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Feb. 18 (UPI) — On this date in history:

In 1841, the first filibuster in the U.S. Senate began. It ended March 11.

In 1865, after a long Civil War siege, Union naval forces captured Charleston, S.C.

In 1930, dwarf planet Pluto was discovered by astronomer Clyde Tombaugh.

In 1954, the Church of Scientology was established in Los Angeles. L. Ron Hubbard, who founded the church based on his book Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health, died in 1986.

In 1967, J. Robert Oppenheimer, the “father of the atomic bomb,” died in Princeton, N.J., at the age of 62.

File Photo courtesy of the U.S. Department of Energy

In 1979, snow fell in the Sahara Desert in southern Algeria for the first known time. It fell a second time in 2016 and a third time in 2018.

In 2001, Dale Earnhardt Sr., stock-car racing’s top driver, was killed in a crash in the final turn of the final lap of the Daytona 500. He was 49.

In 2003, nearly 200 people died and scores were injured in a South Korea subway fire set by a man authorities said apparently was upset at his doctors.

In 2004, 40 chemical and fuel-laden runaway rail cars derailed near Nishapur in northeastern Iran, producing an explosion that killed at least 300 people and injured hundreds of others.

File Photo by Ali Khal/UPI

In 2006, 16 people died in rioting in Nigeria over published cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad that enraged Muslims around the world.

In 2008, two of four masterpieces stolen from the Zurich museum a week earlier, a Monet and a van Gogh, were found in perfect condition in the back seat of an unlocked car in Zurich.

In 2013, eight men disguised as police disabled a security fence, drove two vehicles onto a Brussels airport tarmac and stole diamonds worth $50 million.

In 2014, violence erupted between protesters and security forces in the Ukrainian capital of Kiev, eventually resulting in 98 dead with an estimated 15,000 injured and 100 believed missing.

In 2021, NASA’s Mars rover Perseverance made a robotic landing on Mars, starting a high-tech mission to hunt for signs of life in an ancient lakebed.

In 2024, Fifty-five people died following an ambush in Papua New Guinea’s remote Highlands region amid a years-long series of clashes among warring tribes.

RAPPING legend Cardi B has fallen off a chair during her live Valentines Day weekend concert in Las Vegas.

Dressed in racy red lingerie, Cardi, 33, was performing a rendition of Thotiana but continued singing while lying on the ground.

Megamedia shared the moment on social media and captioned it: “That was the Government.”

During the clip, Cardi flaunted her curves while straddling the back of a white chair.

But as she draped down towards the floor, the chair slipped from under her and she fell to the floor.

Cardi quickly joked off the fall and jumped back to her feet to the crowd’s applause.

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As she strutted her stuff along the stage, she said: “That wasn’t me, that was the government.”

Fans flocked to comment on her humour and one wrote: “She kept performing and make a joke about it after she’s having fun I love it.”

A second said: “She so funny, it was the government.”

While a third added: “Damn, she is so hilarious.”

Cardi recently sparked rumours of a split from her baby daddy Stefon Diggs.

The controversial NFL star, who plays for the New England Patriots, lost out during the Super Bowl on Sunday night.

Fans were then quick to spot how they had then unfollowed each other on Instagram after he lost the Super Bowl.

Diggs, 32, and Cardi welcomed their son on November 4.

Most of Diggs’ children were born within a few months of each other in 2025, fuelling intense speculation and online debate. 

An insider told The U.S. Sun that she was fully aware of Diggs’ reputation from the start — and believes he has changed.

“Cardi has known since day one that Stefon had a reputation as a womanizer and had seen multiple women in the past, but her love for him is above all of that,” the source said. 

“She knows he has been faithful since they made things official and that he’s been transparent about his previous relationships, only seeing her since they committed to each other.”

The insider added that while Cardi “hates all the drama,” she admires Diggs’ role as a father.

“She loves that he’s not a deadbeat dad,” the source said. “She believes he’s a present, loving, and supportive father.”

The source also said the New York rapper has been blunt with Diggs, warning him there will be no forgiveness if he crosses the firm line she has drawn.

USA’s Ilia Malinin, the red-hot favourite for men’s figure skating gold at Milan-Cortina 2026, falls twice as he misses out on a podium finish to give Mikhail Shaidorov of Kazakhstan the gold medal.

