By ELISE RYAN

Less than a year since the release of Mumford & Sons’ long-awaited fifth studio album “Rushmere,” the English folk rock band is back with a sixth: “Prizefighter,” an introspective but still upbeat return to their stomp-clap form, now bolstered by new voices.

The album finds the band, made up of lead singer Marcus Mumford, Ted Dwane and Ben Lovett, alongside many collaborators. Aaron Dessner of The National coproduces all 14 tracks; features from Chris Stapleton, Gigi Perez of “Sailor Song” viral fame, Hozier and Gracie Abrams punctuate the album. Brandi Carlile, Finneas, Kevin Garrett, Jon Bellion and Justin Vernon of Bon Iver round out the writing credits, alongside Dessner and the band.

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Carlile provided inspiration for the single “Rubber Band Man,” a banjo and acoustic guitar-set reflection on flexibility and recovery featuring verses from Hozier. (Mumford said lyrics for the song came to Carlile in a dream.)

Hozier’s verse, lyrically dense but sonically open, distills the song’s thesis: “But don’t hold to yourself / With hard mortar and stone / Be a rubber band man / Make the water your bones.”

There are some worthy additions to the band’s canon between those features: “Begin Again” and “Stay” are fast-paced and earnest while the poetic closer “Clover” sees Mumford fall into a lullaby-like pace that, sung atop a piano melody, recalls the aching movie musical hit “Falling Slowly” by Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová. “Conversation With My Son (Gangsters & Angels)” is lyrically repetitive, but still moving.

The feature tracks feel like tentpoles for the project, offering unique and memorable takes on the genre when other songs start to blend together. “Here,” with Stapleton, is the simplest, opening the album with a country-tinged, guitar and drum-forward ballad. Abrams’ whisper-sung tones add layers to Mumford’s on “Badlands.” The lyrics have a sentiment the two artists likely share, a desire to push limits: “Running away from a tame life / Running away like a wild child / Give me a vision, give me a dime.”

Perez’s rich vocals demand attention in the soaring duet “Icarus.” After Mumford’s introduction, Perez offers a warning over piano and guitar. “You’re a fool, you’re a climber / You shoulda called it a night.” Perez and the band sing together at the song’s climax — also, the album’s climax — shakers, maracas and synth bass filling out the track. “I was blinded, I was in love,” they sing together. “But then all at once / I was back to where I begun / I was burned by morning / I got too close to the sun.”

This collaborative approach reflects the spirit of Mumford & Sons’ unique summer tour last year, which saw the group travel by train from Louisiana to Vermont with dozens of musicians and crew, continuing a journey started during a 2011 version of the Railroad Revival Tour. Stops along the way brought out the likes of Nathaniel Rateliff, Trombone Shorty, Lucius, Chris Thile, Maggie Rogers, Noah Kahan and Lainey Wilson, among others. Onstage together, they sang a mix of the band’s songs, featured guests’ songs and other covers.

As the band sings (together) on the uplifting “Run Together”: “But when we run we run together / When we’re apart we fall apart.” Collaboration is king.

“Prizefighter” by Mumford & Sons

Three and a half stars out of five.

On repeat: “Icarus (with Gigi Perez),” “Begin Again”

Skip it: “Alleycat,” “I’ll Tell You Everything”

For fans of: Aaron Dessner’s production universe, like Brandi Carlile’s “Returning to Myself,” Laufey’s “A Matter of Time,” Gracie Abrams’ “The Secret Of Us”

By TIM REYNOLDS

CORTINA D’AMPEZZO, Italy (AP) — Jadin O’Brien thought she was being scammed.

The Milan Cortina Olympics — and the sport of bobsled, for that matter — were not anywhere near O’Brien’s radar a couple years ago, when the Notre Dame track and field star saw that someone sent her a direct message on Instagram. The message was ignored.

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Several months later, the same person slid into O’Brien’s DMs again. “We would love to have you tryout for bobsled!!!” That was the entirety of the message.

O’Brien, finally, was intrigued. She replied and asked for information. A month and a half later, in mid-August of last year, she drove 12 1/2 hours from Notre Dame to Lake Placid, New York, to see what bobsled was all about.

And now, she’s an Olympian.

