📌 Ledecky, 9/11 Plea Deal, More

Katie Ledecky won her eighth Olympic gold medal of her career and 12th medal overall with a victory in the 1,500-meter freestyle.

She also confirmed after the race that she has no plans of retiring and wants to compete in Los Angeles. "I don't feel like I'm close to being finished in the sport yet.”

Ledecky, 27, tied fellow Americans Dara Torres, Natalie Coughlin and Jenny Thompson for the most medals ever by a female swimmer.

She was thrilled to be on top again, splashing the water and pumping her fist several times—a rare show of emotion for a stoic athlete who performs with machine-like efficiency.

Three 9/11 defendants at Guantanamo Bay, including alleged mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, have agreed on a plea.

The other two conspirators who agreed to the plea were Walid Muhammad Salih Mubarak Bin Attash and Mustafa Ahmed Adam al Hawsawi.

According to a letter obtained by ABC News, in exchange for taking the death penalty off the table, the three will plead guilty to all charges, including the murder of 2,976 people. A panel of military officers will sentence them.

They also agreed to respond to questions from the verified 9/11 family members “regarding their roles and reasons for conducting” the attacks.

Two other 9/11 defendants did not participate, but only one, Ammar al Baluchi, could face trial proceedings. A military judge earlier ruled the other, Ramzi bin al Shibh, was mentally incompetent to stand trial.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) issued a statement saying the Department of Defense’s decision was right. "It's also the only practical solution after nearly two decades of litigation.”

According to international researchers, body image in women varies across cultures but not so much across ages.

A survey of 1,186 women aged 18–80 in Western countries, including the US, UK, China and Nigeria, found Nigerians had the highest body appreciation, followed by Chinese women. White women reported the lowest.

High internalization of the thin ideal and high perceived pressure about appearance from family, peers, and the media were associated with lower body appreciation.

Older white women and Nigerian women reported a lower idealization of thinness than younger women, and Chinese women experienced the same thin-ideal desire across their lives.

White women reported feeling more pressure from the media than Nigerian and Chinese women. Nigerian women reported the lowest sociocultural pressure; Chinese women reported the most.

Several of the top vice presidential contenders are mainly unknown to Americans, according to polls.

Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly stands out as one with more name recognition and higher favorability, particularly among Democrats.

But Kelly is still unfamiliar to about half of Americans. Others, like Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, while less known, could draw on a deeper well of support in their home states and regions.

Kelly and Shapiro are viewed among the front-runners, according to people familiar with the process, after the Harris campaign began its vetting with about a dozen names.

Harris said she had yet to decide on her No. 2. Both will head out next week on a seven-state swing of critical battlegrounds, including Pennsylvania, Arizona and North Carolina.

The first detailed map of an ice shelf's underside reveals melted areas with an unexpected shape: teardrops.

The authors hypothesize that the water’s circulation and friction between the ice and ocean surface might create a spiral of water that accelerates melting to create these teardrop shapes.

The data could help researchers better understand how ice is affected when scoured by ocean currents and might lead to more accurate sea-level rise predictions.

Remote-operated submersibles have ventured under ice shelves, but none has produced a fine-resolution ice map. “It’s a little bit like the holy grail in Antarctic oceanography,” says an oceanographer and the paper's first author.

The study describes the belly of the Dotson Ice Shelf, part of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. If it collapses, it could cause an average sea-level rise of 3.2 meters. Land-based glaciers could become destabilized, and their flow out to sea could accelerate.

Hollywood's video game performers are heading to the Warner Bros. Studios lot today to set up a picket.

They are striking in response to top gaming companies' unwillingness to protect voice actors and motion capture workers equally against the unregulated use of artificial intelligence.

Union leaders have billed AI as an existential crisis for performers. They say AI could replicate game voice actors and motion capture artists’ likenesses without consent and fair compensation.

The union says unregulated use threatens performers because the capacity to cheaply and easily create convincing digital replicas is widely available.

The key to the negotiations is the definition of “performer.” The gaming companies do not consider all rendering movement performances covered by collective bargaining and treat some physical performances as “data.”

The global video game industry generated nearly $184 billion in revenue in 2023, according to game market forecaster Newzoo, with revenues projected to reach $207 billion in 2026.

An Ohio man is facing a count of criminal mischief for spray painting circles around potholes in roads.

When police interviewed Gregory Strole, he admitted using orange spray paint to mark the roadways because he was tired of how long it took public works to fill in potholes.

The officials said specific paint colors are used to mark underground utilities for crews. Orange indicates communication lines and equipment are present, they said.

“The proper way to express one's frustration is to attend a council meeting to discuss the issue or contact the village administrator, not take it upon yourself to paint the roadway,” officials said.