If it didn’t sink in for American players and fans during the immediate aftermath of Friday’s World Junior Championship clash between the United States and Finland, the postgame playing of the Finnish national anthem and the raising of that country’s flag in St. Paul’s Grand Casino Arena made the host’s fate indelible.

There would be no third consecutive title, no hoisting of the championship cup over heads, no giddy laughter or shouts of joy.

The Finns — 4-3 winners in overtime on Friday — would continue on to face Sweden in the first semifinal game at 3:30 p.m. Central on Sunday in St. Paul. Canada faces Czechia in the other semifinal at 7:30 p.m.

Team USA always had a touch of the underdog in this tournament, its goaltending unproven at the under-20 level and its team defense questionable as it allowed 15 goals in four games entering the medal round. The fans that showed up were enthusiastic, but the arena was perhaps half full Friday, failing to provide a true hornet’s nest for the Finns to endure.

Injuries also played a significant role in the Americans’ downfall.

Forward Trevor Connelly, an NHL first-round draft pick and a veteran of the 2025 WJC team, was lost during a pre-tournament game. Star defenseman Cole Hutson, the team’s playmaking engine, missed two and a half games after being hit in the neck with a shot.

Forward Max Plante, U.S. college hockey’s leading scorer, exited the penultimate pool-play game with an undisclosed injury and never returned, although coach Bob Motzko said a semifinal appearance by the Minnesota-Duluth standout would have been likely. To cap it off, penalty-killing whiz Brendan McMorrow suffered a broken finger while blocking a shot against Finland and didn’t play the last half of the game.

“It’s going to sound wrong to say, but injuries really played a huge part,” Motzko said. “Our guys kept battling through but then we lost McMorrow. Crushing.”

Having third-string goaltender Brady Knowling make his WJC debut against a strong Swedish team during pool play’s last game was a decision roundly questioned after he surrendered five goals on 28 shots and was pulled after two periods.

Motzko’s opinion seemed to be that finishing first in the group wasn’t crucial, because the U.S. would have to beat strong teams regardless in the medal round. Had the U.S. beaten Sweden and finished first, however, it would have faced Latvia, pool B’s fourth-place team, in the quarterfinals.

A semifinal loss to Canada would have been more palatable to U.S. fans and offered their team a shot at a bronze medal.

The U.S. played with energy throughout Friday’s contest but also committed myriad turnovers and, at times, seemed puzzlingly casual with the puck.

“We had a better pace of play in the game, and we did the small things better that usually have a winner and a loser,” Finnish coach Lauri Mikkola said. “Do you have a stick on the ice, how you battling, how you going to the net, how you going (back into) your own zone?”

U.S. goaltender Nick Kempf bailed his team out repeatedly but gave Arttu Valila a bit too much to shoot at on the winning goal, blasted from a sharp angle at the bottom of the right circle.

At the other end, Finnish goaltender Petteri Rimpinen — nicknamed “Showtime” for his propensity to make stunning saves — was his usual strong self and gave his team the confidence it needed to grind past the Americans on their home ice.

“He takes up a lot of space, but we missed the net a few times that were critical and we needed to make him work more,” Motzko said.

The coach said that, although he addressed his team during Friday’s disappointing aftermath, words come up short in such a moment.

“They don’t remember what I said,” Motzko noted. “All you did was walk around the room and hug them all.”

The next IIHF World Junior Championship will be held in Edmonton and Red Deer, Alberta, beginning on the Canadian holiday known as Boxing Day. The Americans can only hope to not absorb a repeat punch to the gut and watch another nation’s flag raised to the rafters.

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By LISA MASCARO, JOSHUA GOODMAN and BEN FINLEY, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration’s capture of Venezuela’s president and plans to “run” the country are raising stark new questions about the legality of the U.S. moves under a broader campaign against the South American nation.

The middle-of-the-night seizure of Nicolás Maduro, who was being transported on a U.S. warship to face narcoterrorism conspiracy charges in New York, is beyond even the most high-profile historical examples of aggressive American actions toward autocratic governments in Panama, Iraq and beyond, legal experts said. It came after a surprise U.S. incursion into the Venezuelan capital, rocked with overnight explosions.

“This is clearly a blatant, illegal and criminal act,” said Jimmy Gurule, a Notre Dame Law School professor and former assistant U.S. attorney.

Mark Nevitt, a former Navy attorney who now teaches at Emory University School of Law, said, “I see no legal basis for us to go into another country and take a leader without an extradition treaty.”

The stunning development caps months of aggressive U.S. military action in the region, including the bombings of boats accused of trafficking drugs and seizures of oil tankers off the coast of Venezuela. The administration has conducted 35 known boat strikes against vessels, killing more than 115 people since September.

