For those named competitors in the world’s most ancient athletic competition, there are no days off. Finished the day’s laps? Swim another. Cleared enough hurdles? Jump a few more. Lifted a personal best? Add more weight.

Take any of the 40 sporting competitions that will be held at the Paris Olympic and Paralympic Games. The best in the world had to train and practice their skills again and again to get here. For some athletes, their sport isn’t popular enough to allow them to compete year-round and earn money. But they train anyway during the four-year gap between Olympics. Some say 10,000 hours is the minimum a person must put in to become an expert. But for an athlete to be considered one of the best in the world, that might be on the low end.

What is more important, the journey or the destination? Not every Olympian will win a medal, but simply making it to the Games is among the rarest of accomplishments. It is a reminder of the awe-inspiring grit that it takes to persevere and reach such a monumental goal. It’s an honor that can’t be bought or bartered for. It is earned, and millions will share the experience, watching on television screens around the globe.

“We often talk about sport as an incredible unifier across boundaries that sort of penetrates language barriers, that penetrates cultural barriers,” says Sarah Hirshland, CEO of the United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee. “It’s an opportunity for us to celebrate in that place in that way, at a moment in time where we haven’t had a lot of that lately, and we don’t see a lot of it in our day-to-day lives.”

This year some sports, like breaking, are new. The hip-hop dance style started on the streets of New York City with kids throwing down backspins and propeller kicks on makeshift cardboard dance floors. It evolved into a global phenomenon and now an Olympic sport. Some relatively new sports, like women’s boxing, may not be featured in Los Angeles in 2028. So for these athletes, it is critical to make the world want more.

Here are just a few stories of the dedication and sacrifice each Olympic athlete puts in to give us this shared experience, which in some form dates back millennia. Let the Games begin.

Thomas Padilla/AP

A rescue boat cruises on the River Seine near the Eiffel Tower during a rehearsal for the 2024 Paris opening ceremony. Each national delegation will arrive at the ceremony via boat in a parade down the Seine.

Morelle McCane: Boxing, USA

If you find yourself around Team USA boxing sensation Morelle McCane long enough, she just might sing for you.

She’s laughing with a group of reporters a few months before the Olympic opening ceremony. “Listen, I’m every woman,” she says gleefully. “It’s all in me.” As the reporters scribble her words, she serenades them with Chaka Khan’s famous 1978 hit, “I’m Every Woman.” “That is my jam,” she says about the song. It’s a positive affirmation that she uses to motivate herself, she says. As a boxer, she’s always looking for something to motivate and inspire her – like a superhero’s special ability to confront any nemesis.

She found the sport of boxing by happenstance. Her niece, Anarie, was being bullied in elementary school, so one of her family members signed her up for boxing classes to learn how to defend herself. But Ms. McCane’s niece was uncomfortable attending classes until her aunt agreed to go with her. 

“I went with her, and I started doing it as a workout,” she says. “But after that, I was just like, ‘I love it!’” She laughs. “I got into it by accident, but I’m a strong believer in God, and God doesn’t make any mistakes.”

It turned out Ms. McCane, who grew up in the Glenville neighborhood of Cleveland, was very talented. An orthodox right-handed amateur, she went from using boxing as a workout to winning four Golden Gloves championships. She’s won a gold medal and two silver medals at international competitions, including a silver at the 2023 Pan American Games in Santiago, Chile. She plans to turn pro in the future.

Isaiah J. Downing/USA TODAY Sports/Reuters

Morelle McCane of Team USA is declared the winner after a fight at the Pueblo Convention Center in Colorado, April 18, 2024.

When she was in high school, NBA All-Star, Olympian, and Cleveland legend LeBron James spoke to the students. It was a moment that particularly inspired her, she says. The world-famous athlete’s agent, Rich Paul, is from her neighborhood. Graduates of Glenville High School include the comedian Steve Harvey as well as the creators of the comic superhero Superman, Joe Shuster and Jerry Siegel.

“I just got a lot of good energy around me,” Ms. McCane says. “Just knowing that these people walked and did all this, and are from the same neighborhood that I’m from, and now I have people saying that about me. I’m just honored.”

She became one of the toughest, hardest-to-beat fighters in the country. But her victories in the boxing ring coincided with losses in her personal life. Shortly after she became an amateur fighter, her younger brother, Gregory, drowned in a lake. She keeps a framed picture of him as she travels around the world. She’s the seventh of eight children in her tribe, and each of them and her mother are hoping to see her represent her country in Paris this summer.

“My whole family is trying to rent a boat,” she says with a laugh. “They don’t care. They are trying to make it.” The Olympian started a GoFundMe page to raise the funds necessary to bring them all to Paris. There might not be a next time.

Women’s boxing has been scratched from the 2028 Olympics in the United States. That could change. Ms. McCane hopes she can help generate enough interest in her sport so it can be reinstated.

She’s very motivated to compete. At the PanAm Games in Santiago, she won the silver medal even though she was boxing with a fractured left thumb. She lost the gold medal match to a woman from Brazil, and she hasn’t forgotten about it. “If there is a rematch, she better pray. She better run,” Ms. McCane says with a playful laugh. 

– Ira Porter / Staff writer

Lauritta Onye: Para throw, shot put, Nigeria

Growing up in a village in southern Nigeria, Lauritta Onye was sure she was going to be a star someday. She imagined herself on red carpets and movie posters, a leading lady in her country’s globally renowned film industry, known as “Nollywood.”

“I wanted to fly in a plane; I wanted to see the world,” she also says. “I had the dream to do something great.” 

