Canadian soccer chiefs on Friday pleaded for FIFA not to deduct points from their women's Olympic football team amid a drone-spying scandal which led to head coach Bev Priestman being dramatically kicked out of the Paris Games in disgrace.

Snoop Dogg is seemingly everywhere during the Paris Olympics, but on Friday morning you could catch him carrying the Olympic torch ahead of the opening ceremony.

He was one of the final torch bearers of the Olympic flame, which was lit in April in Greece and slowly has journeyed toward Paris since. Snoop Dogg's leg was in Saint-Denis, a suburb of Paris.

Train issues are not a problem for the basketball teams making the trip from Lille and Villeneuve-D'Ascq near the Belgium border to the opening ceremony of the 2024 Paris Games.

Buses work just fine.

Palestinian Olympic athletes were greeted with a roar of a crowd and gifts of food and roses as they arrived in Paris on Thursday, ready to represent war–torn Gaza and the rest of the territories on a global stage.

As the beaming athletes walked through a sea of Palestinian flags at the main Paris airport, they said they hoped their presence would serve as a symbol amid the Israel-Hamas war that has claimed more than 39,000 Palestinian lives.

Paris has long been a city of dreamers: Just look at the Eiffel Tower, for decades the world's loftiest structure. Audacity also underpins the French capital's plans for its first Olympic Games in a century, which open Friday with an opening ceremony for the ages.

The most sprawling and elaborate Olympic opening ever — a gala spectacular Friday evening on the River Seine that even French President Emmanuel Macron says initially felt like "a crazy and not very serious idea" — kicks off 16 days of competition that promise to be ground-breaking, with nearly every corner of the city hosting some aspect of competition.

Emmanuel Macron has pledged to make France shine during the Olympics. Weaker than ever at home after recent elections, the French president hopes the Paris Games also will help his own star glitter again.

The Olympics are the best way to convince the world to "choose France," Macron said this week, trotting out a motto geared toward boosting foreign investment in the country. "It will promote our landscapes, our facilities, our savoir-faire as well, our gastronomy."

Tennis star Coco Gauff will join LeBron James as a flag bearer for the U.S. Olympic team at Friday's opening ceremony.

Gauff, the reigning U.S. Open champion, is set to make her Olympic debut at the Paris Games and will be the first tennis athlete to carry the U.S. flag. She and James were chosen by Team USA athletes.

Three days before the start of the 2024 Olympics, France's interior minister praised law enforcement for their hard work in making the Paris Games safe for thousands of athletes and millions of fans amid security challenges.

Paris is deploying around 30,000 police officers each day for the Olympics, which run Friday to Aug. 11, with a peak of 45,000 for the opening ceremony on the Seine river.

The support being provided at the Paris Olympics for athletes who are also parents is just part of a larger trend as the rise of women's sports puts greater emphasis on maternity and parental needs.

In France, a nursery is available for athletes' children in the Olympic village for the first time and private rooms will be provided by organizers for nursing mothers. But the Olympics aren't alone.

Iran condemned on Tuesday the "reception and protection" of Israeli athletes at the Olympic games in Paris, demanding their exclusion over Israel's handling of the Gaza war.

Israel's delegation, which headed to France on Monday ahead of Friday's opening ceremony, is being tightly protected in the French capital amid growing international outrage over the the high civilian casualty toll and unfolding humanitarian crisis in Gaza.