CORTINA D’AMPEZZO, Italy — It takes an immense amount of energy to power venues and make snow for the Winter Olympics and, for the 2026 Milan-Cortina Games, organizers pledged that virtually all of the electricity would be clean.
The organizing committee said that electricity use was where it could make the most meaningful impact, since it has been one of the main drivers of planet-warming emissions at major events. And Italy’s largest electricity company, Enel, guaranteed the supply of entirely certified renewable electricity for event venues.
Here’s a look at what that meant:
To guarantee 100% renewable energy, Enel bought certificates
The organizing committee said in its sustainability report from September that its Games-time electricity would be 100% green, fed by certified renewable sources. In rare cases where temporary power generation is required, hydro-treated vegetable oil would be substituted for traditional diesel fuels, it said.
“This is also an opportunity to contribute to a broader shift — showing athletes, spectators and future host cities that cleaner energy solutions are increasingly viable for events of this scale,” the committee said Friday in a statement to the Associated Press. “We hope the steps taken for these Games can support ongoing progress across major events.”
Enel said it was supplying 85 gigawatt-hours of power for the Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games. It bought “guarantee of origin,” or GO, certificates on the market from renewable energy plants to cover the entire Games’ energy demand.
GO certificates are a European mechanism created in 2001. Each certificate corresponds to 1 megawatt hour of electricity produced using a certified renewable source.
Certificates are a way to prove your energy is green
These certificates are traded on the power market, in negotiations between companies or through brokers.
Once used, they are canceled to prevent the same megawatt hour from being claimed twice. This system is meant to support the development of renewable sources by helping companies meet their green energy targets.
Enel told the AP in a statement that its commitment to cleanly lighting up the events “translates the values of sustainability and inclusion inherent in the Games into concrete terms, combining technological innovation and environmental protection.”
Although many say GOs are vital to promote the Earth’s decarbonization, the system has its detractors. Matteo Villa, who leads the data lab at the Italian Institute for International Political Studies, said it is a “great way to promote your event,” but it’s not making Italy cleaner or more renewable.
The Games can only be as clean, or as sustainable, as the whole of Italy, Villa added.
Enel says it produces a lot of clean electricity in Italy
Nearly three-quarters of the electricity Enel produced in Italy in 2025 was carbon-free, according to its preliminary full-year operational data. About 50% came from hydropower, followed by 17% geothermal and less than 10% from wind, solar and other renewables. The remainder was mostly from gas-fired power plants.
Many power plants that use water to produce electricity are in northern Italy, where mountains and rivers make for highly productive facilities. But Italy’s national grid is still largely reliant on fossil fuels, according to country-specific data from the International Energy Agency.
Enel built new primary substations in Livigno and Arabba, so electricity could be distributed throughout the territory. It also built and upgraded distribution infrastructure in the Livigno, Bormio and Cortina areas, which will benefit residents after the Games.
Enel has a spot in the fan village in Cortina, where events are livestreamed.
Another challenge: emissions from spectators and athletes traveling
Sustainability was a major focus of the Games, as the organizers and the International Olympic Committee sought to model how to cut carbon pollution while running a major event. Researchers say the list of locales that could reliably host a Winter Games will shrink substantially in coming years.
“Every Games we strive to push innovation in sustainability, reduce the overall impact and the carbon footprint,” Julie Duffus, the IOC’s head of sustainability, told the AP on Friday. She highlighted the use of clean power, upgrades to the energy system and the way these Games were designed so that most venues would be existing or temporary.
Matteo Di Castelnuovo, a professor of energy economics at the SDA Bocconi School of Management in Milan, said he expected the Olympics to stay committed to clean energy, and that “the challenge lies somewhere else to make them greener.” The thornier issue for Olympic organizers, and for any business, is figuring out how to reduce the emissions stemming from transportation, he added.
The amount of greenhouse gases estimated to be released into the atmosphere as a result of the Games was similar to the emissions of 4 million average-sized, gasoline-fueled cars driving from Paris to Rome, the organizing committee said in its greenhouse gas management strategy. The largest share of the carbon footprint were activities indirectly related to the Games, such as accommodations and spectator travel. Air travel is a significant contributor because burning jet fuel releases carbon dioxide.
Karl Stoss, who chairs the Games’ Future Host Commission, has said they may need to eventually reduce the number of sports, athletes and spectators who attend.
Many skiers, including Team USA members Lindsey Vonn and Mikaela Shiffrin, expressed concern during the Games about climate change accelerating melt of the world’s glaciers.
McDermott writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Colleen Barry and video journalist Brittany Peterson in Milan contributed to this report.
VERONA, Italy — In fair Verona, L.A., unofficially, takes the torch.
While the Olympic flag passed from Italy to France at Sunday’s closing ceremony, handing off the Winter Games from Milan-Cortina to the French Alps, the flame will burn next in L.A.
In just over two years, the United States will host the country’s first Summer Games since 1996, welcoming an Olympic movement that is surging in popularity but unsteady in a changing world, as the Games return to Los Angeles for the third time.
The Milan-Cortina Olympics are expected to rake in record TV numbers for NBC. They already produced the most-watched women’s hockey game on record when an average of 5.3 million viewers took in the United States’ thrilling overtime win over Canada. The rivalry game contributed to the largest weekday audience for a Winter Games since 2014 with an average of 26.7 million viewers who also watched U.S. star Alysa Liu win the country’s first Olympic gold medal for women’s singles figure skating in 24 years.
The smiling 20-year-old with horizontal stripes in her hair became a sensation in Milan just as 41-year-old mother of two Elana Meyers Taylor did in Cortina d’Ampezzo after the five-time Olympian won her first gold medal in bobsled, jumping into the arms of her nanny and, through tears, signing to her deaf children, “Mommy won.”
No matter protests, politics or planning hurdles, the Olympics sought to remain a stage for those athletes to shine.
“You showed us what excellence, respect and friendship look like in a world that sometimes forgets these values,” International Olympic Committee President Kirsty Coventry said to the Olympians in her speech while standing on a platform in the stands placed in front of the Italian delegation. “You showed us that the Olympic Games are a place for everyone. A place where sport brings us together.”
After record numbers from the 2024 Paris Summer Games, the Milan-Cortina Games sold 1.3 million tickets, which, accounting for 80% of the expected tickets, was “beyond our expectations,” Milano Cortina 2026 chief executive officer Andrea Varnier said at a news conference. Of the 63% of international fans who attended the Games, the United States, at 14%, bought the second-most tickets.
Fans filled arenas that were finished just in time in Milan. They withstood snowstorms in Livigno, cheered the debut of ski mountaineering in Bormio and held their breath while multiple skiers got airlifted off the downhill course in Cortina.
The most widespread Games in history created distinct pockets of Olympic spirit separated by hours on trains and miles of winding mountain roads. The Olympics that preached harmony finally united in a single city known for love, beauty and grudges. The Milan-Cortina Games represented seemingly every Shakespearean theme.
Athletes got engaged. Sponsors organized hair and makeup sessions in the Olympic villages, which went through an average of 365 kilograms of pasta and 10,000 eggs a day. A cheating scandal rocked curling.
The closing ceremony set at the Roman amphitheater at the heart of the city that inspired “Romeo and Juliet” celebrated the Games as “beauty in action.” But beneath the glittering gold medals, there was pain.
Alpine skier Lindsey Vonn suffered a horrific crash and has already undergone four surgeries on her broken leg. Ukrainian skeleton athlete Vladyslav Heraskevych was disqualified when he refused to compete without his helmet honoring Ukrainian athletes who’ve been killed in the war with Russia.
Artists perform during the closing ceremony of the 2026 Winter Olympics in Verona, Italy.
(Bernat Armangue / Associated Press)
Already holding the weight of their personal dreams, U.S. athletes faced additional pressure answering questions about the country’s political landscape. After freestyle skier Hunter Hess he said he had “mixed emotions” representing the United States at the Olympics, President Trump called the 27-year-old “a real loser” on social media.
Two weeks later, Hess held his thumb and forefinger in the shape of an “L” to his forehead after his first qualifying run.