Michael Schmitt, a former Air Force lawyer and professor emeritus at the U.S. Naval War College, said the entire operation — the boat strikes as well as the apprehension of Maduro — are a clear violation of international law.

Presidential guard troops stand outside the Miraflores presidential palace in Caracas, Venezuela, Saturday, Jan. 3, 2026, after U.S. President Donald Trump announced that President Nicolás Maduro had been captured and flown out of the country. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)

Maduro’s arrest on anniversary of Noriega’s surrender

Maduro’s arrest came 36 years to the date of the surrender of Panama’s strongman Manuel Noriega, a notable milestone in American involvement in the Western Hemisphere. The U.S. invaded Panama in 1989 to arrest Noriega on drug trafficking charges.

In Panama, however, U.S. national security interests were directly at stake in the form of the Panama Canal as well as the safety of American citizens and U.S. military installations in the country.

By contrast, Congress has not authorized any American military strike or law enforcement move against Venezuela.

While U.S. agents have a long history of snatching defendants abroad to execute arrest warrants without authorization, federal courts have long deferred to the White House in foreign policy and national security matters.

For example, U.S. bounty hunters, working under the direction of the Drug Enforcement Administration, in 1990 abducted in Mexico a doctor accused of killing DEA agent Enrique “Kiki” Camarena.

“Courts give great deference to the president on issues related to national security,” said Gurule, who led the prosecution against Camarena’s killers. “But great deference does not mean absolute deference and unfettered authority to do anything.”

Secretary of State Marco Rubio speaks during a news conference with President Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago, Saturday, Jan. 3, 2026, in Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Congress has yet to authorize or ban US actions

Trump’s administration has declared the drug cartels operating from Venezuela to be unlawful combatants and has said the United States is now in an “armed conflict” with them, according to an administration memo obtained in October by The Associated Press.

The memo appears to represent an extraordinary assertion of presidential war powers, with Trump effectively declaring that trafficking of drugs into the U.S. amounts to armed conflict requiring the use of military force. That is a new rationale for past and future actions.

Congress, which has broad authority to authorize or prohibit the president’s war powers, has failed to do either, even as lawmakers from both political parties grow increasingly uneasy with the military actions in the region, particularly after it was revealed that U.S. forces killed two survivors of a boat attack with a follow-up strike.

Schmitt said there is no other way to characterize what has happened other than “as a state of war between the United States and Venezuela.”

“Lawyers call it international armed conflict,” Schmitt said. “Lay people call it war. So as a matter of law, we are now at war with Venezuela because the use of hostilities between two states clearly triggers an internal armed conflict.”

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War powers vote ahead

Congressional leaders of the “gang of eight,” which includes House and Senate leaders from both political parties as well as lawmakers leading on the Intelligence committees, were notified early Saturday after operations began, according to a person who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive matter.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said the administration “is working to schedule briefings” for lawmakers when they return to Washington next week.

But Democratic lawmakers warned that in veering from the rule of law, the administration is potentially greenlighting other countries such as China or Russia to do the same.

“Once this line is crossed, the rules that restrain global chaos begin to collapse, and authoritarian regimes will be the first to exploit it,” said Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee.

“America’s strength comes from our commitment to the rule of law, democratic norms, and constitutional restraint,” he said. “When we abandon those principles, even in the name of confronting bad actors, we weaken our credibility, endanger global stability, and invite abuses of power that will long outlast any single presidency.”

Next week, the Senate is expected to try again to curtail Trump’s actions, with a vote expected on a bipartisan war powers resolution that would block the use of U.S. forces against Venezuela unless authorized by Congress.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said he is grateful for the armed forces “who carried out this necessary action.” He said he spoke to Secretary of State Marco Rubio and wants more information.

“I look forward to receiving further briefings from the administration on this operation as part of its comprehensive counternarcotics strategy when the Senate returns to Washington next week,” Thune said.

Rubio said at a briefing Saturday with Trump that because of the nature of the surprise operation, it was not something that could be shared beforehand with the lawmakers.

Goodman reported from Miami.

LOS ANGELES — Until Nico Sturm scored a classic garbage time goal late in the Minnesota Wild’s 5-2 win in Anaheim on Friday, the visiting team’s offense had been an all-Russian affair. Minnesota built a three-goal lead after Danila Yurov scored twice, and Kirill Kaprizov and Yakov Trenin each scored once.

Among the team’s quartet of Russians, only Vladimir Tarasenko – who had three shots on goal in the game – failed to get in on the party.

“Vladdy with no points, but if he scored it (would) be a great night for Russia,” Yurov said afterward in his halting but rapidly improving English.

