Bill Chappell

Germany's Olympic federation is firing Patrick Moster as the sports director of its cycling program, after he was recorded using a racial slur during the men's time trial Wednesday. Moster is being sent home early from the Tokyo Olympics, German officials said.

TV cameras picked up a German cycling official yelling a racial slur during the men's time trial Wednesday at the Tokyo Olympics, prompting an apology from the official and a reaction from at least two of the cyclists involved.

Patrick Moster, sporting director of the German cycling federation, apologized shortly after he was recorded using a racial slur while cheering on German cyclist Nikias Arndt.

Simone Biles' decision to pull out of the women's team final has prompted comments and analysis around the world, including much praise for Biles' choosing to prioritize her mental health.

Simone Biles' withdrawal from team competition in Tokyo shocked Olympics viewers, but it followed years of stress and pressure on the greatest gymnast of all time.

Biles says mental health concerns prompted her to pull out of the U.S. team's much-anticipated showdown with Russia on Tuesday.

The racers stood ready, primed to dive into Tokyo Bay to start the men's Olympic triathlon. A camera aboard a media boat captured the moment as the start time neared — and unfortunately, it kept capturing the moment after the official start signal blared. Roughly half of the 51 competitors sprang into the water, but the rest were blocked from diving in by the position of the boat, forcing an unusual false start.

Two U.S. women's teams will compete for gold early Tuesday, as the gymnastics and softball squads try to put their mark on the Tokyo Olympics. They headline a busy day for Team USA.

Here's a quick guide to what could be a dramatic day in Tokyo:

Gymnastics women's team final, 6:30 a.m. ET

Simone Biles leads the U.S. team into a showdown with Russia, which finished first in qualifying on Sunday.

Weightlifter Hidilyn Diaz made history Monday, winning the Philippines' first gold medal at the Summer Olympics in Tokyo. The country had been trying to reach the podium's top spot for nearly 100 years: It sent its first Olympic delegation to Paris for the 1924 Games.

Diaz won gold in the 55-kilogram category of women's weightlifting — and in the process, she also set an Olympic record with her combined weight total of 224 kilograms across two successful lifts.

Pictogram people become unlikely MVPs

One of the most striking sequences in the Tokyo Olympics' opening ceremony revolved around pictograms. Tokyo organizers have been touting their "kinetic pictograms," which show figures bursting into motion across dozens of disciplines. For Friday's ceremony, they brought all 50 of those pictograms to life.

Fireworks soared above Tokyo's new Olympic Stadium Friday as the delayed Summer Games finally held its opening ceremony — an event that culminates in lighting the Olympic cauldron.

Athletes marched in front of thousands of empty seats as only a sparse crowd was admitted due to COVID-19 restrictions. Those attending included first lady Jill Biden, who chatted with French President Emmanuel Macron.

Czech Olympic officials are looking into a cluster of coronavirus cases that are linked to a charter flight that brought a contingent of athletes and staff to Japan. The country's team has six coronavirus cases in total.

A doctor who was on the flight was reportedly among the first to test positive. As of late Thursday, four athletes had also tested positive for the coronavirus.

Australian Olympics chief John Coates is being criticized after lecturing Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk and ordering her to attend the opening ceremony of the Tokyo Olympics. Palaszczuk had previously said she wouldn't be attending Friday's ceremony.

"I was reading some questions about you going to the opening ceremony," Coates told Palaszczuk. "You are going to the opening ceremony," he then said, crossing his arms as he spoke.

Two days before the Olympics' opening ceremony, Tokyo is reporting new COVID-19 cases at levels not seen since January — when Japan was enduring a record spike in coronavirus infections.

The 1,832 new cases represent a sharp rise from last Wednesday, when the Tokyo Metropolitan Government reported 1,149 cases.

British women's soccer players took a knee on the first day of competition at the Tokyo Olympics on Wednesday, in a protest against discrimination and racism that was quickly reciprocated by their opponents from Chile.

It was the first time Olympians in Japan utilized newly relaxed rules on athletes expressing their views.

The CEO of the Tokyo Olympics' organizing committee is not dismissing the idea that the Games could still be canceled if COVID-19 cases continue to rise, sending a jolt through the massive event that is set to begin in a matter of days. Toshiro Muto says officials will make decisions about the viability of the Games based on what happens.

