Today in History: July 1, Dominion of Canada is formed

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Today is Monday, July 1, the 183rd day of 2024. There are 183 days left in the year.

Today’s Highlight in History:

On July 1, 1867, Canada became a self-governing dominion of Great Britain as the British North America Act took effect. Called Dominion Day until 1982, the national holiday is now known as Canada Day.

Also on this date:

In 1863, the pivotal, three-day Civil War Battle of Gettysburg, resulting in a Union victory, began in Pennsylvania.

In 1903, the first Tour de France began. (It ended on July 19; the winner was Maurice Garin.)

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In 1944, delegates from 44 countries began meeting at Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, where they agreed to establish the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

In 1963, the U.S. Post Office inaugurated its five-digit ZIP codes.

In 1973, the Drug Enforcement Administration was established.

In 1984, the first movie rated PG-13 (“Red Dawn,” starring Patrick Swayze) debuted.

In 1991, President George H.W. Bush nominated federal appeals court judge Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court, beginning an ultimately successful confirmation process marked by allegations of sexual harassment.

In 1997, Hong Kong reverted to Chinese rule after 156 years as a British colony.

In 2004, actor Marlon Brando died in Los Angeles at age 80.

In 2015, after more than a half-century of hostility, the United States and Cuba declared they would reopen embassies in each other’s capitals, marking a historic full restoration of diplomatic relations between the Cold War foes.

In 2018, LeBron James announced that he would be signing with the Los Angeles Lakers, leaving Cleveland for the second time in his career.

In 2019, 15-year-old Coco Gauff, the youngest player to qualify at Wimbledon in the professional era, defeated 39-year-old Venus Williams in the first round.

Today’s Birthdays:

Actor-dancer Leslie Caron is 93. Actor Jamie Farr (TV: “M(asterisk)A(asterisk)S(asterisk)H”) is 90.
Cookiemaker Wally Amos is 88.
Dancer-choreographer Twyla Tharp is 83.
Actor Genevieve Bujold is 82.
Rock singer Deborah Harry (Blondie) is 79.
Actor Terrence Mann is 73.
Rock singer Fred Schneider (The B-52s) is 73.
Pop singer Victor Willis (Village People) is 73.
Actor-comedian Dan Aykroyd is 72.
Actor Alan Ruck is 68.
Mystery novelist Louise Penny is 66.
Singer Evelyn “Champagne” King is 64.
Olympic track champion Carl Lewis is 63.
Actor Dominic Keating (TV: “Star Trek: Enterprise”) is 61.
Actor Pamela Anderson is 57.
Actor Henry Simmons is 54.
Hip-hop artist Missy Elliott is 53.
Actor Julianne Nicholson is 53.
Singer-songwriter Sufjan Stevens is 49.
Actor Liv Tyler is 47.
Hockey Hall of Famer Jarome Iginla is 47.
Actor Hilarie Burton is 42.
Actor Lea Seydoux (LEE’-uh say-DOO’) is 39.
Actor-singer Chloe Bailey is 26.
Actor Storm Reid is 20.

Twin Cities Pride Parade draws thousands to Minneapolis

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The 2024 Twin Cities Pride Festival was held in Minneapolis’ Loring Park on the last weekend in June, with a parade on Sunday winding down Hennepin from 3rd Avenue to Spruce. With 134 participants, floats represented groups from the local sports teams and Roller Derby to the Queer Caucus of the Minnesota Legislature and large local employers like U.S. Bank. The Twin Cities Pride organization, which coordinates the event, has summer camps and further pride events in other cities planned this summer. For more information, visit tcpride.org.

