Meet The Incredible Gymnasts Representing USA For 2016 Rio Olympics
Former WNBA center Liz Cambage has been included in a 12-strong Australian squad that is aiming to win a medal at a sixth consecutive Olympic women"s basketball tournament.
This time, the so-called Opals want gold in Rio de Janeiro.
Cambage, Laura Hodges and Rachel Jarry return from the squad which lost the semifinals to the United States at London 2012 and finished with the bronze. Penny Taylor and Erin Phillips return after missing the London Games.
"Gold is always the goal but we know there is a long way to getting the chance," said Taylor, who has two Olympic silver medals and, at 35, will be the oldest member of the squad.
Taylor plays for the Phoenix Mercury in the WNBA and has regular exposure to the top Americans.
"They are the defending gold medalists and are the pinnacle of our sport," she said. "They"re always who we see as our biggest competitor and we just want to give ourselves another chance to get in a position to be able to face them."
Australia coach Brendan Joyce left out three-time Olympic medalist Suzy Batkovic and picked seven first-time Olympians in his squad. Lauren Jackson, who won three Olympic silver medals and one bronze, retired earlier in the year because of knee injuries.
Marianna Tolo, Australia"s highest scorer at the 2014 world championships, recently returned from a 10-month injury layoff for an eight-game trip to Europe to confirm her place in the Olympic squad.
The Australians travel to Dallas next week for warmup matches against Canada, France and the Olympic and world champion U.S. team.
The Opals open their Olympic campaign against Brazil on Aug. 6 and have group matches against Turkey, France, Japan and Belarus.
Theresa May Is on Course to Be Next U.K. Prime Minister
The first thing to know about Theresa is that she is tough. There is no point, internally as a minister, or externally as a foreign country, thinking that in a negotiation with her you are going to gain ground easily.
I remember US officials complaining to me in 2012 about her refusal to extradite Gary McKinnon, the computer hacker with Aspergers syndrome accused of hacking into the Pentagon. This was a decision made by the Home Secretary after considering all the facts, I said, as a weary look came over them. Mrs May is known in government for going into things thoroughly, I went on, but she is not known for changing her mind once she has made a decision. When shes decided something, my advice is to accept thats the end of it.
The disgruntled Americans rolled their eyes knowingly. They did indeed grudgingly accept that there was nothing further they could do. When it comes to getting people to desist from an argument, it helps enormously if they know the person they are dealing with has consistency and resolve. Theresa May has those attributes.
Theresa May, the UKs home secretary, will be the countrys next prime minister. Her final rival for the Conservative Party leadership, Andrea Leadsom, withdrew from the race on Monday morning, citing overwhelming support for May among Conservative MPs. Prime Minister David Cameron then announced that he would formally resign by Wednesday, ushering May into the top job.
Mays tenure will not be easy. Shell be taking over at time of intense crisis: The Brexit referendum has thrown the UK into what one expert calls its worst political crisis since May 1940. Its not an exaggeration to say that Mays tenure will shape the course of British and European history for the foreseeable future.
Understanding May who she is, and what drives her is critical to understanding the events that will unfold in the next months and years. So heres a quick guide to the next occupant of 10 Downing Street where shes coming from politically, what shes said about Brexit, and why she may be facing an impossible dilemma as the UKs next leader.
May is a fairly moderate conservative except on immigration (Jack Taylor/Getty Images)
Since Mays election to Parliament in 1997, shes taken fairly liberal stances on a number of social issues. She made a name for herself in 2002, when she delivered a speech telling her fellow Conservatives that they need to stop being the nasty party in UK politics.
Shes an avowed feminist: She led a fight to close the UKs gender wage gap in 2008 and frequently confronts sexist comments about her fondness for stylish shoes.
To the extent that Mays political credo is evident, she is a liberal Conservative, the Financial Timess George Parker and Helen Warrell wrote in a 2014 profile. Shes supportive of gender equality, champion of female representation at Westminster and a backer of gay marriage.
