The German national football team defeated the Nigerian team in the semi-finals of the men's football tournament at the 2016 Olympics. The match ended with the score 0:2. The goals were scored by Lukas Klostermann in the 9th minute and Nils Petersen in the 89th. Previously, the Brazilian national team defeated Honduras in the semi-final with a score of 6:0. The scoring was opened by Neymar, who scored the fastest goal in the history of the Olympic Games - at the 14th second.

The International Paralympic Committee (IPC) has suspended Russian Paralympic athlete Alexei Lesnykh for four years for doping. Lesnykh's doping test, taken at the Dubai Athletics Grand Prix in March 2016, contained illegal drugs ostarine and ligandrol (LGD-4033). Their use is prohibited both during competitions and out of competition. The athlete has waived his right to have the case heard and accepted all the consequences.

The Tverskoy Court of Moscow has arrested five people from the North Caucasus who are suspected of extorting 100 million rubles. Among those arrested are two employees of the Chechen Interior Ministry. the arrest of the suspects on The police announced the morning of August 17. According to the investigation, they demanded 100 million rubles and the rights to his property from the Moscow businessman, threatening him and his relatives with reprisals.

Russian athlete Valeria Koblova-Zholobova won a silver medal in the freestyle wrestling competition in the weight category up to 58 kilograms at the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. In the final, she lost 3:2 to three-time Olympic champion Kaori Icho from Japan. Koblova-Zholoboy's medal was the 40th for Russia at these Games. Materials for the table were provided by Sports.ru. For more details, see the Sports.ru project “Rio 2016: all medals, news, calendar, results, Russian team” .

Gennady Onishchenko, a candidate for the State Duma from United Russia and a former chief sanitary doctor of the Russian Federation, said that “proper education” is an “alternative” to female circumcision. “An alternative to circumcision in terms of maintaining chastity among girls and protecting women from adultery can be proper upbringing,” TASS quotes Onishchenko. According to him, "the moral education of women" was at a high level in the Soviet Union, the agency reports.

Russian Anastasia Belyakova became the bronze medalist of the 2016 Olympics in boxing in the weight category up to 60 kilograms. In the semifinal match, Belyakova lost by technical knockout to Frenchwoman Estelle Mossely, injuring her hand in the first round. Another bronze medalist was Mira Potkonen from Finland, who lost to China's Yin Junhua in the semi-finals.

On August 16, the military prosecutor's office and special forces of the Ukrainian police Cord for the Kiev office of the State Border Service of Ukraine came to the Kiev office. They conducted searches in the case of forest cutting in Transcarpathia. The border service later published a video from surveillance cameras, which, in particular, are captured how special forces and prosecutors move through turnstiles at the entrance to the building.

Writer JK Rowling will release three e-books with stories about the fictional universe from the Harry Potter books. The series, titled Pottermore Presents, will go on sale September 6th. According to the Pottermore website, the first book is called Hogwarts: An Incomplete and Unreliable Guide and is dedicated directly to the Hogwarts school.

Brazilian football player Neymar scored the fastest goal in the history of the Olympics in the semifinal match of the Olympic tournament with Honduras. The Brazilian scored already in the 14th second of the match - he substituted for the removal of the defender of Honduras from his half of the field, after which the ball bounced into the penalty area, and Neymar went one on one and outplayed the goalkeeper. At the time of writing, the match between Brazil and Honduras continued.

Fans of the Bucharest football club "Dinamo" staged a cruel prank on the fans of "Steaua", their main rivals in Romania. Steaua played Manchester City on 16 August. The fans of the team decided to support Steaua by unfolding a giant phrase in the stands in honor of the 30th anniversary of the club's victory in the Champions Cup. They did not notice that the Dinamo fans had changed the signs on the chairs, and as a result, the inscription “Only Dynamo Bucharest” appeared above the stadium.

Pavel Durov - about the new design of VKontakte Photo: Albert Gea / Reuters / Scanpix / LETA The social network VKontakte has transferred all its users to a new design, introduced in April 2016. The leading developer of the social network, Vadim Dorokhov, said that in 4.5 months, 2.5 thousand major and minor corrections were made to the appearance of the site. “The site has become visually wider and easier to understand,” says Dorokhov.

Former President of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovych demanded a confrontation with the current head of state, Petro Poroshenko. This was reported by Ukrayinska Pravda with reference to Yanukovych's lawyer Vitaliy Serdyuk. According to the newspaper, Yanukovych demanded to organize investigative actions via video link. The ex-president's lawyer explained to journalists that only the evidence obtained in court is decisive.

Interview Mufti Ismail Berdiev, who spoke for circumcision of women Photo: Sergey Fadeichev / TASS The chairman of the coordination center of the Muslims of the North Caucasus Ismail Berdiev on August 17 supported the practice of female circumcision. “We need to cut all women so that debauchery is not on Earth, so that sexuality decreases,” Mufti said ( read more about this here ).

Interpol has excluded Leonid Nevzlin, former vice-president of the Yukos company, who was sentenced in absentia to life imprisonment in Russia, from the list of wanted persons. A copy of the organization's decision was at the disposal of RBC. According to the publication, Nevzlin was removed from the list of wanted persons on August 4.

The Mufti of the North Caucasus supported the practice of "female circumcision" Photo: Maria Baronova / Facebook Candidate of State Duma deputies and coordinator of Open Russia Maria Baronova on a single picket near the Cathedral Mosque on Olympic Prospekt in Moscow. The Legal Initiative Foundation published a report on the distribution of “female circumcision” in Russia - operations to remove external genitals to girls.