CRANS-MONTANA, Switzerland — Lindsey Vonn crashed and injured her left knee on Friday in her final downhill race before the Olympics, but said she still hopes to recover in time for the Milan Cortina Winter Games.

“This is a very difficult outcome one week before the Olympics. … But if there’s one thing I know how to do, it’s a comeback,” Vonn, 41, wrote on Instragram hours after she was airlifted off the course for medical checks. “My Olympic dream is not over.”

Vonn was the third skier to crash in the World Cup race in Crans-Montana when she lost control while landing a jump and ended up tangled in the safety nets on the upper portion of the course.

She got up after receiving medical attention for about five minutes, seemingly in pain and using her poles to steady herself. Vonn then skied slowly to the finish line, stopping a couple of times on the way down and clutching her left knee.

“I crashed today in the Downhill race in Switzerland and injured my left knee. I am discussing the situation with my doctors and team and will continue to undergo further exams,” Vonn wrote in her Instagram post. “Thank you for all of the love and support. I will give more information when I have it.”

The race, which was held in difficult conditions with low visibility, was canceled after Vonn’s crash.

The American, who was expected to be one of the biggest stars of the Games, limped into a tent for medical attention before being airlifted away by helicopter, dangling from a hoist cable with two people attending her.

Before she entered the tent, Vonn had an anxious expression on her face and her eyes were closed during a long embrace with teammate Jacqueline Wiles, who was leading the race when it was canceled.

“I know she hurt her knee, I talked to her,” the International Ski and Snowboard Federation CEO Urs Lehmann told reporters in the finish area. “I don’t know if it’s really heavy and (if) she won’t miss the Olympics. Let’s wait for what the doctors are saying.”

Vonn made a stunning comeback last season at age 40 after nearly six years away from ski racing. Skiing with a partial titanium implant in her right knee, she has been the circuit’s leading downhiller this season with two victories and three other podium finishes in five races.

Including super-G, Vonn had completed eight World Cup races this season and finished on the podium in seven of them. Her worst finish was fourth.

The crash occurred exactly a week before the Milan Cortina opening ceremony.

Vonn’s first Olympic race is the women’s downhill on Feb. 8. She was also planning on competing in the super-G and the new team combined event at the Games.

Women’s skiing at the Olympics will be held in Cortina d’Ampezzo, where Vonn holds the record of 12 World Cup wins.

Vonn was also planning on racing a super-G in Crans-Montana on Saturday in what would have been her final race before the Games.

Vonn was the sixth racer in Friday’s downhill and had registered the fastest time at the first checkpoint before landing a jump off-balance. She lifted her left arm and pole high into the air in an attempt to regain her balance. As she tried to brake, she got spun around and ended up in the nets.

Two other skiers had also crashed before her: Nina Ortlieb of Austria and Marte Monsen of Norway.

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DETROIT — Patrick Kane smiled. The wait was over.

Kane became the highest-scoring United States-born player in NHL history, passing former North Stars great Mike Modano with an assist for his 1,375th point on Thursday night for the Detroit Red Wings against the Washington Capitals.

“It’s nice to have it over with in some ways and worry about the rest of the season,” Kane said after Washington’s 4-3 shootout win.

Kane passed the puck from the boards to Alex DeBrincat in the left circle, and DeBrincat set up Ben Chiarot for a tying goal from the point midway through the second period.

Kane flashed a grin and hugged Chiarot.

He was surrounded by teammates, including those who emptied the bench to join a brief celebration. As Kane skated away, the spotlight was put on him and he raised his stick to acknowledge the crowd while appearing to be on the verge of tears.

His likeness was shown on the videoboards at Little Caesars Arena with an American flag in the background and the number 1,375.

Modano who works for the Wild in an advisory capacity, held the mark for 18-plus years. Kane reached the milestone a couple of months after turning 37, while Modano was 40 when he scored a goal to register point No. 1,374, passing St. Paul native Phil Housley.

“I knew at an early age in your career you would be the one chasing this number down and here we are,” Modano said in a prerecorded message played on the videoboards. “Continue on and make this number harder for the next guy.”

Kane has been one of the faces of American hockey since getting taken with the first pick in the 2007 draft by Chicago. He helped the Blackhawks win the Stanley Cup three times from 2010-15 as a co-headliner of one of the most successful runs since the league’s salary cap era began in ’05.

“When you think of USA Hockey, he’s one of the first players that comes to mind, if not the first player,” fellow American Jack Eichel said. “Such a great representation of USA Hockey and us Americans — something for a lot of the guys that came after him to strive to be, myself included.”

U.S.-born defenseman Charlie McAvoy recalled watching Kane on those long runs “do stuff that at the time people didn’t do.”

“His type of player just transcends now, when back then there wasn’t anybody that was really doing that,” McAvoy said. “He changed the game of hockey. He’s an absolute legend. And it’s great that he’s an American.”

