CBS News
Swimmer Katie Ledecky on athlete doping scandals: “I think our faith in some of the systems is at an all-time low”
Team USA swimming star Katie Ledecky, who has more individual Olympic gold medals than any other woman swimmer in history, reacted to a recent report of Chinese swimmers having tested positive for controlled substances before the 2021 Tokyo Games, telling “CBS Sunday Morning” that she hopes for “some accountability.”
In April, The New York Times reported 23 Chinese swimmers, including two who competed directly against Ledecky and her teammates, had tested positive for a banned substance just seven months before the Tokyo Games.
Chinese officials say the swimmers inadvertently ate contaminated food. The World Anti-Doping Agency reportedly declined to take action, even though it appears its own rules should have prohibited those swimmers from competing.
In an interview with correspondent Elaine Quijano to be broadcast on “CBS Sunday Morning” and streamed on Paramount+ June 2, Ledecky said, “In this instance, it doesn’t seem like everything was followed to a T. So, I’d like to see some accountability here. I’d like to see some answers as to why this happened the way it did. And I’d really like to see that steps are taken for the future so that we can regain some confidence in the global system.”
Asked whether she believes the results of the 2021 Games need to be reexamined or rescinded, Ledecky replied, “I mean, I think the whole case has to be reexamined independently and thoroughly and all the information needs to be out there.”
Ledecky (whose new book, “Just Add Water: My Swimming Life,” will be published June 11) won her first Olympic gold at age 15, and has earned seven gold and three silver medals, from the London, Rio de Janeiro and Tokyo Games. She is currently preparing to compete in the Paris Olympic Games, which begin in July.
“It’s hard going into Paris knowing that we’re gonna be racing some of these athletes,” she said. “And I think our faith in some of the systems is at an all-time low. You try not to think too much about when you’re actually racing. And the best thing to do is to just go out there and try to win.
“It’s tough when you have in the back of your head that it’s not necessarily an even playing field,” she said.
Watch a preview of Katie Ledecky’s interview by clicking on the video above.
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CBS News
Authorities were warned that gunman was planning to attack Yellowstone facility on July 4th
Hours before a gunman opened fire at an entrance to a Yellowstone National Park employee dining hall, injuring one ranger, authorities had been warned he planned to carry out a mass shooting at the facility, officials said Thursday.
The revelation came as authorities released videos and other new details about the July 4 shooting in which rangers stationed to protect the facility at Canyon Village killed Samson Lucas Bariah Fussner, 28, of Milton, Florida, after he opened fire with a semiautomatic rifle.
Authorities had been looking for Fussner for hours before the shooting after a security guard called 911 just after midnight on July 4, saying that Fussner had just held a woman hostage and told her he was going to attack the employee dining hall.
The videos from park rangers’ body-worn cameras show a chaotic scene during and right after the shootout in the world’s first national park, a place millions of people enjoy every year for its wild nature and tranquility. In one video, a ranger is seen firing toward Fussner from inside a vehicle access door in the building.
In another video, a different ranger outside the building approaches the wounded Fussner as he lay still on the ground, dressed in black and with one hand raised upward at the elbow. Fussner remains motionless as the ranger takes his semiautomatic rifle, unclipping it from a strap.
Fussner also was armed with a semiautomatic pistol, according to park officials.
Body-camera footage shows a third ranger running to the scene from in between nearby employee dormitories, yelling to unseen people: “Get back in your dorms!” As the ranger runs, a dozen gunshots are heard.
“Stay down! Stay down!” the ranger shouts to two people crouching behind the front wheel of an SUV. Authorities blurred out the faces of all people in the videos, shielding their identities.
As the ranger approaches the corner of a building, two other rangers stand with rifles pointed and somebody yells: “Suspect’s down, he’s not moving!”
Inside the back entrance where the gunman attacked, photos showed at least 18 bullet holes in the walls. There, the first ranger to trade fire with Fussner was wounded in a “lower extremity,” according to park officials.
Footage shows rangers approaching their wounded colleague sitting in a concrete stairwell landing.
“You all right?” someone asks.
“Yeah, I’m good,” the ranger responds, flashing a thumbs-up.
Medical workers tried to help Fussner but a doctor pronounced him dead, according to park officials.
Besides Fussner, the ranger was the only person physically hurt that day in an area crowded with some 200 park concession workers and visitors. The ranger was treated at a hospital and released within a few days, according to park officials.
Park officials have not identified the rangers involved in the confrontation, including the five at the shooting scene. Of the five, four activated their body-worn video cameras during and soon after the gunfire.
National Park Service policy requires rangers to activate their cameras whenever they begin making contact with somebody “except when faced with an emergency situation requiring immediate action to preserve life or safety,” according to a National Park Service narrative accompanying Thursday’s edited sequence of body camera video, a recording of the initial 911 call, photos and diagrams of the scene.
