By EDDIE PELLS, Associated Press

It will be a busy opening day of action at the Los Angeles Olympics for the fastest women in the world.

As part of a seismic schedule change for the 2028 Games, track and field, and not swimming, will lead off the Olympics. In releasing the detailed schedule Wednesday, organizers revealed that the first day at the LA Coliseum, July 15, will include all three rounds of the women’s 100 meters.

Sprinters normally run a maximum of two races in a day at a major event. It’s a change the men will not have to deal with, but that a women’s field that could include the last two world champions, Sha’Carri Richardson and Melissa Jefferson-Wooden, and Olympic champ Julien Alfred are being given nearly three years to prepare for.

“To be the pre-eminent event on the first night of competition in the historic LA Memorial Coliseum, I think when we presented it to the athletes that way, there was excitement,” said Janet Evans, the gold-medal swimmer serving as chief athlete officer for the Los Angeles Games. “A majority of athletes said to me, ‘Just let me know. Let me know early, and I’ll start training to run three 100s in one day.”

FILE – Julien Alfred, of Saint Lucia, 4th left, crosses the finish line ahead of Sha’carri Richardson, of the United States, and Melissa Jefferson, of the United States, to win the women’s 100 meters final at the 2024 Summer Olympics, Saturday, Aug. 3, 2024, in Saint-Denis, France. (AP Photo/Martin Meissner, file)

Swimming to take place at SoFi

Swimming has traditionally kicked off the Summer Games, but because the opening ceremony is taking place at SoFi Stadium, same as the swim meet, organizers decided to make the swap. It was not feasible to set up the pool in the stadium so quickly after the ceremony.

Evans, who won four Olympic gold medals in 1988 and 1992, said the prospect of swimming in what is largely considered LA’s best new stadium in front of 38,000 fans is an opportunity her sport embraced. Also, swimmers are often forced to miss the opening because they compete the very next day.

“I could probably name on my two hands the swimmers I know who have actually been to opening ceremonies,” Evans said.

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Schedule not set up for McLaughlin-Levrone double

The schedule also makes it virtually impossible for Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone to try to double in both the 400 meters and the 400 hurdles.

McLaughlin-Levrone is the world-record holder and two-time defending champion in the hurdles. She took a year off from that to run in the 400 sprint this year, where at the world championships she became the first runner since 1985 to run the lap in less than 48 seconds (47.78). (Second-place finisher Marileidy Paulino also broke 48.)

McLaughlin-Levrone’s coach, Bobby Kersee, had hinted at the possibility she might go for the double. In the past — most notably in 1996 when Michael Johnson won the 200 and 400 — organizers have tailored the Olympic schedule to allow marquee track athletes to try for extra medals.

Not this time, though. The 400 hurdles semifinals and 400-meter final are each scheduled for July 20.

Chief of Sport and Games Delivery Shana Ferguson said LA consulted with World Athletics in designing the schedule.

“I can’t speak directly to any particular athlete’s schedule or how he or she is approaching the Games but we are arm and arm in the development of a contest schedule,” Ferguson said

Sometimes, it’s tiresome to plan a vacation. Sometimes, it’s best to let the algorithm do it for you.

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Stepping up to help is travel-booking site Skyscanner, which this October released its top-searched destinations for U.S. travelers in the first half of 2025 compared to the same period in 2024. “The not-so-obvious (places) are stealing the spotlight,” Skyscanner writes. “U.S. travelers are turning their attention to smaller, lesser-known destinations that fly further under the radar but offer something fresh beyond the big-name spots.”

Goodbye, Hawaii and Disney World. Hello, Limon, Costa Rica, a coastal city that saw a 286% increase in flight searches this year. Other hot spots include Bodrum, Turkey; Zadar, Croatia; and in the United States, New Haven in Connecticut (great pizza!) and Colorado’s mountainous ski-haven, Vail.

Skyscanner’s 10 trending destinations for 2026

1 Limon, Costa Rica

2 Jaipur, India

3 Bodrum, Turkey

4 Madeira, Portugal

5 Vail, Colorado

6 Zadar, Croatia

7 Olbia, Italy

8 New Haven, Connecticut

9 Bilbao, Spain

10 Mykonos, Greece

Source: skyscanner.com/travel-trends/destinations

WASHINGTON (AP) — Disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein wrote in a 2011 email that Donald Trump had “spent hours” at Epstein’s house with a victim of sex trafficking and said in a separate message years later that Trump “knew about the girls,” according to communications released Wednesday.

The emails made public by Democrats on the House Oversight Committee add to the questions about Trump’s friendship with Epstein and about any knowledge he may have had in what prosecutors call a yearslong effort by Epstein to exploit underage girls. The Republican president has consistently denied any knowledge of Epstein’s alleged crimes and has said he ended their relationship years ago.

The messages are part of a batch of 23,000 documents provided by Epstein’s estate to the Oversight Committee. The release resurfaces a storyline that had shadowed Trump’s presidency during the summer when the FBI and the Justice Department abruptly announced that they would not be releasing additional documents that investigators had spent weeks examining, disappointing conspiracy theorists and online sleuths who had expected to see new revelations.

