By WILL GRAVES, AP National Writer

CORTINA D’AMPEZZO, Italy (AP) — Mikaela Shiffrin likes to invoke the adage from tennis great Billie Jean King that “pressure is a privilege.” Even if, at times, it doesn’t quite feel like it.

And it might not at the moment for the American skiing star as she prepares for her third and final race at the Milan Cortina Olympics.

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Shiffrin heads into Wednesday’s slalom still looking for her first medal at Tofane and her first Olympic medal in a staggering eight years. A bafflingly slow performance in the slalom during women’s combined last week cost Shiffrin and teammate Breezy Johnson a spot on the podium.

The winningest ski racer in history felt faster and more confident during the giant slalom a few days later, with her 11th-place finish more a testament to what she described as the “greatest show” GS had put on in quite some time than her actual performance. Shiffrin was just three-tenths of a second off the podium, a razor-thin margin in an event where the time gap between the winners and the rest of the field is usually far greater.

Shiffrin’s meticulous preparation for her signature discipline — she’s already wrapped up a record ninth World Cup series title in slalom with two races remaining — included reacclimating herself to the singular rhythm of an event where tempo is everything.

You’d think after 71 slalom wins — including seven this year alone — that would be no big deal. At this point in the 30-year-old’s career, it’s not.

“No matter how many runs of slalom I do it never gets easier,” said Shiffrin, who collected her first Olympic gold in the event as a teenager in Sochi a dozen years ago. “It only gets like you become more aware of how challenging it is.”

And that’s just the physical part. The mental side is another matter entirely.

United States’ Mikaela Shiffrin visualizes the course ahead of the second run of an alpine ski, women’s giant slalom race, at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy, Sunday, Feb. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Marco Trovati)

Shiffrin carries the burden of expectations that are part of the deal — fairly or unfairly — when you cut and paste your name all over your sport’s record book. She has been characteristically transparent while discussing wrangling with those expectations, even though in many ways they’re well outside of her control.

She arrived in the Dolomite Mountains confident those forgettable days in Beijing four years ago, when she failed to medal in any of the six events she entered, were behind her. The uncharacteristically slow run in the women’s combined left her mystified and subdued. The aggressiveness she displayed in the GS left her upbeat and optimistic.

Still, when she stands in the starter’s house during the final women’s alpine race of these Olympics, the standard set for her will be different from everyone else, including reigning gold medalist Petra Vlhova of Slovakia.

“I can imagine what she’s feeling right now,” Vlhova said. “But … she’s strong and I believe she can make it. It takes a lot of energy but I believe that she can do it.”

Vlhova has taken her own winding path back to this moment. She shredded multiple ligaments in her right knee in January 2024 and didn’t return to competition until the women’s combined on Feb. 10. She didn’t finish her run, but it also, in a way, didn’t matter as she hits what she described as the “restart” button.

During Vlhova’s absence, Shiffrin has cemented her legacy. Her career World Cup wins in all disciplines currently stands at 108 and counting, including eight in her last nine slalom starts dating to the end of last season.

United States’ Mikaela Shiffrin at the finish area of an alpine ski, women’s giant slalom race, at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy, Sunday, Feb. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

She is, by every measure, the best skier in the field. Yet the course is a little flatter and perhaps a little easier than what they usually encounter. There’s a very real chance things could be just as tight on Wednesday as they were during the GS. Maybe even closer.

It means Shiffrin’s margin for error during her two runs might be smaller than usual, and she knows it. Her run in the women’s combined, when she was 15th, her worst ranking in a slalom race she’s started and finished since 2012, caught her off guard.

A dedicated student of her craft, Shiffrin believes her skis got misaligned a few times. The flat light on a gray afternoon played a factor, too. So did a mentality that she admitted didn’t match the moment, something she’ll try to address as she aims to end her fourth trip to the Olympics on an up note.

“I’m kind of going into it with my eyes open that we can see a very similar situation and I will try to handle it differently in my head,” she said.