The shooting led authorities to close off Canyon Lodge, a complex of hotel rooms, cabins and dining facilities, for several days. The facilities are run by Yellowstone’s main tourism concessionaire, Xanterra Parks and Resorts, where Fussner had been working for the summer season.
Park rangers had been looking for Fussner for hours before the shooting. Late on July 3, Fussner held another concessionaire worker against her will with a gun and knife at her residence in Canyon Village.
Early on July 4, the woman reported that Fussner threatened to kill her and others, including carrying out a mass shooting at Independence Day events outside the park, park officials said in a statement five days after the shooting.
On Thursday, the text and voiceover narrative added that Fussner told the woman he planned to carry out mass shootings at the employee dining room as well as July 4 events outside the park. Officials have not said whether Fussner had released the woman or whether she had escaped.
Yellowstone officials didn’t immediately respond to an email Thursday asking why they didn’t previously disclose that Fussner told the woman he planned a mass shooting at the dining room.
The incident remains under investigation by the FBI and authorities have not yet cleared rangers of wrongdoing in the confrontation. Not all materials related to the confrontation have been released.
The FBI did not immediately respond Thursday if anyone besides park rangers witnessed the shooting.
After receiving a 911 call just after midnight on July 4 that Fussner had taken the woman hostage, rangers found Fussner’s vehicle but not him. Inside, they found a handgun.
The subsequent overnight search for Fussner involved more than 20 law enforcement rangers, including a park special response team. Around 8 a.m. the next morning, Fussner approached the dining facility service entrance and opened fire.
Fussner’s Facebook page suggested he was proud about landing a concession job in Yellowstone, a typically seasonal gig that often involves cooking and serving food to the park’s 3 million summer visitors. Such jobs usually go to somewhat younger people in their early 20s; often they are college students visiting from other countries.
Fussner posted a photo of his Xanterra Parks and Resorts badge and photos of him in snowy Yellowstone scenes from mid-May. The posts did not hint at anger or other motivation.
Yellowstone often draws headlines for sometimes deadly mishaps involving wildlife and the park’s famous hot springs. But shootings – despite the park’s millions of visitors and high rate of gun ownership in the region – are rare.
CBS News
Justice Department opens civil rights investigation into Mississippi “Goon Squad” sheriff’s office
The Justice Department on Thursday announced it is opening a civil rights investigation into Rankin County, Mississippi, and the Rankin County Sheriff’s Department. A group of the agency’s former officers — who called themselves the “Goon Squad” — pleaded guilty last year to a series of charges for torturing two Black men.
“The public is now well aware of the heinous attack inflicted on two Black men by Rankin County deputies who called themselves the ‘Goon Squad,'” said Attorney General Merrick B. Garland in a statement. “Those officers have since been convicted and sentenced, but we are launching this civil pattern or practice investigation to examine serious allegations that the Rankin County Sheriff’s Department systematically violates people’s constitutional rights through excessive use of force; unlawful stops, searches, and arrests; and discriminatory policing.”
Garland said the allegations against the sheriff’s department include overusing tasers, using racial slurs, entering homes illegally and accusations deputies have “deployed dangerous, cruel tactics to assault people in their custody.”
The Justice Department said Rankin County officials have said they will cooperate with the investigation.
The Rankin County Sheriff’s Department made national headlines when five former deputies, along with one former Richland, Mississippi, police officer, were accused of torturing two Black men — Michael Corey Jenkins and Eddie Terrell Parker — in January of 2023.
Rogelio V. Solis / AP
All six former officers pleaded guilty to a series of state and federal charges, admitting to breaking into a home without a warrant and torturing Jenkins and Parker for hours, going so far as to shoot one of them in the mouth. The men were also beaten, tased repeatedly and assaulted with a sex toy, prosecutors said.
The group of former officers had arrived at the Braxton, Mississippi, house after a White person called Rankin County Sheriff’s Deputy Brett McAlpin to complain about two Black men staying with a White woman. McAlpin told Christian Dedmon, another deputy, who then texted a group of White deputies internally known for using excessive force who called themselves the “Goon Squad,” according to prosecutors.
McAlpin, Dedmon and fellow former deputies Hunter Elward, Jeffrey Middleton and Daniel Opdyke — along with former Richland police officer Joshua Hartfield — were all sentenced to decades in prison on both state and federal charges earlier this year.
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CBS News
COVER STORY: GM’s CEO on electric vehicles: “This is one of the most exciting times in our industry”
Correspondent Kris Van Cleave talks with Mary Barra, General Motors’ second-longest-serving CEO, about the company’s expanding electric vehicle lineup. He also takes a “high-speed” tour of GM’s Milford Proving Ground in Michigan, which has been a hub for automotive innovation for a century, and gets behind the wheel of GM’s soon-to-be-released electric Cadillac Escalade IQ.
