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France faces glut of unwanted Olympics tickets

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France faces glut of unwanted Olympics tickets

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The number of unwanted Paris Olympics tickets available for resale has hit more than a quarter of a million, as lack of demand increases concerns just days before Friday’s opening ceremony that many athletes will compete against a backdrop of empty seats. 

The number of listings rose to 271,637 on Tuesday, up from about 180,000 a month ago, a Financial Times analysis of the official resale site shows. The most expensive offers on the resale site are for the opening ceremony, with the best seats priced at €2,970.

Fans wanting to attend the summer games were obliged to buy blocks of tickets for three separate events during the first wave of sales. Organisers said any unwanted tickets could then be resold through the official channel.

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However, a lack of demand in the secondary market has left many holding tickets they cannot sell, while organisers have continued to release more tickets. Tickets must be resold at face value, but buyers must pay an additional 10 per cent booking fee, while sellers are hit with a 5 per cent charge.

Users of online forum Reddit have complained about being unable to find buyers for their unwanted tickets. “There are so many athletics tickets on the resale platform,” wrote one user. “I’m feeling bummed that I might be stuck with (good!) tickets. At this point it’s a sunk cost.”

The number of resale listings reached 270,465 as of July 22

Tony Estanguet, chief executive of the Paris organising committee, said on Sunday that there were still hundreds of thousands of unsold tickets available, in addition to those listed on the official resale site.

Paris 2024 said its approach to ticket sales had been a “major success”, pointing to the 8.85mn “sold or allocated” so far — an Olympic record. About 250,000 tickets had been exchanged via the resale site, the organisers added.

“Given the experience of previous editions, we know fans will have opportunities to purchase tickets throughout the Games,” the organising committee added.

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Fans can still buy tickets for prestige events such as the men’s 100 metres final, starting at €295 per person with a restricted view, rising to €980 for Category A seats. About 4,000 tickets, beginning at €900, are still available for Friday night’s opening ceremony, during which a flotilla of boats will ferry athletes down the Seine river in front of a planned audience of about 320,000 spectators. 

Unsold tickets, especially for early rounds, are a regular feature of sporting mega-events, including football World Cups and Olympics. Just over 80,000 of the ticket resale offers listed are for football matches, which begin on Wednesday and will be played at stadiums across France.

More than 1mn tickets were still available on the eve of the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Games. At the most recent games in Tokyo, spectators were barred from attending because of Covid-19 restrictions. 

Column chart of  showing Pile of unwanted Paris Olympics tickets continues to grow

Although organisers expect 15mn visitors during the Games, hotels and apartment owners looking to capitalise on Olympic demand have already been forced to temper their expectations. Many began lowering prices earlier this year to drum up bookings, while airlines have warned that the Games had suppressed the usual summer appetite for holiday trips to the French capital. Meanwhile, millions of Parisians are expected to flee the city during the Games.

Estanguet, a three-time Olympic gold medal-winning canoeist, said he was “not preoccupied at all” with locals’ level of enthusiasm, pointing to the “millions of people” who had watched the Olympic torch procession across France in recent weeks.

“We’re very confident to say that it’s going to be a wonderful and popular party,” he said. “We will draw our conclusions after the Games.”

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Trump fires last members of election commission, inciting fears of midterm ‘chaos’

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Trump fires last members of election commission, inciting fears of midterm ‘chaos’

Donald Trump has terminated the remaining members of the independent, federal commission that assists election administration officials nationwide just a few months before the midterm elections, multiple outlets reported Thursday.

The remaining three commissioners of the four-member bipartisan commission ⁠were forced out on Thursday in different ways. The one Republican appointee resigned and the other ⁠two, Democratic appointees were notified of their terminations via email from ​the White House presidential personnel office.

“On ‌behalf of President ‌Donald J Trump, I am writing to inform you that your position ‌as Commissioner of the Election Assistance Commission is terminated, effective immediately. Thank you for your service,” the email, seen by Reuters, said.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Election Assistance Commission serves as a “national clearinghouse of information on election ‌administration”, accredits testing laboratories and certifies voting systems, and maintains the national mail-voter registration form developed by the National ​Voter Registration Act of 1993, according to the commission’s website. The terminations follow Trump and top administration officials’ advocacy to change vote-by-mail requirements and investigations into the 2020 election outcome, which Trump lost to Democrat Joe Biden.