READ MORE: Shaidorov wins gold as ‘Quad God’ Malinin crumbles

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Conversations about Culver City — the vibrant enclave on Los Angeles’ Westside often called “the Heart of Screenland” — usually include phrases such as “walkable” and “green spaces” and “Erewhon.”

So when U.S. Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi insinuated the city of 39,000 residents is a crime haven during a heated exchange with Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove (D-Los Angeles) Wednesday, local officials and personalities responded with statistics, memes and wry mockery.

Bondi slipped in the jab near the end of an arduous House hearing largely focused on the Department of Justice’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein investigation. Kamlager-Dove, whose district includes Culver City, hammered Bondi over deleted Department of Justice data linking far-right ideology with political killings, asserting that “there are violent, dangerous people out there with real threats.”

“There are — in your district,” Bondi responded. “Her district includes Culver City, and she’s not talking about any crime in her district. Nothing about helping crime in her district. She’s not even worth getting into the details.”

Hometown names stepped up to defend the burg by posting photos of clean streets, manicured parks and humming community events.

Political commentator and Angeleno Brian Taylor Cohen called the city “one of the most non-controversially safe” places in L.A., while Culver City-based comedian Heather Gardner said: “The worst crime of the century is that this woman had made a mockery of our justice system. Release the un-redacted files. Prosecute the REAL crimes.”

Kamlager-Dove shrugged off Bondi’s comment, saying Culver City was known for “breakfast burritos — not crime.”

The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for Bondi to clarify her statements.

Crime in Culver City declined 9.7% in 2024 and was down an additional 6.1% in the third quarter of 2025 compared with the same period of 2024, according to the Culver City Police Department. Violent crime declined 3.9% in 2024 — the last full year of available data.

Over that period, murders dropped to zero while aggravated assault, kidnapping and robbery also fell. There were 26 cases of sexual assault in the city in 2024, compared with 25 in 2023. The only violent crime that saw a significant increase were simple assaults, which rose 8.1%.

The California Department of Justice and the FBI reported in 2024 that crime in the state had fallen to “among the lowest levels ever recorded.”

Mayor Freddy Puza, in an interview Thursday, described Culver City as a “strong and vibrant community” of people with no shortage of job opportunities at small businesses and corporations alike, including TikTok, Pinterest and entertainment giants Apple, Amazon and Sony.

He said the local government has been able to lower crime rates through community-based policing and by providing housing and social services to its unsheltered population. The mayor characterized Bondi’s retort as a “knee-jerk reaction” from an attorney general faced with damaging public trust concerns at her department.

“My read of it is that she’s trying to deflect,” he said. “I think she could really spend her time prosecuting the people in the Epstein files and making sure that information from the federal government is transparent.”

The city had seen no ideological violence, he said, adding, “but the potential for it is right around the corner. There’s no doubt that it is on the rise and the president is stoking it. People are becoming further and further polarized.”

At the hearing, Bondi faced sharp criticism over the Justice Department’s Epstein investigation — specifically over redaction errors in the release millions of case files last month. In one instance, the attorney general refused to apologize to Epstein victims in the room, saying she would not “get into the gutter” with partisan requests from Democrats.

Her performance has already prompted a volley of bipartisan demands for her resignation, including from conservative pundits including Megyn Kelly, Nick Fuentes and Kyle Rittenhouse.

Culver City was not Bondi’s only target Wednesday. She called Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) a “washed-up loser lawyer,” accused Kentucky Republican Rep. Thomas Massie of suffering from “Trump derangement syndrome,” and branded former CNN anchor Don Lemon a “blogger.”

Since the hearing, however, she has stayed silent as locals continue to question her intel and chuckle over images of the pylon-protected war zone of Culver City.

“The worst crime in Culver City,” Gardener joked again on TikTok, “is that they charge $24 for a smoothie at Erewhon.”

MILAN — Chloe Kim came up short in her attempt to become the first person to win three consecutive Olympic snowboarding gold medals on Thursday, finishing second in the halfpipe to South Korea’s Gaon Choi at Livigno Snow Park.

Choi stormed back from a nasty crash on her first run in which she clipped the lip of the halfpipe and came tumbling almost head first onto the icy surface. She looked shaky on her second run then the 17-year-old who leads the World Cup standings threw down a near flawless 90.25-point run while fresh snow fell to jump ahead of Kim, who had 88 points on her first run.