It is a story perhaps like none other in these Olympics: A rookie, who has raced only twice in her career, is going to compete on the sport’s biggest stage with a very real chance of finding her way to the Olympic medal stand. O’Brien will push for Olympic monobob gold medalist Elana Meyers Taylor — the person who sent those DMs — on Friday and Saturday in the two-woman competition at Cortina.

“It has really been a roller-coaster of events,” O’Brien said. “Everything’s happened so fast, but … I’ve kind of been conditioned to be able to handle new things very, very fast and then perform despite a lack of experience. So, it has been a whirlwind. I could never have predicted my life would turn out this way, but I’m incredibly grateful and I’ve loved every second of it.”

The Olympics have been on her wish list for a while.

The Winter Olympics, not so much.

How she got here

The 23-year-old O’Brien was a star at Notre Dame — the 2023, 2024 and 2025 national champion in the indoor pentathlon, a five-time All-Atlantic Coast Conference first team pick, a 10-time All-American and a winner of at least a half-dozen All-Academic honors along the way. She was 12th in the Olympic heptathlon trials for the Tokyo Games in 2021 and seventh in the trials for the Paris Games in 2024.

Last summer, she was fifth at the U.S. championships. Two days later, she started training for bobsled. She wound up making that drive to Lake Placid, hit the push track and was pushing with — and in some cases, better than — the team’s best in less than two weeks.

A star was born.

“It was insane,” Meyers Taylor said. “Not to get too patriotic or whatever, but I think bobsled is one of those traditionally American stories, American dream kind of stories because you can come from nowhere and come in and make an Olympic team. You could come from whatever background and have an opportunity to live your Olympic moment. That’s not true in a lot of sports.”

United States’ Elana Meyers Taylor, right, and her pusher Jadin O’Brien prepare to start for a two women bobsled training sessionat the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy, Wednesday, Feb. 18, 2026. (AP Photo/Aijaz Rahi)

Oh, O’Brien has a story. It was not always a fairytale. Far from it, actually.

Around the age of 5, the entire demeanor of a bubbly little girl — whose mother, a track coach, would set up makeshift hurdles in the basement of their Wisconsin home and watch Jadin leap over them with ease, clearly suggesting she had serious track potential — changed. And nobody knew why.

She couldn’t run. She couldn’t smile. She didn’t want to be around other kids. Anxiety took over, her mind often drifted to the darkest possible places such as her own death or the deaths of those around her. Her family, devout believers in their Catholic faith, even enlisted the help of an exorcist from their Archdiocese. It took years to figure out the cause.

In time, she was diagnosed with Pediatric Autoimmune Neuropsychiatric Disorders Associated with Streptococcal Infections — a rare syndrome known as PANDAS. When she was 10, life started to get normal again.

“My story, with everything I’ve gone through, is one of resilience,” O’Brien said. “I know I have the drive and the willpower to do some amazing things, and I try to glorify God while doing it.”

There’s been a lot of winning over O’Brien’s life. But overcoming PANDAS doesn’t mean the road has been easy. Her college career was marred by a series of injuries and challenges — badly torn quadricep muscles, hamstring issues, a stress fracture in her leg, a sprained hand (which isn’t ideal for someone who needs to throw a shot put in competition), even food poisoning on the eve of an NCAA championship meet.

And then, last month in St. Moritz, Switzerland, her bobsled career took its first very bad turn.

A bad crash nearly changes everything

O’Brien’s first crash came in January, during a training run in St. Moritz. She and Meyers Taylor were a few days away from their World Cup race when their sled toppled. All bobsled crashes are severe, on some level.

This one was worse than most.

The front axle came off the sled, all control was lost and Meyers Taylor and O’Brien were being thrown around like crash test dummies. O’Brien remembers not being able to move for a few moments, wondering if she was critically injured. Her season — her Olympic shot — could have ended right there.

They raced four days later.

United States’ Elana Meyers Taylor, right, and her pusher Jadin O’Brien prepare to start for a two women bobsled training sessionat the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy, Wednesday, Feb. 18, 2026. (AP Photo/Aijaz Rahi)

O’Brien isn’t sure how; her back was still extremely sore, and the back is sort of important for a bobsled push athlete.

“It was not easy getting back on the line to race in St. Moritz after that,” O’Brien said. “We were both very, very beat up. I decided to put my body on the line for E because I felt that I had the best chance of getting her a top-10 finish. And I said, ‘You know what? Regardless of this helps or hurts me when it comes to Olympic decision-making, who’s on the team, I’m not going to let a regret linger in my mind.’ And so, I chose to compete.”

