- 1 June 2016
- US Election 2016
APCalifornia Governor Jerry Brown is endorsing Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton for president.
He said voting for Mrs Clinton is the "only path forward... to stop the dangerous candidacy of Donald Trump".
Mrs Clinton's lead in the Democratic race is insurmountable, he said, and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders has no chance to win.
His endorsement is a setback to Mr Sanders' campaign ahead of the California primary.
"Hillary Clinton, with her long experience, especially as Secretary of State, has a firm grasp of the issues and will be prepared to lead our country on day one," Mr Brown wrote on his website.
"Next January, I want to be sure that it is Hillary Clinton who takes the oath of office, not Donald Trump."
Mr Brown said he has been "deeply impressed" by Mr Sanders' campaign and message of fighting wealth disparity, but Mrs Clinton knows how to push the Democratic agenda forward.
GETTY IMAGESIn 1992, Mr Brown sought the Democratic nomination for president against Bill Clinton, not giving up until the Democratic convention.
He never formally endorsed Mr Clinton, drawing some comparisons to Mr Sanders' campaign strategy.
California goes to the polls on 7 June, with 546 Democratic delegates and 172 Republican delegates up for grabs.
Billionaire businessman Donald Trump has clinched the Republican nomination.
Mrs Clinton is currently leading in polls in California.
Mr Sanders has said he will not accept defeat until the Democratic Convention in Philadelphia in July, no matter what happens in California or at the New Jersey primary, also on 7 June.
"I think you know there's been some discussion that some of the media is going to say the campaign is over, she is the nominee on Tuesday night after the votes come in from New Jersey - that's not accurate," said Mr Sanders while campaigning in California.
- 1 June 2016
- Magazine
APMany top sportswomen continue training - and even competing - after they get pregnant. A new report commissioned by the International Olympic Committee confirms there are fewer risks than you might think.
On 20 March 1983, the Norwegian long-distance runner Ingrid Kristiansen took her place at the starting line of the World Cross Country Championship in Gateshead, England.
For the past couple of weeks she had been feeling a little tired, which she put down to jet lag from two recent trips to the US. She was still one of the favourites to win though, having come first in the Houston marathon a couple of months earlier.
But to her surprise, that isn't what happened.
"The first lap I was the last of the Norwegians, and my coach didn't understand anything," she recalls. She managed to overtake her compatriots but still finished a disappointing 35th.
"My coach's wife was sitting, looking at the television. And she called her husband afterwards, and she asked him, 'Is Ingrid pregnant?'
"I think it was the way I was running. Maybe I was a little bit heavier in the upper body, I'm not sure. But she saw it."
Kristiansen soon confirmed that she was pregnant - by almost five months. That meant she'd won the Houston marathon pregnant, with a time of two hours 33 minutes.
Female athletes often have irregular menstrual cycles, so it's not uncommon for them to become pregnant without knowing. Over the years, at least 17 women have competed at the Olympics pregnant.
Some of them certainly knew it at the time - a memorable image from the London Games in 2012 is of the Malaysian sports shooter Nur Suryani Taini holding her air rifle over an eight-month baby bump.
APThe cross-country skier Marit Bjorgen, a six-time Olympic champion, attracted attention in Scandinavia last year when she attended team training camps while pregnant.
In June 2014, US news outlets ran remarkable pictures of Alysia Montano competing in the 800m quarterfinals of the US track and field championships (see the picture at the top of this article). In the UK, the media also regularly feature stories about heavily pregnant women taking part in races.
So how safe is it to train and compete while pregnant? As part of its commitment to women's sport, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) recently called a group of experts to a meeting in Lausanne and asked them to write a report.
Their huge review is being published in five parts in the British Journal of Sports Medicine. Despite the complexity of the material, the lead author's message is simple.
"There are only a few high-quality studies into pregnancy among elite athletes or those who exercise a great deal, but it seems that many do continue to exercise during pregnancy, and it does not affect them in a negative way," says Prof Kari Bo from the Norwegian School of Sports Sciences. "It doesn't seem to harm either the foetus or the mother."