Leo Correa/AP/File

Lauritta Onye of Nigeria celebrates after she set a shot put world record at the 2016 Paralympic Games in Rio de Janeiro.

Three decades later, Ms. Onye has indeed become something of a star – though not quite in the way she dreamed. At the Paris Paralympics, she will compete in the para throw competition in shot put. She’s the defending Olympic bronze medalist and a former world record holder in the F40 category, which is for women who stand under 4 feet, 1 inch (125 centimeters).

Ms. Onye was introduced to shot put in her early 20s, after she moved to Nigeria’s largest city, Lagos, to pursue her dream to be an actor. It turned out she was really, really good at heaving a shot put, however.

“I realized the talent I have for this thing, it’s big,” she says.

By 2011, she was representing her country at international competitions. But she had no sponsors, and she struggled to find the resources to train at an elite level. “I was sometimes training [while] hungry,” she remembers. “I once fainted on the track.”

Still, she kept setting and then breaking her own F40 world record. At the 2016 Paralympics in Rio de Janeiro, she shattered it in particularly dramatic fashion. A video of her cartwheeling and dancing across the track in celebration went viral. “I felt at that moment that all my struggles had been worth it,” she says.

But her success didn’t translate to more funding or better training facilities, Ms. Onye says. Instead, she was kept going by the fierce support of her coach, Patrick Anaeto. “He was the one who first told me, ‘You have the fire in you to be great,’” she says. When she didn’t have bus fare to come to training, she says, he gave her the money. When she arrived with an empty stomach, he took her to lunch.

Naoki Morita/AFLO SPORT/Reuters/File

Lauritta Onye also competed in the Tokyo Paralympic Games in 2021.

As she became a successful athlete, she was also able to fulfill her childhood dream. She landed a starring role in the 2015 Nollywood film “Lords of Money.” But her acting career remains more of a side gig now. She continues to train hard to maintain her skills as a world-class para shot-putter. 

Last year, Mr. Anaeto died suddenly when he was helping other athletes train in South Africa. Ms. Onye reeled with grief at a moment she was training to get ready for the Olympics. “I miss him all the time,” she says. “He was everything to me.” 

Now she is determined to make him proud in Paris. “What keeps me going is, I love this job,” she says. “And I love being the best.”

– Ryan Lenora Brown / Special correspondent

Uriel Canjura: Badminton, El Salvador

Seven years before Uriel Canjura qualified for the 2024 Olympics, the Salvadoran Badminton Federation had already set its sights on the athlete. He was a 17-year-old prodigy then, but the federation was concerned about one thing: his height.

“Experts came by and they told us he had a desirable skill set and agility, but told us we could have some trouble because of his height,” says Armando Bruni, president of the federation. “He didn’t have the best nutrition as a child, and his height, at 5-foot-5, wasn’t the best.”

Mr. Canjura was born and raised in San Antonio del Monte, Suchitoto, a hamlet 30 miles north of San Salvador. Like many children in El Salvador, he played soccer, the national sport. But Antonio Ardón, his stepfather, was the administrative manager of the country’s recently established badminton governing body, and he brought home some rackets and a shuttlecock. There was, of course, no badminton court in this rural town, so Mr. Ardón measured a dirt court and improvised a net out of sacks. That’s how the 2024 Olympian, then just a barefoot kid, learned the sport, which can be traced back to ancient Greece, China, and India.

In its history, El Salvador has sent only 135 athletes to the Olympic Games. (In 2024, the U.S. will send more than 500.) In Paris, Mr. Canjura will be one of eight Salvadoran athletes competing for their country, and the first ever to compete in badminton. He will also be one of the country’s flag bearers in the opening ceremony. El Salvador has never won an Olympic medal.

Mr. Bruni, who also heads the Salvadoran Olympic Committee, says they decided to focus on the talented young badmintonist early on, paying for his education at a private school close to the training center in San Salvador. 

Courtesy of the El Salvador Olympic Committee

Uriel Canjura of El Salvador competes at the 2023 Pan American Games in Santiago, Chile. Mr. Canjura is one of eight Salvadoran athletes competing for their country, and the first to compete in badminton.

Mr. Canjura became so good that no one could compete with him in any meaningful way, not even his trainers. So the federation sent him to Spain, where he plays in that country’s national badminton league for the team from Oviedo. He’s also trained in Denmark, the Czech Republic, and Mexico, where he is currently preparing for the Olympics.

“It’s the biggest achievement of my career,” Mr. Canjura said after he won a spot to compete in Paris. “I thought about my mom, who supported me throughout. She let me stay playing badminton even after I flunked a year in school.”

Badminton is a fast-moving racket sport played in a relatively small 44-by-20-foot court. Tall players can smash the “birdie” at speeds of up to 250 mph, according to the Olympic website. Feathery-touched drop shots can be just as devastating. Mr. Canjura compensates for his lack of height with optimal physical conditioning and a superb defensive play style that allows him to extend rallies and force errors.

Mr. Bruni, who has two shuttlecocks on his desk and displays Mr. Canjura’s Olympic uniform in his office, is very enthusiastic about the talented badminton player’s prospects – as well as El Salvador’s other three Olympians. “Our athletes are in good shape to deliver results our Olympic sports haven’t had so far,” he says.

– Nelson Rauda Zablah / Special contributor

Bobby Body: Para powerlifting, USA

Paris para powerlifter Bobby Body has the perfect name for a man who can bench-press more than 500 pounds. And yes, that’s the real name of the 2024 Olympian. His birth certificate says so.