But her record doesnt always fit the liberal description: For instance, she twice voted against legalizing adoption by gay couples in the early 2000s. This is especially true when it comes to immigration.
Since 2010, May has served as home secretary, the UKs top social and domestic Cabinet post. During her time in office, she has repeatedly expressed vociferous opposition to the UKs historically high immigration levels.
When immigration is too high, when the pace of change is too fast, its impossible to build a cohesive society, she said in one 2015 speech. Its difficult for schools and hospitals and core infrastructure like housing and transport to cope. And we know that for people in low-paid jobs, wages are forced down even further while some people are forced out of work altogether.
None of this is true the data shows that immigrants havent stressed the UK economy and in fact have contributed to its growth. But that hasnt stopped May from taking some fairly draconian steps to lower immigration.
Most infamously, May used her power as home secretary to impose a rule that would block skilled immigrants from permanently settling in the UK if they made less than 37,000 a year (roughly $53,000 at pre-Brexit exchange rates). Anyone who made less than that would be deported. Mays own Home Office estimated that the rule could cost the British economy more than $200 million, but she went through with it anyway.
Mays tenure as Home Secretary was also particularly unpleasant for LGBTQ migrants.
Aderonke Apata, an LGBT rights activist from Nigeria, was told by Home Office lawyers who rejected her asylum claim last March that she could not be a lesbian because she had children. May described Apatas fight against deportation as a publicity stunt, Dawn Foster writes at the London Review of Books. This was not an isolated incident, Foster explains:
Time and again during Mays tenure at the Home Office, people fleeing countries where homosexuality is illegal were asked to explain why they didnt look lesbian or why they didnt attend local Pride marches; others were subjected to extensive invasive questioning about their s*x lives; some even felt compelled to provide documentary evidence of their sexuality.
In a certain sense, then, this makes May the right person for a post-Brexit Britain. The campaign for leaving the European Union was dominated by anti-immigrant rhetoric: EU rules required the UK to accept migrants from any other country inside the EU, which was unpopular with a huge number of Britons. Indeed, polling data suggests that anti-immigrant sentiment was the single most decisive factor in Britain voting to leave.
An anti-migration vote begat an anti-migration prime minister.
May opposed Brexit weakly and politically and now will have to deal with the terrible fallout
Given Mays high-profile stance on immigration, you might have expected her to have been a vocal supporter of the campaign to leave the EU. Interestingly, she wasnt. In fact, May was the only major candidate for Conservative leadership who supported remaining.
Her support, however, was pretty lukewarm. The UKs Loughborough University tallied up the number of statements to the press on Brexit made by leading political figures between early May and early June, a critical pre-vote period. It found that May made a tiny number of appearances far fewer than most similarly famous UK politicians, and even fewer than the German chancellor, Angela Merkel:
(Loughborough University/HuffPost UK)
British political observers saw this as a calculated strategy: May would formally side with the Conservative leadership in opposing a Brexit (that is, a British exit) but take a lukewarm stance in order to remain politically palatable to Brexiteers in the event that the Leave campaign won.
This could all be part of Mrs May"s plan: to cast herself as the Brexit-friendly Remainer who can appeal to her colleagues in the Out camp with her toughness on immigration, the Telegraphs Asa Bennett wrote before the vote. Her restrained approach to campaigning for Remain has helped her avoid alienating Tory [Conservative Party] Brexiteers, and the polls suggest her reputation has held up better than some of her potential leadership rivals.
Indeed, Mays pandering to the Brexit crowd continued after the vote and in much more impactful ways.
You see, the Brexit referendum actually wasnt a binding vote. In order for the UK to actually exit the EU, the British government has to formally submit notification under Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union. Cameron refused to do that, saying it would be up to his successor to manage the transition. That left open the possibility that his successor would choose not to submit Article 50 notification either, essentially nullifying the Brexit vote.