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ALMANAC: September 22
“Sunday Morning” looks back at historical events on this date.
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ARTS: How Mad Magazine’s humor created a revolution
Mad Magazine began in 1952 as a comic book that made fun of other comic books – and soon became an institution for mocking authority in all spheres of life, from TV, movies and advertising, to politicians and parents. Correspondent David Pogue visits a new museum exhibition celebrating the humor of Mad, as created by the artists and writers who called themselves “the usual gang of idiots.”
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- Mad Magazine
- Exhibition: “What, Me Worry? The Art and Humor of Mad Magazine,” at the Norman Rockwell Museum, Stockbridge, Mass. (though October 27) | Exhibition magazine
- Cartoonist Steve Brodner
- MAD and all related elements © and TM E.C. Publications. Courtesy of DC
- Norman Rockwell images courtesy of Norman Rockwell Museum. © SEPS, Curtis Licensing and/or Norman Rockwell Family Agency
- Norman Rockwell Museum video footage © Norman Rockwell Museum; all rights reserved. Used with permission.
- Drone & aerial footage by Richard Sands & Terry Holland
THE NEW SEASON: Art
“Sunday Morning” previews upcoming museum exhibitions.
CBS News
MUSIC: On the road with Pearl Jam
Since their debut nearly 35 years ago, Pearl Jam has been one of the world’s most popular and influential rock groups. They’ve produced 12 studio albums (including their latest, “Dark Matter”), while also fighting with their label, refusing to make videos, and suing Ticketmaster. In a rare interview, lead singer Eddie Vedder and bassist Jeff Ament talk with correspondent Anthony Mason about success, friendship, creativity, and giving back to their loyal fans.
PREVIEW: Pearl Jam’s Eddie Vedder on writing songs while surfing
You can stream Pearl Jam’s latest album, “Dark Matter,” by clicking on the embed below (Free Spotify registration required to hear the tracks in full):
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THE NEW SEASON: Music
“Sunday Morning” previews some of the most anticipated new releases.
SOCIAL MEDIA via Reuters
WORLD: The stakes behind Ukraine’s surprise attack inside Russian territory
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is gambling that his surprise attack into Russia can convince Vladimir Putin to negotiate an end to the 2½-year-old war which has produced an estimated one million casualties. But Putin’s forces continue to rely on the sheer weight of numbers to grind Ukraine down, and Zelenskyy must depend on America’s deeply divided politics for the aid which he needs to stave off Russian assaults on his front lines and air attacks against his cities. CBS News national security correspondent David Martin talks with former Joint Chiefs Chairman Mark Miley about the stakes.
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PASSAGE: In Memoriam
“Sunday Morning” remembers some of the notable figures who left us this week.
CBS News
WORLD: Modern living in the ancient caves of Matera, Italy
In southern Italy’s Basilicata region, caves snake through the hillside town of Matera – the remains of neolithic villages that date back more than 6,000 years. Correspondent Seth Doane visits a town reborn as some of its cliffside caves have been re-envisioned as restaurants, bars and luxury hotels.
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THE NEW SEASON: TV
“Sunday Morning” previews some of the most anticipated new broadcast and streaming choices.
CBS News
MOVIES: Demi Moore on resisting a toxic beauty culture
Demi Moore was a troubled member of the “Brat Pack,” who overcame esteem issues and became the highest-paid actress in Hollywood, starring in such films as “Indecent Proposal,” “Charlie’s Angels” and “Striptease.” Her latest, “The Substance,” is about an aging TV star who finds a sinister potion that can give her a younger, more perfect version of herself, but at a horrifying price. Moore, now 61, talks with correspondent Tracy Smith about how she had suffered to comply with the entertainment industry’s toxic expectations of beauty for female actresses; and how today she is trying to focus on what really brings her joy.
To watch a trailer for “The Substance” click on the video player below:
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Universal Pictures
THE NEW SEASON: Movies
“Sunday Morning” previews some of the most anticipated new releases.
THE NEW SEASON: Documentaries
Watch out for these upcoming non-fiction films.
HARTMAN: The Gift
THE NEW SEASON: Theater
“Sunday Morning” previews some of the most anticipated new shows, on Broadway and across the country.
NATURE: TBD
WEB EXCLUSIVE:
FROM THE ARCHIVES: The SS United States (YouTube Video)
On Friday, September 13, 2024, a federal judge agreed to mediation in a years-long rent dispute case involving the SS United States Conservancy, a group that has sought to preserve the fabled ocean liner. The ship may be destined to be sunk to become an artificial reef in Florida. Watch Mark Strassmann’s Feb. 17, 2013 “Sunday Morning” report about the glamorous history of the ship – longer than the Titanic, faster than any ocean liner, ever – and how it came to inhabit a berth in Philadelphia.
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