By DAVE SKRETTA

MILAN (AP) — The last conversation that Maxim Naumov had with his parents was about following in their footsteps to the Olympics.

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Now the American figure skater has done it.

The 24-year-old Naumov finished his Winter Games debut with an emotional free skate Friday night, just over a year after Evgenia Shishkova and Vadim Naumov were among 67 people killed when American Airlines Flight 5342 crashed into a military helicopter on approach to Ronald Reagan National Airport and fell into the dark depths of the Potomac River.

It wasn’t a perfect program. Far from it. Naumov fell twice on quad salchows and was uneven throughout.

But the point total wasn’t the point.

When it came to an end, a crowd packed inside the Milano Ice Skating Arena to see American teammate Ilia Malinin go for gold gave him a standing ovation. Among them was actor Jeff Goldblum, who took in the performance with his wife, Emilie.

“To be honest, I just feel proud,” Naumov said afterward. “I feel proud of the journey that it took to get to this point. That is what I look toward right now. What it took to get here has been indescribable, inwards, getting up every day when I didn’t want to and pushing through the difficult times and the uncertainty of it all. I’m able to have some perspective on that. And I’ve had a lot of perspective in lots of areas in my life this year and skating is no different.

“So yes,” Naumov said, “there were some mistakes today, but man, I’m just happy and proud to be standing here today and getting through all the difficulty of this year and still standing on my feet and continuing to push onward.”

His students from Tomorrow’s Champions, the youth academy based at the Skating Club of Boston that was founded by his parents and Naumov now runs, certainly were proud. They had a watch party happening back in the U.S. while a small group sitting above the kiss-and-cry area waved a homemade sign with red and blue lettering that red, “Let’s Go Coach Max!”

“Hey, what’s up guys!?” Naumov said upon seeing them, smiling and waving.

Naumov set his free skate to the song “In This Shirt” by The Irrepressibles, a mournful ballad that delves into the issues of heartbreak and loss that the skater knows so well: “I am lost in a rainbow,” the lyrics say, “now our rainbow is gone.”

Naumov had finished fourth at the national championships in Wichita, Kansas, last January before heading home to the Boston area, while his parents — world pairs champions-turned-coaches — stayed behind to participate in a youth development camp.

Their plane was carrying more than two dozen members of the tight-knit figure skating community when it crashed.

Naumov recalled the first hours and days following the crash during an interview with The Associated Press. He remembers feeling like “I just wanted to rot, basically.”

Things such as getting out of bed, answering the door and checking the mail seemed insurmountable chores, and there were moments when he wondered whether he wanted to keep skating at all.

He still finds looking at photographs difficult, including the ones he pulled from a family album tucked above the refrigerator that he brought to the kiss-and-cry area. The idea of looking at videos of his parents still reduces him to tears.

Maxim Naumov of the United States reacts to his scores after competing during the men’s free skate program in figure skating at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Milan, Italy, Friday, Feb. 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)

But in the end, Naumov explained, he found purpose in putting on his skates again. He wanted to fulfill a dream that he shared with his parents by making it to the Olympics; they were fifth at the 1992 Albertville Games and fourth at the 1994 Lillehammer Games.

He also wanted to turn an unimaginable tragedy into a story of perseverance and ultimately triumph.

“It’s something that is allowing me to keep pushing forward. Keep moving,” Naumov said. “You know, continue to go and do things that are difficult no matter what obstacles get thrown at you. Skating is a tool for that. I think we can all do that.

“Whatever life throws at you, if you can be resilient and push just a little bit more than you think, you can do so much more.”

Associated Press writer Colleen Barry contributed.

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

By MARC LEVY

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — A federal safety agency investigating an August blast at a U.S. Steel plant near Pittsburgh that left two workers dead said it found a series of incomplete, outdated or inadequate procedures and practices that “exposed” employees to the explosion, which happened as workers were flushing a gas valve.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration fined the company a total of $118,214 and issued 10 citations.

The blast also injured 11 others, including contractors, according to the Chemical Safety Board, a federal agency investigating the explosion.

U.S. Steel’s Clairton Coke Works in Clairton, Pa., on Wednesday, Oct. 29, 2025. (Quinn Glabicki/Pittsburgh’s Public Source via AP)

Before the August blast, Clairton Coke Works had a history of accidents and explosions, and some current and former workers there say poor management and underinvestment have exacerbated air pollution and undermined workplace safety, Pittsburgh’s Public Source and The Associated Press have found.