Such is the challenge that is unique to this once-every-four-years spectacle. There is little debate that Shiffrin is the Greatest of All Time. Her struggles under this specific spotlight, however, have put her in a strange and perhaps unenviable spot.

She has tried to handle it with grace. U.S. Skiing and Snowboarding president Sophie Goldschmidt called Shiffrin “the ultimate role model” and, even as she grappled with how a spot on the podium in the combined got away, she made it a point to give longtime teammates Jackie Wiles and Paula Moltzan their flowers after earning their first Olympic medals.

Whatever happens, those who know Shiffrin well believe she will leave it all out there. If she does that she can make peace with the result, whatever it may be.

“She has a lot of experience,” Vlhova said. “She knows how to deal with it and as I said, I believe that she can make it.”

AP Sports Writer Andrew Dampf contributed to this story.

AP Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics

By AARON MORRISON and SOPHIA TAREEN

CHICAGO (AP) — From the moment the Rev. Jesse Jackson stepped forward as torchbearer to what was then a largely Southern civil rights struggle — a movement with much unfinished business — he created a bridge.

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From the South’s fight with Jim Crow to the North’s battle with systemic racial inequality, from the buttoned-up, conservative generation of King’s circle to the dashiki-wearing Black Power leaders and the activists of the hip-hop generation, Jackson forged a link between improbable dreams and political power.

“From Martin Luther King to Barack Obama, there’s a bridge called Jesse Jackson,” the Rev. Al Sharpton said.

Jackson, a protégé of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. who led the Civil Rights Movement for decades after the revered leader’s assassination, died on Tuesday, his family said. He was 84.

Jackson kept up his public advocacy for racial justice, economic and political inclusion, and civil and human rights for more than a half-century, even after a neurological disorder in his later years affected his ability to move and speak.

Weighing in on political events, supporting the families of Black Americans killed by police and participating in COVID-19 vaccination drives to battle hesitancy in Black communities, Jackson built on a career that included running for president, international diplomacy and influencing the lexicon of racial identity in America.

Jackson clearly wasn’t the lion he had been toward the end, but his presence at racial justice protests and COVID-19 advocacy events, and his arrest outside the U.S. Capitol while calling on Congress to end the filibuster to protect voting rights displayed the bite left in his bark.

“We’ve always had a place for him,” said the Rev. William Barber II, co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign and one of many activists who have followed in his footsteps. Jackson urged them to “live life so that it’s not your alarm clock that awakes you in the morning, but a purpose. … A purpose will get you up when you want to stay down.”

Still relevant later in life

At George Floyd’s memorial service, Jackson’s plaintive call, “I can’t breathe!” pierced the collective silence in a Minneapolis cathedral. He cried out twice more as the minutes ticked by to symbolize how long Floyd had a police officer’s knee pressed on his neck.

It was not only Jackson’s powerful expression of his own grief over Floyd’s death, which sparked global protests against racial injustice. It was a reminder that his voice still carried the singular resonance that for decades made him an international figure for civil and human rights.

Jackson returned to rally demonstrators marching through downtown Minneapolis, and stood with Floyd’s family when a jury convicted former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin of murder in Floyd’s death. “Even if we win,” he told the marchers, “it’s relief, not victory. They’re still killing our people. Stop the violence, save the children. Keep hope alive.”

“I think the fact that he came and then came back for the judge’s verdict, suffering with Parkinson’s, shows the determination that Jesse Jackson had all the way to the end,” Sharpton said about his longtime mentor. “He once said to me, years before he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s, ‘I’m not going to stop until I drop. I’m going to die on the battlefield.’”

Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, Jackson got vaccinated and urged others to get the shot. He pointed out racial disparities in heath care and partnered with the National Medical Association, which represents Black physicians and patients, on a public health campaign to improve testing and treatment data and to recruit more African Americans to the medical field.

“It’s America’s unfinished business — we’re free, but not equal,” Jackson told The Associated Press in a 2020 interview. “There’s a reality check that has been brought by the coronavirus, that exposes the weakness and the opportunity.”