Athletes pleaded for assistance navigating an onslaught of social media threats as the Olympic spotlight grows with every Games. Coventry said at a news conference last week that the IOC has a safeguarding unit that monitors the organization’s social media platforms for hateful messages. More than 10,000 such comments were taken down during the Paris Games, IOC spokesperson Mark Adams said. The number for the Milan-Cortina Games hadn’t been finalized.
With the largest delegation of any country at the Games, the United States won the second-most medals with 33, including 12 golds, the most Olympic titles for the country at any single Winter Games. The total gold medals surpassed the 10 won in Salt Lake City in 2002, the last time the United States hosted an Olympic Games.
After more than two decades away, the Games will return to the United States twice in the next eight years. L.A. will host the 2028 Games and Utah will have the 2034 Winter Games.
Approaching the final stretch of an 11-year planning period, the L.A. Games confronted another challenge this month when a growing number of local politicians called for LA28 chairman Casey Wasserman’s resignation after racy emails he exchanged with Ghislaine Maxwell were revealed in the Epstein files. After initial hesitation, L.A. Mayor Karen Bass and other leaders joined the chorus calling for Wasserman’s dismissal.
But LA28 doubled down on his role. The executive committee of the LA28 board stood by Wasserman after a review from an outside legal firm found that the Hollywood mogul’s relationship with Maxwell “did not go beyond what has already been publicly documented.”
As with his 2026 organizing committee counterpart Giovanni Malago, Wasserman would be expected to deliver speeches in 2028.
MILAN — He’s as smooth as a bobsled track and sharp as a skate blade.
Snoop Dogg, the rap rapscallion who puts the OG in Olympic Games, plopped down on a couch in the NBC green room and muted the TV. It’s exhausting being everywhere at all times at the most spread-out Winter Games in history.
Whether he was carrying the Olympic torch, skiing with Picabo Street, sliding a curling stone or driving a Zamboni, Snoop was everywhere. He finished each day with a highlight show from the Milan studios.
So ubiquitous was the so-called Ambassador of Happiness, you’d swear NBC duped a Snoop — or maybe two.
Snoop Dogg, right, and five-time Olympic gold medalist former speedskater Eric Heiden watch speedskating at the Milan-Cortina Olympics on Feb. 11.
(Ben Curtis / Associated Press)
“The Winter Olympics are underrated,” he said in an interview Friday at the network’s Olympic complex. “It’s not highly touted like it should be. This is an event that is just as good as the Super Bowl, as the Summer Olympics. There’s so much action and there’s so much happening, and it’s not just one day. It’s not just four quarters. It’s weeks of great competition — on ice, for the most part.”
It’s almost as if the angular, 6-foot-4 Snoop is on ice as he glides through the back halls of NBC’s temporary headquarters, wearing a white turtleneck under a red, white and blue leather jacket with “COACH SNOOP” across the front. He’s wearing a gold-rope chain with the Universal logo as a pendant, and gold-rimmed sunglasses that are square and lightly tinted.
He greets everyone he sees and a friendly assistant follows him, handing out Olympic pins of a tiny, cartoonish Snoop with his arms raised at his side, standing in front of an American flag.
Is it any wonder this guy creates a buzz in every venue he enters? He is the No. 1 celebrity sighting at the Games.
“Snoop has a joy about him, a childlike curiosity, and he’s also a people person,” said Molly Solomon, executive producer and president of programming for NBC’s Olympics coverage. “He wants to lift people up in all aspects of his persona.”
NBC began using the rapper as part of its Olympic coverage during the Tokyo Games in 2021 with the streaming Peacock show “Olympic Highlights with Kevin Hart & Snoop Dogg.” Many of their playful clips and humorous commentaries went viral and were especially appealing to younger viewers. Snoop genuinely enjoyed the competition, even though a lot of it was new to him.
Three years later, as the network was preparing for the Paris Olympics, executives were looking for ways to enhance the prime-time coverage, much of which would air on tape because of time-zone differences. They decided to expand Snoop’s role to give the perspective of a “superfan.” With these Olympics, his role further evolved into an experiential one, and to serve as an informal mentor and ambassador to the athletes.
“This is the biggest stage in the world,” he said. “Nobody gets to perform in front of the world like they do, with the whole world paying attention. To have all of that pressure of [something] you’ve been working for four years … Some of these girls and guys get that one shot, their event is only one time.”
As a roving correspondent, he did … well, some serious roving.
That included making the drive from Milan to Cortina for curling, sliding and women’s ski racing. That’s a four-hour van ride each way, some of it winding into the Dolomites.
“Trying to sleep with my head up against the window, with turning curves and every mountaintop,” he said. “Sliding by trains and traffic, and oh my God, I couldn’t drive out here. One-way streets. Little-bitty trains coming this way, that way. Bicycles, mopeds. It’s a lot.”
He also made a 3½-hour trip to Livigno to watch snowboarding — and said that if he had to pick a sport to compete in, that would be his choice.
“I could get good in snowboard, because I just like the creativity of when you’re in the air you have full control but you in the air,” he said. “I just feel like that’s something I could really be good at.”
So he must have skateboarded as a kid growing up in Long Beach, right?
“Never,” he said. “That’s what I’m saying. None of these sports are near and dear to me. That’s why it’s gonna be a first-time trial. But I know who I am. I don’t like to fail. I don’t like to lose. So I’m just such a perfectionist that I will get good enough to be good enough.”
He’s 54 and concedes his body can’t always accomplish what his mind thinks it can. He tried running the 200 meters at the Olympic trials in Oregon before the Paris Games and did so in 33 seconds, but he limped away with an injury. So he has a goal for when the Summer Games come to Los Angeles in two years.
“When we get to L.A., my mission is for me to run the 200 in under 30 seconds,” he said. “In 2028, I should be 56 years old. So if I can run it in under 30 seconds at 56, that’s a gold medal for me.”
Solomon said NBC is still brainstorming about how Snoop’s role will evolve for the 2028 Games.
Honorary Team USA coach Snoop Dogg throws a curling stone as Americans Daniel Casper and Tabitha Peterson Lovick watch on Feb. 6 in Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy.
(Richard Heathcote / Getty Images)
“Of course, L.A. is Snoop’s hometown,” she said. “So he will be a hometown hero.”
Snoop said his love for the Olympics dates to the 1984 Los Angeles Games. He didn’t attend any events at the time, though, noting that for a 13-year-old kid growing up in Long Beach, the city felt “like a whole state away.”
“We were watching on television,” he said. “We never thought we could physically be there. … It just felt good to be an American, to watch us compete against the whole world and to see how great we were.”
He’s particularly interested in flag football — which will make its debut in the Los Angeles Olympics — and created a youth football league that counts among its alumni NFL standouts C.J. Stroud and JuJu Smith-Schuster.
“Flag football is a sport the whole world can grab ahold of,” Snoop said. “There are so many athletes that are in the NFL that are from different parts of the world that they’ve grown the sport from them just making it to the NFL and being an inspiration for the next generation.”
How does Mick Cronin survive this, sending his own player off the court after hustling hard on defense to get a piece of the ball but unfortunately too much contact and drew a foul. Does he not constantly rip his team for weak defense?
Steven Jamerson, you deserved better from your coach and I won’t be surprised if your teammates and UCLA’s decision-makers agree going forward. Except …. he just recently got an extension. Way to go, Martin Jarmond.
Ron Mortvedt San Bernardino
How can UCLA’s combustible coach possibly demand discipline, hold his players responsible, or blame them for failing to take accountability when, night after night, he’s the most unhinged person in the building? Hey Mick, as my grandma used to say, “When you point a finger at someone, three point back at you.”
Steve Ross Carmel
Bill Plaschke nailed it in his column today. Mick Cronin just seems to be angry all the time prowling the sidelines. What does that look like to a kid still playing in high school? How AD Martin Jarmond gave him an extended contract with a $22.5-million buyout is beyond me. It’s going to cost UCLA to move on from him. It would be a lot easier if he only starts throwing chairs.
