Simone Biles won her third gold medal in the Olympics with a vault named after her
What can you learn from a woman’s cooking? The Most, by Jessica Anthony, a book-length journey to understand the different perspectives of Russian prisoner swapping and Simone Biles is GOAT
❓Quiz: If you’re more into sports than politics, you’re in luck with this week’s quiz. Go for the gold by testing your Olympics knowledge with an unusual amount of sports questions. Do you think you can do it?
🥘 Food: Vérane Frédiani’s Taste the World in Marseille leads readers through France’s oldest city and its diverse neighborhoods. The new French cookbook offers readers a discovery of Marseille’s recipes and culinary traditions from a native.
🎵 Music: For nearly 60 years, Meredith Monk has taken on several roles: singer, composer, pianist, filmmaker, director, choreographer, dancer, recording artist and educator. At 81, she contemplates her music-making journey.
The Most, a new novel by Jessica Anthony, takes readers on a day long journey to understand a couple’s differing points of view and their infidelities and secrets.
Paul Mendel, a photographer who’s inspired by climate change, shot in Los Alamos, Brazil, during the Biles II Summer Games
An idea that was conceived during a road trip blossomed into a show about comedy hacks. Paul W. Downs is the actor who plays Jimmy on the show. He tellsNPR about the show and what it means to him.
A renowned photographer wanted to document climate change from a young age. That’s exactly what he did when he started photographing floods. Scientists in the U.S. know that floods are becoming more frequent and severe due to extreme precipitation and sea level rise from climate change. Mendel captures the trauma that storms and rainfall leave behind. He will meet and engage with people in impacted communities and photograph them at a moment’s notice. His style of photography was moving away from documentary photojournalism and into activism.
The dream became a reality on Saturday. It was in the summer Games that the Biles II won its namesake’s third gold medal.
The Hezbollah and Hamas terrorist groups: All you need to know about them – read their story in the Up First newsletter
Hezbollah and Hamas are considered to be terrorist groups by Israel and Lebanon. In a speech at the funeral for Fuad Shukr, Hezbollah leader Hakeem Nasrallah made it clear that the group would retaliate. He said Hezbollah would not carry out attacks in respect for Shukr’s death. Israel announced it had killed the head of the Hamas military wing, Mohammad Daif, in an attack in Gaza on July 13. This morning, Israel also said it had killed a senior commander in Islamic Jihad, another militant group, in Rafah.
President Biden and Vice President Harris welcomed home a group of Americans imprisoned by Russia last night in what was the largest prisoner exchange between the West and Russia since the end of the Cold War. Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich was among those who landed at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland to reunite with their families. The exchange was months in the making and depended on several American allies. The US citizens and one legal resident were included in the swap. Here’s everything we know about them so far.
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The Yurchenko Double Pike: A Legacy for the Gymnast-Athlete in Biles’s Successes at the Tokyo Olympics
But soon after, Biles was robbed of her chance to perform it at the Tokyo Olympics when she was beset by a sudden and unexplainable loss of her ability to control her body through the air known as the “twisties.” She couldn’t compete in the vault final that summer because of the affliction.
The vault, also known as the Yurchenko double pike, was officially named after Biles when she became the first gymnast to land it at an international competition in 2023.
A gymnast’s attempted routine and quality of execution determine the final score in gymnastics. It is possible to offset fractions of a point lost due to an extra step by measuring the difficulty of a gymnast’s vault.
“I never had an athlete that close to me, so it put me on my toes,” Biles said. “It brought out the best athlete in myself, so I’m excited and proud to compete with her.”
Biles has two events remaining in Paris, the balance beam and floor exercise finals. She won four golds and a bronze in the 2016 Games in Rio, so she is in a position to match her career medal total.
