By DEE-ANN DURBIN, Associated Press

Pizza Hut plans to close 250 U.S. restaurants in the first half of this year as its parent company considers a sale of the chain.

Yum Brands said Wednesday it’s targeting underperforming Pizza Hut restaurants in its system. Pizza Hut has more than 6,000 locations in the U.S.

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Louisville, Kentucky-based Yum Brands said in November it was conducting a formal review of options for Pizza Hut, which has struggled with outdated stores and growing competition. The chain’s U.S. same-store sales, or sales at locations open at least a year, fell 5% last year, Yum said.

Rival Domino’s, the world’s largest pizza company, hasn’t yet released its full-year earnings, but its U.S. same-store sales were up 2.7% in the first nine months of last year.

Internationally, Pizza Hut’s results have been stronger. International same-store sales were up 1% last year, with growth in Asia, the Middle East and Latin America, Yum said. China is Pizza Hut’s second-largest market outside the U.S., accounting for 19% of sales.

Yum CEO Chris Turner said Wednesday that the company plans to complete its review of options for Pizza Hut this year. He declined to share further updates on the process.

Pizza Hut ended 2025 with 19,974 stores globally, which was 251 fewer than it had the previous year. Pizza Hut opened nearly 1,200 stores across 65 countries last year, but closures outpaced that. Yum said Wednesday that Pizza Hut plans more global openings in 2026 but it didn’t give details.

Pizza Hut was founded in 1958 in Wichita, Kansas. PepsiCo acquired the chain in 1977 but spun off its restaurant division — which became Yum Brands — in 1997. Yum Brands also owns KFC, Taco Bell and Habit Burger & Grill.

By DEREK GATOPOULOS

MILAN, Italy (AP) — Annika Malacinski remembers the moment the door to the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics was slammed shut.

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On a flight from Munich to Denver, she bought airplane Wi-Fi to join a conference call with the International Olympic Committee, certain that Nordic combined competition would at last be opened up to female athletes.

“Then the decision came: ‘no.’ No explanation, no discussion. Just ‘no,’ and then they moved on to the next topic,” she told The Associated Press from her training base in Norway. “I cried for eight hours straight on that flight. When I arrived in Denver, my eyes were swollen shut. It felt like my world had crashed.”

That was in June, 2022. And despite an ongoing campaign led by Malacinski, an athlete from Colorado now aged 24, her sport remains the last to exclude women – even as Milan Cortina is showcasing the highest level of female participation in Winter Games history at 47%.

Left out at the elite level

Malacinski is a frequent top-10 finisher at elite competitions in the sport that combines ski jumping and cross-country skiing and demands rigorous year-round training.

Her younger brother, Niklas, will compete in the men’s event for the United States and she plans to travel to northern Italy to cheer him on.

“It’s bittersweet. I know how hard he works, and he absolutely deserves it,” Malacinski said. “I do the same sport as him. I jump the same ski jumps and ski the same courses. The only difference is that I’m a woman.”

Female skiers racing in Seefeld, Austria, last weekend protested the exclusion by raising their poles overhead to form an X.

Men have competed in the Nordic combined since the first Winter Games more than a century ago, at Chamonix, France in 1924.

The sport is now at risk of being removed from the program at the next Winter Olympics in 2030. The IOC says Nordic combined has struggled to attract participation from enough countries and draws a limited television audience.

A long climb toward participation and parity

Women were excluded entirely from the first modern Olympics in 1896. When they were allowed to compete in Paris four years later, participation was limited to a handful of sports, including tennis, archery and croquet.

Track and field opened to women only in 1928, at the Amsterdam Games – but restrictions were imposed around beliefs of female fragility. Although the 800 meters was originally included, it was later withdrawn for more than three decades.

The first women’s Olympic marathon did not take place until 1984 in Los Angeles – 88 years after the race inspired by an ancient Greek battle debuted.

Nearly all differences have since been eliminated, though some disparities remain. At the Summer Olympics, women compete in the seven-event heptathlon, while men contest the 10-event decathlon.

Winter Olympics changes at a glacial pace

At the Winter Games, progress arrived even later. Ski jumping was off-limits to women as recently as the 2010 Vancouver Olympics and was introduced four years later at Sochi.