A week later, the U.S. selection committee met to decide who would race in Cortina. The pilots — Meyers Taylor, Kaillie Humphries Armbruster and Kaysha Love — were all Olympic locks. A pair of push athletes — Jasmine Jones (who’ll race with Humphries Armbruster) and Azaria Hill (who’ll race with Love) — were pretty much considered to be locks as well. That left three women for one push spot, and O’Brien got the nod.

“I had no idea that I was going to be named to the team. I really didn’t,” O’Brien said. “And I remember sitting there and just praying, ‘Lord, if this is your will, please let it happen.’”

Inside a conference room at an airport hotel in Munich, U.S. bobsled coach Chris Fogt announced the pairings. Humphries Armbruster and Jones were the first duo he revealed. Hill and Love were next. And then he said, “Elana and Jadin.”

“My mouth, like, dropped,” O’Brien said.

The track star with the U.S. flag on the wall of her apartment in South Bend, Indiana — someone who spent years dreaming of a Summer Games medal — was headed to the Winter Olympics.

The future

Whatever happens this weekend — a medal is absolutely within O’Brien’s reach, especially with Meyers Taylor coming off the monobob gold — the track star expects to go back to track, at some point.

She plans to continue in bobsled as well.

It’s amazing how much things have changed for O’Brien in the span of about six months. From answering that DM from Meyers Taylor, to making the Olympic team, to watching her pilot win gold and now getting the chance to compete, it has truly been a whirlwind she never saw coming.

And now, she hopes, it’s time to win.

“We have a job to do and so I think once the job is done, once we accomplish what we came here to do, then it’ll sink in,” O’Brien said. “I’m very much an advocate for not getting carried away with excitement and staying level. Once we finish our job, then I think it’ll hit way more than it is now.”

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

St. Paul officials have declared a snow emergency Thursday after more than seven inches of snow fell in the metro from a winter storm that started Wednesday.

“After last night’s heavier-than-expected snowstorm, I am calling the first snow emergency of my administration,” said St. Paul Mayor Koahly Her, in a statement. “The ice ruts that plagued our streets for weeks just melted. I won’t risk relying on unpredictable spring weather to melt or meaningfully clear our streets, and I am confident our professional group of plow drivers, ticketing crews, and city staff will get the job done

Beginning at 9 p.m. Thursday, all NIGHT PLOW ROUTES will be plowed. Motorists should not park on Night Plow Routes, which include downtown and all streets with signs posted “NIGHT PLOW ROUTE” and “NIGHT PLOW ROUTE THIS SIDE OF STREET.” Those vehicles  not moved from Night Plow Routes by 9 p.m. will be ticketed and towed.

And, beginning at 8 a.m. on Friday all DAY PLOW ROUTES will be plowed. Do not park on Day Plow Routes. Day Plow Routes are

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not marked by signs. If there are no “Night Plow” signs posted within the block, then consider it a Day Plow Route. Those vehicles not moved from Day Plow Routes by 8 a.m. on Friday, will be ticketed and towed.

The snow emergency will last 96 hours — until 9 p.m. Monday.

City officials note that ticketing and towing will occur with this snow emergency. A temporary towing ban that Mayor Kaohly Her put in place on Jan. 19 will be suspended until Tuesday.

For more information go to: stpaul.gov/departments/public-works/snow.

By JOSEPH WILSON

LIVIGNO, Italy (AP) — On the climb to Livigno, atop the mountain pass before the road glides down to the village hosting snowboarding at the Winter Olympics, there sits a lonely customs checkpoint. Its guardhouse and gate are the only signs of an internal fiscal border within Italy, one that encircles the snow-blanketed valley and the duty-free status it has enjoyed for centuries.

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The tax exemption that makes Livigno a shoppers’ paradise, paradoxically, has left it not receiving the full economic bonus from hosting the Olympics, at least in the short term. On the contrary, shopkeepers are getting squeezed — even if hotels and restaurants are packed and cashing in. Still, everyone is hopeful the Games will yield a longer-term upside for the village.

Questioning economic benefits is routine for Olympic host cities, and it’s been the talk of the town on Livigno’s main street during the Games. Unlike in other Olympic mountain venues, business owners told The Associated Press that athletes, fans, workers and volunteers have boxed out visitors who come chasing duty-free deals in what is usually a bumper month.