Earlier this month, Kane became the 50th player and fifth American to score 500 goals, following Keith Tkachuk, Jeremy Roenick and Joe Mullen. Brett Hull, a dual citizen who was born in Canada and played internationally for the U.S., had 741 goals and 1,391 points.

“He’s well on his way to being the best USA player of all time,” countryman Jack Hughes said.

Kane won the Calder Trophy as rookie of the year in 2007-08, the Conn Smythe Trophy as playoff MVP in 2013 and the Hart Trophy as regular-season MVP in 2015-16, when he also led the league in scoring.

“Such an iconic player, just played with such passion,” said Tage Thompson, a first-time U.S. Olympian this year. “Very enthusiastic, loved scoring goals, loved making plays.”

Kane’s slick hands more than made up for him being on the smaller side at 5-foot-10 and under 180 pounds.

“He’s maybe got the best highlight reel of all time,” Hughes said. “Just as a kid, you watch all of his videos and everything, and you’re like, that’s the guy you want to be just because of how skilled he is.”

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By ERIC TUCKER, MICHAEL R. SISAK and ALANNA DURKIN RICHER

NEW YORK (AP) — The Justice Department on Friday released many more records from its investigative files on Jeffrey Epstein, resuming disclosures under a law intended to reveal what the government knew about the millionaire financier’s sexual abuse of young girls and his interactions with the rich and powerful.

Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said the department was releasing more than 3 million pages of documents in the latest Epstein disclosure. The files, posted to the department’s website, include some of the several million pages of records that officials said were withheld from an initial release of documents in December.

They were disclosed under the Epstein Files Transparency Act, the law enacted after months of public and political pressure that requires the government to open its files on the late financier and his confidant and onetime girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell.

After missing a Dec. 19 deadline set by Congress to release all of the files, the Justice Department said it tasked hundreds of lawyers with reviewing the records to determine what needs to be redacted, or blacked out, to protect the identities of victims of sexual abuse.

The number of documents subject to review has ballooned to 5.2 million, including duplicates, the department said.

The Justice Department released tens of thousands of pages of documents just before Christmas, including photographs, interview transcripts, call logs and court records. Many of them were either already public or heavily blacked out.

Those records included previously released flight logs showing that Donald Trump flew on Epstein’s private jet in the 1990s, before they had a falling out, and several photographs of former President Bill Clinton. Neither Trump, a Republican, nor Clinton, a Democrat, has been publicly accused of wrongdoing in connection with Epstein, and both have said they had no knowledge he was abusing underage girls.

Also released last month were transcripts of grand jury testimony from FBI agents who described interviews they had with several girls and young women who said they were paid to perform sex acts for Epstein.

Epstein killed himself in a New York jail cell in August 2019, a month after he was indicted on federal sex trafficking charges.

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In 2008 and 2009, Epstein served jail time in Florida after pleading guilty to soliciting prostitution from someone under the age of 18. At the time, investigators had gathered evidence that Epstein had sexually abused underage girls at his home in Palm Beach, but the U.S. attorney’s office agreed not to prosecute him in exchange for his guilty plea to lesser state charges.

In 2021, a federal jury in New York convicted Maxwell, a British socialite, of sex trafficking for helping recruit some of his underage victims. She is serving a 20-year prison sentence at a prison camp in Texas, after being moved there from a federal prison in Florida. She denies any wrongdoing.

U.S. prosecutors never charged anyone else in connection with Epstein’s abuse of girls, but one of his victims, Virginia Roberts Giuffre, accused him in lawsuits of having arranged for her to have sexual encounters at age 17 and 18 with numerous politicians, business titans, noted academics and others, all of whom denied her allegations.

Among the people she accused was Britain’s Prince Andrew, now known as Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor after the scandal led to him being stripped of his royal titles. Andrew denied having sex with Giuffre but settled her lawsuit for an undisclosed sum.

Giuffre died by suicide at her farm in Western Australia last year at age 41.

Tucker and Richer reported from Washington.

Follow the AP’s coverage of Jeffrey Epstein at https://apnews.com/hub/jeffrey-epstein.

Council progressives had hoped they could convince fellow lawmakers to override former Mayor Adams’ veto and pass the Community Opportunity to Purchase Act. But new Speaker Menin, who abstained from voting on COPA last year, declined to call it for an override vote, effectively killing it—for now.

New Council Speaker Julie Menin kicking off Thursday’s stated meeting, where lawmakers override a number of Eric Adams’ vetos, but let others stand. (Emil Cohen/NYC Council Media Unit)

A lot can change in a month.

A social housing bill that would give community groups first dibs on buying certain residential buildings was unceremoniously vetoed by Mayor Eric Adams—one of 20 bills he struck down on his last day in office.

