Americans freed from Russia; Simone Biles GOAT : NPR

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Today’s top stories

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, including Germany, Slovenia, Norway and Poland. Three U.S. citizens, one legal resident and 13 German nationals were included in the swap. Here’s everything we know about them so far.

• 🎧 Germany’s cooperation was crucial to the success of this deal as the country held the most important prisoner in the eyes of Russian President Vladimir Putin, NPR’s Rob Schmitz tells Up First. That man, Vadim Krasikov, was serving a life sentence until yesterday for assassinating a former Chechen rebel in Berlin five years ago. Not everyone was for the deal. German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said it could send Putin the message that the West is open to negotiating with a regime that takes hostages at will. Schmitz says most political observers don’t believe this deal will improve relations between Russia, the U.S. and its allies.

Israel and Lebanon are bracing for the possibility of even stronger attacks after Israel’s killing of top leaders from the militant groups Hamas and Hezbollah. Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s leader, made it clear the group would retaliate in a speech at yesterday’s funeral for their second in command, Fuad Shukr. He said Hezbollah would pause 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.

• 🎧 In an effort to help de-escalate tensions, NPR’s Jane Arraf says that Biden and Harris spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last night. The U.S. embassy has been steadily upgrading its travel advisory for Lebanon and now tells citizens not to travel. Citizens who are already there should be prepared to shelter in place. Other embassies have also done the same. Flights in Israel are being canceled, and only the Israeli national carrier is still flying.

Simone Biles cemented herself as the greatest gymnast of all time after she became the third woman ever to win a second gold medal in the individual all-around final at the Olympics last night. Her win comes two days after she led the U.S. women’s team back to the gold medal in the team event. The win did not come easy. An unusually poor performance on the uneven bars put her behind two strong competitors. But, that setback did not stop her from standing on the winner’s podium with her sixth Olympic gold and her ninth medal overall — more than any other U.S. gymnast in history.

• 🎧 “It really is a testament to Simone Biles that she can have a mistake that big and still pull off a decisive win,” NPR’s Becky Sullivan says. She has three more Olympic events to go, each with a chance to add to her medal count. There is another gymnast with double the Olympic medals as Biles: the Soviet Union’s Larisa Latynina. Still, Sullivan says it is hard to compare the gymnastics of the 50s and 60s to that of today, as the skills that Biles performs are orders of magnitude more difficult. It’s safe to give her the greatest of all time title, especially given how dominant she is and how much longevity she’s had in a sport that traditionally ends much earlier than her age of 27.
• ➡️ Track and field events begin today. NPR’s reporters on the ground will be watching Sha’Carri Richardson, the flamboyant American runner who was forced out of the Tokyo Olympics due to a positive marijuana test. Stay up-to-date with the Olympics with NPR’s coverage here.

Picture Show

Gideon Mendel, an award-winning photojournalist, 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 meets and engages with the people who live in impacted communities and, if they agree, photographs them and their reality at that moment. He describes his style of photography as moving away from documentary photojournalism and somewhere into art and activism.

• 📷 See the flood of emotions in his photography and read about his bodies of work.

Weekend picks

Check out what NPR is watching, reading and listening to this weekend:

📺 TV: Hacks, a show exploring what it means to be a comedy hack, blossomed from an idea conceived during a 2015 road trip. Paul W. Downs co-created the show with his wife, Lucia Aniello, and plays Jimmy. He tells NPR about what the series, which just wrapped its third season, means to him.

📚 Books: Jessica Anthony’s new novel, The Most, takes place over the course of a day, allowing readers to get to know a couple’s alternating points of view — from their aspirations, personalities and backgrounds to their infidelities and secrets they’ve kept from each other.

🎵 Music: For nearly 60 years, Meredith Monk has taken on several roles: singer, composer, pianist, filmmaker, director, choreographer, dancer, recording artist and educator. Now, at 81, she reflects on her music-making journey.

🥘 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.

❓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. How well do you think you’ll do?

3 things to know before you go

1. Turkey’s Olympic shooter Yusuf Dikec took the internet by storm for his decidedly lower-tech look. While many of his competitors donned more cyberpunk-looking gear, he earned a silver medal in the air pistol mixed team competition in a casual jersey and glasses.
2. Nigerians are taking to the streets to protest the harsh economic conditions in Africa’s most populous country. They are suffering from one of the worst economic crises in decades due to a combination of high food inflation, rising electricity tariffs and more.
3. Columbia University could face subpoenas if it doesn’t comply with a U.S. House investigation into reports of rising antisemitism on college campuses. The committee has been requesting the information for months.

This newsletter was edited by Suzanne Nuyen.