Paul Atkinson Ventura
The sky has fallen! For the first time I can remember I agree with something Bill Plaschke has written!
Julian Pollok
Palm Desert
As a lifelong fan and proud alumnus, I believe it’s time for UCLA to seriously evaluate the direction of its men’s basketball program. Why would we want a head coach who appears angry every time he’s in the spotlight? Leadership sets the tone, and right now that tone feels tense and joyless. Players want to compete for someone who inspires them and makes them better — not someone whose public demeanor seems rooted in frustration.
Watching from the outside, it often looks like the team is playing tight rather than confident, and that reflects leadership. Mick Cronin has had success and deserves credit for that, but UCLA basketball is bigger than any one résumé; if the standard is sustained excellence and a culture players are proud to represent, then it’s fair to question whether this is the right long-term fit for the program.
CORTINA D’AMPEZZO, Italy — In some families, children are expected to attend the same college as their parents or root for mom or dad’s favorite team.
In Azaria Hill’s family, the children were encouraged to go to the Olympics. Not to watch, but to compete.
Hill’s father Virgil, a boxer, earned a silver medal at the 1984 Summer Games. Hill’s mother, Denean Howard, met Virgil at the 1984 Games and won Olympic gold that year running with her sister, Sherri Howard, in the 4×400-meter relay. The sisters won silver medals in the 4×400 at the 1988 Olympics before Denean earned another silver at the 1992 Games.
“At a very young age, since I could understand what the Olympics were and knew what my family did as Olympians, I knew that’s something that I wanted to do and wanted to experience,” Hill said.
But her top marks of 11.70 seconds in the 100 meters and 23.93 in the 200 didn’t rank in the top 100 for U.S. women in 2021, her senior year at Nevada Las Vegas. So if she was going to continue the family tradition, she knew she’d have to find another sport.
Jadin O’Brien was in a similar fix. She won two NCAA titles in the pentathlon but finished seventh at the U.S. trials ahead of the 2024 Games. To realize her Olympic dream, she’d have to change sports too.
Luckily for both women, there was a well-worn path from the track to the Winter Olympics: Just hop onto a sled. On Friday, Hill and O’Brien will complete their journeys when the two-woman bobsled competition gets underway at the Cortina Sliding Centre.
“I never thought that this would even be a possibility or an opportunity,” Hill said. “It just kind of fell into my lap and I was really good at it. I stuck it out and worked hard and here I am a Winter Olympian.”
She has Kaysha Love, a UNLV teammate, to thank for that. An 11-time high school track champion in Utah, Love was encouraged by her college coach to take part in a 12-day bobsled rookie camp after COVID shortened the track season her senior year. That led to more auditions and 14 months later she and pilot Kaillie Humphries won a World Cup race.
U.S. bobsledders Azaria Hill, left, and Kaysha Love take part in a training run Wednesday in Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy.
(Aijaz Rahi / Associated Press)
After just six races, Love made the 2022 U.S. Olympic team as a brakewoman. She then tried to sell Hill on the sport.
“She was like ‘I think you should try it. Let’s see if you can do it,’” Hill remembered. “I went to my first rookie camp and I did really well, got invited back to some more camps, and ended up making my first World Cup team.”
That was in December 2023. Two years later she made it to the Olympics as the brakewoman for Love, who is now a driver.
“That’s completely opposite of what I thought I’d be doing,” Hill said. “The first time it is definitely scary. I was like, ‘I don’t know if I can do this. I don’t know if I even want to do this.’ It is an acquired taste.
“But Keisha Love was just super positive.”
O’Brien’s rise to Olympian in the two-person bobsled, the second-fastest sliding sport of the Winter Games, has been even swifter. Elana Meyers Taylor, a five-time Olympian and five-time medalist, began recruiting O’Brien to be her brakewoman after the Beijing Games. At first she resisted, but last summer O’Brien decided she needed a rest from track “and bobsled seemed like a good alternative, so I took it up.”
Jadin O’Brien, left, and Elana Meyers Taylor prepare for a bobsled training run at the Milan-Cortina Olympic Games on Wednesday.
(Aijaz Rahi / Associated Press)
In her World Cup debut four months later, O’Brien pushed Taylor to a fourth-place finish, earning a spot on the Olympic team.
“There was so much I needed to learn,” she said. “Luckily there were quite a few girls who were very patient with me, who helped me understand the sport, understand form.”
One of the most important things she had to learn is when to pull the brake.
“If you do it too early, then you’re going to drastically hurt your time. If you do it too late, there’s a chance you’re going to ruin the runners because the track ends at a certain point,” O’Brien said.
And that decision has to be made in a heartbeat at the end of a mile-long ice chute covered at speeds exceeding 90 mph.
“It’s terrifying. You’re going super, super fast. As a brakeman you can’t see what’s going on because your head is down,” she said. “But at the same time it’s very thrilling. You feel like you’re flying if the run is done right. It’s almost addicting.”
Track athletes like Hill, 27, and O’Brien, 23, have a long history of success in bobsled, where speed and power at the start are important. Lauryn Williams won a gold medal on the track in the 2012 London Games and a silver on the back of Taylor’s sled two years later in Sochi. Lolo Jones won three world championships on the track and two in a bobsled. Most of the Jamaican team in Cortina is made up of sprinters who couldn’t catch Usain Bolt, so they climbed in a bobsled instead.
“They’ve got just an athleticism that is very applicable to pushing sleds,” said Curtis Tomasevicz, a former football player at Nebraska who won gold and silver Olympic medals in the four-man bobsled before becoming a coach with the U.S. team. “We’re recruiting athletes that have a sprinting ability and we feel like we can teach them to be bobsledders in a short amount of time.”
For Hill, that transition from the sprints to a sled has allowed her to carry on a family tradition. And she’ll have 11 relatives — including two Olympic medalists — at the Cortina Sliding Centre on Friday when she creates her own memories as the first Hill to compete in the Winter Games.
“They’re super excited seeing me on this journey, being that I’ve been able to kind of follow my own mission, create something for myself,” she said. “It’s almost like they’re kind of experiencing it again, but just in a different way.
“This has definitely exceeded my expectations of what I thought being an Olympian would be. It’s so much fun.”
MILAN — After a one-hour on-ice training session and on the way to yet another interview, Isabeau Levito has one big problem on her mind.
One of the plants in the U.S. figure skater’s room has started growing mold. She needs to figure out how to wrangle it.
“That’s our task of the day,” Levito said Monday.
Nevermind that the biggest competition of her life was starting in about 24 hours.
Isabeau Levito competes during the free skating competition at the U.S. figure skating championships on Jan. 9 in St. Louis.
(Jeff Roberson / Associated Press)
Levito and the United States’ “Blade Angels” are trying to stay calm under pressure at the Olympics, where chaos has reigned at Milano Ice Skating Arena.
The United States was expected to dominate figure skating in Milan, but has yet to win a gold medal in an individual event entering Tuesday’s women’s short program. A supposed sure-fire gold medal disappeared in stunning fashion with Ilia Malinin’s eighth-place collapse. Three-time reigning world ice dance champions Madison Chock and Evan Bates settled for a “bittersweet” silver that was marred by judging controversies.
But the talent and depth on what is likely the best U.S. women’s Olympic team in decades could help end a 20-year Olympic medal drought in women’s singles skating. The last U.S. woman to stand on an Olympic podium for an individual event was Sasha Cohen in 2006. Sarah Hughes’ 2002 gold medal was the last for the United States in women’s singles.
Alysa Liu has already ended one skid. The reigning world champion was the first U.S. woman to win the world title since 2006. With blonde horizontal stripes dyed into her black hair and a piercing in her upper lip, the 20-year-old Liu is putting an alternative spin on figure skating.
Three-time national champion Amber Glenn combines power in her triple axel with emotion on the ice.
Levito, the 2024 world silver medalist, is the classic balletic skater who packs a humorous punch behind her teenage smile.
In a sport that once pitted young women against each other to fit a singular “ice princess” mold, the “Blade Angels” find their strength in their diversity.