U.S. Steel has said the explosion happened when workers were flushing a gas valve in preparation for routine planned maintenance at the sprawling riverside industrial facility, the largest of its kind in the Western Hemisphere.

The valve ruptured and released combustible coke oven gas, OSHA said.

In the 16-page report dated Monday, OSHA said that U.S. Steel’s written procedures, practices and training to safely maintain equipment and flush the gas valve were incomplete, outdated or inadequate.

Those shortcomings, it said, “exposed” employees to an explosion or explosion hazard when the valve ruptured. Another citation said the U.S. Steel didn’t provide required records within a specified time frame after the explosion.

U.S. Steel, in a statement, said it was reviewing the OSHA report. It did not say whether it agreed or disagreed with the findings, or whether it would dispute them.

“We will continue our dialogue with OSHA and other agencies involved,” it said.

The company has said that safety is a core value and shapes its culture.

OSHA gave U.S. Steel deadlines to fix the perceived shortcomings. The agency lets a company contest the findings in an informal conference.

In a statement, the United Steelworkers’ district director, Bernie Hall, said the union was “grateful to OSHA for thoroughly investigating the tragic incident that cost two lives and impacted many others.”

“We are dedicated to working with management to implement OSHA’s recommendations — especially those that incorporate process safety management — and continue our mission to make our workplaces safer,” Hall said.

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The Chemical Safety Board has said it continues to investigate.

Kurt Barshick, U.S. Steel’s vice president of the Mon Valley Works, said during an October presentation to area residents that workers trapped “3,000 PSI water inside of a valve that’s rated for 50 PSI.” The valve cracked and gas filled the area, Barshick added.

The blast came on top of a string of other accidents at the Clairton plant over time, as well as a long history of legal battles between U.S. Steel and Allegheny County regulators, who regularly accuse the company of flouting environmental rules at the facility.

Follow Marc Levy on X at: https://x.com/timelywriter

By GEOFF MULVIHILL

President Donald Trump’s administration cannot force states to hand over detailed information on people who have applied for or received aid from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, a judge said in a tentative ruling Friday.

San Francisco-based U.S. District Judge Maxine Chesney last year blocked the U.S. Department of Agriculture from requiring states to provide the data, including on the immigration status of people who receive benefits and applicants, after 22 states sued over the policy.

The department kept pushing for it, telling states in December that it would stop paying state administrative costs for the program if they didn’t comply. It also issued new protocols for securing the data, which the states rejected.

FILE – The U.S. Department of Agriculture building is seen in Washington, Saturday, Dec. 7, 2024. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana, File)

The federal government said the previous ruling did not apply to its latest demands.

Chesney said during a hearing Friday that she intends to issue an order that says the federal government cannot act on its letters to the states from last year.

The Trump administration contends that the information is needed to stamp out fraud and waste, which it asserts is a major problem in the nation’s biggest food aid program.

The states argued that the Agriculture Department could share the data with immigration enforcement authorities, which they say would be illegal.

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SNAP is a major part of the U.S. social safety net, helping about 42 million Americans, about 1 in 8, buy groceries. People in the country illegally are not eligible for benefits.

Most states, including one that sued — Nevada — have complied with the federal government’s request. Kansas has not complied, but also has not joined the lawsuit. All the states involved in the lawsuit, besides Nevada, have Democratic governors.

The administration has not released detailed information on the data submitted by states, but says it shows higher levels of fraud than previously believed.

The battle over SNAP records is one of several areas where the administration has sought to cut off some federal funding to states led by Democrats, often in the name of preventing fraud.

By KEN SWEET

NEW YORK (AP) — Goldman Sachs general counsel Kathy Ruemmler has had a storied legal career. As a federal prosecutor, she helped successfully prosecute Enron executives including Ken Lay and Jeffrey Skilling. She was part of President Barack Obama’s administration, working in various roles for much of his two terms in office, including as White House Counsel.

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She was even briefly considered by President Obama as a candidate for attorney general.

On Thursday, Ruemmler, 54, announced that she plans to resign from the top legal post at Goldman after a trove of emails and correspondence between her and disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein showed the two individuals were especially close, years after Epstein’s 2008 conviction on sex crimes charges, when he became a registered sex offender.

