:25:54. Spain’s Maria Perez took the silver medal, posting a time of 1:26:19 and Australia’s Jemima Montag came in third at 1:26:25.

What makes race walk difficult?

The 20km race walk is a little over 12.4 miles, so the speed walkers aren’t walking a short distance. But the race is also very technical.

In race walking, athletes must have one foot in contact with the ground at all times, which has to be visible to the human eye. Officials are present at the competition to ensure the rule is enforced. If there is no visible contact, it is called lifting and an athlete will be penalized.

In addition, an athlete’s knee of their advanced leg must not bend and the leg must straighten as the body passes over it. A penalty can be enforced if an athlete bends his knee.

Race walk judges carry paddles with symbols for ‘loss of contact’ and ‘bent knee.’

Did Team USA have any 20km race walk athletes at Paris Olympics?

Team USA didn’t have a single 20km race walk athlete (male of female) compete at the Paris Olympics. In fact, the U.S. has never won an Olympic medal in the 20km race walk.

Larry Young was the last U.S. athlete to win an Olympic medal in any type of race walk event. Young placed third in the 50km race walk at both the 1968 and 1972 Games. The 50km race walk was dropped as an Olympic sport after the Tokyo Olympics.

The USA TODAY app gets you to the heart of the news — fast.Download for award-winning coverage, crosswords, audio storytelling, the eNewspaper and more.

This post appeared first on USA TODAY

VILLENEUVE-D’ASCQ, France — Has anyone seen Steph Curry’s shot? 

The greatest shooter in NBA history has been looking all over France for it, but it seems to still be missing. Doesn’t Curry know when you go overseas you’re supposed to attach air tags to your valuable possessions? 

Wednesday in the Paris Olympics, when Team USA thumped South Sudan 103-86, Curry couldn’t find his stroke again, shooting just 1-of-9 from the field, including 0-for-6 from 3. That brings his Olympic total to 3-for-13 from long-distance, a paltry 23%. Include the last two tune-up games before the Olympics, and it’s 7-of-29 (24%).

Keep in mind, this is the same guy who set an NBA record when he made a 3 in 268 consecutive NBA games, a streak that ended in December. (His quippy response, when asked how he would respond to that ending was, “Start a new streak.”)

Get Olympics updates in your texts! Join USA TODAY Sports’ WhatsApp Channel

2024 Olympic medals: Who is leading the medal count? Follow along as we track the medals for every sport.

So this is unusual. Frustrating, too.  

“You’re always annoyed, for sure, you always want to make shots but you can’t let that rob you of all that other stuff that you do to help win a game,” said Curry, who finished with three points but also had four assists. 

“It’s interesting dynamic with this team because first half I only had four (attempts) and like three of them came in a minute-and-a-half stretch, so you’ve gotta be ready for your shots, I’m not even worried about it, just a matter of taking the ones I know I can make and that the game calls for. 

“I obviously want to shoot the ball well.” 

Not that the Americans have needed that from him in either pool play win. 

On Wednesday, Bam Adebayo came off the bench to score 18 points, including 14 in the first half, when he shot 6-of-6 from the field (he finished 8-of-10). Kevin Durant, also a member of the second unit, chipped in with 14.

Was Adebayo’s play in response to those who thought he might be the next one benched in coach Steve Kerr’s short rotation? He said no. 

“I had open shots and I made them,” Adebayo said, adding that Team USA’s second unit has been calling itself “the bench mob” since the start of training camp in Las Vegas. “I just think Steve trusts us. He looks at the bench as a spark, a boost and we did that tonight.”

But Adebayo was also quick to make sure everyone knew that he’d seen the doubters and people predicting he might be the next to enjoy a long stretch on the bench. 

On Wednesday that role instead fell to Joel Embiid, as Anthony Davis and Jayson Tatum got starting nods over Embiid and Jrue Holiday, respectively. Holiday finished with five points and two rebounds in 15 minutes of play. All said, the U.S. bench outscored South Sudan 66-14. 

“That’s a pretty potent group when you come off the bench with Bam, Kevin and Derrick White,” Kerr said.