Bobby isn’t a hypocorism for Robert. And Body has a soft ‘o.’ Add a definite article between them and his birth name could be a cool stage name in professional wrestling. His biceps might even challenge 1980s pro wrestling sensation Hulk Hogan and his 24-inch pythons.

But once a soldier, always a soldier. A U.S. Marines combat veteran, Mr. Body was in a Humvee when it hit a roadside bomb. His left shoulder and leg were badly injured. Doctors performed numerous surgeries to save his leg, but they eventually had to amputate below the knee.

“I was very frustrated with not being able to run again, jump again, and stuff like that,” Mr. Body says.

His childhood was difficult. His mother left when he was 5 years old, and his father went to prison when he was 10. So both Mr. Body and his sister spent much of their childhoods in an orphanage. Later, he spent time without a place to live in California.

His long recovery and rehabilitation with the Veterans Health Administration, however, changed his life in ways he never expected.

“They were like, ‘Go to the gym and let out some of that aggression,’” he says. “While I was in the gym I was bench-pressing one day, and the owner of the gym says, ‘Hey, you’re pretty strong for someone that’s disabled. Have you ever considered powerlifting?’”

Mr. Body was skeptical. Lifting weights was just something he did to keep in shape and to distract himself from all the negative things that happened in his life. He never imagined he could compete as an athlete. But once he started entering competitions, he was energized. 

Andrew Kelly/Reuters

“While I was in the gym I was bench-pressing one day, and the owner ... says, ‘Hey, you’re pretty strong for someone that’s disabled. Have you ever considered powerlifting?’” – Bobby Body, U.S. Army and U.S. Marines veteran who overcame injuries to become one of the best para powerlifters in the world

“This is the coolest thing that I’ve seen,” he remembers saying. Then in 2015, a manager for the U.S. Paralympic team reached out, just to gauge his interest in international competitions. He said he wasn’t interested. But the team persisted, and in 2019, he finally said yes.

“I told them I would do it, but then COVID hit and everything went down.”

Para powerlifting includes just one kind of lift: a bench press in which competitors must keep their legs and heels on the bench, not on the floor. Mr. Body learned the proper techniques, and found he was quite good.

At the 2023 Parapan American Games in Santiago, Chile, Mr. Body was about to take his third lift when he told someone on his team that he wanted to shoot for 228 kilograms, or just over 500 pounds. He pressed it, winning the United States’ first para powerlifting gold medal.

After his historic victory, the veteran wept as they raised the U.S. flag to the national anthem – which he is determined to experience again in Paris.

“Of course, when they waved the American flag, I didn’t even see what happened because I was just bawling.”

– Ira Porter / Staff writer

Nigara Shaheen: Judo, Refugee Olympic Team

Nigara Shaheen knew the moment she stepped onto a judo mat as a young girl that she wanted to represent Afghanistan in the Olympics.

But she was an 11-year-old refugee living with her family in Pakistan at the time, and she failed to comprehend how hard it would be to break gender barriers in her region. It was difficult to find a sense of belonging as she moved from country to country, and she had to rebuild relationships with coaches each time. These were enormous obstacles to being just a decent judoka, let alone a world-class competitor.

Even so, she had enough talent to compete at international tournaments, qualifying as a member of the International Judo Federation Refugee Team. She competed in the 2017 Asian Judo Championships and in numerous Judo Grand Slam events, and qualified for the 2020 Olympics. But she reached a low point while training in Russia during the pandemic. Her mother showed her an old picture of her competing as a child, which she had hung on their cupboard in their home in Peshawar, Pakistan. The young Ms. Shaheen had drawn the five-ringed symbol of the Olympic Games on it. Now that dream seemed in peril.

But the athlete, who was also studying international development at the university in Yekaterinburg, Russia, at the time, embraced the principles she learned from competing in judo: get up again, find confidence, forge forward. “If you want to be a judoka, you need to learn how to fall,” she says. “And that’s how life is, right?”

Ms. Shaheen was able to make her delayed Olympic debut in Tokyo in 2021, competing as a member of the Refugee Olympic Team. But her debut didn’t go as planned. She couldn’t train efficiently during the lockdown. Her roommate would leave their dorm room for a few hours each day so Ms. Shaheen could throw a mat on the floor and practice falling. In her first match in Tokyo, she injured her shoulder and needed surgery in Japan.

Sergio Perez/Reuters/File

“If you want to be a judoka, you need to learn how to fall. And that’s how life is, right?” – Nigara Shaheen, a refugee from Afghanistan who competes for the IOC Refugee Team, which represents 100 million displaced people around the world. Ms. Shaheen (at left) competes against Maria Portela of Brazil, July 28, 2021, at the 2020 Tokyo Games.

This summer, the Afghan judoka has another opportunity to compete on the world’s largest sports stage in Paris as one of the 36 athletes competing as members of this year’s Refugee Olympic Team, which represents the world’s displaced populations. 

As a refugee, Ms. Shaheen has seen dramatic chapters in life. Her family fled civil war in 1994 when she was 6 months old, the youngest of four siblings. Nearly two decades later, she returned to Afghanistan to attend American University in Kabul. Her classes in gender and debate awakened a sense of injustice she had felt since she was a child. “I’ve been a feminist since sixth grade,” Ms. Shaheen says.

But that was a fraught time. She was the only woman practicing in a male-dominated sport that requires close physical contact. She was threatened and bullied, and attacked on social media, and her parents had to accompany her to practices.

When the Taliban captured Kabul in 2021, the family was forced to flee, making them refugees for a second time. Today her family is dispersed across three continents.

