It was 60 years ago that George Skelly moved to Roseville and joined the St. Paul Curling Club. He relocated from Winnipeg, Manitoba, to attend radiology school and was determined to continue the sports he grew up playing.

“He was a great athlete,” said his daughter, Gaye Skelly-Peterson. That’s Gaye as in “Jay,” the way former Toronto Maple Leafs winger player James Gaye Stewart pronounced it.

United States’ skip Tabitha Peterson calls the sweep during a match against Japan at the World Women’s Curling Championship in Uijeongbu, South Korea, Tuesday, March 18, 2025. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)

Yes, Gaye is named after Stewart.

Skelly was a good curler and won the St. Paul Winter Carnival Curling Championship three times. His daughter became a good curler, as well, later matching her father’s feat by winning the Winter Carnival bonspiel in 2002, 2003 and 2004.

The accomplishments of Skelly, 96, and daughter Gaye, 67, remain etched in St. Paul curling annals, but their feats have been eclipsed somewhat by the family’s next generation.

Tara Peterson and Tabitha Peterson, daughters of Gaye and Sheldon Peterson, are in Cortina D’Ampezza, Italy, for another shot at an Olympic medal. Team Peterson, skipped by Tabatha, begins competition Thursday against South Korea and Sweden.

All told, it’s a pretty good athletic legacy for a cardiovascular surgeon.

“Yeah,” Tabitha said, “we wouldn’t be here today if (our grandfather) didn’t curl, for sure.”

Tabitha, 36 has skipped her own team since 2019, with Tara, 34, at second. This year’s team also includes lead Taylor Anderson-Heide, third Cory Thiesse and alternate Aileen Geving. Thiesse on Tuesday won a silver medal with partner Korey Dropkin in mixed doubles, becoming the first American woman to win an Olympic curling medal.

This is the third Olympics appearance for Tabitha and second for Tara. Between them, they have four junior national titles — sharing two — and Team Peterson won a bronze medal at the 2021 World Championships. Tabitha won a mixed doubles bronze in 2016 with partner Joe Polo.

United States’ Tara Peterson releases the stone during a match against Canada at the World Women’s Curling Championship in Uijeongbu, South Korea, Tuesday, March 18, 2025. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)

But the U.S. women have yet to medal at the Olympics. Tabitha was part of the 2018 team that finished eighth in Pyeongchang, South Korea, and Team Peterson finished sixth at the 2022 Beijing Games.

Tara and Tabitha Peterson grew up in Burnsville and began curling at the SPCC before moving on to the national junior program and ultimately, USA Curling. After aging out of juniors, Tabitha said, she assumed she’d go to school, get a job and curl for fun.

And she did most of that, attending the University of Minnesota and becoming a hospital pharmacist. But Tabitha was asked to join the U.S. national team following the Vancouver Olympics in 2010.

“Lucky,” she said. Accepting was a “no-brainer.”

“They were all 10, 15 years older than I was, but they really made me feel part of the team, and I learned a ton from them,” Tabitha said.

It was then Peterson realized she could “make it far in this sport if I keep practicing and striving. Then I joined the USA Curling high-performance program, and I think things have elevated since then. They had all the resources that were not available to me as a junior, and I’ve learned even more in the last four years than I learned in the first four.”

Tabitha and Tara, a dentist with a White Bear Lake practice, both live in Eagan. They have been training and competing around their jobs — and, they note, the help of work colleagues — for a long time. New this time is the fact that the sisters each became mothers over the past two years, which raises the inevitable questions about how long they might continue to compete internationally.

Tabitha, in fact, said she had been thinking about it after Pyeongchang.

“We wanted to both grow families, too,” she said. “Even after 2018, I was thinking, ‘Was this enough? Am I satisfied with my career? Am I done? Do I want to go back and try to medal?

George “Doc” Skelly, right, curls at the St. Paul Curling Club in 1978. (Courtesy the Skelly-Peterson Family).

“Then at the end of Beijing (in 2022), I was sitting at the curling ceremonies and they showed a promo for the next Olympics, and it was Italy. And I was like, ‘Oh, my God, we’ve got to keep going.’ ”

For the Petersons, it’s only natural, and not just for the Olympians. Gaye and Sheldon are in Italy, just as they were in Beijing in 2022, and Sioux Falls for the U.S. trials in November and in British Columbia for the Olympic qualification event in December that earned Team Peterson another shot.

For this family, curling has been a way of life since Geoge Skelly moved his family from Winnipeg and joined the St. Paul Curling Club in the mid-’60s.

“I love the competition and the people and the travel,” Tara said. “There are so many great things about it. Maybe when the Olympics are done, I’ll take a break and have some free time. But when I’m off from work, and I have time off, I go curling.”