“I really like that we’re all so different,” Levito said. “We have our own strengths and our own personalities and our own ways we want to look and appear. … We all have the same passion for the sport and have very aligned goals of wanting to do our best, and once we do that, we’re all happy, regardless of who beat who.”
NBC announcing team Tara Lipinski and Johnny Weir dubbed the trio of medal contenders “the big three,” but the skaters workshopped their own nickname after nationals. They nixed “Babes of Glory” and “Powerpuff Girls” for copyright concerns. Their final choice was a mashup of “Blades of Glory” and “Charlie’s Angels.” If you like it, credit Liu.
“If people don’t like it,” Liu said, “don’t say I made it.”
Liu and Glenn have already won a gold medal in Milan, helping the United States win the team event in dramatic fashion. But with the two events spaced more than one week apart, “being in a high-pressure atmosphere for so long takes its toll,” Glenn said.
The 26-year-old has faced additional challenges on social media at the Games. She had to resolve potential copyright issues concerning her free skate music and received threats for comments she made during a news conference when asked about President Trump’s policies regarding the LGBTQ+ community. Glenn, who identifies as bisexual and pansexual, encouraged people in the queer community to “stay strong during these hard times,” refusing to avoid political conversations because “politics affect us all.”
American Amber Glenn competes during the team skate at the Winter Olympics in Milan on Feb. 8.
(Natacha Pisarenko / Associated Press)
While she said Monday she doesn’t regret the comments, she has also had to take a break from social media to focus on her remaining competitions at the Olympics.
“I’m happy to do what I do and stand for what I stand for,” Glenn said. “But it has been —”
She paused.
“Complicated.”
Not only are the Olympic Games the largest stage for many sports and a dream that begins from childhood, but the spotlight has only increased with social media in recent years, Glenn said. Amid the pressure, she tries to lean on her teammates and embody the advice of U.S. figure skating alumni who tell her simply “enjoy it.”
“Four years ago, I could never have imagined even making it here,” Glenn said. “To just be here is a privilege that I don’t take lightly, and I need to remind myself of that and to just really soak in the experience, not just the results.”
Isabeau Levito skates during the U.S. figure skating championships on Jan. 11 in St. Louis.
(Jeff Roberson / Associated Press)
To reset after the team competition, the “Angels” went with the pairs skaters — whose competition started one week after the team event wrapped — to train at a U.S. facility in Bergamo, about a 50-minute drive outside of Milan. The training sessions are longer than what’s available at the competition venue, said Levito, who only took two training sessions in Milan before Tuesday’s short program.
The last U.S. figure skater to take Olympic ice, Levito has passed her time at the Games in the Olympic village. After making the Olympic team, the New Jersey native was most excited about the village. To her, it was going to be like “a magic kingdom,” she said before the Games.
It’s lived up to every expectation. She walks by the Olympic rings every morning. She and her teammates lounged in front of the TV watching the pairs competition Sunday and Glenn ordered ramen. Levito and U.S. ice dancer Christina Carreira named the adopted plants in their shared room Christabeau and Isatina. Levito is loving the experience so much that she won’t even harp on the fact that she briefly battled food poisoning.
She felt “horrible” off the ice, but it didn’t affect her training.
“When I was skating,” Levito said, “I flipped a switch in my head.”
MILAN — When she skated, Tara Lipinski was always nervous. But it was different before the free skate of the 1998 Olympics. The teenager cried that morning. She called her parents after the six-minute warmup and said she couldn’t do it. Her legs were physically shaking in her beginning pose. She didn’t know what to do.
“When you go to the Olympics, there’s no training for that,” said Lipinski, now an analyst for NBC. “You don’t know what it’s going to feel like ‘til you’re actually feeling it.”
The awe-inspiring dream that often starts as a child can quickly turn into a nightmare for athletes who get blinded by the bright Olympic spotlight. While Lipinski realized her dream, becoming Olympic champion in Nagano, she knows the suffocating feeling of competing under the Olympic rings.
She knows the stress that devoured Ilia Malinin on Friday in Milan.
Malinin’s meltdown from favorite to eighth place underscored the unpredictability of the Olympic stage. The 21-year-old dubbed “the Quad God” was supposed to unleash the first quadruple axel in Olympic history. The four-and-a-half twisting jump he successfully executed when he was 17 has been the talk of the Olympic cycle.
Battling nerves and the conditioning needed for a long Olympic competition, he didn’t use it during the team competition or his individual short program. The free skate would be the last opportunity. It felt like the perfect coronation for the soon-to-be Olympic champion.
Then he bailed midair.
“I think that, for me, I would be like, ‘Oh, man, I just missed what everyone was waiting for,’” Lipinski said. “You go through that minute of being rattled and you have to come back to [the program]. … The next jump [he] wasn’t able to completely reset and shake it off. And then once that next mistake happened — and for Ilia, who doesn’t make mistakes — I think that was probably very difficult for him.”
The standing-room-only crowd gasped when Malinin gave up on the quad axel. Fans grew more uneasy when he fell two jumps later. They tried to urge him on as the mistakes piled up. Instead of joyful encouragement, the clapping felt like desperation in the arena.
Ilia Malinin falls during his free skate at the Milan-Cortina Games on Friday.
(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
Eight years ago, when Nathan Chen bent under the Olympic pressure in Pyeongchang, the crowd’s gasps each time he stumbled through his short program only made one of the hardest moments of his career even more difficult.
“That just hurts you to your gut,” Chen said in a video for Yahoo Sports. “You get up and mentally you have to refresh … but also the energy just changes in the arena. You can tell there’s tension now.”
Chen, then 18 years old in his Olympic debut, bounced back in a fearless free skate that moved him into fifth overall. He became almost unbeatable for the next Olympic cycle. At the Beijing Games, he set the world record for the short program, exorcised the demons from 2018 and became the United States’ first Olympic gold medalist in men’s singles in 12 years.
Malinin was a contender to be at those Games four years ago. He finished second in the 2022 U.S. championships, but was left off the Olympic team in a controversial decision. Then just 17, he was only in his first full season of senior competition.
But Malinin was already poised to be the future of the sport. Simply going to the Games as an understudy to Chen’s leading role would have been valuable experience.
Instead, U.S. Figure Skating selected third-place finisher Vincent Zhou and fourth-place Jason Brown.
Sitting with his coaches while waiting for his score Friday, a frustrated Malinin said if he had been sent to Beijing, he “wouldn’t have skated like that.”
“It’s not easy,” he said as cameras zoomed into his face.
He shrugged. He reset.
“It’s done,” he said.
“I think if I went to ’22 then I would have had more experience and know how to handle this Olympic environment,” a composed Malinin said in the mixed zone interview area. “But also, I don’t know what the next stages of my life would look like if I went there. So now all I can do is just regroup from this and really just take in the information that happened and just figure out how to manage in the future.”
Malinin has said he wants to skate for three Olympic cycles. The first attempt ended in shattering disappointment. That could only make the comeback sweeter.
“He will dominate the sport for years to come,” Lipinski said. “This was a huge, obviously, heartbreak for him, but we will see him rise again.”
MILAN — Before the final competitors hit the last turn, Jordan Stolz’s coach was already unfolding a U.S. flag.
The 21-year-old speedskating star won his second Olympic medal of the Milan-Cortina Games, setting an Olympic record in the 500 meters on Saturday at 33.77 seconds. He edged out the Nedtherlands’ Jenning de Boo, who was paired with Stolz and finished 0.11 seconds behind the U.S. star. Canada’s Laurent Debreuril took bronze at 34.26 seconds, which also stood as the Olympic record for three pairs before Stolz blazed through Milano Speed Skating Stadium.
Stolz is attempting an ambitious four-event program at the Milan-Cortina Games and already won the 1,000-meter gold medal this week. He will also compete in the 1,500 meters and the team pursuit.
Stolz is the first U.S. man to win the 500 meter at the Olympics since Joey Cheek in 2006. He is the first U.S. man to win gold in the 500 and 1,000 at the same Olympics since Eric Heiden in 1980.