Ms. Shaheen now lives in Canada, near Toronto, where she trains 4 1/2 hours a day. She also finished a postgraduate program in international development at nearby Centennial College. After the Olympics, she aspires to work with refugees through sport. She also tutors schoolchildren in Afghanistan online from her home in Canada.

Amid all of her challenges, it’s been most difficult to live far from her family. They grew up in a one-room house in Peshawar “where we created so many memories together,” she says. Amid visa challenges and the upheavals of uprooting, none of her family members are able to travel to Paris to watch her in person. And while she’s not representing Afghanistan, she is part of a team that represents 100 million displaced people around the world. For that, she feels a deep responsibility to share her story on the platform she’s been given. 

“I’m a feminist, I’m a refugee, and I’m from Afghanistan,” she says.

– Sara Miller Llana / Staff writer

Shannon Westlake: 50 m rifle 3 positions, Canada

Far from the glare of the spotlights and blinking ad campaigns and Olympic celebritydom, Shannon Westlake lives quietly in Utopia, Ontario. 

A mother and full-time project manager, the Canadian Olympian is making her debut in Paris in the 50m rifle 3 positions competition, but the long journey to reach this accomplishment has been anything but glamorous, she says. Her motto along the way: “Chop wood, carry water.”

“I’m probably one of the most boring people you will ever meet,” she says in an interview. But in many ways, it’s that sense of humility and understatedness that makes for excellence when it comes to her sport. And that she has been honing her entire life.

Javier Torres/AFP/Getty Images

Shannon Westlake of Canada competes in the rifle 3x20 final in Santiago, Chile, during the 2023 Pan American Games.

It has been 24 years, an entire generation, since Canada last had an entry in any women’s rifle event at the Olympic Games. Ms. Westlake won a bronze at the 2023 Pan American Games in Santiago, Chile. She then claimed her spot on the Canadian Olympic team at her sport’s trials in May. That would have seemed “far-fetched” when she started out, she says.

She began shooting at age 12 as part of the Royal Canadian Army Cadets. As a teen, in fact, she wanted to join the military. (She’s a part-time reservist today.) But she loved the sport from the start, and worked tirelessly to get better. Now in her late 30s, she has overcome setbacks that almost made this moment impossible, including an injury during a pickup volleyball game in which she tore three ligaments. One specialist told her she’d never shoot kneeling again – which should have put an end to her Olympic dream. In her event, a shooter must compete in prone, kneeling, and standing positions. “I said, ‘That’s not gonna happen,’” she says. Her routine is strict. Through workouts, training, and meditation, discipline has been foundational to her goals. 

“I don’t have a lot of friends. There’s no social life,” she says. But it’s her family members who have made the most sacrifices. “They’re the ones that have missed out more than anything, because they don’t really care that I’m an athlete. These are my goals, not theirs.”

Courtesy of Shannon Westlake

Ms. Westlake poses for a selfie with her son.

Her sport is misunderstood, she says. Some just think the rifle is doing the work, or that it’s a matter of simply standing still and firing. They don’t see how much the rifle weighs. They don’t see the tedium, the days she spends holding position for an hour at a time to build muscle memory. They don’t see the visualization at work to calm the heart rate, even amid cheering and other distractions. They don’t realize how hard it is to tamp down the adrenaline surge that is so crucial in other sports. Her success is all about focusing inward, shutting out everything else. “It’s all about being totally present for me.”

That’s been harder under the spotlight as she prepares to represent Canada at the Olympics. Her son keeps her humble, though, she says. Her family will be in Paris, and sometimes he’s impressed that he’ll see his mother at the Chateauroux Shooting Centre south of Paris. “But I think he’s more excited that he gets to go to France for a few days.”

– Sara Miller Llana / Staff writer

Sunny Choi: Breakdancing, USA

When Grace “Sunny” Choi’s parents sent her off to the Ivy League, they expected her to learn the ins and outs of business at The Wharton School. So Ms. Choi got the world-class education they wanted her to get. But it was what she learned in an extracurricular dance class that pays her bills now.

“I got to college, and I was pretty lost. I didn’t know what I wanted to do,” she says. “I was out late one night, and there was some people dancing on campus, and I was like, ‘Oh, that looks fun!’”

Frank Franklin II/AP/File

Grace Choi, aka B-Girl Sunny, watches an August 2023 breaking competition in New York.

So she went to a breakdance class off campus. “Initially I just watched everyone else dance, because I just didn’t have the guts to go out there and do it,” she says. “But over time, I really fell in love with exploring my body’s physical limits and artistic expression.” She also began to “battle,” a competitive tradition in breaking that goes back to the origins of hip-hop. 

In an attempt to attract more young viewers and ticket buyers, the International Olympic Committee added competitive breaking to this year’s Paris Games. A part of the traditions created by Black youth in the streets of New York City in the 1970s, “break dancing” began when “B-boys” and “B-girls” from the Bronx would go all out during a song’s “breakdown.” It evolved into a dance style that required athleticism and gymnastic-like grace, as well as creativity and style within the beats and rhythms of hip-hop. Informal battles added a competitive element that pushed breakers to test their own physical limits. Decades later, these became organized competitions with governing bodies. Now it’s an Olympic sport, and competitors are still called B-boys and B-girls.

Despite her early reticence, Ms. Choi turned out to be a natural. After college, she entered corporate America, eventually earning the title director of creative operations for Estée Lauder. She trained and competed in breaking competitions on her own time. As her side hobby became an Olympic sport, however, she left her position earlier this year to focus full time on her breaking. 

