PARIS (AP) — Simone Biles, Jordan Chiles and Sunisa Lee spent the night before perhaps the biggest gymnastics meet of their lives restless.

There was a tension in the air. They’d all been in the Olympic spotlight before, experiences that left them with medals but also the kind of scars — be they physical, psychological or both — that heal but never really go away.

And here they were in Paris, the leaders of a star-laden U.S. team everyone expected to finish atop the medal stand, and something wasn’t right.

In a different time, in a different era, it might have festered. Might have followed them onto the floor at Bercy Arena and into the history books, too.

This is not a different time. This is not a different era. This is now.

So the oldest team the U.S. has ever sent to the Olympics, including a trio that has spent their respective careers breaking barriers about what a female gymnast can and can’t do, what they can and can’t be, did something they never used to do.

They talked, with Biles — three years removed from a Tokyo Games that dragged the conversation around mental health and sports kicking and screaming into the light — right in the middle of it.

“I think there was a little bit of struggle,” she said. “So it was really needed.”

By the time they walked onto the floor for the Olympic final, the tension was gone, largely replaced with joy.

And not soon after, gold.

The self-described “Redemption Tour,” the moniker given to a team filled with women who wanted to return to the Games for deeply personal reasons, ended with Biles and the Americans where they have almost always been since she burst onto the scene 11 years ago: on top of the podium, the rest of the world looking up.

Eight years after winning gold in Rio with a team that called Aly Raisman grandma because she was all of 22, Biles — now 27 and married — was back again with Jade Carey (24), Chiles (23), Lee (21) and teenager Hezly Rivera at her side.

“We don’t have to be put in the box anymore,” Biles said about a group that has dubbed itself “The Golden Girls.”

No, they don’t.

With Biles at her show-stopping best, the Americans’ total of 171.296 was well clear of Italy and Brazil and the exclamation point of a yearlong run in which Biles has cemented her legacy as the greatest ever in her sport, and among the best in the history of the Olympics.

“She’s the greatest of all greats,” said Chiles, who now has gold to go with the team silver she, Lee and Biles earned in Tokyo, when Biles removed herself from the team final to protect herself.

Chiles, who seemed like a longshot to make it this spring after injuries piled up, was pretty good in her own right. She began the night by drilling her double-twisting Yurchenko vault, sending the Americans on a four-apparatus stop on their “Tour” that felt equal parts coronation and celebration.

By the time Biles, the left calf that bothered her during qualifying heavily taped, stepped onto the floor for the final event — a floor exercise set to music by Taylor Swift and Beyonce — it was over.

She joked she knew she simply needed to stay on her feet to win. She did more than that, providing an exclamation point on the U.S.’s third gold in its last four trips to the Games.

The Americans remain peerless (if not flawless, this is gymnastics after all) when at their best.

And over two hours in front of a crowd that included everyone from tennis great Serena Williams to actor Natalie Portman, Biles left little doubt about anything.

Her status as the sport’s greatest of all time. Her ability to move past the “twisties” that derailed her in Japan. Her spot in the pantheon of the U.S. Olympic movement.

She now has a staggering 38 medals in major international competitions. Eight of those have come under the Olympic rings, moving her past Shannon Miller for the most by an American gymnast.

Yet her return wasn’t so much about winning. That’s never really been the point anyway, just a byproduct of her unparalleled excellence. It was about a joy she had lost somewhere along the way.

It seems to have returned. She leaned into the crowd that roared at every flip, every leap and, yes, every twist. With her husband — on break from NFL training camp — waving an American flag while sitting next to her parents, Biles did what she has done so well for so long save for a couple of difficult days in Japan during a pandemic: she dominated.

Biles met with her therapist in the morning to put her in the right mindset. There was brief — very brief — moment of trepidation as she raced down the vault runway, the event that began to spin out of control in Tokyo.

Only this time, she essentially stuck her Cheng vault, the one that sends her spinning through the air in a fraction of a second.

Afterward, she exhaled.

“I was like ‘Yes, please no flashbacks or anything,’” Biles said. “But I did feel a lot of relief. And as soon as I landed I was like ’Oh yeah, we’re going to do this.’”

Yes they were. Just like always.

The only real drama centered on who would finish next to the Americans on the medal stand.

Italy, which was a surprising second to the U.S. during qualifying, returned to the podium for the first time since 1928 by holding off Brazil for silver.

Yet there was no question about the top spot. There rarely ever is when Biles is involved.

The road back to this moment has been difficult at times. Uncertain. They felt the weight of everything on Monday night. Rather than let it weigh them down, they shed it.

“I think the talk that we had yesterday definitely helped all of us like come together tonight,” Lee said. “And it just made it so much more special.”

___

AP Summer Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/2024-paris-olympic-games

The key southwestern general election battleground state of Arizona holds primaries on Tuesday, which will set the stage for likely competitive autumn showdowns that may determine control of the House and Senate.

The contest grabbing the most national attention is the race to succeed Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, the Democrat-turned-independent who is not seeking a second six-year term in the Senate.