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By JIM MORRIS and ROB GILLIES

VANCOUVER, British Columbia (AP) — Police have identified the suspect in a school shooting in Canada as an 18-year-old who had prior mental health calls to her home.

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Authorities shared Jesse Van Rootselaar’s name at a news conference Wednesday, a day after seven people were killed at a school in remote British Columbia and two others were killed at a nearby home in one of the country’s deadliest mass shootings.

Royal Canadian Mounted Police Deputy Commissioner Dwayne McDonald said Van Rootselaar, who was found dead, had a history of mental health contact with police, and that the suspect’s mother and stepbrother were also found dead.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.

VANCOUVER, British Columbia (AP) — Canadians were in shock Wednesday after authorities said seven people were killed at a school in remote British Columbia and two others were killed at a nearby home in one of the country’s deadliest mass shootings.

A woman who police believed was the shooter was found dead, apparently from a self-inflicted wound, police said. The motive remained unclear.

More than 25 people were wounded Tuesday in the attack in the small mountain community of Tumbler Ridge, including two with life-threatening injuries who were airlifted for medical care, police said.

The village of 2,700 people in the Canadian Rockies is more than 600 miles northeast of Vancouver, near the provincial border with Alberta.

A map showing the location of the Tumbler Ridge school shooting. (AP Digital Embed)

“Parents, grandparents, sisters, brothers in Tumbler Ridge will wake up without someone they love. The nation mourns with you, and Canada stands by you,” an emotional Prime Minister Mark Carney said as he arrived in Parliament.

The attack was Canada’s deadliest rampage since 2020, when a gunman in Nova Scotia killed 13 people and set fires that left another nine dead.

Carney said flags at government buildings will be flown at half-staff for seven days and added: “We will get through this.”

Shelley Quist said her neighbor across the street lost her 12-year-old. “We heard his mom. She was in the street crying. She wanted her son’s body,” Quist said.

Quist said her 17-year-old son, Darian, was on lockdown in the school for more than two hours. The provincial government website lists Tumbler Ridge Secondary School as having 175 students in grades 7 to 12.

“The grade sevens and eights, I think, were upstairs in the library, and that’s where the shooter went,” she said. Her son was in the library just 15 minutes prior to the attack.

Quist was working at the hospital down the street when the shooting started.

“I was about to go run down to the school, but my coworker held me back. And then I was able to get Darian on the phone to know he was OK,” she said.

The road is blocked off before the Tumbler Ridge Secondary School, in Tumbler Ridge, B.C., Canada, on Wednesday, Feb. 11, 2026. (Jesse Boily/The Canadian Press via AP)

School shootings are rare in Canada, which has strict gun-control laws. The government has responded to previous mass shootings with gun-control measures, including a recently broadened ban on all guns it considers assault weapons.

British Columbia Premier David Eby told reporters that police reached the school within two minutes.

A video showed students walking out with their hands raised as police vehicles surrounded the building and a helicopter circled overhead.

Police found six people dead, Royal Canadian Mounted Police Superintendent Ken Floyd said. A seventh person died while being transported to a hospital, and two more were found dead at a residence that authorities believe was connected to the attack.

Floyd told reporters that investigators had identified the suspect but would not release a name. He said police were investigating the connection between the shooter and the victims.

Tumbler Ridge Mayor Darryl Krakowka said it was “devastating” to learn how many had died in the community, which he called a “big family.”

“I broke down,” Krakowka said. “I have lived here for 18 years. I probably know every one of the victims.”

The Rev. George Rowe of the Tumbler Ridge Fellowship Baptist Church went to the recreation center where victims’ families were awaiting more information.

The Tumbler Ridge Health Centre in Tumbler Ridge, B.C., Canada, on Wednesday, Feb. 11, 2026. (Jesse Boily/The Canadian Press via AP)

“It was not a pretty sight. Families are still waiting to hear if it’s their child that’s deceased and because of protocol and procedure, the investigating team is very careful in releasing names,” Rowe said Tuesday.

Rowe once taught at the high school, and his three children graduated from there.

“To walk through the corridors of that school will never be the same again,” he said.

The school district said the high school and elementary school will be closed for the rest of the week.

Prime Minister Mark Carney speaks to reporters ahead of a caucus meeting on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, on Wednesday, Feb. 11, 2026. (Spencer Colby /The Canadian Press via AP)

Carney’s office said he called off a planned trip to Halifax, Nova Scotia, and Munich, Germany. He had been set to announce a long-awaited defense industrial strategy Wednesday in Halifax before heading to Europe for the Munich Security Conference.

Eby on Tuesday said he had spoken to the prime minister about the “unimaginable tragedy.”

“I know it’s causing us all to hug our kids a little bit tighter tonight,” he said. “I’m asking the people of British Columbia to look after the people of Tumbler Ridge tonight.”

Gillies reported from Toronto.