He took a victory lap around the arena as red, white and blue-clad fans chanted “U-S-A!” Even the Dutch fans, forming a wall of bright orange all around the racing oval, clapped in admiration as Stolz held the U.S. flag above his head.
Gold medalist Jordan Stolz of the United States, center, celebrates on the podium with silver medalist Jenning de Boo of the Netherlands, left, and bronze medalist Laurent Dubreuil of Canada after the men’s 500 meters in speedskating at Winter Games on Saturday.
History is once again unfolding at the Milan-Cortina Winter Games as Team USA members break records and score dominant triumphs.
But as the Games move into their second week, a different and more provocative history is starting to repeat itself, casting a politically charged shadow over the event.
Champion skier Mikaela Shiffrin, snowboarder Chloe Kim, and freestyle skiers Hunter Hess and Chris Lillas are among the top athletes who have been vocal about their uneasiness in representing their home country during a period of deep political crisis revolving several volatile issues, including the violent federal crackdown in Minnesota by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and the Trump administration’s attacks nationwide on immigrants and the LGBTQ+ community.
“It brings up mixed emotions to represent the U.S. right now,” Hess said at a press conference last week. “Just because I’m wearing the flag doesn’t mean I represent everything that’s going on in the U.S.”
Trump blasted Hess’ comments in a Truth Social post, calling him “a real Loser,” adding, “He says he doesn’t represent his Country … If that’s the case, he shouldn’t have tried out for the Team, and it’s too bad he’s on it. Very hard to root for someone like this.”
Commenting on the athletes in an interview with CNN, Vice President JD Vance, who was attending the Games, said the athletes who are critical should expect “some pushback.”
Vance, who was booed when he was shown on a large screen during the opening ceremonies, added, “You’re there to play a sport, you’re there to represent the country and hopefully win a medal. Most Olympic athletes, whatever their politics, are doing a great job, certainly enjoy the support of the entire country, and I think recognize that the way to bring the country together is not to show up in a foreign country and attack the president of the United States, but it’s to play your sport and to represent the country well.”
Vice President JD Vance and his wife Usha at the Winter Olympics opening ceremony in Milan on Feb. 6. Vance said athletes should expect pushback if they criticize the country.
(Natacha Pisarenko/AP)
The outspokenness of the Winter Olympic athletes echoes a dramatic protest by Olympians Tommie Smith and John Carlos which electrified the 1968 Summer Games in Mexico City. The sprinters, who placed first and third respectively in the 200 meter race, spoke not with words but with black-gloved raised fists on the victory stand, producing one of the most iconic images in Olympic history.
As the national anthem played following their victories, Smith and Carlos expressed their anger about racial injustice in America by bowing their heads and raising their fists. The gesture provoked a seismic reaction internationally while infuriating Olympic officials who claimed Smith and Carlos used the world stage to humiliate their home country.
Smith and Carlos’ salute to Black Power is explored in HBO Max’s documentary “Fists of Freedom: The Story of the ’68 Summer Games.” The 1999 Peabody Award-winning film chronicles the fiery moment and its aftermath for Smith and Carlos, who earned both heroic praise and pointed condemnation.
George Roy, who produced and directed “Fists of Freedom,” said “there are similarities between what happened in 1968 and what’s going on now. The similarities are it’s the Olympics and the United States, and in both cases there are athletes saying they wish they could be a little prouder given the current state of things.”
U.S. athletes Tommie Smith, center, and John Carlos, right, hold their fists up in protest after winning medals at the 1968 Summer Olympic games.
(AP)
However, Roy, who has won multiple Emmys and is the founder of Jersey Line Films, added that there are marked differences.
“What Smith and Carlos did was so consequential because it affected them directly,” he said. “They were protesting along with millions in their community. Their point was that they were good enough to represent their country. But when they got back to the real world, they would have trouble getting into restaurants or finding an apartment.”
He added, “It was just more personal than what is happening now.”
In an interview included in the documentary, Smith said the gesture by him and Carlos was often misinterpreted.
“As soon as the national anthem was playing, my glove is going toward God,” said Smith. “The Black fist in the air was only in recognition of those who had gone. It was a prayer of solidarity. It was a cry for help by my fellow brothers and sisters in the country who had been shot, who had been bitten by dogs … It was a cry for freedom.”
He added, “I don’t like the idea of people looking at it as negative. It was nothing but a raised fist in the air and a bowed head to the American flag. Not symbolizing a hatred for it.”
Though he heard cheers, he also heard boos and jeers.
“Fists of Freedom” contains several interviews from sports and media figures who were present or covered the proceedings and had strong opinions about the gesture.
Bob Paul, who was the press secretary for the United States Olympic Committee in 1968, said, “[Smith and Carlos] were wrong. You are supposed to observe due order and decorum to the nth degree at every victory ceremony.”
Veteran TV sportscaster Brent Musburger, who at the time was a columnist with the Chicago American newspaper, wrote: “Airing one’s dirty laundry before the entire world during a fun and games tournament was no more than a juvenile gesture. Smith and Carlos looked like a couple of Black-skinned storm troopers.”
Incensed, Olympic committee head Avery Brundage ordered the sprinters to be expelled from the Games.
Despite the uproar, experts said the salute by Smith and Carlos was a defining moment for Black people, galvanizing the Civil Rights Movement. However, the two men encountered personal and professional difficulties when they returned home.
Both Smith and Carlos have participated in speaking engagements in recent years. They could not be reached for comment.
“We’re not Antichrists,” said Smith in “Fists of Freedom.” “We’re just human beings who saw a need to be recognized.”
Adams: The Leicester-born 29-year-old has established himself as Clarke’s first pick up front. Since switching allegiances in 2021, he has amassed 45 caps and contributed 11 goals. Formerly of Sheffield United and Birmingham City, he moved to Torino two years ago after featuring in the Premier League with Southampton.
This season, he has scored six goals in 26 appearances, 17 of them starts, for the side sitting 13th of Serie A’s 20 clubs.
Bowie: The Kirkcaldy-born 23-year-old began his career with Raith Rovers before spells with Fulham and on loan to Northampton Town before rising to prominence with Hibernian, his nine goal in 30 appearances this season leading to his January sale to Hellas Verona.
Bowie, who has two Scotland caps, made his debut, and first start, in a 0-0 draw at home to Pisa.
Doig: The Edinburgh-born 23-year-old became a first-team regular for Hibs in the Scottish Premiership before moving to Italy and is already at his second Serie A club. He moved from Verona to Sassuolo in 2024 and won his one and only Scotland cap last year in a left-back role in which he finds himself behind Liverpool’s Andy Robertson and Celtic’s Kieran Tierney.
Doig has made 24 appearances, 20 of them starts, this season for his 11th-placed club side.
Ferguson: Having started his career with local club Hamilton Academical, the 26-year-old spent four seasons with Aberdeen in the Premiership before being sold to Bologna in summer 2022. Ferguson, who has 21 Scotland caps, became captain the following October and led his side to a Coppa Italia final win over AC Milan last year and European qualification.
He has made 29 appearances this season, 21 of them starts for the side sitting eighth.
Gilmour: Irvine-born, the 24-year-old started his career with Rangers but moved to Chelsea while still a youth. He made his senior debut aged 18 but moved to Premier League rivals Norwich City on a season-long loan in 2021.
Transferred to Brighton & Hove Albion the following year, he helped them to a sixth-place finish and qualification for European football for the first time before being sold to Napoli in 2024, on the same day as Scotland team-mate McTominay, and they finished the season with the first league titles of their careers. However, this season he has been limited to 12 appearances, only six of them starts, having been sidelined since November.
McTominay: The Lancaster-born midfielder came through Manchester United’s youth ranks and, although he did not make his first-team debut until aged 21, he went on to make 255 appearances for the Premier League club. After being sold to Napoli, the 29-year-old was nominated for the prestigious Ballon d’Or award last season as his goalscoring feats helped win the league title.
His 14 goals in 67 Scotland appearances include a lauded overhead kick that helped beat Denmark to secure World Cup qualification in November. McTominay has made 34 appearances this season for his club, scoring 10 goals.