Frank Franklin II/AP/File

Grace "Sunny" Choi dances at the Breaking for Gold Big Apple competition in New York, April 22, 2023.

She has competed against some of the best B-girls in the world, earning a gold medal in the 2023 Pan American Games in Santiago, Chile, when the event debuted last year. She also won a silver medal at the 2022 World Games in Birmingham, Alabama. B-boys and B-girls mostly use mononyms or stage names in competitions, and Ms. Choi competes as “Sunny.”  

She always dreamed of performing at the Olympics – but as a gymnast. “I watched the ’92 Games when I was 3,” she says. “I bugged my mom for a whole month to put me in gymnastics.” So her mother signed her up for classes at a local YMCA. “I was dressed in a tutu, and the whole car ride there, I was like, ‘Am I going to win gold?’” she says with a laugh.

Despite her accomplishments, she still battles her own self-doubt.

“My whole life, I hadn’t allowed myself to do things because I was scared of failing,” Ms. Choi says. “I had always done the safe route, and I finally decided that I’m going to give up this job. I’m going to go out for the team and see what happens, and here I am.”

– Ira Porter / Staff writer

Holly Ramer/AP

A campaign sign with President Joe Biden's name cut out stands in Northwood, New Hampshire, July 21, 2024. Homeowner Tom Chase said he removed Mr. Biden's name last week and was relieved and delighted that the president withdrew from the campaign and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris.

The Democratic Party’s eleventh-hour move to replace President Joe Biden on the 2024 ticket has energized voters and sparked a windfall of donations. But it’s also drawing criticism that the process has been less than democratic. Having first staged a primary in which Mr. Biden faced no serious challenger, partly by design, Democratic leaders have now overwhelmingly lined up behind Vice President Kamala Harris ahead of next month’s convention in Chicago.

If, as seems almost certain, Ms. Harris becomes the Democratic nominee, she will have been selected without a single primary vote cast for her or her running mate (unless she taps Minnesota Rep. Dean Phillips, who mounted a lonely challenge against Mr. Biden). 

Before withdrawing on Sunday, Mr. Biden had repeatedly cited the 14 million votes cast for him in state primaries as a reason to stay in the race. “The voters – and the voters alone – decide the nominee of the Democratic Party,” he wrote in a July 8 letter. “Not the press, not the pundits, not the big donors, not any selected group of individuals, no matter how well intentioned.”

Republicans accuse Democrats of hypocrisy – and some invoke 25th Amendment

Republicans are trying to turn this argument against Democrats, accusing them of bypassing proper democratic processes – a scarlet letter of hypocrisy, they add, from a party that labels former President Donald Trump a threat to democracy. Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas said Mr. Biden had “succumbed to a coup” from party elites and donors, a phrase echoed by other Trump allies, who lament wasted GOP campaign dollars spent attacking Mr. Biden. 

Mike Segar/Reuters

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas (center, with his son) attend Day 2 of the Republican National Convention, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, July 16, 2024. Mr. Cotton has called President Joe Biden's departure from the race a ‘coup’ by others in the Democratic Party.

“They have subverted democracy [using the legal system] and are coronating the VP without a single vote,” says Republican pollster Robert Blizzard in a text message, referring to accusations from Mr. Trump and his allies that Democrats leveraged the judicial system against the former president. Mr. Trump was convicted in May of criminal fraud by a jury in New York and faces multiple state and federal criminal indictments. “Democrats have lost a lot of credibility on the threat to democracy argument with voters.” 

Other Republicans are accusing Ms. Harris of being part of a coverup to mislead voters about Mr. Biden’s health. Texas Rep. Chip Roy filed a resolution last to month calling on Biden Cabinet members to use the 25th Amendment to remove the president. “What did Jill [Biden] know and when did she know it? What did the staff know? What did the vice president know?” he asked Politico. 

Bad debate shifted voter views of Biden

But while the recent shakeup on the Democratic ticket hasn’t followed the standard playbook, it’s in no way a “coup,” say analysts. In many ways, it speaks to how political parties operate – and how they respond to what constituents want. 

After last month’s disastrous debate, polls showed most Democratic voters concluded Mr. Biden was not up to the job of beating Mr. Trump in November. Democratic leaders who pushed for a new candidate were listening to their voters, not dictating to them, says Julia Azari, a politics professor at Marquette University in Milwaukee. 

“What you’re seeing here is a party taking itself seriously as a representative body,” she says. “It would be a great thing if we could have democracy all the time, where people’s viewpoints are taken into account more directly, but that isn’t always feasible.” While some voters may question the steps that led to Mr. Biden’s dramatic exit, most are unlikely to pay much attention to the process, she adds.

Erin Schaff/The New York Times/AP

President Joe Biden addresses the nation from the Oval Office on July 14, 2024, about the assassination attempt against Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.

How parties – not just voters – affect nomination processes

And while party leaders may have flexed their muscles, that’s how it’s supposed to work. In back-to-back election cycles, Democrats have demonstrated an ability to move quickly and overwhelmingly to try to shape outcomes in the best electoral interests of the party. During the 2020 primary race, after Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, a democratic socialist, appeared on track to potentially capture the nomination, voters and party leaders in South Carolina rallied around Mr. Biden, giving him a key victory. His rivals from the party’s more mainstream wing then immediately dropped out and coalesced behind him. Senator Sanders eventually conceded to Mr. Biden, who went on to defeat then-President Trump. 