But May has repeatedly promised not to do that, with Brexit means Brexit being something of a catchphrase during her leadership campaign. "As prime minister, I will make sure we will leave the European Union, May said on Monday, per the BBC. She promised there would be no attempts to remain inside the EU nor attempts to rejoin it by the backdoor.
Thats pretty unequivocal.
However, she has also pledged not to trigger Article 50 immediately upon taking the top job. She wants the UK to wait until at least the end of the year, in an attempt to negotiate terms with the EU that would preserve British access to European markets without having to allow unfettered immigration.
We shouldnt invoke Article 50 immediately, she said in one interview. Whats important for us is that we get the right deal.
The problem, however, is that the EU leadership is unlikely to agree to any such deal. They dont want to reward Britains vote with favorable exit terms, for fear that voters in other countries (like Greece, France, or the Netherlands) will take this as a sign that they could get a similar deal. So far, EU leaders have been adamant that Mays right deal wont be on offer.
So unless May can change the EU leaderships mind, shes in a pretty impossible position. Either she unilaterally exits the EU without a deal, which would tank the British economy by cutting off access to vital EU markets, or she goes back on her own promise that Brexit means Brexit, which would likely be political suicide.
Its a very, very tough way for the UKs second female prime minister to start off her job and one that might just set her up for failure.
2016 Great Britain - Post-Qualifying: Hamilton promises to "make a bang" for British fans Thousands of fans stayed behind after the race to congratulate Hamilton
Lewis Hamilton said he was "blown away" by the support he received from the home fans during his dominant victory in the British Grand Prix.
"It"s mesmerising to see so many people so cheerful," said Hamilton. "Just seeing how positive everyone was, the constant love that"s shown.
"I really feel like we did it together. It is a long journey we have been on, and there is real love there."
It was Hamilton"s fourth win in his home race and third in succession.
And it brought him level with 1992 world champion Nigel Mansell as the most successful driver at Silverstone.
The Mercedes driver, who led every lap from pole position, described it as "a perfect weekend".
And it got even better for him three and a half hours after the race when stewards penalised his team-mate Nico Rosberg 10 seconds because Mercedes had broken rules on how much help a driver can be given over the radio.
That dropped Rosberg to third place and cut the German"s championship lead over Hamilton to just one point.
Hamilton dominated, especially in the wet at the beginning of the race
"I am really happy because it is so easy to come into this weekend with the wrong energy," he said. "But to come in feeling fresh, powerful, strong and confident and deliver is what I plan to do every weekend.
"This has been the best week of the year, without doubt."
The win was Hamilton"s fourth in the past five races, which has enabled him to make up nearly all the ground he lost with a difficult start to the season in which he had to start two of the first four races from down the grid as a result of technical problems.
"I feel like I would have won in China and Russia if I didn"t have the problems I had," Hamilton said.
"But I would definitely say through that rough patch I was going through in terms of reliability, it is hard to handle when you want to win the world championship as much as I do.
"But I really feel that since that low after Barcelona [where Hamilton and Rosberg crashed out on the first lap], I was able to cultivate a very positive and strong mental attitude, and that"s what I have today.
"That"s how I"ve won as many races as I have and it"s something I plan to continue."