Miller: Born in Wishaw, the 19-year-old son of Scotland-capped former striker Lee came through the youth ranks with Motherwell, making his debut just days after turning 16. After 76 appearances for the Premiership club, he was sold to Udinese in August for a Well club record fee, two months after being handed the first of his four Scotland caps.
He has made 14 appearances, six of them starts, so far.
EAST LANSING, Mich. — Lauren Betts had 22 points, seven rebounds and five assists and No. 2 UCLA pushed its winning streak to 18 games by thumping No. 13 Michigan State 86-63 on Wednesday night.
Kiki Rice finished with 18 points and seven rebounds for the Bruins (24-1, 14-0 Big Ten). Gabriela Jaquez added 13 points, all in the first half, and Gianna Kneepkens chipped in 12.
UCLA now has nine wins over ranked opponents, six in conference play.
Rashunda Jones scored 15 points and Emma Shumate had 12 for the Spartans (20-5, 9-5), who have dropped three of their last four games. Grace VanSlooten and Kennedy Blair, the team’s top scorers entering the game, were held to a combined 18 points on six-for-25 shooting.
UCLA, which led by 31 points, outscored Michigan State 56-22 in the paint and had a 48-28 rebounding advantage.
Their matchup last season in Los Angeles wasn’t decided until late in the game, when the Bruins pulled out a 75-69 victory. Betts missed that game with a foot injury but the Spartans couldn’t avoid her imposing 6-foot-7 presence this time.
Coming off a hotly contested 69-66 victory over No. 8 Michigan on Sunday, the Bruins were in total control from the start.
UCLA scored on its six first possessions while powering to a 44-20 halftime lead, capped off by Jaquez’s three-pointer. Betts had 13 points by the break, while the Spartans were unable to get anything going in halfcourt sets or transition.
Michigan State hasn’t defeated a top-two team at home since 2005.
Major League Baseball is making streaming options available for fans to watch in-market games of 20 teams, including the Dodgers, Los Angeles Angels, San Francisco Giants and San Diego Padres — a significant shift to respond to the fast-changing TV landscape.
The Angels on Tuesday announced its arrangement with the league to make its games more widely available. The club said the option — Angels.TV — would be available for purchase for $99.99 for the full season or $19.99 per month through the MLB app.
“We are excited to partner with Major League Baseball to bring Angels games to their streaming platform,” Angels President John Carpino said in a statement. “Our priority is making it as easy as possible for fans to watch Angels Baseball and MLB’s industry-leading app provides another great option to stay connected to the team.”
The league separately announced the move, which provides options for fans of other teams, through its MLB app. In-market games for the Arizona Diamondbacks, Baltimore Orioles, Cincinnati Reds, Cleveland Guardians, Colorado Rockies, Kansas City Royals, Miami Marlins, Milwaukee Brewers, Minnesota Twins, New York Mets, Philadelphia Phillies, St. Louis Cardinals, Seattle Mariners, Tampa Bay Rays and Washington Nationals will be provided through the app.
Games will still be available to traditional pay-TV subscribers.
Spectrum, owned by cable giant Charter Communications, which distributes the Dodgers’ SportsNet LA had previously made available Dodger games as a streaming option through a separate app.
On Tuesday, ESPN announced that it would become the new streaming home of MLB.TV, bringing out-of-market live games to the ESPN App and ESPN.com.
“With MLB.TV now available through ESPN, we’re taking a significant step forward in reinforcing ESPN as the home of the MLB regular season while deepening the value proposition of the ESPN Unlimited plan – giving fans even more flexibility in how and where they watch all season long,” Rosalyn Durant, Executive Vice President, ESPN Programming & Acquisitions, said in a statement.
The move comes as traditional regional sports networks struggle amid the exodus of pay-TV customers. Regional sports networks once were viewed as cash cows for teams and TV programming companies that owned them but, in recent years, at least one regional sports network owner has filed for bankruptcy. That pompted the MLB to step in to fill the gap.
The league said it also was taking over the television production of games for 14 teams, including the Padres and Arizona Diamondbacks.
CORTINA D’AMPEZZO — CORTINA D’AMPEZZO, Italy — The mountainside packed with fans and competitors was eerily silent after disaster struck.
Lindsey Vonn, attempting to win a gold medal despite sustaining a torn anterior cruciate ligament in her final race before the Games, clipped her pole on a gate early in her first Olympic downhill skiing run and crashed Sunday.
Vonn, 41, could be heard screaming after the crash. She received medical attention on the snow and was airlifted off the mountain.
The race was halted while Vonn was treated. Her teammate, Breezy Johnson, held the early lead and went on to win the race after the competition resumed. Johnson won the Americans’ first gold medal of the Games.
The U.S. downhill team celebrated with Johnson but continued to think of Vonn.
American Lindsey Vonn crashes into a gate during an alpine ski downhill race at the Winter Olympics in Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy, Sunday.
(Handout / Getty Images)
“It’s heartbreaking,” said American Isabella Wright, who finished 22nd in the competition. “Jackie [Wiles] and myself, we were up there. We watched it live and things just happen so quick in this sport. It looked like Lindsey had incredible speed out of that turn and she hooked her arm [on a gate on the course] and it’s just over. Just like that. After all the preparation, after years of hard work and rehabilitation and all the things, it’s the last thing you want to see somebody go through.”
Vonn retired after a series of injuries seemed to be too much to overcome. Nearly six years later, she announced she missed racing and was confident she had fully recovered her form after a right knee replacement.
She shocked many by immediately winning races needed to qualify for the Games and entered the Olympics as the leader in the World Cup downhill standings. Nine days ago, she suffered a torn ACL, a bone bruise and meniscus damage.
Amid great scrutiny, Vonn was determined to keep racing with the support of her medical team and a large knee brace. She was optimistic about her ability to compete after practice runs and pushed back at critics on the social media platform X.
Fans react after watching American Lindsey Vonn crash during the women’s downhill skiing race at the Winter Olympics Sunday.
(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)
“It’s the last thing you want to see for Lindsey, but she should be really proud of everything she has gone through to get back here,” Wright said. “And regardless, if got last today, if she won — she obviously crashed. Whatever happened today, she’s an inspiration to all of us and she should be really proud. I know it probably doesn’t feel like that right now, but I hope one day she can recognize that.”
MILAN — Italian police fired tear gas and a water cannon at dozens of protesters who threw firecrackers and tried to access a highway near a Winter Olympics venue Saturday.
The brief confrontation came at the end of a peaceful march by thousands highlighting the environmental impact of the Games and the presence of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in Italy.
Police held off the demonstrators, who appeared to be trying to reach the Santagiulia Olympic ice hockey rink. By then, the larger peaceful protest, including students and families with small children, had dispersed.
Earlier, a group of masked protesters had set off smoke bombs and firecrackers on a bridge overlooking a construction site about half a mile from the Olympic Village that’s housing about 1,500 athletes.
Police vans behind a temporary metal fence secured the road to the athletes’ village, but the protest veered away, continuing on a trajectory toward the Santagiulia venue. A heavy police presence guarded the entire route.
There was no indication that the protest and resulting road closure interfered with athletes’ transfers to their events, all on the outskirts of Milan.
The demonstration coincided with U.S. Vice President JD Vance’s visit to Milan as head of the American delegation that attended the opening ceremony Friday, during which Vance was booed.
He and his family visited Leonardo da Vinci’s “The Last Supper” closer to the city center, far from the protest that denounced the deployment of ICE agents to provide security for the U.S. delegation. ICE has drawn international condemnation for its role in the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration crackdown in U.S. cities, including the fatal shooting of two people in Minneapolis last month by ICE and U.S. Border Patrol agents.
U.S. Homeland Security Investigations, an ICE unit that focuses on cross-border crimes, frequently sends its officers to overseas events like the Olympics to assist with security. The ICE arm at the forefront of the immigration crackdown in the U.S. is known as Enforcement and Removal Operations, and there is no indication its officers are being sent to Italy.