Once in the White House, Mr. Biden pushed to make South Carolina the first official Democratic primary in 2024, reinforcing an already huge advantage as an incumbent president running for reelection. Only Congressman Phillips ran against him, along with Marianne Williamson, a self-help author who also ran in 2020. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., began his campaign as a Democrat but switched to become an independent candidate. 

The result was that Mr. Biden had a clear path to nomination – until a majority of his own party concluded he couldn’t win in November. The subsequent stampede to support Ms. Harris reflects the determination of Democrats not to be consumed by a divisive internal fight with less than four months to go, says Susan Stokes, who directs the Chicago Center on Democracy. “There’s good reasons for a party that wants to win presidential elections and other elections not to tear the party apart” in a nomination contest.

Election-year battle over democracy may continue 

Still, Republicans may continue to raise questions about how Ms. Harris became the nominee, says Mr. Blizzard, president and founder of UpONE Insights, a GOP firm. Among other things, it could help to blunt any attacks on Mr. Trump as a threat to democracy. “I’d expect Democrats to talk far more about saving abortion rights than saving democracy over the next few months,” he says. 

Others say Democrats are likely to continue framing Mr. Trump as a threat to democracy, highlighting his admiration for authoritarian leaders and his efforts to overturn the 2020 election. That was part of Mr. Biden’s strategy in the 2022 midterms, in which Republicans fell short of expectations.

To compare Mr. Trump’s record with complaints about Ms. Harris’ nomination process is spurious, says Ms. Stokes. Even open primaries – where no incumbent is running – are shaped by candidates’ access to money, media, and elite endorsements. “The way that we are given candidates to choose among is not entirely democratic. But that’s a rather minor point compared to a political party that will not accept a lost election,” she says. 

Note: This story has been updated to correct the name of Robert Blizzard’s firm. It is UpONE Insights.

Vice President Kamala Harris captured Americans’ focus in an instant Sunday when President Joe Biden bowed out of the presidential race and endorsed Ms. Harris as the Democratic nominee instead. 

Within 36 hours, Ms. Harris had solidified her front-runner status for the Democratic nomination. Though Ms. Harris has been an elected official for years, her policies and personal history are less well known than prior presumptive presidential nominees at this point in the election cycle. 

This close to a presidential election, the candidate leading a major-party ticket would have already faced months of scrutiny. After decades in public service, Ms. Harris is vetted, but she’s not necessarily familiar to all voters. Several polls over the past year show her unfavorability rating among voters hovering just over 50%. Here’s a brief picture of Ms. Harris, from her legislative record to her appeal to Generation Z.

She integrated public schools 

Born in Oakland, California, Ms. Harris grew up surrounded by social justice movements. Her mother and father – who emigrated from India and Jamaica, respectively – were civil rights activists who met at the University of California, Berkeley. They later divorced, and Ms. Harris and her sister were raised primarily by their mother, a breast cancer researcher who died in 2009. The sisters had long rides to school as part of a busing effort to integrate public schools in Berkeley during the 1970s. 

“There was a little girl in California who was part of the second class to integrate her public schools, and she was bused to school every day, and that little girl was me,” Ms. Harris said on the debate stage during the 2020 presidential primary. 

After high school, Ms. Harris attended Howard University in Washington, D.C. Today, she’s often spotted in attire bearing the name of her alma mater. On July 21, the day Mr. Biden endorsed Ms. Harris, she was said to have spent the day taking calls, surrounded by family and aides, and wearing a Howard University sweatshirt.

George Nikitin/AP/File

Kamala Harris receives the oath of office during her inauguration as San Francisco district attorney, in San Francisco, Jan. 8, 2004. In the center is Ms. Harris' mother, Dr. Shyamala Gopalan.

She was a prosecutor first

After returning to California for law school, Ms. Harris spent three years as a prosecutor in the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office, a credential that would later prove a mark against her among progressives in the party. Ms. Harris’ view of the role of a prosecutor was nuanced.

“I knew quite well that equal justice was an aspiration. I knew that the force of the law was applied unevenly, sometimes by design,” she wrote in her 2019 book “The Truths We Hold.” “But I also knew that what was wrong with the system didn’t need to be an immutable fact. And I wanted to be part of changing that.”

In 2004, Ms. Harris was elected district attorney of San Francisco, and in 2011 she became the first South Asian – and the first woman – to be elected attorney general of California. Donald Trump donated $5,000 to Ms. Harris’ campaign in 2011 and another $1,000 to her 2013 campaign.

Ms. Harris won her first Senate campaign in 2016 and arrived in Washington as the first Indian American senator. She sought the Democratic nomination for president in 2020, with her sister running her campaign. Just before Mr. Biden was nominated, he chose Ms. Harris as his vice president.

She carries a mixed record as vice president 

Ms. Harris has worked to carve out her own issues profile as vice president. She has focused on abortion rights over the last several years, a topic in which other Democrats say she is adept at communicating the differences between the parties.

“This is a fight for freedom – the fundamental freedom to make decisions about one’s own body and not have their government tell them what they’re supposed to do,” said Ms. Harris in Florida in May.

Now, Democrats want to see Ms. Harris go on offense against Mr. Trump on abortion and the rule of law, leaning into her background as a prosecutor.

On other issues, Ms. Harris doesn’t gain much favor. Tasked by Mr. Biden with addressing root causes of migration to the U.S. southern border early in their administration, Ms. Harris faced criticism from Democrats and Republicans alike for taking too long to plan a trip to the border. Illegal border crossings reached record highs under the Biden-Harris administration, and immigration remains a political weakness for Democrats. 