This was a markedly different game against South Sudan just 11 days after that group pushed Team USA, which needed some late-game heroics from LeBron James to pull out a 101-100 win. Kerr said he was particularly happy with the Americans’ defense Wednesday, as they held South Sudan to 42% shooting from the field and just 38% from 3. In their previous meeting, South Sudan hit 47.5% of its attempts, including 42.4% from 3.

But back to Curry, who shot … considerably less than that from 3. 

The thinking is that in order to win their fifth gold medal in a row, the Americans needed a reliable 3-point shooter. Germany beat the U.S. last year on its way to the FIBA World Cup. France, playing at home and featuring 2023 No. 1 draft pick Victor Wembanyama, could push theAmericans. Maybe Canada, too. 

So if you need a shooter, who better than Curry, who is a career 42.6% from beyond the arc? He’s playing in his first Olympics at 36 precisely because of his precision and depth from deep … even if those two qualities haven’t been evident the past week. Early in the second half he missed a gimme layup. 

But no one is panicking. Team USA next plays Puerto Rico on Saturday.

“He just had a tough night,” Kerr said. “Steph is Steph. I’ve seen him have tough nights before and then he’ll get 40. FIBA’s a little different … it’s not the NBA, it’s (a) 40-minute game, you’re playing fewer minutes, getting fewer shots.” 

Curry isn’t worried, either. 

“The way we play, making good cuts, setting good screens, moving the ball, shots come your way — the floodgates could open at any time,” Curry said. “You don’t ever want to get down on yourself. You just want to shoot shots you think you can make.”

For Curry, that’s pretty much every shot. And that could be bad news for all future U.S. opponents. 

Follow Lindsay Schnell on social media @Lindsay_Schnell

The USA TODAY app gets you to the heart of the news — fast. Download for award-winning coverage, crosswords, audio storytelling, the eNewspaper and more.

This post appeared first on USA TODAY

Canoe and kayak sprint racing made its Olympic debut as a demonstration sport in the 1924 Paris Games and became a medal sport for men only 12 years later. Women began competing in kayak sprint in 1948, and canoe events in 2020.

Canoe and kayak slalom joined the Olympics in 1972 and has appeared continuously since 1992. Kayak cross, a new event, will debut in Paris this summer.

Here’s what to know about how the events work and what to expect at the 2024 Paris Olympics.

Get Olympics updates in your texts! Join USA TODAY Sports’ WhatsApp Channel

How does Olympic canoe/kayak work?

Canoe and kayak represent the different boats competitors use in both sprint and slalom racing. Athletes kneel in canoes and propel their boats with single-blade paddles, while athletes use double-blade paddles from a sitting position in kayaks.

2024 Olympic medals: Who is leading the medal count? Follow along as we track the medals for every sport.

Sprint races are held in heats of eight on flatwater with one-, two- or four-person boats, at distances ranging from 200 meters to 1,000 meters.

Slalom races are timed events held on a man-made whitewater course where, similar to slalom skiing, competitors navigate a series of gates with penalties enforced for touching or missing gates.

In kayak cross, four boats race against each other after being dropped from a platform more than 6 feet in the air into the whitewater course. Boat-to-boat contact is allowed in the extreme sports event.

Who are the top Team USA athletes in canoe/kayak?

Nevin Harrison: 2020 Olympic gold medalist in 200-meter canoe single; 2019 and 2022 gold medalist at world championships in 200-meter canoe single.
Evy Leibfarth:Won bronze in the women’s canoe slalom single Wednesday. Will also compete in kayak cross. Won gold in kayak slalom and bronze in kayak cross at 2023 Pan-Am games.
Casey Eichfeld: Four-time Olympic qualifier (2008, 2012, 2016) in canoe slalom; finished 19th at 2023 world championships.

What’s the international landscape for Olympic canoe/kayak?

Australia’s Jessica Fox won double golds in the women’s singles canoe slalom and kayak slalom earlier this week. Klaudia Zwolinska of Poland took silver in the K-1 slalom, and Germany’s Kimberley Woods won bronze. Fox was joined on the C-1 slalom podium by second-place Elena Lilik of Germany and USA’s Leibfarth in third.