Kari Lake, the front-runner for the Republican Senate nomination, on the eve of the primary teamed up with former President Trump for a tele-rally. Lake is a top surrogate for the former president as he seeks to regain the White House and gave an address two weeks ago at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.

SINEMA’S BLOCKBUSTER 2024 ANNOUNCEMENT

Arizona Senate candidate Kari Lake speaks during the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee on July 16, 2024. (Reuters/Mike Segar)

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Lake, the former TV anchor and major MAGA supporter who never acknowledged her narrow 2022 election defeat for governor, enjoys Trump’s backing as she runs for the Senate in a race that is one of a handful that may determine if the GOP wins back the chamber’s majority.

WATCH: KARI LAKE OFFERS OLIVE BRANCH TO THESE VOTERS IN ARIZONA

Besides enjoying the Republican presidential nominee’s support, Lake also has a major fundraising advantage over her two GOP primary rivals: Pinal County Sheriff Mark Lamb and neuroscientist Elizabeth Reye.

Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images/File)

When Sinema announced in March that she wouldn’t run for re-election, she was already facing a challenge from Democrat Rep. Ruben Gallego, who launched his Senate campaign last year. Gallego is unopposed in Tuesday’s primary for the Democrat nomination.

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Democrats control the Senate with a 51-49 majority, but Republicans are looking at a favorable Senate map with Democrats defending 23 of the 34 seats up for grabs. Three of those seats are in red states Trump easily carried in 2020: West Virginia, Montana and Ohio.

Five other seats are in key swing states narrowly carried by President Biden in 2020: Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

Rep. Ruben Gallego (Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call via Getty Images/File)

In the race for the House, the GOP holds a fragile majority in the chamber. And in Arizona, Democrats are aiming to unseat two vulnerable Republican incumbents in districts Biden carried four years ago.

In the 1st Congressional District, which includes parts of northeast Phoenix and surrounding suburbs, seven-term GOP incumbent Rep. David Schweikert is the front-runner in a field of primary rivals that includes businessman Robert Backie and former FBI agent and corporate investigator Kim George.

There’s a crowded field of Democrats vying for their party’s nomination.

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In the southeastern part of the state, Republican Rep. Juan Ciscomani is running for a second term in a district that includes much of suburban Tucson.

He’s facing off on Tuesday in a GOP primary that includes challenger Kathleen Winn, who came in third in the 2022 nomination race.

If Ciscomani wins the primary as expected, he’ll face off in November against Democrat Kisten Engel in a rematch of their extremely close 2022 election showdown.

Meanwhile, in the red-leaning 8th Congressional District, Trump has endorsed both major candidates in the Republican primary, Blake Masters and Abe Hamadeh, who ran unsuccessfully for U.S. Senate and state attorney general in 2022.

Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more at our Fox News Digital election hub.

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Paul Steinhauser is a politics reporter based in New Hampshire. 

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In a massive downtown raid, members of the Los Angeles Police Department’s Heavy Metal Task Force arrested 82 people and seized 2,000 pounds of stolen copper wire, city leaders announced Tuesday.  

Formed earlier this year, the Heavy Metal Task Force, which includes members of the city’s Bureau of Street Lighting, have been working to combat the sharp increase of copper wire thefts and scrap metal crimes, especially in areas like downtown L.A., Boyle Heights, El Sereno and Lincoln Heights.  

“The city of Los Angeles is no longer your ATM machine,” Councilman Kevin de León said at a Tuesday press conference.  

De León and Councilwoman Traci Parks worked to form the task force after many streets in their district, including the recently renovated 6^th Street Bridge, went dark as a result of copper thieves.  

“Wire theft is not a victimless crime,” Parks said at the presser.  

According to officials, the city has spent tens of millions of dollars on repairing damage caused by these thieves, many of whom use handsaws to tear through the metal panels housing the copper wire.  

In January, De León said that in his district alone, some 3,700 streetlights were out. 

The problem, officials say, is not simply the cost of repairs, but that leaving neighborhoods and parks in the dark is a threat to the public.  

“It impacts the most vulnerable communities in the city of L.A., Black and brown neighborhoods,” he said Tuesday. “It impacts youth at parks, senior citizens, singles mothers at parks who get out of town by sundown because they’re in fear for their life when they have to walk home.”  

L.A. is not alone in dealing with these types of crimes. In Pasadena, officials are working to make it harder for crooks to access these metals, which are often inside unique and historic architecture throughout the city.  

The city’s streetlights are a major target for thieves.  

“Some of these currents are up to 3,000 volts, which could be lethal,” Pasadena Public Works Commissioner Garrett Crawford told KTLA. “They leave a dangerous condition out in the public right of way, and we need a remedy right away.”  

Pasadena is even offering a $10,000 reward for information leading to the capture and conviction of these metal thieves.  

“We’ve all had enough,” Parks said. “We’re cracking down and people will, in fact, be held accountable for their conduct.”  

No information about the identities of those arrested was provided.