There comes a time each year that some forget about until a young girl wearing a badge or tie appears at their door or grocery store sporting a cheerful smile and offering the treat they suddenly crave: Girl Scout Cookies.

Yes, it is indeed Girl Scout Cookie season, but this year will look different as many scouts will be selling cookies online rather than knocking door-to-door.

“Given the community unrest and the instability in our communities, many of our Girl Scouts are choosing not to sell cookies in person,” Girl Scouts River Valley chief experience officer Susan Andersson said.

From now until March 29, Girl Scouts River Valleys’ cookie program will go digital. That includes 49 counties in Minnesota and Wisconsin plus Osceola County in Iowa.

The public can purchase cookies through specific troops, individual scouts, or by using the “cookie finder” feature on the Girl Scouts River Valleys website, girlscoutsrv.org.

Some scouts may continue to sell cookies door-to-door or at cookie booths in the state, though the public can anticipate seeing fewer scouts out and about than usual.

“There’s no playbook for what we’re going through right now, and it’s hard to forge the way forward when there is no precedent,” said Tammy Freese, senior director of product program. “That’s the most challenging thing is that we’re in a place that we haven’t been before. COVID was also full of uncertainties, but this just seems very, very different.”

Freese said the decision to go online was made to ensure the comfort of troop members and their families, who may not feel comfortable selling cookies in public during a time when immigration enforcement actions are going on.

“Girl Scouts has been around for 100-plus years, and one off-season won’t slow these girls down,” Girl Scouts River Valleys stated. “Cookie season remains the largest girl-led entrepreneurship program in the world, and it represents all girls, including daughters of immigrants, daughters of police officers, and girls from every kind of family and neighborhood.”

Digital Cookie

During the early COVID years, Girl Scouts used a platform called Smart Cookie to deliver online sales. In 2026, the organization is using Digital Cookie, an updated platform with “more bells and whistles,” according to Freese.

Girl Scouts with the new 2026 Exploremores cookies. The organization anticipates that many of its members will opt to sell cookies online instead of the traditional door-knocking method this year. (Courtesy of Girl Scouts)

With Digital Cookie, troops and individual Girl Scouts can create a personalized online storefront with information about the troop or Scout and what they’re raising money for. Scouts also have control over who sees their storefront and can choose to share a link to their business over social media, via text message and more. Once purchased, cookies can be shipped or directly delivered to the customer’s door, if the option is available.

“It’s a really great resource for Girl Scouts to learn real-world marketing and what it does take to be an entrepreneur these days,” Freese said.

Girl Scouts learn five main skills through the cookie program, Andersson said: goal setting, decision making, money management, people skills and business ethics. Traditionally, the cookie program teaches scouts these skills through in-person learning opportunities, and though the season will have significantly less in-person social interaction, Andersson said the Digital Cookie program continues to foster the same kinds of lessons.

Anderson said these days, more and more customers shop online, and this change is one way for Girl Scouts to consider meeting a need. She said going digital opens accessibility to a wider range of people and allows the public to support Girl Scouts programs without needing to show up in person.

“Not only are our girls learning those five very important skills, but they’re also learning how to pivot when things don’t go as planned, and that is so very, very important, because life doesn’t always go as we plan it, and building up that resilience and that grit is so important,” Freese said.

Troop 2026

Freese said community members have reached out to ask how they can support those who feel particularly vulnerable during the immigration enforcement surge.

Inspired by a volunteer suggestion, Girl Scouts River Valleys created Troop 2026 through the Care to Share Program, which takes proceeds from cookie sales and distributes them to specific initiatives, like supporting veterans or food shelves. Troop 2026 consists of Girl Scouts whose cookie seasons have been “impacted by events in our communities,” according to Girl Scouts. Purchasing through Troop 2026 is one way people can support Girl Scouts during this challenging season, Freese said.

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“Care to Share, and Troop 2026, also educates girls about philanthropy, how giving back is really important,” Andersson said.

The cookie program helps to support and make Girl Scouts possible, Freese said. The proceeds fund Girl Scouts initiatives, learning opportunities, travel plans and more. A lot of troops depend on the cookie program to help them achieve their goals, she said.

“We want to make sure that we honor all decisions for folks that have maybe decided this is the year that they can’t participate in the cookie program, and make sure that they realize that, yes, you are not only a valued member of the troop, even if cookie participation has to be paused this year, but you’re also a valuable number of Girl Scouts River Valleys,” Freese said.

Getting Girl Scout Cookies

Individual Girl Scouts Digital Cookie storefronts went live Wednesday, Feb. 11, and will be active through the end of March.

Purchase cookies directly through a scout’s storefront or using the cookie finder on Girl Scouts River Valleys’ website, girlscoutsrv.org or by texting “cookies” to 59618.

Buy cookies from Troop 2026, a virtual troop made up of scouts impacted by immigration enforcement activity, search for Troop 2026 at girlscoutsrv.org.