These athletes are no more at risk of problematic pregnancies or birth defects, though Bo says that when such things do occur people often mistakenly make a link to physical activity during pregnancy. At the same time, there is no evidence that athletes have an easier time during pregnancy or childbirth.
Historically, advice given to pregnant women relating to exercise has been muddled and speculative. For a long time exercise was simply thought to conflict with a woman's reproductive ability. The roots of this feeling were unscientific, and more to do with gender roles than with the health of mother or baby.
ISTOCKBut in the 1980s some researchers began to reason that the demands exercise placed on a woman's body - in terms of oxygen, blood flow, nutrients and temperature - were similar to those made by a foetus. So if pregnant women exercised, these doctors suggested, the foetus might lose out in a battle for resources.
"In a way it's correct," says Bo. "But women who are athletic also have very good blood distribution, so it doesn't seem to do any harm to the foetus, and at the same time it's obvious that the placenta is also better nourished when you are exercising, so there's a sort of compensation going on."
Pregnant women have improved temperature regulation (which is why they may sweat more) and greater cardiovascular capacity. Hormonal changes may mean they feel more flexible in their joints, and an increase in the concentration of red blood cells means they can carry more oxygen around their bodies.
Studies indicate that elite athletes who train during and after pregnancy may see a 5-10% increase in their maximal oxygen consumption in the months after giving birth, though this was not observed in recreational athletes.
Rather than dispensing a list of technical dos and don'ts, Bo has a simple message for pregnant women athletes: listen to your body. If you do something that feels wrong, it's probably best to stop.
"The few studies that we have, they show that pregnant athletes are reducing the intensity and the frequency of training by themselves," says Bo. "This happens when your tummy is growing and you can feel the child jumping up and down with you - it doesn't feel very good."
ISTOCKPregnancy and training: Four tips
Prof Kari Bo believes women athletes are their own best judges when it comes to training during pregnancy - but she has a few tips:
- For the first trimester (12-week period) it's best to avoid getting too hot, so consider wearing light clothing, exercising in air-conditioned environments, and refraining from strenuous exercise on the hottest days
- Female weight-lifters should probably reduce the weight they lift, since it may increase blood pressure, stop blood flow to the foetus and strain the pelvic floor
- Scuba diving is not advisable during pregnancy, and women in their final trimester may also wish to avoid participating in sports such as football or hockey where they may have a fall or collision
- A small study of Olympic athletes showed that blood flow to the foetus was reduced when the mother exercised above 90% of maximal oxygen consumption - in practice this means that moderate exercise in training is fine, but pregnant women should refrain from maximal efforts during endurance training
The new research fits with current advice for the general public. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists recommends that pregnant women participate in aerobic and strength exercises, which may reduce the risk of diabetes and improve mental well-being. However, before women embark on an exercise programme, they should seek medical advice.
In the UK, the NHS also advises women to continue exercising through pregnancy, though it says they shouldn't work out so strenuously that they can't hold a conversation at the same time.
What counts as "strenuous exercise" clearly depends on how fit you are and how much sport you already do.
Seven or eight weeks into her first pregnancy, the Swedish athlete Eva Nystrom won the Swedish national duathlon - a 10km run, followed by 40km cycle race and another 5km run.
Two days later, Nystrom - who knew she was pregnant - went out for a run and was sick.
"It was like a signal to me that I had to listen to my body, and I had to cool down a bit," she says. "At the beginning I trained and raced too much."
But she continued to run regularly. Nystrom didn't seek medical advice before undertaking her fitness regime - in fact, she didn't even mention it to her midwife, fearing disapproval.
As her pregnancy continued and she put on weight, Nystrom began to have problems with back pain. But luckily there was a particularly heavy snowfall that year in southern Sweden, so, with the encouragement of a physio, she switched her exercise to cross-country skiing, working out for about an hour every other day.