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“It is ⁠irresponsible and dangerous that this Administration remains dead set on ​causing chaos for ​our election officials across this ​country,” Arizona secretary of state Adrian Fontes said in a ​Thursday statement. “This ‌move undermines the integrity ​of nonpartisan ​election administration.”

The 2002 law that established the commission, the Help America Vote Act, states the president can appoint replacements to the commission.

It is unclear how Trump will move ahead with the commission.

Reuters contributed reporting

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Former Olympian pleads not guilty in reflecting pool vandalism charges

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Former Olympian pleads not guilty in reflecting pool vandalism charges

Former U.S. Olympian David Hearn (left) walks with his attorney Norman Eisen to speak to reporters and protesters gathered after his arraignment at the Superior Court of the District of Columbia in Washington, D.C. on Thursday.

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Former U.S. Olympic canoeist David Hearn pleaded not guilty to damaging the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool in D.C. Superior Court Thursday morning.

Federal prosecutors charged Hearn with a single count of destruction of property causing more than $1,000 in damage to the pool.

Hearn has previously claimed, which his attorneys repeated during a short press conference outside the court, that he simply touched the water in the pool out of curiosity.

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The Trump administration had just completed a $14 million renovation of the pool.

But shortly after the work finished, peeling paint and algae gathered in the water. The remodel has been largely criticized as a massive failure and waste of taxpayer dollars.

Superior Court Judge Carmen McLean released Hearn on his own recognizance. His next hearing is scheduled for Aug. 5.

Norm Eisen, one of Hearn’s attorneys, spoke to reporters outside of court following the hearing. He said the administration is using Hearn as a “scapegoat … for their own failures.”

“It is not a crime to touch the reflecting pool, to touch water in the United States of America,” he said.

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Prosecutors say there is a host of evidence against Hearn.

This is a developing story.

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Three more people charged with damaging Reflecting Pool after Trump’s multimillion-dollar restoration | CNN Politics

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Three more people charged with damaging Reflecting Pool after Trump’s multimillion-dollar restoration | CNN Politics

Three more people have been criminally charged with destruction of property at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.

Officers say they detained Cameron Thiers, Sophie Dennison-Gibby and Justin Carreno one Saturday afternoon in June and described in court documents witnessing them peeling and removing pieces of blue paint from the Reflecting Pool.

One officer “witnessed Carreno reach down into the reflecting pool and pull up a piece of the blue paint,” according to the court documents.

The officer who detained Dennison-Gibby “found 1 additional piece of the reflecting pool liner” in her purse, the documents said.

All three incidents were recorded on the officers’ body worn cameras, they said in the court documents.

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Several “partnering law enforcement agencies assigned to the Reflecting Pool” working with US Park Police were involved in detaining the two men and one woman — including officers from Texas, Oklahoma, Montana and California.

One of the officers said in court documents that Thiers “admitted to removing a piece of blue sealant from the Reflecting Pool and still had it in his hand when I made contact with him.”

The three defendants were arraigned in court Wednesday and pleaded not guilty to the misdemeanor charges of destruction of property with a value less than $1,000. The judge ordered them to stay away from the Reflecting Pool.

Lawyers for Thiers and Dennison-Gibby declined to comment. CNN has reached out to Carreno’s attorney.

If found guilty of destruction of property, the defendants could be fined up to $1,000 and face a maximum of 180 days behind bars.

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The New York Times first reported that three additional people had been charged with damaging the Reflecting Pool.

President Donald Trump has repeatedly claimed that vandals caused major damage to the pool by gashing the lining after his administration spent more than $14 million on renovations, though he has not provided evidence to support that claim. The officers who charged Carreno, Thiers and Dennison-Gibby did not accuse them of gashing the lining.

Former Olympic canoeist David Hearn was indicted by a grand jury in Washington, DC, last week for allegedly damaging the Reflecting Pool. Hearn — unlike Carreno, Thiers and Dennison-Gibby – was charged with destruction of property with a value of more than $1,000 which carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison, if convicted. He is set to be arraigned in court Thursday.

Crews began draining the Reflecting Pool over the weekend to make repairs, according to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, for the second time in three months.

The move comes after weeks of problems – algae blooms, green-hued water, a chipping bottom and the administration’s allegations of vandalism – that have plagued the iconic landmark, making its woes the subject of national interest.

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