Dropping in last as the top qualifier, Kim had a chance to grab the gold medal back. She flashed two thumbs up to her coaching team before dropping in. But she fell on a cab double cork 1080, which she had stomped in her first two runs.

At the bottom of the halfpipe, Choi threw her arms in the air. Her coach ran to hug her. Kim, after sliding to the bottom of the pipe, ran through the crowd to congratulate Choi. The new Olympic champion was celebrating with Kim’s family.

The snowboard stars have history. Kim helped Choi train at Mammoth Mountain Snowboarding Club. Choi counts Kim among one of her snowboarding idols after Kim launched herself to superstardom at the 2018 Olympics.

Kim, then 17, became the youngest woman to win an Olympic snowboarding gold medal in PyeongChang. She followed it up with a historic gold in Beijing, where she became the first woman to win two Olympic gold medals in halfpipe.

The 25-year-old Kim suffered a torn labrum in her right shoulder in early January while training in Switzerland. It was the second time she had injured her shoulder in less than four weeks after she was forced to withdraw from a World Cup competition in December.

The injury meant the Olympics were Kim’s first competition of the season.

MILAN — Brittany Bowe will bow out of the Olympics without a medal in her best event.

A four-time Olympian who said the Milan-Cortina Games will be her last, Bowe was edged off the podium in the final pair of the speed skating 1,000-meter race Monday, finishing fourth with a time of one minute and 14.55 seconds. Japan’s Miho Takagi bumped the 37-year-old American out of third place with a time of one minute, 13.59 seconds.

The Netherlands’ Jutta Leerdam set an Olympic record to win gold, clocking in at one minute, 12.31 seconds. She bested her own teammates’ Olympic record set minutes before to push Femke Kok down to silver.

Kok clapped with a resigned look on her face after Leerdam’s time flashed on the screen. Black mascara stained Leerdam’s cheeks as she skated around the arena, saluting the legion of Dutch fans that filled the stands at Milano Speed Skating Stadium. Her fiance, YouTuber-turned-boxer Jake Paul, was in the stands and moved to tears.

Jutta Leerdam of the Netherlands celebrates winning the gold medal in the women’s 1,000-meter speedskating race at the Winter Olympics in Milan on Monday.

(Luca Bruno / Associated Press)

Erin Jackson, the 2022 Olympic gold medalist in the 500 meters who was skating through three herniated discs in her lower back, finished sixth. Racing in the 1,000 meters for the first time in her Olympic career, she clapped cordially at the end of the race. Bowe, who set the world record in the 1,000 meters in 2019, hugged her coaches before disappearing off the ice.

Already longtime friends, the Americans became inextricably linked in 2022. Bowe gave up her qualifying spot in the 500 meters for the Beijing Olympics after Jackson slipped during the U.S. Olympic trials. Bowe had already qualified in other disciplines. She knew Jackson had potential to win a medal. The decision to relinquish her spot was easy, she said at the time.

Jackson made the sacrifice worth it, becoming the first Black woman to win an individual gold medal in the Winter Olympics. Bowe, who still raced in the 500 meters after an additional spot became free, finished 16th.

Bowe instead relied on her top event, the 1,000 meters, for her chance at the podium. The world record holder in the event — which she set in 2019 — won bronze in Beijing for her first individual Olympic medal.

American Erin Jackson competes in the women’s 1,000-meter speedskating race at the Winter Olympics in Milan on Monday.

(Luca Bruno / Associated Press)

But the experience felt “empty,” Bowe said in retrospect. With empty stands during the pandemic-affected Games, Bowe missed the energy of the crowd and especially her family and friends.

Bowe wasn’t lacking for crowd noise Monday. The oval was encircled by a ring of orange. Dutch fans roared every time one of their competitors zoomed by. Even when Kok and Leerdam were warming up, gliding by at a snail’s pace compared to skaters during their race, the crowd cheered. They waved in acknowledgment.

When Kok crossed the finish line, she raised both fists triumphantly. Her time of one minute, 12.59 seconds was good enough for the Olympic record, but Leerdam blazed past her only two pairs later.

Bowe and Jackson will still race in Jackson’s specialty of the 500 meters, while Bowe will finish her Olympic career in the 1,500 meters.