EVA NYSTROMShe couldn't help noticing, as she approached her due date, that more and more heads were turning to watch her glide by on her skate skis. Nystrom took to training early in the morning, when there were fewer people to cast questioning looks in her direction.
"I did it the last time 24 hours before he was born," she says. "I was a little bit tired, but it was OK."
After the birth of her son Simon (which, contrary to the words of many a midwife, was "not like running a marathon," she says), the baby quickly put on weight. Nystrom says this was just as well.
"I think if he had been a little baby, maybe people would have asked me if it had been a good decision to train. But people didn't say anything."
A year ago I refused to look at myself in a full-length mirror. I was a size 26 and my large belly repulsed me. I lived in leggings and baggy tunic tops that I bought at plus-size shops to try to hide my shape.
But if you had known me then you wouldn't have guessed. I always tried to put on a happy front even though I was unhappy with myself. Not even my partner Pete knew just how bad I felt. But then Pete was one of the reasons I weighed 22 stone (140kg).
Pete and I met three years ago. I was already overweight but during our relationship I put on another five stone. He would do most of the cooking and made huge portions, it was how he showed me he cared. If I asked him to bring back a chocolate bar he would bring back a selection of five.
BBC/RENEGADE PICTURESWe encouraged each other in our bad habits. We would also get two takeaways a week, like Chinese or pizza. We each have a child from previous relationships and on weekends we would often eat out and have treats like ice cream. When I had our son Cameron a year in to our relationship I didn't lose the baby weight.
That's one reason why I wanted to do BBC One's Lose Weight For Love. As part of the show we separated for 10 weeks while we worked on our own issues around food and exercise. I thought that if we tried to tackle it together we would sabotage each other. I stayed at our home in Warrington with the kids, while Pete moved to his sister's house in the Wirral. It was tough as we hadn't spent a night apart since we had got together but I knew it was something we needed to do.
I had just started training to be a midwife and I didn't want to feel like a hypocrite advising women about the dangers of obesity during pregnancy when I couldn't manage my own weight.
- 1 hour ago
- Europe
The world's longest and deepest rail tunnel is to be officially opened in Switzerland, after almost two decades of construction work.
The 57km (35-mile) twin-bore Gotthard tunnel will provide a high-speed rail link under the Swiss Alps between northern and southern Europe.
Switzerland says it will revolutionise European freight transport.
Goods currently carried on the route by a million lorries a year will go by train instead.
The tunnel will overtake Japan's 53.9 km Seikan rail tunnel as the longest in the world and push the 50.5 km Channel Tunnel linking the UK and France into third place.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Francois Hollande and Italy's Prime Minister Matteo Renzi are due to attend the grand opening.
REUTERS
The project, which cost more than $12bn to build, was endorsed by Swiss voters in a referendum in 1992. Voters then backed a proposal from environmental groups to move all freight travelling through Switzerland from road to rail two years later.
The completed tunnel travels up to 2.3 km below the surface of the mountains above and through rock that reaches temperatures of 46C.
Engineers had to dig and blast through 73 different kinds of rock, some as hard as granite and others as soft as sugar. More than 28m tonnes of rock was excavated. Nine workers died during the work.
EPANow the completed tunnel - delivered on time and within budget - will create a mainline rail connection between Rotterdam in the Netherlands and Genoa in Italy.
When full services begin in December, the journey time for travellers between Zurich and Milan will be reduced by an hour to two hours and 40 minutes.
Its trajectory will be flat and straight instead of winding up through the mountains like the old rail tunnel and a road tunnel opened in 1980.
About 260 freight trains and 65 passenger trains will pass through the tunnel in as little as 17 minutes.
The tunnel is being financed by value-added and fuel taxes, road charges on heavy vehicles and state loans that are due to be repaid within a decade.
Swiss bank Credit Suisse has said is economic benefits will include the easier movement of goods and increased tourism.
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