The world champion jumped into the crowd after getting out of his car... ...And spent time with thousands of fans after the podium celebration Plus, he performed his usual victory "Brucey bonus"
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U.S. Olympic Trials:The competitions continue, and the women"s gymnastics trials should be especially suspenseful, as decisions are made about which women will represent the U.S. in the Olympics in Rio. (8:30 p.m.; NBC/8)
"The Night Of":The first episode of the new eight-part limited series about a murder investigation in New York still bears an executive producer credit for the late James Gandolfini, who was originally slated to play the role of a rumpled defense attorney. John Turturro inherited the part in this drama from Steven Zaillian and Richard Price, who based it on a BBC series titled "Criminal Justice." It"s the story of Nasir "Naz" Khan (Riz Ahmed), a Pakistani-American college student who meets a mysterious, sexy woman on one fateful night in New York City. After sharing drugs and having s*x with the woman, Naz wakes up to find her dead, covered in blood. From there, Naz becomes caught up in the criminal justice system. Did he commit the crime? Or was he just in the wrong place at the wrong time? The premiere creates an ominous tone, with strong performances by all involved though the portrait of the woman who ends up dead is annoyingly pulpy. Where but in fiction do these seductive, dangerous damsels dwell? (9 p.m. HBO)"Original Sin: s*x":While this new series sounds like it should be on VH1, here it is on the National Geographic channel. Such familiar talking heads as Dr. Ruth Westheimer, Dr. Drew Pinsky, Andy Cohen, Ann Coulter, Dan Savage and RuPaul weigh in on various aspects of s*x and contemporary culture. The first episode, "Hi-Tech s*x," explores how people are using technology as part of their s*x lives. (9 p.m. National Geographic Channel)"The $100,000 Pyramid":Where else will you find celebrity matchups like Martha Stewart vs. Snoop Dogg? If that isn"t a good game-show question, I don"t know what is. (9 p.m.; ABC/2)
"D.B. Cooper: Case Closed?":Two-night docuseries exploring the notorious case of skyjacker D.B. Cooper, who parachuted out of a plane with $200,000 above the Northwest woods in 1971. Interviews and investigations attempt to shed light on the still-unsolved case andoffer theories about who Cooper really was, and what might have happened to him. (9 p.m. History channel)
MONDAY"The Bachelorette": JoJo and her passel of creeps, narcissists and that one singer-songwriter guy who seems nice continue their wacky dating adventures in Argentina. (8 p.m. ABC/2)
"The Making of the Mob: Chicago":The docudrama kicks off Season 2 with an episode called "Capone"s First Kill," tracing the early days of Al Capone"s crime career. (10 p.m.; AMC)
"Running Wild with Bear Grylls": Season 3 begins with Bear Grylls taking Julianne Hough on a trip to Africa, where they come across assorted wildlife, make their way past waterfalls andhave a cliff-rappelling adventure. (10 p.m.; NBC/8) TUESDAY"Difficult People": Julie Klausner and Billy Eichner return for a new season of edgy comedy. (Streaming on Hulu)WEDNESDAYThe 2016 ESPYs:John Cena hosts the annual bash saluting sports achievements, great moments and outstanding athletes. Nominees include LeBron James, Serena Williams, Tom Brady and Stephen Curry. (8 p.m. ABC/2)"Suits":Season 6 finds Mike (Patrick J. Adams) behind bars, and Harvey, Jessica, Louis, Donna and Rachel trying to pick up the pieces of their crumbling law firm. (9 p.m. USA)
"Mr. Robot": Season 2 of last year"s breakout show about a cyber-hacker and the ways technology threatens and transforms our world returns. Based on the first two episodes, it"s stronger than ever, and Rami Malek"s performance continues to astonish.(Read my review.) (10 p.m. USA)
"Hacking Robot 101": An aftershow, this one hosted by Andy Greenwald (co-host of the "Game of Thrones" aftershow, "After the Thrones") and featuring the "Mr. Robot" creator and cast members. (11:32 p.m.; USA)
"The A Word":Drama about a family and their reactions when one of their songs is diagnosed with autism. The cast includes Christopher Eccleston ("The Leftovers.") (10 p.m. Sundance TV)THURSDAY"Aquarius":As with last season, the "60s-set series is like two shows, one that"s good and one that"s not. Everything having to do with David Duchovny"s Los Angeles police detective character and his co-workers, is confident and well-done. But the parallel storyline, which shows how Charles Manson (Gethin Anthony) and his deranged followers came to the point where they committed horrifying murder, is unpleasant and makes me want to change the channel. Which may explain why the ratings aren"t so great. (10 p.m. NBC/8)FRIDAY"Stranger Things":Winona Ryder plays a mother in this "80s-set thriller who panics when her son vanishes, and it starts to look like something supernatural was involved. (Streaming on Netflix)
SATURDAY"The American West":The period following the Civil War is explored. (10 p.m. AMC)-- Kristi Turnquist
UFC 200 PPV full show review, results, and highlights (Brock Lesnar wins!)
