Softball wins; U.S. leads in total medals

By JENNIFER FLOYD ENGEL - McClatchy Newspapers BEIJING - Did you stay up and watch Texan Nastia Liukin win gold in the all-around Thursday? Of course, you did. Everybody loves pixies. Then you crashed and missed an entire day's worth of non-Pixie, non-Plelps Olympic action. Luckily, you have friends in China who took notes while you were snoozing. What follows is what happened on Day 7 of the Olympics in Beijing: Let's play two ... A rainout led to a double dip Friday for USA softball. Game 1 featured an Olympic-record four home runs in 7-0 victory against Japan. Team USA then had to finish a rain-suspended game from Thursday, which actually had trailing 1-0, but they bounced back for an 8-1 victory. Double, double ... The Williams sisters, Venus and Serena Williams, advanced to the quarterfinals by defeating the Japanese duo... [read full story]