Since then, Mayor Zohran Mamdani was inaugurated, five new members joined the City Council and Julie Menin became its new speaker.

Council progressives had hoped they could convince a new Council to override the former mayor’s veto and pass the Community Opportunity to Purchase Act, or COPA. Mamdani backed the bill, while real estate groups were strongly opposed.

But the mood shifted late in the game this week. Legal issues reportedly scared off some supporters. New Speaker Menin, who abstained from voting on COPA last year, declined to call it for an override vote, effectively killing it.

Councilmember Sandy Nurse, COPA’s sponsor, expressed disappointment with the defeat of a bill she said was the Council Progressive Caucus’s top priority.

Supporters say it would give mission-driven groups, including community land trusts, a leg up against deep-pocketed real estate speculators in the city’s competitive housing market. The amended version of the bill passed by lawmakers in December applied specifically to buildings in physical distress or where affordable rent requirements are expiring. 

“Our good faith effort to create a targeted, legally-sound preservation tool was met with a well-funded misinformation campaign from the most powerful real estate interests in the city,” Nurse told City Limits in a statement.

But the bill faced intense opposition from real estate groups, who said it unfairly favors nonprofits at the expense of private property owners. Ann Korchak, who represents the group Small Property Owners of New York, previously called COPA, “government-engineered interference in private free-market transactions.”

Lawmakers said they would reintroduce COPA later this year. 

The Council also declined to override a veto on a bill from Bronx Councilmember Eric Dinowitz that would have mandated at least 25 percent of units in new affordable housing be two-bedrooms, and 15 percent be three-bedrooms.

But lawmakers voted to override vetoes on two other housing bills: one that mandates minimums for homeownership units, and another that requires the city to finance a minimum percentage of units priced for “very low” or “extremely low” income households (up to $43,740 and $72,900 for a family of three, respectively). 

All three bills passed in December with a supermajority of support. The Department of Housing Preservation and Development and Mayor Mamdani were opposed to all three, which they say would cost $600 million dollars a year or result in more than 3,275 fewer affordable units overall.

Speaker Menin’s office did not respond to requests for comment about why some bills advanced but not others. But a spokesperson told City & State earlier this week that the bills didn’t have the votes to override a mayoral veto, which requires a supermajority.

Dinowitz said he would work with HPD and City Hall on a new version later this year.

“It’s absolutely a crisis that we are not building enough family-sized units,” said Councilmember Eric Dinowitz. “Shelters are inundated with families and children.”

He said that while his bill would not have affected the current affordable housing pipeline, there were concerns that it would change how newly constructed buildings would be designed.

Here’s what else happened this week —

ICYMI, from City Limits: 

Mayor Mamdani is pushing to tax the rich to pay for his ambitious affordability agenda. City Limits spoke to experts and advocates about what that might look like. One takeaway? A pied-à-terre tax—targeting New Yorkers with multimillion-dollar second homes—isn’t high on progressives’ priorities list, as it wouldn’t raise enough revenue to make the political fight worthwhile. 

Amid frigid temperatures, New Yorkers lodged 26,000 311 complaints about lack of heat or hot water over the last week, the most in a seven-day period since 2018. City Limits’ reporter Patrick Spauster spoke to WNYC’s The Brian Lehrer Show about what landlords are required to provide, and what tenants can do if their heat isn’t working. 

New York approved a massive new casino project for Queens. Supporters say it’ll create 25 acres of new green space on what’s currently a parking spot. But opponents say the entire 50-acre site should be used as a climate resilient park to help curb flooding in the low-lying area, which is hemmed in by Flushing Bay and Flushing Creek. 

State lawmakers should pass the Accelerate Solar for Affordable Power Act (ASAP Act), which would “double New York’s rooftop and community solar goal, and cut red tape to lower the costs of getting community solar connected to the grid” argues op-ed author Kate Selden of the nonprofit Solar One.

ICYMI, from other local newsrooms: 

The City spoke to unhoused New Yorkers living outside this week despite the frigid temperatures. One man said the shelter system wouldn’t allow him to enter with his cat, while others said they preferred to avoid the conditions and strict rules at some shelter facilities. 

Voters last fall approved changes to the city’s land use approval process that gives borough presidents a bigger role. Gothamist examines how they might wield their new power. 

The New York Times covers the trial of Randy Rodriguez Santos, who is accused of killing four homeless men in Chinatown in 2019, an attack that drew renewed attention to the dangers unhoused New Yorkers face. 

More towns in upstate New York are opting into Good Cause Eviction protections, Shelterforce reports.

To reach the reporter behind this story, contact Patrick@citylimits.org. To reach the editor, contact Jeanmarie@citylimits.org.

Want to republish this story? Find City Limits’ reprint policy here.

The post Council Lets Eric Adams’ COPA Veto Stand, and What Else Happened this Week in Housing appeared first on City Limits.