Seeking the spotlight and redefining what was possible

Jackson had his share of critics both within and outside the Black community. Some considered him a grandstander, too eager to seek out the spotlight.

Jackson was widely known for his appearance in photographs taken moments after King was assassinated on the balcony of a Memphis hotel on April 4, 1968. For two days afterward, Jackson wore a turtleneck he said was soaked with the venerated civil rights leader’s blood, including at a King memorial service where he told the Chicago City Council: “I come here with a heavy heart because on my chest is the stain of blood from Dr. King’s head.”

Two decades later, Jackson made history with his runs for the White House. Until Barack Obama’s election in 2008, Jackson was the most successful Black candidate for the U.S. presidency, winning 13 primaries and caucuses for the Democratic nomination in 1988, four years after his first failed attempt.

“I was able to run for the presidency twice and redefine what was possible; it raised the lid for women and other people of color,” he told the AP in 2011. “Part of my job was to sow seeds of the possibilities.”

Jackson’s cultural impact extended to the American lexicon on race and identity. In 1988, he was among a group of leaders to assert that Black people wanted to be called “African Americans,” establishing an identity that honored the population’s origins as well as their citizenship.

As the founder and leader of Operation PUSH, which later evolved into the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, Jackson channeled cries for Black pride and self-determination into corporate boardrooms, pressuring executives to make America a more open and equitable society. His high-profile diplomatic victories included the release of American civilians abroad during conflicts.

Pushing for change at an early age

Jesse Louis Jackson Sr. was born Oct. 8, 1941, in Greenville, South Carolina, to Helen Burns, an unmarried high school student, and Noah Louis Robinson, a married man who lived next door. Jackson was later adopted by Charles Henry Jackson, who married his mother.

Jackson played quarterback at Sterling High School in Greenville and accepted a football scholarship from the University of Illinois, but said he was told Black people couldn’t play quarterback. So he transferred to North Carolina A&T in Greensboro, arriving just months after students there launched the sit-in movement to desegregate restaurants across the South. He became first-string quarterback, student body president, and an honor student in sociology and economics.

Jackson was soon leading demonstrations, and traveled to Alabama to meet King during the march for voting rights from Selma to Montgomery in 1965. He was moving to Chicago to study theology, so King’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference assigned him the task of launching Operation Breadbasket, a campaign to pressure companies to hire more Black workers.

He later called his time with King “a phenomenal four years of work,” learning how to agitate within the law for social change.

The constant campaigns often left the college sweetheart he married in 1963, Jacqueline Lavinia Brown, taking the lead in raising their five children: Santita Jackson, Yusef DuBois Jackson, Jacqueline Lavinia Jackson Jr., and two future congressmen, former Rep. Jesse L. Jackson Jr., and Rep. Jonathan Luther Jackson. A frequent houseguest was Santita’s friend Michelle Robinson, the future first lady.

Jackson, who was ordained as a Baptist minister in 1968 and earned his Master of Divinity in 2000, also acknowledged fathering a child, Ashley Jackson, with one of his employees at Rainbow/PUSH, Karen L. Stanford. He said he understood what it means to be born out of wedlock and was supporting her emotionally and financially.

When the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and Jackson parted company in 1971, Jackson formed his own sweeping civil rights organization based in Chicago’s South Side, with a mission ranging from social services in communities of color to persuading corporate executives to hire more minorities. He formed the Rainbow Coalition after his first presidential run, then merged the political and social justice organizations into the Rainbow PUSH Coalition in 1996.

While Jackson was known for his powerful voice, his words sometimes got him in trouble. In 1984, he apologized for calling New York City “Hymietown,” a derogatory reference to the city’s large Jewish population, in what he said he believed were private comments to a reporter.

And in July 2008, he made headlines when a hot mike caught him complaining that Obama was “talking down to Black people.” Still, tears streamed down his face when he joined the immense crowd in Chicago’s Grant Park to celebrate Obama’s 2008 election victory.