In an April 2, 2011, email to Ghislaine Maxwell, an Epstein girlfriend now imprisoned for conspiring to engage in sex trafficking, Epstein wrote, “I want you to realize that that dog that hasn’t barked is Trump. (Redacted name) spent hours at my house with him ,, he has never once been mentioned. police chief. etc. im 75 % there.”

Maxwell replied the same day: “I have been thinking about that.”

The name of the person said to have spent time with Trump was blacked out of the email, but House Democrats identified the person as a “victim.”

In a separate 2019 email to journalist Michael Wolff, who has written extensively about Trump, Epstein wrote of Trump, “Of course he knew about the girls as he asked ghislaine to stop.”

White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt accused the Democrats of having “selectively leaked emails” to “create a fake narrative to smear President Trump.”

She said in a statement that the unnamed person referenced in the emails is Virginia Giuffre, who had accused Britain’s Prince Andrew and other influential men of sexually exploiting her as a teenager and who died by suicide in April. Andrew has rejected Giuffre’s allegations and said he didn’t recall meeting her.

Leavitt said in a statement that Giuffre had “repeatedly said President Trump was not involved in any wrongdoing whatsoever and ‘couldn’t have been friendlier’ to her in their limited interactions.”

“The fact remains that President Trump kicked Jeffrey Epstein out of his club decades ago for being a creep to his female employees, including Giuffre,” the statement said. “These stories are nothing more than bad-faith efforts to distract from President Trump’s historic accomplishments, and any American with common sense sees right through this hoax and clear distraction from the government opening back up again.”

Giuffre came forward publicly after an initial investigation ended in an 18-month Florida jail term for Epstein, who made a secret deal to avoid federal prosecution by pleading guilty instead to relatively minor state-level charges of soliciting prostitution. He was released in 2009.

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In subsequent lawsuits, Giuffre said she was a teenage spa attendant at Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s Palm Beach, Florida, club, when she was approached in 2000 by Maxwell.

Epstein took his own life in a New York jail in 2019 while awaiting trial on federal charges.

Lawyers for Maxwell, a British socialite, have argued that she never should have been tried or convicted for her role in luring teenage girls to be sexually abused by Epstein. She is serving a 20-year prison term, though she was moved from a low-security federal prison in Florida to a minimum-security prison camp in Texas after she was interviewed in July by Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche.

By ADITHI RAMAKRISHNAN, Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) — You keep your trusty reusable bottle filled with only clear, delicious water. Do you still need to wash it?

Experts say reusable bottles get grubby no matter what liquid they’re filled with, and it’s important to clean them regularly.

Water bottles pick up germs from our mouths when we take a sip, and from our hands when we touch the straw or lid. They’re covered in tiny, tough-to-reach nooks and crannies which can become breeding grounds for mold, bacteria and other microbes if left un-scrubbed.

“It seems like something mundane, but it is extremely important,” said nurse practitioner Michele Knepper, who works at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.

Unclean water bottles can cause stomach aches and itchy throats and even exacerbate allergies and asthma.

Experts disagree on when and how you should wash them, but they’re all in agreement on one thing: Give your water bottle a tender loving clean, because something is better than nothing at all.

“Is it that big of a deal? No. But it’s also not difficult to just wash your water bottle,” said Dr. Mike Ren, a family medicine physician at Baylor College of Medicine.

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Some tips for a squeaky clean water bottle

Experts say the gunk doesn’t care what your water bottle is made of. Reusable metal, plastic and glass bottles all grow germy, but plastic bottles are more likely to get scratches or dings on the inside where microbial life can cozy up.

The best cleaning routine is a simple one: Use a sponge or bottle brush to scrub inside and out with warm, soapy water, rinse it out and let it dry so it’s ready for the next refill. A narrow or pipe cleaner-shaped tool can be useful to get into straws and tight crevices.

For a deeper wash, scientists recommend popping the bottle in the dishwasher if it’s safe to do so, or dissolving a denture or retainer-cleaning tablet in the bottle overnight. Scrubbing with a warm water solution of vinegar or baking soda works too.

Many experts recommend doing a simple, soapy water clean every day and a deeper clean once a week. If daily cleaning feels a little extra, Ren said to try to get to it at least every other week or so while maintaining other good habits like rinsing the mouthpiece over the sink during each refill.

But if you fill your reusable bottle with other beverages like protein shakes or exercise drinks, it really is important to clean every day. Sugary drinks leave a residue that bacteria love to snack on.

Do you need to dump the water in your bottle every day?

Is it okay to leave water in a reusable bottle overnight? Experts disagree.

Some say to dump the dregs out every refill, while others recommend emptying every few hours. Ren says it’s likely okay to leave some inside overnight, but to empty old water at least every few days.

“Guidelines are guidelines,” Ren said. “Everyone’s going to do it a little bit differently.”

If there’s visible mold on the bottle or the liquid inside has a weird smell, don’t drink it. Avoid refilling disposable plastic water bottles since chemicals can leach into the water, and they’re even more full of cracks and crevices that can harbor germs.

Water bottle cleaning routines may not all look the same — but it’s important to keep up the habit, said Ivy Sun, a hospitality expert at Georgia Southern University who has studied water bottle contamination. She washes her and her kids’ bottles with soapy water every day.

“This is just a very small step that we do, but it can largely help with our health,” Sun said.

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.