Evan Vucci/AP/File

President Joe Biden walks with Vice President Kamala Harris in the Rose Garden of the White House, May 13, 2021, in Washington.

Vice presidential duties include serving as president of the Senate, where Ms. Harris broke the record for casting the most tiebreaking votes – including a vote that sealed the confirmation of Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, the first Black woman to serve on the Supreme Court.

She embraces memes 

Ms. Harris’ momentum on social media surged in recent weeks and swept across TikTok, Instagram, and X, saturating the platforms with positive content focusing on the vice president.

Memes, remixed videos, and slogans focusing on Ms. Harris often tie her to pop culture references. In many cases, clips of Ms. Harris saying or doing things once deemed “cringey” were recast by people online. Suddenly, she’s cool. And her campaign has been quick to capitalize on the generational freshness she brings to the race and the potential to energize younger demographics.

One of the most viral videos is of Ms. Harris repeating a lesson from her mother: “You think you just fell out of a coconut tree?” she asks in the video, laughing. She becomes serious. “You exist in the context of all in which you live and what came before you.”

The video circulated for months, spawning memes often presenting it as awkward or nonsensical. Now, though, the coconut tree content online is reflective of, in particular, younger voters’ excitement to see the vice president as a candidate. The dialogue from the video went viral on TikTok as content creators edited the audio over videos of themselves. Members of Congress have even joined in, posting endorsements of the vice president accompanied by emoji of coconut trees or, in one instance, creating an image of themselves climbing a coconut tree.

Ms. Harris’ staff has embraced the swirl of social media content. The campaign website’s error page now reads, “This page exists in the context of all that came before it.”

Long before memes about coconut trees, fans of Ms. Harris dubbed themselves the “KHive,” inspired by “BeyHive,” the name that online fans of the singer Beyoncé gave themselves. The KHive hashtag quickly became popular on social media leading up to the 2020 election as a way for supporters to rally behind Ms. Harris online, often rising up in defense of her.

Erin Schaff/The New York Times/AP

Vice President Kamala Harris and second gentleman Douglas Emhoff descend from Air Force Two at Delaware Air National Guard Base in New Castle, Delaware, July 22, 2024.

She’s a foodie 

In 2014, Ms. Harris married Doug Emhoff, a lawyer with two teenagers. Ms. Harris recalls being sensitive to how his children might feel, remembering how she experienced her own parents’ divorce. One of her favorite routines, she wrote in her book, is Sunday family dinner – a tradition she began after getting engaged to Mr. Emhoff.

“Everyone knows that Sunday family dinner is nonnegotiable, that we come together, all of us around the table, relatives and friends always welcome, and I cook a meal for us to share,” she wrote. “It’s really important to me.”

Ms. Harris, who loves to cook, doesn’t shy away from using food as a political prop. During the 2020 campaign she filmed a short YouTube series called “Cooking With Kamala,” in which she was joined by guests like Democratic Sen. Mark Warner and actor Mindy Kaling. And in another video from 2019 that went viral, she’s filmed enthusiastically explaining to a reporter the best way to brine a Thanksgiving turkey, in the moments before a TV interview.

In 2009, Noraida Badilla’s family moved to Thitu Island, a remote land mass about 300 nautical miles off Puerto Princesa, Palawan, in the Philippines. They were drawn by the promise of government assistance, including free rice rations, school supplies, and electricity. Meanwhile, her husband would be able to fish the turquoise waters and sell his excess catch. 

The couple built a simple but spacious house on a stretch of white sand, hanging a small Philippine flag from an electrical wire clipped to their blush-pink wall. “Life was good back then,” says the mother of three. 

But in recent years, China’s incursions into the South China Sea have disrupted the peace on Thitu, known locally as Pag-asa (meaning “hope”), affecting not only the Badillas’ livelihood but also their family dynamics. As China amps up patrols at a nearby reef, cutting off its aquatic bounty, local women like Ms. Badilla are forced to eschew traditional gender roles and pick up jobs to make ends meet.

Jean Encinas-Franco, who teaches feminist international relations at the University of the Philippines Diliman, sees similar trends emerging throughout the region. With men unable to fish, women are becoming breadwinners, business leaders, and advocates for their coastal communities. 

While it’s unclear whether women will retain these roles in the long term, Dr. Encinas-Franco says it’s encouraging to see women “trying to demonstrate their agency [and] reimagining their lives” in a time of crisis.

Lisa Marie David

A fisher works in the waters of Thitu Island March 8, 2024. Until China eases up on patrols around the nearby Subi Reef, fishers must stay close to shore, where fish are scarce.

Overlapping claims

Thitu Island, which Philippine forces have occupied since the 1970s, is one of the many islands, islets, reefs, and shoals located within the South China Sea’s disputed Spratly archipelago. 

While the Philippines, Taiwan, Vietnam, Malaysia, and Brunei have all claimed parts of the South China Sea, China claims sovereignty over nearly the entire region, including areas – like the Spratly archipelago – that lie partly within the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone. Although a United Nations court rejected China’s claims in 2016, Beijing has been aggressively expanding its presence in the Spratly Islands, deploying coast guard ships and building thousands of acres of artificial islands over the past decade.

Karen Norris/Staff

This results in frequent standoffs with Philippine vessels, and tensions escalated last month when a clash at the Second Thomas Shoal – located halfway between Thitu and mainland Palawan – injured a Filipino sailor and damaged Philippine boats. The incident prompted new rounds of peace talks between the two countries, which Philippine authorities have described as “frank and constructive.”