At the larger, peaceful demonstration, which police said numbered 10,000, people carried cardboard cutouts to represent trees felled to build the new bobsled run in Cortina d’Ampezzo. A group of dancers performed to beating drums. Music blasted from a truck leading the march, one a profanity-laced anti-ICE anthem.
“Let’s take back the cities and free the mountains,” read a banner by a group calling itself the Unsustainable Olympic Committee. Another group called the Assn. of Proletariat Excursionists organized the cutout trees.
“They bypassed the laws that usually are needed for major infrastructure projects, citing urgency for the Games,” said protester Guido Maffioli, who expressed concern that the private entity organizing the Games would eventually pass on debt to Italian taxpayers.
Homemade signs read “Get out of the Games: Genocide States, Fascist Police and Polluting Sponsors,” the final one a reference to fossil fuel companies that are sponsors of the Games. One woman carried an artificial tree on her back decorated with the sign: “Infernal Olympics.”
The demonstration followed another recently at which hundreds protested the deployment of ICE agents.
Like that protest, demonstrators Saturday said they were opposed to ICE agents’ presence, despite official statements that a small number of agents from an investigative arm would be present in U.S. diplomatic territory, and not operational on the streets.
Your annual TV Licence payment generally covers four key factors related to watching, recording, and downloading content
The price of a TV Licence increased last year (stock image)(Image: Newton Daly via Getty Images)
The price of a TV Licence rose for many in 2025, with the Government increasing the price to £174.50 last April. This annual payment is generally mandatory for any households or businesses that watch live TV or access BBCiPlayer.
However, you may be wondering what rules apply to people who exclusively watch DVDs or play games on their TV. Guidance on this matter is summarised on the official TV Licensing website, along with the answers to other frequently asked questions.
“You don’t need a TV Licence if you only use your TV for gaming or DVDs,” the website explains. “That’s as long as you never watch TV channels on any TV service, watch live TV on streaming services, or use BBC iPlayer.”
Two years ago, the Secretary of State announced a 2.9% increase in the licence fee, starting from April 1, 2025, in line with the annual CPI inflation. This resulted in a daily rise of just over 1p, and is only the second fee increase since April 1, 2021.
While standard coloured licences now cost £174.50 annually, black-and-white licences cost £58.50 per year. Future licence fee increases will be tied to CPI inflation over the next four years, ending in 2027. From April 2026, the fee will increase again by £5.50 to £180.
Official TV licensing guidance adds: “You could be prosecuted if we find that you have been watching, recording or downloading programmes illegally. The maximum penalty is a £1,000 fine plus any legal costs and/or compensation you may be ordered to pay.”
Certain people are eligible for discounted TV Licences, provided they meet specific criteria. Older adults claiming Pension Credit may also qualify for a completely free TV Licence if they are over 75 and/or living with a partner who receives the benefit.
Pension Credit is different to the State Pension. Pension Credit is a means-tested benefit for people over State Pension age on a low income, boosting weekly income to £227.10 if you’re single or £346.60 with a partner.
Those claiming Pension Credit can apply for a free TV Licence when they turn 74, but will still need to pay until the end of the month before their 75th birthday. After this point, they will be covered by the free licence.
This covers watching, recording, and downloading on any device.
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Former AC Milan and Sweden footballer Zlatan Ibrahimovic opens the 2026 Winter Olympic Games for the BBC, as he explains what it takes to become “a champion in Milan.”
Follow the Milan-Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics across the BBC from Friday, 6 February.
Right before the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympic Games, relay participants passed the torch for the final few times in central Milan. The flame began its journey across Italy in December, starting in Rome and travelling through all 110 Italian provinces.
Italy has foiled “Russian origin” cyber-attacks targeting the Winter Olympics, says Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani.
He said websites linked to the Games, hotels in host town Cortina d’Ampezzo and foreign ministry facilities, including an embassy in Washington, were targeted.
Cortina d’Ampezzo, one of five host clusters for the Olympics, will stage alpine skiing, biathlon, curling, and sliding events.
“We prevented a series of cyber-attacks against foreign ministry sites. These are actions of Russian origin,” said Tajani.
The Games officially begin on Friday, although the first action got under way on Wednesday.
Darius Garland could not have been more in transition than he was Wednesday night on his first day with his new team.
Officially traded earlier in the day from the Cleveland Cavaliers to the Clippers for 11-time All-Star James Harden, Garland talked about his upheaval during halftime of Wednesday’s game between his current and former teams, a game the Cavaliers won, 124-91.
“I knew about it. It wasn’t a shock, though,” the two-time All-Star said. “It’s the business of basketball. Cleveland was great to me and my family, and I have respect for all of those guys over there. … Seven years was a really long time, and it was great. I’m glad I’m here now. The next chapter in my book.”
Garland has been out since Jan. 16 with a big toe sprain on his right foot, and the Clippers have no timetable for his debut. But coach Tyronn Lue expects to implement a new game plan once the 26-year-old point guard is on the floor. Garland said he’s ready to go and waiting for the OK to play.
“He’s different from James and we can play different with a faster pace,” Lue said. “We can play him off the ball more. It’s going to be exciting. I’ve known DG for a while and having a young point guard under my tutelage, I think it’s the first time I have had one since Kyrie (Irving).”
Garland played more than 70 games just once in his seven seasons because of injuries. He’s on pace to play 42 games this season.
Garland’s uncertain availability, and the Cavaliers’ need to get star Donovan Mitchell more scoring help, motivated Cleveland to swap their young floor leader for Harden, who is 10 years older.
Cleveland got the scorer it needed, and one who can also run the point, while the Clippers managed to get younger as they head toward an offseason without a first-round draft pick.
Cavaliers coach Kenny Atkinson called Garland one of his favorite players. Yet that bond was not tight enough to prevent the deal for Harden, an 11-time All-Star and the player with the second-most three-pointers in NBA history.
“Those are the toughest calls you have to make, but he goes up on my favorites list,” Atkinson said. “I’m going to miss him. We had a great relationship.”
Atkinson seemed to take comfort in handing Garland off to Lue, who is known for getting the most out of his players.
“Ty is going to be great for Darius,” Atkinson said. “Ty was a point guard himself and understands the position. You know, my relationship with Darius, and to lose it, is kind of a tough day. But the positive is that he is coming to the Clippers and he will be with Ty. I expect him to be great here and I’m rooting for him.”
It might not have been the change Garland was looking, for but he was starting to embrace the possibilities of teaming with Kawhi Leonard.
“I hope T-Lue uses me like he did Kyrie in that championship run they had (in Cleveland),” said Garland, whose father Winston Garland played 1 1/2 seasons with the Clippers in the early 1990s. “But whatever T-Lue wants me to be, whatever position he wants me to be in, I’m going to do that. I’m here to win games.”
During Wednesday’s loss, Kawhi Leonard scored 25 points and John Collins had 19 points for the Clippers, who lost consecutive games for the first time since a five-game losing streak in December.
Rookie Yanic Konan Niederhauser scored 10 points and had eight rebounds for the Clippers, who are 17-5 since Dec. 20, although most of that success was with Harden. The Clippers were also without starting center Ivica Zubac, who was out for the birth of his child.
MILAN — Many of the officials supporting the nearly 250 U.S. athletes competing in this month’s Winter Olympics arrived in Italy last weekend to a greeting they may not have expected: Hundreds of demonstrators packed a square in central Milan to protest the reported plan to deploy U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents during the Games.
The first events in the 18-day competition, which will be shared by Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo in the Italian Alps, begin Thursday and the opening ceremony is scheduled for Friday. Against that background, International Olympic Committee President Kirsty Coventry called the agents’ involvement “distracting” and “sad.”
“This is a militia that kills. They are not welcome in Milan,” Mayor Giuseppe Sala said on local radio ahead of the protests, which took place beneath the neoclassical Porta Garibaldi arch in the Piazza XXV Aprile, named for the date of Italy’s liberation from Nazi fascism in World War II.
Many demonstrators blew whistles and carried signs of the five Olympic rings rendered as handcuffs above the words “No ICE in Milan.” One woman held a handmade poster featuring photos of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, the two Minnesotans killed by federal agents last month, alongside Liam Conejo Ramos, the 5-year-old boy in the blue bunny hat who was taken from his home in Minneapolis to a detention facility in Texas.