“I wish for a moment that Dr. King or (assassinated civil rights leader) Medgar Evers … could’ve just been there for 30 seconds to see the fruits of their labor,” he told the AP years later. “I became overwhelmed. It was the joy and the journey.”

Morrison reported from New York City.

By FERNANDA FIGUEROA and KEN MAGUIRE

MILAN (AP) — Olympic hockey knows all about big hits.

That now includes “Heated Rivalry” a gay hockey romance TV series in which two players from opposing teams carry out a secret, long-term relationship.

The steamy connection between the characters — Canadian Shane Hollander and Russian Ilya Rozanov — has attracted fans to both the show and the sport itself, with the NHL seeing a boost in ticket sales by one estimate.

The show’s impact was evident long before the Milan Cortina Olympics when co-stars Hudson Williams and Connor Storrie carried the Olympic flame. And it hasn’t stopped there. Athletes and fans from Canada and the U.S. are feeling the show’s impact.

Athletes recognize the phenomenon

Zach Werenski, a defenseman on the U.S. team who plays for the NHL’s Columbus Blue Jackets, said the show has come up in conversation in the locker room.

“Everyone is saying how great it is, I just haven’t seen it yet,” Werenski told The Associated Press after a 5-1 victory over Latvia. “It’s definitely good for the sport of hockey. Whenever you can add more eyes to the game and have people talk about the game and talk about inclusivity, I think it’s just great for the sport.”

Jake Sanderson, another U.S. defenseman who plays for the Ottawa Senators, said he has heard about the show but doesn’t know much about it. When asked how far off the NHL is from having an openly gay player, Sanderson cited Luke Prokop. In 2021, Prokop was a Nashville Predators prospect who became the first player signed to an NHL contract to come out, though he has not yet played in the league.

“You never know if that show (will) instill some confidence in some people,” said Sanderson, adding that any openly gay player would be fully accepted in the locker room. “I don’t think we would treat them any differently. They’re our teammate, we love them no matter what, and obviously embrace them, absolutely.”

Rachel Reid’s novel “Heated Rivalry” was published in 2019 as part of a series. The TV adaptation, originally developed for Canadian streaming service Crave, was the top-rated series on HBO Max in its first season. It has been renewed for a second season.

Its biggest fans at the Olympics may be the Canadian delegation.

As part of the Olympic experience, athletes were gifted a potted plant. Many of the Canadians named theirs Shane or Ilya, according to the delegation’s lead press liaison, Tara MacBournie.

Canadian Alpine skier Kiki Alexander took the love a bit further, sharing on her TikTok that the village’s Canadian moose has been named Shane.

“If you know, you know,” she wrote.

Adam van Koeverden, a 2004 Olympic champion in canoeing who is now Canada’s secretary of state for sport, is a fan of the show.

“We’re the perfect country to be having the conversation and be putting that art out there that I think is advancing the conversation on diversity in hockey,” van Koeverden told AP at the Games. “Hockey is for everyone and ‘Heated Rivalry’ makes it clear.”

The show launched in Europe in January and is proving a surprise hit in Russia, despite the country’s anti-LGBTQ+ crackdowns. Because of the war in Ukraine, the IOC has allowed just a handful of Russian athletes to compete at the Milan Cortina Games as neutral individuals but no teams.

Fans of hockey and ‘Heated Rivalry’

Athletes aren’t the only ones riding the “Heated Rivalry” wave. Kim Sweet of Calgary, Alberta, is only on Episode 3 but is loving it.

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“The show has me very intrigued,” Sweet, 50, said before entering the arena to watch Canada play Czechia last week. “How a very male-dominated sport has two guys having to work through the privacy of it all, and whether you ever want to come out.”

“It’s great having more eyes on the sport,” added Sweet, who describes herself as “a huge hockey fan.”

Angie Campos, a California resident, was also in attendance and wearing a sweatshirt featuring the jerseys of the show’s two main characters.