A mother carries her kid on her shoulders through the streets of Minneapolis during the Twin Cities Pride Parade on Sunday, June 30, 2024. The child, wearing a rainbow tutu, observes the crowd. (Devanie Andre / Pioneer Press)

A Twin Cities Pride Parade attendee laughs and smiles as she interacts with motorcyclists in the parade on Sunday, June 30, 2024. (Devanie Andre / Pioneer Press)

Motorcyclists amped up the large crowd at the Twin Cities Pride Parade in Minneapolis on Sunday, June 30, 2024. The bikes lead the charge to signify the start of the parade. (Devanie Andre / Pioneer Press)

A member of the parade stops to high-five a row of parade-goers in Minneapolis on Sunday, June 30, 2024, at the Twin Cities Pride Parade. Individuals participating in the parade were very interactive with the crowd, giving out high-fives, hugs, words of encouragement, candy, and free promotional items. (Devanie Andre / Pioneer Press)

An elderly woman gets pushed through the Twin Cities Parade in her wheelchair in Minneapolis on Sunday, June 30, 2024, smiling as she is greeted by a younger individual from the crowd. (Devanie Andre / Pioneer Press)

The Twin Cities Pride Festival’s Parade kicked off around 11 am down Hennepin Ave in Minneapolis on Sunday, June 30, 2024. (Devanie Andre / Pioneer Press)

Sharon Rosenberg-Scholl points and cheers on some of her friends who walked with the Transforming Families Minnesota group in the Twin Cities Pride Parade in Minneapolis on Sunday, June 30, 2024. Rosenberg-Scholl attended the parade with her wife of 27 years, Tina Scholl, and their close friends Katherine Lee and April Conlee, who have been married since 1995. The two pairs met on a listserv called The Moms List meant for “queer moms and wannabes” according to Sharon. She laughs and jokes “We’ve become the queer elders.” Sharon and Tina have been attending the Twin Cities Pride Festival for about 30 years when the size of the festival and parade were nothing compared to what it is now. (Devanie Andre / Pioneer Press)

A Minnesota Deaf Queers group walked in the Twin Cities Pride Parade in Minneapolis on Sunday, June 30, 2024. Members of the crowd began to use sign language to show their cheers and love for the group. (Devanie Andre / Pioneer Press)

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Dane Mizutani: Suni Lee almost had to give up gymnastics. Now the St. Paul native is headed back to the Olympics.

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St. Paul gymnast Suni Lee made the Olympic team at 7:26 p.m Sunday. Never mind that there were still a couple of hours left in the Olympic Trials at Target Center in Minneapolis.

After defying logic with an ridiculous routine on uneven bars, Lee stuck the landing and let out a roar. The sold out crowd responded by showing love and showering her with a standing ovation. As she soaked in the moment, Lee had to know, deep down, that had done enough to qualify for the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris.

As much as the rest of the night was more or less a coronation for Lee, it was also a personification of the mental toughness that helped her complete an incredible comeback.

She legitimately thought she might have to give up up gymnastics after being diagnosed with an incurable kidney disease. Now she’s headed back to the Olympics.

It’s impossible to overstate how challenging the past 18 months have been for Lee as she has navigated her new normal.

She had to end her collegiate career at Auburn University prematurely and spent time in a hospital bed as they tried to figure out what was wrong. She has made countless trips to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester in an effort to determine the medication she needs to take on a daily basis. She took some time off and only seriously started training around Christmas after after getting the green light from her doctors.

Nobody would’ve blamed Lee if she wanted to step away from the sport she loved. That’s just not how she’s wired.

As longtime coach Jess Graba so perfectly put it when talking about Lee before the Olympics Trials: When things get tough, she gets tougher.

That was on full display at the Olympic Trials as Lee faced adversity once more for good measure and responded with the heart of a champion.

After a masterful performance on uneven bars produced a score of 14.875 and essentially punched her ticket, Lee shockingly struggled on balance beam. She fell off during the initial mount, got back on, then nearly fell off again before somehow saving herself. She finished with a score of 12.825 and walked off visibly disappointed in herself.

Not that Lee was going to let that keep her down. She’s been to hell and back over the past 18 months and emerged on the other end stronger than ever before. Think a fall was going to faze her?