Muto said he can't speculate about whether the rate of new coronavirus cases will rise or fall. But in his response to a question about whether the Olympics, already delayed by a year, could still be canceled, he did not rule it out.

Becca Meyers, a swimmer seen as a favorite to bring gold home from Tokyo, has canceled plans to compete in the Paralympics after being told she can't bring a personal care assistant to Japan. Meyers is deaf and blind. U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee (USOPC) officials say they don't have space for her to bring an aide because of coronavirus restrictions on athletic delegations.

The Hubble Space Telescope is returning to operation more than a month after its original payload computer shut down. NASA said it has successfully switched over to its backup computer — and while the process of bringing the system back online is slow, the agency has started to bring science instruments out of "safe mode."

Now, that's a long — and expensive — trip.

A 132-night "world cruise" sold out in under three hours, despite pandemic worries that have hobbled the cruise industry and steep prices that start at $73,499 per guest — and range up to $199,999 per person for a master suite.

Regent Seven Seas Cruises released the fares for sale at 8:30 a.m. ET Thursday. By 11 a.m., all the spots had been snapped up by people eager to spend more than four months on a cruise ship. The strong interest may be a positive sign for the cruise industry as it tries to rebound from the pandemic.

A Utah hate crime case is drawing national attention after local authorities charged a young woman with a hate crime over allegedly defacing a "Back the Blue" sign in front of a sheriff's deputy.

Utah is one of at least five states — along with Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi and New Hampshire — that list law enforcement officers, along with race and gender, in their hate crime laws' protected categories, according to the Brennan Center for Justice.

A Utah gun company has halted sales of a Lego-themed pistol kit, after facing fierce backlash from the public and a request from the Danish toymaker to remove the product. With the colorful "Block 19" pistol kit, owners would have been able to use Lego blocks to create their own sights and designs on top of a Glock 19 pistol's slide.

Tennessee's top vaccine official says she has been fired as punishment for doing her job in the face of political pushback.

A record number of French citizens booked vaccine shots Monday after French President Emmanuel Macron said that starting in August, anyone who wants to visit cafes, bars or shopping centers must show a "health pass" that certifies they've been vaccinated or recently tested negative for the coronavirus.

"Get vaccinated!" the president said in a live address to the nation, warning of a new coronavirus surge fueled by the fast-spreading delta variant.

Cuba is suffering through a summer of dire shortages, from food and electricity to medicine. Fed-up Cubans are taking to the streets in unprecedented protests — and they're voicing their outrage through a song called Patria y Vida — homeland and life.

The slogan is a spin on the communist regime's decades-old slogan of "patria o muerte" — homeland or death. In strong terms, the song accuses the government of destroying the quality of life in Cuba, a message that quickly found traction with protesters who are demanding change.

The patient came to the hospital because she was repeatedly falling down. She was breathing fine, and her blood oxygen levels were good. But tests showed that the 90-year-old Belgian woman had COVID-19 — and not just one strain, but two variants of the virus. She died at the hospital in just five days after her respiratory system rapidly deteriorated.

"To our knowledge, this is one of the first reports of a double infection" with two coronavirus variants of concern, the researchers said.

The catastrophe that leveled part of a large condominium building in Surfside, Fla., has killed at least four people, with 159 more people unaccounted for. The massive response to the tragedy includes a push to help victims who've been displaced from their homes — and a Florida aid organization and state officials listed ways the public can help.

Owners of units in the Champlain Towers South condo complex near Miami have filed a class-action lawsuit after their building partially collapsed on Thursday. As of Friday morning, 159 people remain unaccounted for as rescue crews work at the scene.

The owners say the condo association failed to "secure and safeguard the lives and property" of plaintiff Manuel Drezner and other owners, according to the complaint filed by the Brad Sohn Law Firm.

It's very hard for a team to win either a World Cup, soccer's crown jewel, or an Olympic gold medal. To win those championships back-to-back is "incredibly challenging," says Carli Lloyd, who will nevertheless try to pull off that feat this summer, along with the U.S. Women's national team.

Lloyd, the superstar who is now going to her fourth Olympics, is aiming to bring home the gold. When she embarks on that quest in Tokyo, she'll be 39 — the oldest player the U.S. women's national team has ever sent to the Olympics.