Monday, August 8, 2016

A golden night for American swimming at Rio Olympics




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A golden night for American swimming at Rio Olympics

Katie Ledecky and Michael Phelps set records; Japan's emperor may stand down; Kasich says Trump may lose Ohio; and why we shouldn't say 'crazy'

Katie Ledecky
Katie Ledecky competes in the women's 400m freestyle final at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games on Sunday. Photograph: Adam Pretty/Getty Images

Edward Helmore in New York


Swim golds in Rio: Michael Phelps and Katie Ledecky

Michael Phelps became the most decorated Olympian of all time with 23 medals (including 19 golds) as he helped USA beat France in the men's swimming 4x100m freestyle relay in Rio while his compatriot Katie Ledecky, 19, beat the 400m freestyle record by almost two seconds. But this was also a day in which the Williams sisters lost in tennis doubles, the US men's volleyball team were defeated by Canada and American cyclist Mara Abbott was chased down in the final yards of the road race. Check out the full results here and Monday's schedule here.

Phelps and record-breaking Ledecky make it a golden night for Team USA

Japanese emperor Akihito hints at abdication

In a 10-minute TV address, the 82-year-old emperor Akihito of Japan expressed fears for his failing health and his ability to carry on as leader, and hinted that he wanted to stand down. The monarch, emperor of Japan since 1989, said he wanted an orderly imperial family succession, stopping short of saying he intended to abdicate. Akihito has had heart surgery and treatment for prostate cancer. "I am concerned it may become difficult for me to carry out my duties as the symbol of the state with my whole body and soul as I have done so far," he said. No emperor has abdicated in the modern era, which began with the Meiji Restoration of 1868.

Japan's Emperor Akihito says health is failing and hints at abdication

Kasich: Trump could lose Ohio

Ohio governor and former contender for the Republican nomination John Kasich has warned that Donald Trump is at risk of losing his state in November, due to the Republican candidate's "disturbing" campaign of divisiveness. Kasich's remarks came after it was reported that the leader of the American Nazi Party said a Trump victory in the presidential election would be "a real opportunity for people like white nationalists". Trump fans, meanwhile, say they are undaunted by his recent missteps.

John Kasich: Trump's 'disturbing' campaign could cost him Ohio

Pokémon Go death

A 20-year-old man has been shot dead while playing Pokémon Go at a tourist spot on San Francisco's waterfront. US park police said Calvin Riley was shot on Saturday night by an unknown assailant at Aquatic Park near Ghirardelli Square. "From what we know there was no confrontation. There was nothing said back and forth. It was just senseless, just came up and shot in the back and ran away for nothing," a family friend, John Kirby, said. He said Riley and a friend were playing Pokémon Go when Riley was shot.

Man shot dead while playing Pokémon Go in San Francisco

Iranian nuclear scientist executed

Shahram Amiri, an expert in radioactive isotopes at Tehran's Malek Ashtar University who was accused of giving away state secrets, has been executed in Iran. The Iranian scientist's disappearance in Saudi Arabia in 2009 and his subsequent return to Tehran a year later from Washington remains shrouded in mystery. His execution lends weight to the theory he had defected to the US as part of an intelligence coup. The release of Hillary Clinton's emails last year by the state department appeared to have been damning for Amiri. A number of emails sent to the then secretary of state appeared to support claims that he was a defector.

Iran executes nuclear scientist who returned to country from US

Recycling centers to close, threatening subsistence livelihoods

California's canners – often poor or homeless people who collect and recycle aluminum cans, plastic containers and glass bottles for cash – could see their livelihoods destroyed if the state's recycling centers continue to close. Over the past 18 months, hundreds of centers in California have closed – about 20% of the total – reducing the ability of people across the state to access their refunds.

Collecting cans to survive: a 'dark future' as California recycling centers vanish

Oakland against guns

East Oakland is the center of the California city's gun violence epidemic with 39 people killed and 175 shot so far this year. Now local residents are making their voices heard. One 24-year-old, Chris Head, said he had lost 30 friends. He was "blessed", he said, that it was only that many. "At least I can count," he said. "Some people can't count."

Oakland gun violence spurs young men's call for action: 'We come together'

Baz Luhrmann's rapper's delight

The Get Down, the director's first TV project, walks the poverty-stricken streets of 1970s New York to capture the birth of hip-hop. The Netflix project "is sure to be divisive – like everything Luhrmann does, it's lavish and camp – but there's a wonderful vigour to it, too", writes Alex Needham. One sumptuously shot 20-minute setpiece, in which his hero Ezekiel "Books" Figueroa (Justice Smith) visits the nightclub Les Inferno in order to woo aspiring disco diva Mylene Cruz (Herizen Guardiola), "features coke dealing, violence and a massive dance routine, set to an ever-shifting pulse of soul and funk records".

Why Baz Luhrmann's The Get Down is a rapper's delight

In case you missed it …

Arwa Mahdawi traces the history, from Plato to Plath, of women being called crazy. "Women, we have been told in thousands of ways for thousands of years, are simply more emotional and more irrational than men," Mahdawi writes. "Madness-as-womanness is something we were first sold by the ancient Greeks. The problem with women, they decided, was that they had wandering wombs. So, thanks to a few wise men, half the world's population was diagnosed with a sex-specific disorder: hysteria."

The term 'crazy' shouldn't be thrown around lightly – ask any woman

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