Cross-country skiing’s distance overhaul is the most recent and sweeping change. At Milan Cortina, men and women will race the same distances across all events for the first time in Olympic history.

Previously, the longest women’s race topped out at 30 kilometers, compared with 50 for men. Both will now have 50-kilometer mass start races — like at Nordic Ski World Championships last year.

Malacinski says she will continue her campaign for inclusion, now focused on 2030 Winter Games in the French Alps.

“I’m a very gritty person,” she said. “If I put my mind to something, I know I can do it.”

“That just fuels the fire for me,” she said. “We deserve to be there, and I’ll fight until 2030 because that’s our rightful place.”

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

Michigan State point guard Jeremy Fears’ reputation is taking a big hit. One of the nation’s leading distributors is becoming known for cheap shots.

That blemish fully emerged as a storyline coming out of the Spartans’ 83-71 loss to Michigan last weekend, with Wolverines coach Dusty May calling it out. And it carried over to the Gophers’ 76-73 upset of No. 10 Michigan State on Wednesday night at the Barn.

On a handful of occasions, Fears contacted Minnesota guard Langston Reynolds by either kicking or hitting him.

“He’s taken a lot of heat and all that; he’s a great player,” coach Niko Medved said postgame. “… I know he’s a great kid. He’s a competitor; that is who he is. Yeah, he gets a little carried away, and we saw that on film.”

Minnesota’s awareness of what Fears had done in the Wolverines loss led the Gophers to pounce when they saw something similar Wednesday at Williams Arena.

With 13 minutes left in the game, Reynolds was whistled for a personal foul, but Medved challenged it. Reviews showed Fears kicked Reynolds between the legs, and Fears was assessed a Class A technical foul for unsportsmanlike behavior.

That was only one of a handful of actions, but that specific play was pivotal in the game. With the Gophers holding a 45-40 lead, Cade Tyson went to the free-throw line and extended it to 47-40.

“Are they baiting him? Well, of course, when (May goes) public with something, you should get baited,” Spartans coach Tim Izzo said postgame. “It’s (Fears’) fault. I make no bones about it. I sat him for a while and I don’t know if I’m going to start him next game.”

Fostering belief

Medved was soaking wet when he came to the postgame news conference after players doused him with water in the locker room at The Barn on Wednesday. Carrying a white towel to dry off, he was thankful it wasn’t Powerade.

The Gophers’ first win over a Top 10 ranked team since 2021 was more joyful given the U’s difficult seven-game losing streak. That stretch included two overtime losses and two more on shots in the final seconds.

With the win over the Spartans, Minnesota improved to 11-12 and 4-8 in Big Ten play, but Medved has now tallied three wins over ranked teams, including No. 22 Indiana on Dec. 3 and No. 19 Iowa on Jan. 6.

“I hope for us this year we are creating belief with (the players) and we are creating belief in our program that we are on the right track,” Medved said. “We are doing the right thing. Our culture is good and this is the way.”

Hard on himself

Medved said he was critical of how Jaylen Crocker-Johnson played in a 77-75 loss to Penn State on Sunday. After watching film, Medved acknowledged Monday he might have been too hard on his junior forward/center.

But Crocker-Johnson wasn’t letting up on himself, saying he was “awful” against the Nittany Lions, who were 0-10 in the Big Ten before beating Minnesota. He responded Wednesday with a game-high 22 points along with seven rebounds in 34 minutes against Michigan State.

“(If) you want to be a great player, you don’t blame, you don’t pout, you accept coaching. You want people to tell you the truth and you just respond and get better,” Medved said. “All the great ones I’ve ever been around, that is what they do, and he is no different.”

Briefly

On Wednesday, the Gophers were the only Division I team in the last 30 seasons to record zero bench points, get out-rebounded by double digits (39-23) and allow 50-plus (52) points in a half and still win, according to Opta Stats. Previous teams to check all three of those boxes were 0-25 and lost by an average of 21.7 points. … The Gophers host Maryland (8-13, 1-9) at 1 p.m. Sunday.

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By MEG KINNARD

Brad Karp, chairman of one of the country’s most prestigious law firms, has resigned from his position after the release of emails revealing his exchanges with Jeffrey Epstein, a high-profile departure in the fallout among those with ties to the late convicted sex offender.

