By CHARLOTTE GRAHAM-McLAY

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — In a near-empty courthouse, in front of almost no one, the appeal by New Zealand’s most reviled killer was heard in muted fashion with little mention of the details of the country’s deadliest mass shooting.

Such is New Zealand’s desire to smother the racist motivations of Brenton Tarrant, who murdered 51 Muslims praying at two mosques in the city of Christchurch in 2019. Tarrant, a self-professed white supremacist, referred to other perpetrators of hate-fueled massacres when he committed his attack and other mass shooters have cited his actions since.

Yet it’s rare to encounter the Australian man’s words in New Zealand, the country where he migrated with a plan to amass semiautomatic guns and carry out the slaughter.

Officials have sought to curb the spread of his views, including through a legal ban on his racist manifesto and a video he livestreamed of the shooting. The effort to prevent public exposure to Tarrant is perhaps most apparent in New Zealand’s courts, where he sought this week to recant his guilty pleas.

A three-judge panel in the Court of Appeal in Wellington heard final arguments Friday by Crown lawyers opposing Tarrant’s application to have his admissions in 2020 to charges of terrorism, murder and attempted murder discarded. He is serving life in prison without a chance of parole, but the case would return to court for a full trial if he is allowed to revoke his guilty pleas.

Opposing lawyers say his appeal has no merit

The 35-year-old told the court this week he didn’t want to plead guilty and made the “irrational” admissions during a “nervous breakdown” induced by his solitary and austere prison conditions. But Crown lawyers opposing his appeal bid said in their response Friday there was no evidence for the claims that he was seriously mentally ill.

Experts had ruled Tarrant was fit to enter pleas, and his former lawyers and prison staff didn’t raise concerns either.

“It’s difficult to see what more could’ve been done,” Crown lawyer Barnaby Hawes told the court. Tarrant, he added, “is an unreliable witness and his narrative should be treated with caution.”

The evidence against Tarrant — including his own livestream of the massacre, in which he filmed his face — was so overwhelming that a guilty verdict was assured if he had fought the charges in a trial, the lawyers said.

“Pleading guilty to charges where his guilt is certain can’t be seen to be irrational,” Hawes said.

The subdued hearing defies the tension over the case

One topic nearly absent from the weeklong hearing was any mention of the hateful motivations Tarrant cited for committing the crimes. Lawyers both supporting and opposing Tarrant’s bid avoided reference to his white supremacist views, and proceedings unfolded in the quiet and stolid way New Zealand court cases usually do.

But there were signs the court sought to limit the public’s exposure to Tarrant, as New Zealand’s justice system has done before. Almost nobody was permitted to view the gunman’s evidence and the appeal bid unfolded in front of nine reporters, nine lawyers, a few court staff, and an empty public gallery.

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Tarrant was permitted to watch the proceedings by video conference from Auckland Prison, but his image was not visible in the courtroom except when he gave evidence. Apart from in Christchurch, where the bereaved and wounded survivors watched a livestream of the hearing at the local courthouse, the shooter was invisible.

The approach New Zealand has enacted — in which even news outlets name the shooter as few times as possible in each article — stands at odds with the publicity given to trials for racist mass killers before, including widely covered proceedings for the Norwegian murderer Anders Breivik, whom Tarrant years later cited as an inspiration. Crown lawyers urged the appeal judges Friday to thwart the prospect of the matter returning to court in a lengthy public trial, which would happen if the Australian’s bid to recant his guilt was successful.

“Keeping this case alive is a source of immense distress” to the shooter’s victims, Crown lawyer Madeleine Laracy said. “It doesn’t allow them to heal.”

A swift ruling isn’t expected

The judges’ decision will be released later. New Zealand’s appeals court delivers 90% of its judgments within three months of a hearing’s end, according to the Court’s website.

If his bid to revoke his guilty pleas is unsuccessful, Tarrant’s case will return to the appeals court for a later hearing where he will seek a review of his life sentence.

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.