Ruemmler previously downplayed her relationship with Epstein. She called him a “monster” and said she regretted ever knowing him. Ruemmler has repeatedly described their relationship as professional, citing her job as a private defense attorney before she ever joined Goldman Sachs.

But documents released in recent weeks and reviewed by The Associated Press depict a deeper relationship than had previously been characterized by Ruemmler and Goldman Sachs. These included intimate email exchanges, social plans and gifts that went beyond formal legal work.

Roughly 8,400 documents involved Ruemmler or referenced her. Some correspondence shows that Ruemmler was aware of the extent of the allegations that Epstein had faced involving underage girls in Florida. In some instances, she advised Epstein on how he might go about trying to repair his image and defend himself publicly against new claims of misconduct.

The gifts Epstein gave to Ruemmler have been documented in news reports: the spa treatments, the handbags from Hermes, an Apple Watch, a Fendi coat, among many others. But some of the interactions between Epstein and Ruemmler described throughout their correspondence indicates that Epstein and Ruemmler did not simply have a lawyer-client transactional relationship, as Ruemmler previously attested to.

“It makes him happy to see you happy,” Epstein’s assistant wrote to Ruemmler in 2016, after Epstein prepaid for a spa treatment for her.

In October 2018, Epstein directed one of his assistants to send flowers and chicken soup to Ruemmler because she has “not been feeling well.” It would not be the first time that Epstein would send her a small token of appreciation when she was sick. They talked about dating issues, made jokes about both the wealthy and everyday people, and shared laments about their careers and dating lives.

They would message each other about mundane things like their mutual distaste for seeing babies in business class on flights and would repeatedly plan to have dinner or drinks in various places. Epstein even had Ruemmler as a backup executor of his will at one point.

Setting aside the immense wealth and privilege and Epstein’s legal troubles, many of the emails between the two would look no different from the banter that many Americans would share to in their own text messages, emails or group chats.

“Well, I adore him. It’s like having another older brother!” she wrote in an email in 2015.

During her time in private practice after she left the White House in 2014, Ruemmler received several expensive gifts from Epstein, including luxury handbags and a fur coat. The gifts were given after Epstein had already been convicted of sex crimes in 2008 and was registered as a sex offender. Ruemmler was also involved in Epstein’s legal defense efforts after he was arrested a second time for sex crimes in 2019 and later killed himself in a Manhattan jail.

“So lovely and thoughtful! Thank you to Uncle Jeffrey!!!” Ruemmler wrote to Epstein in 2018.

She later joined Goldman Sachs in 2020 and became the investment bank’s top lawyer in 2021.

The firm’s leadership backed her publicly amid the revelations. But the embarrassing emails raised questions about Ruemmler’s judgment. Historically, Wall Street frowns on gift-giving between clients and bankers or Wall Street lawyers, particularly high-end gifts that could pose a conflict of interest. Goldman Sachs requires its employees to get pre-approval before receiving gifts from or giving them to clients, according to the company’s code of conduct, partly in order to not run afoul of anti-bribery laws.

A document that was included in the U.S. Department of Justice release of the Jeffrey Epstein files, photographed Tuesday, Feb. 10, 2026, shows a Metropolitan Correctional Center report with photos of Epstein after a suicide attempt on July 23, 2019. (AP Photo/Jon Elswick)

Bloomberg News, The Wall Street Journal and other media outlets reported that Goldman’s partners, who are the firm’s most senior and well-regarded members going back to when the investment bank was privately held, had begun to question why the firm was holding Ruemmler in such high regard when other lawyers were just as qualified to hold the top legal job.

In her statement Thursday, Ruemmler said: “Since I joined Goldman Sachs six years ago, it has been my privilege to help oversee the firm’s legal, reputational, and regulatory matters; to enhance our strong risk management processes; and to ensure that we live by our core value of integrity in everything we do. My responsibility is to put Goldman Sachs’ interests first.”

Goldman CEO David Solomon he respected Ruemmler’s decision to resign. The firm isn’t rushing Ruemmler out the door, saying in a statement that she would wind down her work at the bank “to ensure a smooth transition,” before her last day on June 30.

The AP is reviewing the documents released by the Justice Department in collaboration with journalists from CBS, NBC, MS NOW and CNBC. Journalists from each newsroom are working together to examine the files and share information about what is in them. Each outlet is responsible for its own independent news coverage of the documents.