“I’m not positive about the Olympics, because usually you are working more than double in this period, because this period for us was a high season. Now, this period is like our low season,” said Olga Salari, owner of a toy story full of Lego sets. Olympic visitors, she added, “don’t even visit the shops.”

How bad has it been? Salari said she has already seen a 70% drop in sales compared with an average February. The Olympics run from Feb. 6-22.

Visitors to all six mountain venues must have either accreditation, accommodation reserved, event tickets or a ski pass — and so can’t be day trippers only out for a deal.

Duty-free since Medieval times

Livigno is nicknamed “Little Tibet” for its historic isolation and the snow-clad peaks that surround it. This village near the Swiss border has had sales tax exemptions since medieval times, which allowed the impoverished, cut-off area to bring in goods.

When a paved road leading south, and later a tunnel north to Switzerland, finally arrived in the 20th century, that duty-free status became an economic elixir because it attracted tourists.

Visitors can purchase 300 euros ($356) worth of goods without Italy’s 22% sales tax. There are specific limits on perfumes, cigarettes, cigars, liquor and gasoline.

Livigno’s tax break has made it a haven for skiers who seize the chance to pick up a watch, cosmetics, perfume, electronics or a carton of cigarettes before the drive home to Austria, Germany, Switzerland and elsewhere. Outside of the Olympics, anyway.

“The tourists are more interested to see the competition. They’re not so focused on shopping,” said Manuel Galli, whose family owns an electronics store.

Czechia’s Radek Houser competes during the men’s snowboard cross qualifications at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Livigno, Italy, Thursday, Feb. 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Lindsey Wasson)

Some mountain venues are already getting a boost

According to a report by Italy’s Banca Ifis, the overall economic impact of the Games is expected to reach 5.3 billion euros ($6.2 billion). Of that, 1.2 billion euros ($1.4 billion) is estimated to be spent by tourists at the host sites during the next 18 months. The bank did not break that down by venue location. Milan Cortina organizing committee president Giovanni Malagò cited more than 5 billion euros in an interview with Italian radio station RTL.

The committee has said that the Olympics have spurred Italian authorities to upgrade the electrical distribution systems of Livigno and the other mountain host sites. Improvements to Livigno’s health clinic and rail service are also legacy investments.

A man takes a photo as a worker plows snow at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Livigno, Italy, Thursday, Feb. 5, 2026. (AP Photo/Andy Bao)

Other mountain venues’ stores seem to be getting an economic boost.

Cortina d’Ampezzo’s Vice Mayor Roberta Alverà told the AP by text message that the town has seen “a significant influx of people.”

And they’re not just filling hotels and restaurants. Visitors, as well as Italians who own second homes in the posh town, are also filling the shops along Cortina’s pedestrian-only Corso Italia that runs through the center of town.

In Bormio’s historic center, the cobblestone walkways have been filled with fans throughout the men’s Alpine ski racing program, and its shops have seen plenty of activity.

Hope for a publicity payoff

Sergio Schena, a member of the organizing committee for the area of Livigno, said it’s normal for some businesses to see more activity than others, but the long-term impact will be positive. The global spotlight should draw tourists from farther away, as happened in Turin after it hosted in 2006, he said.

“What we expect to happen is that the markets change, and we get more tourists from the United States and Asia,” Schena said.

That doesn’t suit some shop owners. Salari said her business model is based on people driving to Livigno and using the extra trunk space to take home purchases. She fears tourists who travel by plane will only buy goods small enough to fit in their luggage.

People walk through a street during the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Livigno, Italy, Monday, Feb. 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Andy Bao)

Still, most people in Livigno — even the other shopkeepers — are hoping Schema is right, trusting that the televised images of snowboarders and freestyle skiers soaring off its slopes and snow park have put Livigno on the world map, and will eventually attract even more tourists.

“This is very important because (the Games) are providing 360-degree publicity around the world and Livigno is coming across very well,” said Derio Claoti, the owner of a shop that sells perfumes, whose sales have taken a 70% sales hit.

A few doors down, at the Golden Clock shop for luxury watches and jewelry, Damiano Longa said he expects his drop in sales will ultimately be worth it.

“We hope that the advertising that it’s making for Livigno will work for the future,” Longa said.

Associated Press writers Colleen Barry in Milan, Andrew Dampf in Cortina and Pat Graham in Bormio contributed.

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