In the men’s C-1 final, France’s Nicolas Gestin won gold, followed by Germany’s Adam Burgess and Matej Benus of Slovakia.

Harrison won the only canoe/kayak medal for the United States in Tokyo, and the sport has historically been dominated by several eastern European nations and Australia. Germany won medals in all four slalom races – canoe and kayak, both men and women – in 2021 (Games postponed a year due to COVID). Fox took gold in canoe and bronze in kayak slalom in Tokyo, and Czechia’s Jiri Prskavec will be looking to medal at his third straight Olympics after winning gold in kayak slalom in 2020.

In sprint, New Zealand’s Lisa Carrington, a three-time gold medalist in Tokyo, will be back to defend her 500-meter kayak single and double titles – the 200-meter kayak single, her third gold from Tokyo, is no longer part of the program – while Canada’s Katie Vincent could be Harrison’s biggest competition in 200-meter canoe single.

The USA TODAY app gets you to the heart of the news — fast. Download for award-winning coverage, crosswords, audio storytelling, the eNewspaper and more.

This post appeared first on USA TODAY

Israel claimed on Thursday that it killed Hamas’ top military commander, Mohammad Deif, during a strike earlier in July. 

The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) said it launched a strike in Gaza on July 13 while targeting two top Hamas leaders. Deif, who the IDF said was the mastermind behind the Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7, was one of the targets. 

‘Mohammed Deif, the top military commander of Hamas, was the target of an Israeli strike today in al-Mawasi,’ two Israeli sources told Fox News Digital after the attack. 

There was no confirmation of Deif’s death until Thursday.

‘Muhammad Deif, the ‘Osama Bin Laden of Gaza,’ was eliminated on 13.07.24,’ Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said in a statement. ‘This is a significant milestone in the process of dismantling Hamas as a military and governing authority in Gaza, and in the achievement of the goals of this war.’

According to the IDF, Deif initiated, planned and executed the October 7th terror attacks, in which 1,200 people were killed in southern Israel and 251 hostages abducted into the Gaza Strip by Hamas terrorists. 

‘Over the years, Deif directed, planned, and carried out numerous terrorist attacks against the State of Israel,’ the IDF said. ‘Deif operated side-by-side with Yahya Sinwar, and during the war, he commanded Hamas’ terrorist activity in the Gaza Strip by issuing commands and instructions to senior members of Hamas’ Military Wing.’ 

Israel on Tuesday said that it killed Fuad Shukr, a top Hezbollah commander in Lebanon. On Wednesday, Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh was reportedly assassinated while he was in Tehran, Iran.

This is a developing story.

This post appeared first on FOX NEWS

‘Kamala Harris: Weak. Failed. Dangerously liberal.’

That’s the tag line on the first campaign ad put up by former President Trump this week. Those closing phrases of the 30-second hammering of Harris ought to run a thousand times between now and November because they provide a great and memorable summary of the Vice President’s tenure in office. Until and unless Harris confronts her own record of failure and weakness, she will begin a steady drift down in the collective mind of the electorate. 

Since Joe Biden got the hook almost two weeks ago, Vice President Harris has not given an interview with a serious journalist, much less held a press conference.  If she and her handlers had even minimal confidence in her ability to make it through even softball interviews with reliable Beltway anchors, she’d be on the air attempting to get ahead of the Trump Campaign’s definition of her as ‘weak, failed and dangerously liberal.’

But she doesn’t and they don’t. They know that one ‘typical Harris interview’ will cause the ice beneath her to break and the delegates at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago from August 19th to the 22nd to bolt. 

The ‘party’ is relieved that Biden got yanked, but more than a few of the party elders were angling for a ‘compressed primary’ because they know Harris is a terrible candidate. Former President Barack Obama and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi have been tipped as among those in the ‘Not Kamala Camp.’ Too bad. Once the embittered Joe Biden, kicked to the curb again by Obama, endorsed Harris, it was her nomination to lose. And she is not going in the harm’s way of an interview until she is formally nominated.