A statement Wednesday from Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Garrison & Wharton did not explicitly mention any connection Karp had with Epstein, whom the firm has said it never represented. But Karp, who will remain at the firm where he has practiced for 40 years and served as chairman since 2008, said “recent reporting has created a distraction and has placed a focus on me that is not in the best interests” of Paul Weiss.

The Department of Justice last week released the largest batch of documents so far from its Epstein investigative files in compliance with a new law intended to reveal what the government knew about the millionaire financier’s sexual abuse of young girls, as well as his interactions with rich and powerful people.

Former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have agreed to testify before a House committee investigating Epstein after Republicans pressed for criminal contempt of Congress charges against them. Bill Clinton, like a number of other high-powered men including President Donald Trump, had a well-documented relationship with Epstein in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Neither Trump nor Clinton has been credibly accused of wrongdoing in their interactions with the late financier.

FILE – Demonstrators hold up signs the Paul Weiss law offices in New York on April 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Ted Shaffrey, file)

The fallout has spread beyond the United States. A top official in Slovakia resigned after photos and emails revealed he had met with Epstein in the years after Epstein was released from jail, and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer issued an apology for appointing an ambassador to Washington who had ties to Epstein.

Among the newly released documents was a July 22, 2015, email in which Karp thanked Epstein for hosting an evening that the lawyer said was “once in a lifetime” and one he would “never forget.” Epstein responded that Karp was “always welcome,” adding, “there are many many nights of unique talents. you will be invited often.”

Later that day, Epstein told Karp he wanted to connect him with Larry Summers, whom he described as “funny and warm.” Summers is a former treasury secretary and Harvard University president who has been ostracized from a number of organizations after Epstein files made public earlier showed his close relationship with Epstein.

In 2016, Karp was trying to help his son, who was interested in a film career, and reached out to Epstein in hopes of making a connection with Woody Allen. Karp’s son sent several follow-up messages to Epstein, but it was not clear whether they connected further. In 2018, Karp was invited for dinner with Epstein. Karp said he could arrange to have a car outside to take him back to his office for a video call, before rejoining the dinner.

“Im easy,” Epstein, in suggesting arrangements. “I know you are,” Karp replied.

The messages between the two continued through the years.

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In February 2019, Karp emailed with Epstein seeking advice on behalf of John Havens, the former Citigroup president who, according to Karp’s message, needed “immediate help” before Haven’s name came out in what turned out to be a Florida massage parlor investigation. Epstein also offered help finding a local lawyer for New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft in the matter, with Karp suggesting Kraft needed “the best there is.”

Both Kraft and Havens were among 300 men accused of being patrons of massage parlors engaging in prostitution.

A month later, Karp was apparently reviewing a draft court filing in which Epstein’s lawyers argued that his plea deal in a decade-old federal sex abuse investigation in Florida should not be reopened.

“The draft motion is in great shape. It’s overwhelmingly persuasive. Truly,” Karp wrote in a March 3, 2019, email to Epstein, according to documents published online by the Justice Department. “I particularly liked the argument that the ‘victims’ lied in wait and sat on their rights for their strategic advantage, knowing you were in prison, before they came forward.”

Epstein pleaded guilty to state charges in that case, spent 13 months in jail, paid settlements to victims and became a registered sex offender.

Paul Weiss was founded in 1875. The storied New York firm has advanced the cause of civil rights, handled the legal affairs of corporate power brokers and grown into a multibillion-dollar global enterprise.

In his return to the White House, Trump has sought to exercise retribution against firms whose lawyers have performed legal work with which he disagrees. Paul Weiss was among the targets. In March 2025, the Republican president issued an executive order threatening the suspension of security clearances for its attorneys as well as the termination of any federal contracts involving the firm.

That order noted that a former Paul Weiss attorney, Mark Pomerantz, had been a central player in an investigation by the Manhattan district attorney’s office into Trump’s finances before Trump became president.

Karp was initially prepared to sue over the order, saying his firm “would not be able to survive a protracted dispute with the Administration.” Karp later cut a deal with Trump, saying that he did so to save the firm. The move was ridiculed by lawyers outside Paul Weiss, and more than 140 alums of the firm signed a letter assailing it as well.

Meg Kinnard can be reached at http://x.com/MegKinnardAP