In training camp and early in the season, when he was still getting used to the pace and style of the NHL, Yurov used Tarasenko as an interpreter on a few occasions. Now, the 22-year-old speaks on his own, and takes some pride in his growing grasp of the language. And on the ice, centering the team’s top line between Kaprizov and Mats Zuccarello, his contributions are on display for all to see.

“My adaptation, I think, is over,” Yurov said following his first two-goal game as a NHL player. “My English is improving every day. I speak a lot of (it) in the locker room and in the hotel with guys, and try to do good things on the ice, just working in (the) gym. Try getting better every day.”

Both of his goals versus the Ducks came from going to the net and letting master set-up man Quinn Hughes find him. The first came when a Hughes shot to the net was tipped by Trenin, then glanced off Yurov’s skate and in. The second came when Yurov tipped a Hughes shot to put the game away in the third.

“He scored because he was in the right spots,” Wild coach John Hynes said. “Obviously, Hughes made a couple nice shots, and when you’re in that scoring area, which he got to tonight, it was good to see him get rewarded for it.”

Picked 24th overall by the Wild in the 2022 NHL Draft while playing in the KHL in his native country, Yurov won a league title there in 2024, then signed with the Wild a year later in May 2025. He made his debut Oct. 13 of this season in a 2-1 shootout win over the Kings in St. Paul.

With the Wild up by three in the closing minute on Friday, and the Ducks goalie on the bench for an extra attacker, Minnesota controlled the puck and it was obvious that Kaprizov and Zuccarello were trying to feed Yurov for the potential first hat trick into the empty net. It didn’t work out, and the Wild “settled” for a 3-0-1 record so far on this two-week road trip.

But with the game in hand, Hynes enjoyed watching his top line trying to create a milestone for Yurov.

“Yurov’s such a good kid, and it was nice to see those guys trying to get it to him,” Hynes said. “I was hoping it was going to work out.”

The Wild as an organization make an emphasis on five star lodging when the team travels. Visiting the Ducks, that meant holing up at a world-renowned resort overlooking the Pacific Ocean in Laguna Beach for a few nights. The stay was tempered just a bit by the fact that January is definitely the rainy season in the Golden State. Peeks of sunshine amid spotty showers and temperatures in the 60s fahrenheit were the best California had to offer.

Still, for Yurov’s first trip to the West Coast, the accommodations were impressive.

“I thought it was good,” he said of the resort. “But the weather, not good.”

Minnesota Wild right wing Danila Yurov, right, skates off after scoring during the second period of an NHL hockey game against the Anaheim Ducks, Friday, Jan. 2, 2026, in Anaheim, Calif. (AP Photo/William Liang)

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By MATT O’BRIEN and JOSH FUNK

The U.S. military operation that captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and flew him out of the country early Saturday has also disrupted Caribbean travel at a busy travel time for the region.

No airline flights were crossing over Venezuela on Saturday, according to FlightRadar24.com. And major airlines canceled hundreds of flights across the eastern Caribbean region and warned passengers that the disruptions could continue for days after the Federal Aviation Administration imposed restrictions.

Flights to Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, Aruba and other destinations near Venezuela were canceled. The airlines are waiving change fees for passengers who have to reschedule their flights this weekend.

The FAA had earlier said it imposed a temporary airspace restriction on Puerto Rico’s international airport and surrounding regions.

An announcement by Luis Muñoz Marín International Airport in San Juan posted on the social media site X said restrictions were put in place because of the “security situation related to military activity” in Venezuela.

As a result, most commercial airlines to and from the airport that are operated by U.S. airlines have been suspended or may be canceled.

Foreign airlines and military aircraft are not included in this restriction, the statement said. “Passengers are urged to check the status of their flight directly with their airline before heading to the airport.”

JetBlue said it canceled about 215 flights “due to airspace closures across the Caribbean related to military activity.” It also noted that flights to the Dominican Republic and Jamaica were not affected by the government’s restrictions. Customers could rebook their travel or request a refund if the flights were canceled, the company said.

United said it was adjusting its schedule to account for airspace closures in the Venezuela region. It said customers could change their travel plans in the region for free as it continued to monitor the situation and worked with U.S. aviation authorities.

Southwest said it canceled all Aruba flights for Saturday and suspended Puerto Rico flights until late afternoon, but flights to the Dominican Republic were unaffected.

American said it was waiving change fees for flights to and from about 20 island destinations, including Anguilla, Antigua, Curacao, Saint Lucia and the U.S. and British Virgin Islands.

Delta said it has issued a travel waiver for customers traveling to or from 13 impacted airports through Tuesday.