We know why. We have watched her occasional media appearances over the past four years, and they seem to almost always end in laughter: her’s and the audience’s. Her’s is nervous laughter, a sort of giggle that attempts to mask her awareness of her own vacuity. The audience’s laughter is the sort of uncomfortable ‘ha ha ha’ that accompanies confusion if not cringing. 

Harris is just not very good at explaining anything, much less expanding on her world view or her vision for the country’s future. Even her cliches land with a clunk: All the ‘unburdening,’ Venn diagrams and school buses cannot make up for a lack of unrehearsed rhetorical ability of the sort necessary in an interview or a presser. 

She can, however, reliably read from a teleprompter which makes her a far better candidate than Biden. The ‘relief rally’ Harris benefited from in her poll numbers after Biden got tipped overboard was inevitable given that Democrats knew they were doomed if President Biden was renominated. Those relatively strong numbers will last through the end of August as the Democratic convention, even if interrupted by protests, will give Harris continued energy. Unless she gives an interview. She doesn’t have to as she can coast through these weeks of the Olympics with a rally here and a tarmac question there. Once the nomination is locked up, then the real campaign begins. 

Eventually though, Harris has to talk to the press, even if it is the tame Manhattan-Beltway media elite. If she is not deterred by the deep anti-Israel and often anti-Semitic impulses of her party’s left wing and selects Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro as her running mate, Harris will have a stand-in who is both smart and comfortable in front of a camera. Even with the estimable Shapiro as her sidekick, however, Harris is still going to have to talk about complex subjects at some length. That’s going to be her undoing. 

The American electorate got head faked into a Biden presidency by the basement campaign he ran, one enabled by the COVID lockdowns. ‘We won’t get fooled again’ is more than an old rock-and-roll lyric. It’s a deeply held conviction among voters. 

It is unclear to me why former President Trump would agree to debate Harris. He’s done the job already and she hasn’t.  His positions and record as president on the big three issues of inflation, immigration and Israel are well known. The electorate remembers the Trump years pre-COVID—correctly—as low inflation, high growth years, years of expanding peace and stability in the world. The Biden-Harris years? Not so much. 

Harris, of course, hasn’t done the job for even a day. She’s shadowed it, though at arm’s length as Team Biden knew from the 2020 campaign forward that they had chosen poorly when it came to Harris. All that buzz about clearing a Supreme Court vacancy for her was not because of her reputation as a legal scholar. They wanted an electable understudy, not Harris. Justice Sotomayor didn’t take the hint. 

Trump has the record and the confidence of his party and most independents. Harris has a much higher mountain to climb when it comes to credibility. On everything. With everyone. If she can’t knock out an interview a week beginning after the convention, the game will be over before it is begun. 

‘Weak. Failed. Dangerously liberal.’ Add in ‘San Francisco Democrat’ and it’s all that Donald Trump and J.D. Vance need.

Hugh Hewitt is host of ‘The Hugh Hewitt Show,’ heard weekday mornings 6am to 9am ET on the Salem Radio Network, and simulcast on Salem News Channel. Hugh wakes up America on over 400 affiliates nationwide, and on all the streaming platforms where SNC can be seen. He is a frequent guest on the Fox News Channel’s news roundtable hosted by Bret Baier weekdays at 6pm ET. A son of Ohio and a graduate of Harvard College and the University of Michigan Law School, Hewitt has been a Professor of Law at Chapman University’s Fowler School of Law since 1996 where he teaches Constitutional Law. Hewitt launched his eponymous radio show from Los Angeles in 1990.  Hewitt has frequently appeared on every major national news television network, hosted television shows for PBS and MSNBC, written for every major American paper, has authored a dozen books and moderated a score of Republican candidate debates, most recently the November 2023 Republican presidential debate in Miami and four Republican presidential debates in the 2015-16 cycle. Hewitt focuses his radio show and his column on the Constitution, national security, American politics and the Cleveland Browns and Guardians. Hewitt has interviewed tens of thousands of guests from Democrats Hillary Clinton and John Kerry to Republican Presidents George W. Bush and Donald Trump over his 40 years in broadcast, and this column previews the lead story that will drive his radio/ TV show today.

This post appeared first on FOX NEWS