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Unflappable American teenager Virginia Thrasher won the first gold medal of the Rio 2016 Olympic Games on Saturday, holding her nerve against two Chinese Olympic champions to clinch the women's 10m air rifle event. The 19-year-old U.S. college champion bumpped out China's Du Li, gold in Athens in 2004,. and Yi Siling, also of China. Competing in her first Olympics, Thrasher, as the first champion of the 2016 Games, said the achievement was beyond her wildest dreams. The youngest of the eight finalists by several years, Thrasher established an early lead after battling with the Russian shooter Daria Vdovina, who...

A giant thresher shark - the biggest ever caught - was auctioned this morning after being netted off the coast of Cornwall. The shark, estimated at 32 feet from nose to fin, was caught by Roger Nowell off Lands End and landed at Newlyn, west Cornwall, yesterday. The record-breaking thresher shark Difficult to handle: the 32ft thresher shark The fisherman was trawling for squid and John Dory when the 510 kilo (1,250lb) predator ended up in his net.

An Iraqi boy tugs on Sgt. Pietrzyk Bjoerm's stethoscope as the healthcare specialist with the 5th Battalion, 6th Iraqi Army Division Military Transition Team, conducts a medical screening of the child during a medical operation in the Iraqi capital's Ghazaliyah neighborhood March 25. U.S. Army photo. BAGHDAD  — Coalition leaders noticed security improvements in southern Ghazaliyah Monday since Joint Security Station Thrasher was erected March 14. Approximately 40 days after JSS Thrasher was constructed, Iraqi and Coalition security forces have maintained a continuous presence in Ghazaliyah to prevent militia activity from re-emerging.Southern Ghadaliyah was previously known for frequent casualties of...