She composed herself backstage, returned for floor exercise, then promptly nailed her opening tumbling pass to take the edge off. That seemed to restore her confidence and Lee posted a score of 13.850 to get back on track. She capped the competition with an exclamation point on vault, twirling trough the air, planting her feet firmly into the ground, and positing a score of 14.100 to leave absolutely no doubt.

It became official for Lee roughly 45 minutes later as Lee was named to the Team USA roster.

The biggest cheer of the night came when Lee’s name was announced over the loud speakers. She couldn’t contain her emotions as she emerged from the tunnel. She cried tears of joy as she celebrated alongside teammates Simone Biles, Jordan Chiles, Jade Carey, and Hezly Rivera, along with alternates Joscelyn Roberson and Leanne Wong.

After famously winning the gold medal in the all-around at the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, Lee will have a chance to defend her title at the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris. What an unbelievable accomplishment given everything she’s been through over the past 18 months.

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U.S. Olympic Trials: Simone Biles, Sunisa Lee headline U.S. team headed to Paris

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USA Gymnastics put together its women’s team for the 2024 Summer Games on Sunday night, and one has to like its chances in Paris. The team, determined after the U.S. Olympic Trials this week at Target Center, features the Games’ past two all-around gold medalists.

Simone Biles and St. Paul’s Sunisa Lee — who won the all-around gold medals at the 2016 and 2020 Summer Games, respectively — finished 1-2 in the Trials all-around after the last day of competition on Sunday.

Biles won the automatic qualification by winning the all-around with 117.225 points. The other four athletes were chosen by a strategic selection committee that convened immediately after Sunday’s competition. She and Lee will be joined in Paris by Jordan Chiles and Jade Carey, their teammate at the 2020 Games, and Hezly Rivera.

The selection committee is tasked with choosing the team USA Gymnastics believes has the best chance of medaling at the Games. Carey earned Team USA’s only individual event gold medal in Tokyo, the floor exercise.

Lee, who attended South St. Paul High School before matriculating to Auburn, was the breakout star of the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo, where she won the all-around gold medal and bronze in the uneven bars to help the U.S. win the team silver.

Biles returns to the Games for the third time. In 2016 in Rio De Janeiro, she powered the team to gold by winning the all-around, vault and floor exercise. She also earned bronze in the beam.

But after winning bronze in the beam in Tokyo, where the games were held in 2021 because of the COVID pandemic, Biles withdrew from the final three individual events after being overwhelmed with anxiety.

Since then, Biles, 27, has proven she is still the world’s best gymnast, winning the all-around at the 2023 world championships and earning gold in all four events at the 2024 U.S. championships.

She was a lock to make the 2024 Olympic team, and maybe Lee was, too — although she had more to prove than Biles. Diagnosed with chronic kidney disease early in 2023, she withdrew from Auburn and didn’t start training again until January of this year.

Lee, 21, won a couple of balance beam golds in national competitions, and won silver in the beam and placed fourth in the all-around at the U.S. Championships in late May, but this week was her biggest test.

She received a standing ovation, the first in four days of competition at Target Center this week, after her first routine, the balance bars. Her score, 14.875, gave her the top combination on the bars for the Trials, 29.275.

But Lee’s next routine, the balance beam — the other of her specialties — was uncharacteristically rough. She fell on her mount, then nearly fell again after a pair of difficult backward somersaults. Her score of 12.825 was her lowest of the competition.

But she rallied — her scores in the beam, floor and vault were improvements on her scores from Friday’s competition — for an overall score of 111.675. Chiles’ performance on the floor exercise (14.100) pushed her past Rivera for third in the all-around.

Briefly

— A small handful of challengers were eliminated by injuries this week. Skye Blakely injured an Achilles’ tendon during practices on Wednesday, and Kayla DiCello injured an Achilles on the first event of Friday’s competition. Shilese Jones suffered a leg injury during warmups Friday and withdrew from the Trials after being evaluated on Saturday.

— The U.S. men’s team, chosen Saturday after its second day of the Trials, was introduced during an intermission between rotations. Noticeably missing was Minnesota’s Shane Wiskus, who finished third in the all-around but was made a traveling alternate.

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