Campos is new to hockey, drawn to it by the series, and she isn’t alone. Weekly NHL hockey ticket sales saw a more than 20% rise after the show first aired in late November, according to data from ticketing platform SeatGeek. It saw no similar surge the same period a year earlier.

“The series didn’t just light up social media feeds, it may have sent fans straight to hockey games themselves,” SeatGeek said in its analysis Jan. 16. “While it’s impossible to attribute all of this growth to a single show, the timing is hard to ignore.”

Campos likened her newfound fandom and that of fellow “Heated Rivalry” viewers to the surge of female NFL fans after Taylor Swift started dating Kansas City Chiefs player Travis Kelce and attending games.

“It just makes it a little bit more relatable and it has definitely opened eyes to a human side of competition,” she said.

More representation in hockey

Hockey is a rough-and-tumble sport with occasional fighting and hard hits, even in crucial games where a penalty can prove costly. Canada’s Tom Wilson and French player Pierre Crinon were ejected for fighting in Canada’s win on Sunday.

All the machismo and aggression make the rink — and hockey in general — an unlikely and provocative setting to explore the delicate feelings of forbidden love and taboos around male sexual orientation. No active NHL player has come out as gay in the century-plus existence of the league.

“Heated Rivalry” has been wildly popular among women, but men are starting to find the appeal.

At the Canada-France game, Christopher Ryan York, 20, said he has hopped on the bandwagon, too. It was hard not to watch the show given how popular it has become, he said, and he’s happy it’s creating new hockey fans.

“Anything to grow the sport, for sure,” he added.

His father Kevin York, 60, said he hasn’t seen the show, but can’t stop hearing about it back home in Alberta and believes it must be truly inspirational if it spurred a Canadian hockey player to come out as gay: Jesse Kortuem of Vancouver, who stepped away from the game at 17 for fear he wouldn’t be accepted, shared his coming-out statement on Instagram on Jan. 13.

“Something has sparked in me (ok — yes credit to #HeatedRivalry),” he wrote. “I thought I would share because I want to speak to the athletes out there who are still in the closet or struggling to find their way. I want you to know that there is hope and you’re not alone.”

Associated Press writer Jennifer McDermott contributed to this report.

AP Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics

By KIMBERLEE KRUESI

A shooter unleashed a flurry of bullets during a Rhode Island youth hockey game, killing two people and injuring three others, in an attack that was cut short when a spectator stepped in to help stop the tragedy, authorities said.

Investigators had spoken to nearly 100 witnesses as of Monday evening as they attempt to piece together what happened early Monday afternoon inside the Dennis M. Lynch Arena in Pawtucket, a few miles outside Providence.

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Pawtucket Police Chief Tina Goncalves said Monday that the shooter died from an apparent self-inflicted gun wound, though authorities are still investigating.

Goncalves credited an unnamed “good Samaritan” who intervened, bringing the attack “to a swift end.” She did not provide details.

It is not entirely clear what precipitated the shooting, who was targeted or why. Unverified video circulating on social media shows players on the ice as popping sounds are heard. Chaos quickly unfolds as players on benches dive for cover, those on the ice frantically skate toward exits and fans flee their seats.

“It appears that this was a targeted event, that it may be a family dispute,” she said. Authorities said both people who died were adults but have not released the identities of the victims.

Goncalves identified the shooter as Robert Dorgan, who she said also went by the name Roberta Esposito, who was born in 1969.

Monday’s shooting came nearly two months after Rhode Island was rocked by a shooting at Brown University that left two students dead and wounded nine others, as well as a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor. Authorities later found Claudio Neves Valente, 48, dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound at a New Hampshire storage facility.

A map showing the location of a deadly shooting in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. (AP Digital Embed)

“Our state is grieving again,” Rhode Island Gov. Dan McKee said in a statement. “As governor, a parent, and a former coach, my heart breaks for the victims, families, students, and everyone impacted by the devastating shooting at Lynch Arena in Pawtucket.”