The Subi Reef, another flash point, sits even closer to Thitu.

China occupied the reef in 1988 and has since developed a major military outpost atop the atoll. Locals say it’s easy to see the reef when the ocean is calm, and lights from Chinese military installations flicker brightly at night. But until China eases up on patrols, fishers like Ronel Badilla, Ms. Badilla’s husband, must stay close to shore, where fish are scarce.

“Before, you can catch five pieces of tanigue [mackerel]. Now, it’s hard to catch even just one piece,” he says.

Lisa Marie David

A fishing boat sits on Thitu Island, where women have been picking up jobs to manage disruptions in fishing due to Chinese patrols.

Food packs are available to help families manage lulls in fishing, according to Louie Cascara, the municipal administrator, but Ms. Badilla says she couldn’t just sit around and wait. Last summer, she found contract work with the municipal government. She and other women are paid about $140 per month to grow vegetables at the legislative department’s garden. 

The Badillas partly rely on this income to support their eldest child – a 17-year-old daughter – and parents, who are all living on the mainland. “I’m happy that I am able to help them,” says Ms. Badilla.

She doesn’t consider herself a breadwinner, rather acknowledging her husband’s contribution to their family, no matter how meager it is sometimes. 

For his part, Mr. Badilla says he doesn’t mind that his wife puts food on the table, but appreciates it. He occasionally picks up construction work when he can’t sail due to patrols or bad weather, and takes turns caring for the couple’s younger children.

Women’s expanding sphere

Women have always played a vital but often invisible role in Filipino fishing villages, with many being in charge of family finances, providing child care, performing other domestic labor, and selling the fish themselves. Today, however, Thitu women can be seen running gardens, food stalls, community meetings, and even clinics.

With the threat of China looming and financial challenges mounting, some women have reported feeling more depressed and anxious, says Jocelyn dela Cruz, a nurse who runs the island’s primary health care facility along with a midwife. But she’s pleased that, so far, there have been no serious medical emergencies on the island, which currently has no medical doctor. Overall, “women here are well cared for,” she says. 

Indeed, families may be struggling, but women on Thitu Island are “really empowered,” says Mr. Cascara. Women underwent dressmaking and other vocational training last year through the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority, a national government agency. Several members of the newly formed Spratly’s Strong and Brave Women Association (SSBWA) were in attendance.

Lisa Marie David

A Philippine flag flies at an under-construction school on Thitu Island, March 8, 2024. Philippine forces have occupied the island since the 1970s.

The SSBWA will soon operate a bakery on the island, in a building provided by the government. “We’re just waiting for the equipment and supplies to arrive,” says Ms. Badilla, the group’s vice president.

And as the island opens up to tourism, the SSBWA has proposed a plan to manage homestay accommodations and a souvenir shop.

Next up, some say, is bringing women to the peace negotiations. 

“Women’s participation in decision-making should be increased,” says Gettie Sandoval, a law school faculty member at Ateneo De Manila University whose work focuses on gender and security.

If Ms. Badilla were at that table, her view would be clear. 

The Philippine government has stopped actively recruiting residents to the 92-acre island and eliminated some of the aid programs for new arrivals, as the population approaches its maximum of 355. But Ms. Badilla’s family members are among the fortunate few who reaped the rewards of moving to Thitu early, and despite fears that China might attack the island, she stands by their decision to remain. 

“This island belongs to the Philippines,” she says.

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Israeli Swimming Association

Adam Manaana, a member of Israel's swim team at the Paris Olympics

One popular aim in the Olympics is to upend stereotypes, starting with presumed limits on what the human body and mind can do. In every Games, sports records are broken, akin to NASA outdoing past feats in space. But what about social stereotypes? For an example, keep an eye on swimmer Adam Maraana during the XXXIII Olympiad in Paris.

First, though, beware of labels too easily attached to this athlete by journalists. One facile tag is that he is an “Arab citizen of Israel” and the first of that description to compete for his country in nearly half a century. Or that he is Muslim because his father is. Or that he is Jewish because his mother is. (His parents met on a beach in Haifa. Arabs are about 20% of Israel’s population.)

Mr. Maraana does identify as Israeli – the easiest route for him to get into the Olympics other than being a refugee, or via what the Olympics calls universality placement. Yet he also says, “I’m great proof of integration” between Jews and Arabs – a rather bold statement as the world debates what to do in Gaza once the war ends or how to prevent a wider conflict.

Most of all, he sees himself as a walkin’, talkin’ ambassador for two particular values: dignity and respect. “I assume that most people were taught at home what dignity is,” he told Haaretz. “The question is if they were taught what dignity is without discriminating based on religion, race and gender.”

“I was taught that regardless of who’s standing in front of me, he or she deserves my respect,” he said. “Ultimately, I’m ready to talk about the most sensitive issues, and I don’t hold back.”

One of his coaches, Carmel Levitan, says that his hopes of being an ambassador between religions and ethnicities is “a little naive, but it’s beautiful.” Yet within the Middle East, he has lately had plenty of company.

Since 2019, a wave of youth-led protests in several Muslim countries has carried a common complaint about political leaders: Stop divvying up people by religion or ethnicity when sharing power or distributing government services. A 2020 survey of Arab youth found most want public society defined by individual rights and shared interests.

The head of Israel’s Olympic Committee, Yael Arad, wrote on Facebook that Mr. Maraana’s ascent as a swimmer is more than a personal dream. It is also a “vision of coexistence in Israel regardless of religion, race and gender.” And it’s a vision held by someone who swims against stereotypes.