Cain Velasquez returned to the win column at UFC 200 on Saturday night. - Esther Lin, MMA Fighting
LAS VEGAS -- Don"t write off Cain Velasquez just yet.
On Saturday night, the two-time former UFC heavyweight champion looked every bit the world beater he"s been when he"s not injured, as he absolutely mauled Travis Browne in the main-card opener of UFC 200 at T Mobile Arena.
Fighting for the first time since losing the title to Fabricio Werdum at UFC 188, Velasquez won via TKO at 4:57 of the opening round.
More Coverage: UFC 200 Results | UFC news
Velasquez (14-2) pressed the action from the outset, stalking Browne down and landing heavy strikes. Velasquez even threw lightning-fast spinning back kicks, one of which landed.
Velasquez dropped Browne late in the round and didn"t let up, wailing away with ground-and-pound until John McCarthy waved the bout off.
"Feels good you know I have a lot of respect for Travis," Velasquez said. "He fights good he fights hard, it"s good to be back."
Velasquez knows he might not get a shot at the belt currently held by Stipe Miocic right away given his injury history, so he says he just wants the best fights.
"I was out for a little bit," Velasquez said. "I want the best fights, I wnat he title belt, whoever the UFC wants me to fight I"ll do it, i want the best guys."
It was the 12th career finish for Velasquez. Browne (18-4-1) has dropped two of his past three.
Portugal vs France 1:0 2016 - All Goals & Match Highlights 10/07/2016 from the stand #PORFRA
Portugal, led by Cristiano Ronaldo, faces France, led by Antoine Griezmann, for the2016 European Championshipon Sunday, July 10, 2016, at Stade de France in Saint-Denis, France.
Here is what you need to know:
Who:Portugal vs. France
What:European Championship
When:Sunday, July 10, 2016
Where:Stade de France, Saint-Denis, France
Time:3 p.m. USA Eastern (9 p.m. in France)
TV:ESPN
Livestream:WatchESPN
Eight months after a wave of attacks brought death to the streets of Paris,France"snational team takes onPortugalin a European Championship final with more than just a silver trophy at stake.
The stadium hosting Sunday"s final was the very first target of the Nov. 13 attacks which killed 130 people in and around Paris. Three suicide bombers blew themselves up outside the Stade deFrance, killing a bystander, whileFranceplayed Germany in a friendly match.
Ahead of Sunday"s game at the same venue, the symbolism has not been lost on aFranceteam that is doing its level best to bring a measure of happiness to a country still mourning its dead.
"We"ve obviously been through some difficult times with regards to this dramatic event,"Francecaptain Lloris said Saturday at a pre-match news conference.
"The fact that we have managed to respond on the pitch gives us a bit more pride. Feeling all of the French public behind us, feeling the joy shared between the players and the fans strengthens our bond."
After a halting start to the tournament,Francehas gained in confidence, routing Iceland 5-2 in the quarterfinals and then beating World Cup winner Germany 2-0 in the semifinals. The national fervor, slow at first, has picked up in tandem withFrance"simproved form.
Now there is a genuine sense of belief among fans and players thatFrancecan win its first trophy since Euro 2000 and a fourth major tournament title.
And it couldn"t come at a better time.
"The French needed an escape, through this competition," Lloris said. "And sport has this ability to bring people together. We can see it very clearly, because we"re experiencing it together.
"There is one step to go, probably the hardest. But it"s worth finishing on your knees for."
(The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