Anti-ICE protests take place in Piazza XXV Aprile ahead of the Olympics in Milan.
(Lucia Buricelli / Associated Press)
“All the videos are public and everyone can see what’s happening,” Bruna Scanziani, an 18-year-old demonstrator told reporters. “The perception of America has changed.”
Tricia McLaughlin, an assistant secretary for the Department of Homeland Security, confirmed the presence of ICE agents in Italy to the Athletic, leaving her department, the U.S. Consulate and the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee to try to cool the controversy.
DHS said the agents dispatched to Milan are not immigration agents but come from a unit known as Homeland Security Investigations, which specializes in cross-border crime. They commonly provide intelligence and security at large sporting events, both in the U.S. and overseas, but in Milan their role will be strictly advisory and intelligence-based, Ambassador Tilman J. Fertitta said.
Travelers pass through the lobby of Milan Linate Airport M4 Metroline train station Tuesday.
(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)
The U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee, meanwhile, said it is working with the Diplomatic Security Service, which is under the umbrella of the State Department, unlike ICE, which is part of Homeland Security. The Diplomatic Security Service has been providing security for U.S. delegations at every Olympics since 1992.
“The USOPC does not work with U.S. domestic law enforcement or immigration agencies in the planning or execution of the Games, including agencies within the Department of Homeland Security often referred to as ICE,” the committee said in a statement. “Italian authorities are solely responsible for all security operations at the Games.”
Despite the tensions, in the days before the Games there were few signs of the kind of heavy security presence that marked the Paris Olympics 17 months ago. At Linate Airport, the closest of Milan’s three airports to the city center, two camouflage-clad Italian soldiers with long guns milled outside the arrival gates Monday evening. They were gone by Tuesday afternoon.
Five miles away at the Piazza del Duomo, the cultural and social heart of Milan, two pairs of soldiers stood on either side of the massive square, huddling under white awnings on either side of a pop-up Olympic souvenir tent and ignoring the hundreds of international tourists raising their phones to take photos of the ancient Gothic cathedral that gives the square its name.
A building located in the heart of Piazza del Doumo is lit up with animated Olympic competitors Tuesday.
(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)
Up the street, where the trolley tracks curve before the trendy shops and restaurants that line the busy Via Orefici, groups of city police and Carabinieri, the national police known by their black Giorgio Armani-designed uniforms, joked among themselves. They were far less menacing than the roving patrols of soldiers and police officers that were ubiquitous in France.
A local woman shrugged at the officers’ presence.
“Being the iconic and most touristy place of Milan,” she said “there are always lots of police and soldiers.”
It’s unclear how American athletes will be received during Friday’s opening ceremony, which Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio are expected to attend.
“When they have the flag and when they have the tracksuit and they’re announced as the U.S., that’s obviously an opportunity for the spectators to make known their feelings about the U.S.,” said Kristian Coates Ulrichsen, a fellow for Middle East studies at Rice University’s Baker Institute and an expert on sports and international relations.
Europeans have strong feelings about the U.S. right now, feelings spurred by more than the images of ICE agents that have led TV newscasts and have filled social media feeds for months in Italy and beyond. In the last few months, President Trump has sent forces into Venezuela to removes its president, threatened military action against Iran, fired on alleged drug boats in the Caribbean and Pacific, and disparaged Europe as “decaying” and its leaders as “weak.”
Demonstrators in Milan hold signs protesting ICE in solidarity with the people of Minneapolis on Saturday.
(Alessandro Bremec / Associated Press)
“Without us,” he said in a combative speech before the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, “you’d all be speaking German.”
What has upset the continent most amid the chaos, however, is Trump’s insistence that the U.S. take control of Greenland from Denmark, a loyal North Atlantic Treaty Organization ally, warning the Danes and seven other countries that they would be hit with 25% tariffs if they didn’t relent. Many in Europe’s far-right parties, whose members are often supportive of Trump, now consider the U.S. president an “enemy of Europe,” according to a poll published by the Paris-based platform Le Grand Continent.
As a result of the blowback, Trump has backed away from the tariff threat and said he wouldn’t take control of Greenland by force, but the fallout from tensions remains.
“Greenland, especially, has really touched a nerve. That’s unfortunate coming right in the run-up to the Olympics,” said Coates Ulrichsen, who was born in Greece to English and Norwegian parents.
And that makes the U.S. team and its 232 athletes, the largest contingent at the Milan-Cortina Olympics, a convenient foil for European wrath.
“The national team is symbolic of the nation. That just makes it such a target for any potential political frustration,” Coates Ulrichsen said. “It wouldn’t be the first time.”
During the 2004 Summer Games in Athens, for example, which opened 17 months after the American-led invasion of Iraq, the U.S. team was roundly booed.
“The Olympics have been no stranger to politics,” Coates Ulrichsen said. “And obviously the key element [of athletes] walking out behind a flag is a very easy target in a way.”
Some Italians aren’t so sure.
“My personal view is that U.S. athletes will not be targeted by the protests,” said one woman who asked that her name not be used because she works with many international clients, including some in the United States. “It is more of a political subject.”
She also said the attitude of Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, among the European leaders most supportive of President Trump, has blunted public opposition to the U.S.
The Olympic Rings ahead of the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics on Tuesday.
(Mattia Ozbot / Getty Images)
Because this month’s Games, the first Winter Olympics to officially have co-host cities, will be spread across four clusters covering about 8,500 square miles in northern Italy, there will be four opening ceremonies Friday, with the main one at San Siro Olympic Stadium in Milan beginning at 11 a.m. Pacific time. Smaller events will take place simultaneously in the mountain venues of Cortina d’Ampezzo, Valtellina and Val di Fiemme.
Bobsledder Azaria Hill, a first-time Olympian whose mother, father and aunt all competed in the Summer Games, said marching in the opening ceremony has long been a dream of hers. And she doesn’t think politics will spoil that Friday.
“Olympics brings all the nations together,” she said. “That’s one of the special things about the Olympics, and you really see that in the unity. I think everything will be fine.”
In an effort to separate athletes from politicians, the U.S. governing bodies for three winter sports — figure skating, speedskating and hockey — changed the name of their Milan hospitality space to the Winter House.
A top Los Angeles politician said Tuesday that LA 2028 Olympics committee chair Casey Wasserman should resign following revelations about racy emails he exchanged with convicted sex offender Ghislaine Maxwell.
“I think Casey Wasserman needs to step down,” said L.A. County Supervisor Janice Hahn, who along with other L.A. politicians is working with the LA28 Olympics organizing committee on planning of the Games.
“Having him represent us on the world stage distracts focus from our athletes and the enormous effort needed to prepare for 2028,” said Hahn, who represents an area of south Los Angeles County that includes coastal neighborhoods.
A representative for Wasserman didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Wasserman and other top officials with LA 2028, which is in charge of paying for and planning the Games, are in Italy for meetings ahead of the Winter Olympics.
Hahn’s comments follow the release of investigative files on Jeffrey Epstein released last week by the Justice Department that include personal emails exchanged more than 20 years ago between Wasserman and Maxwell, Epstein’s former romantic partner.
In emails sent in March and April 2003, Wasserman — who was married at the time — writes to Maxwell about wanting to book a massage and wanting to see her in a tight leather outfit.
She offers to give him a massage that can “drive a man wild,” and the pair discuss how much they miss each other, according to files released and posted online by the U.S. Department of Justice.
In a statement released Saturday, Wasserman said he regretted his correspondence with Maxwell, which he said occurred “long before her horrific crimes came to light.”
“I never had a personal or business relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. As is well documented, I went on a humanitarian trip as part of a delegation with the Clinton Foundation in 2002 on the Epstein plane. I am terribly sorry for having any association with either of them,” he said in the statement.
The Daily Mail in 2024 published an extensive story on Wasserman’s alleged affairs during his marriage with Laura Ziffren, whom he divorced. He denied the accusations.