By MARK KENNEDY

NEW YORK (AP) — James Van Der Beek, a heartthrob who starred in coming-of-age dramas at the dawn of the new millennium, shooting to fame playing the titular character in “Dawson’s Creek” and in later years mocking his own hunky persona, has died. He was 48.

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“Our beloved James David Van Der Beek passed peacefully this morning. He met his final days with courage, faith, and grace. There is much to share regarding his wishes, love for humanity and the sacredness of time. Those days will come,” a statement from the actor’s family that was posted on Instagram said. “For now we ask for peaceful privacy as we grieve our loving husband, father, son, brother, and friend.”

Van Der Beek revealed in 2024 that he was being treated for colorectal cancer.

Van Der Beek made a surprise video appearance in September at a “Dawson’s Creek” reunion charity event in New York City after previously dropping out due to illness.

He appeared projected onstage at the Richard Rodgers Theatre during a live reading of the show’s pilot episode to benefit F Cancer and Van Der Beek. Lin-Manuel Miranda subbed for him on stage. “Thank you to every single person here,” Van Der Beek said.

Forever tied to ‘Dawson’s Creek’

A one-time theater kid, Van Der Beek would star in the movie “Varsity Blues” and on TV in “CSI: Cyber” as FBI Special Agent Elijah Mundo, but was forever connected to “Dawson’s Creek,” which ran from 1998 to 2003 on The WB.

The series followed a high school group of friends as they learned about falling in love, creating real friendships and finding their footing in life. Van Der Beek, than 20, played 15-year-old Dawson Leery, who aspired to be a director of Steven Spielberg quality.

“Dawson’s Creek,” with the moody theme song Paula Cole’s “I Don’t Want To Wait,” helped define The WB as a haven for teens and young adults who related to its hyper-articulate dialogue and frank talk about sexuality. And it made household names of Van Der Beek, Joshua Jackson, Katie Holmes and Michelle Williams.

The show caused a stir when one of the teens embarked on a racy affair with a teacher 20 years his senior and when Holmes’ character climbs through Dawson’s bedroom window and they curl up together. Racier shows like “Euphoria” and “Sex Education” owe a debt to “Dawson’s Creek.”

Van Der Beek sometimes struggled to get out from under the shadow of the show but eventually leaned into lampooning himself, like on Funny Or Die videos and on Kesha’s “Blow” music video, which included his laser gun battle with the pop star in a nightclub and dead unicorns.

“It’s tough to compete with something that was the cultural phenomenon that ‘Dawson’s Creek’ was,” he told Vulture in 2013. “It ran for so long. That’s a lot of hours playing one character in front of people. So it’s natural that they associate you with that.”

FILE – Actors Ali Larter, left, poses with co-stars James Van Der Beek, center, and Amy Smart at the premiere of “Varsity Blues” in Los Angeles on Jan. 7, 1999. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello, File)

A popular GIF and ‘Varsity Blues’

More than a decade after the show went off the air, a scene at the end of the show’s third season became a GIF. Dawson was watching as his soul mate embarks on a love affair with his best friend and burst into tears.

“It wasn’t scripted that I was supposed to cry; it was just one of those things where it’s a magical moment and it just happens in the scene,” he told Vanity Fair. He seemed exasperated when he told the Los Angeles Times: “All of a sudden, six years of work was boiled down to one seven-second clip on loop.” (Van Der Beek himself recreated the GIF in 2011 for Funny or Die and gave it a second life.)

While still on “Dawson’s Creek,” Van Der Beek hosted “Saturday Night Live” — the musical guest was Everlast — and landed a plumb role in “Varsity Blues,” playing a second-string high school quarterback who leaps into the breach when the star suffers an injury.

Van Der Beek’s character, Mox, turns out to not be a football fanatic, preferring to read Kurt Vonnegut and yearning for the college education which will allow him to escape the jock mentality of his Texas town. “I don’t want your life,” he screams at one point. Critic Roger Ebert called him “convincing and likable.”

FILE – James Van Der Beek attends the premiere of “The Words” in Los Angeles on Sept. 4, 2012. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP, File)

After ‘Dawson’s Creek’

Some of his projects after “Dawson’s Creek” include co-creating and playing Wesley “Diplo” Pentz, a dull but likable music producer in the mockumentary satire on Viceland, “What Would Diplo Do?” In 2019, he made it to the semifinals of ABC’s “Dancing with the Stars” and played a balding, out-of-shape ex-boyfriend on “How I Met Your Mother.”

“The more you make fun of yourself and don’t try to go for any kind of respect, the more people seem to respect you,” he told Vanity Fair in 2011. “I’ve always been a clown trapped in a leading man’s body.”

Between 2003 and 2013, he made appearances in shows like “Criminal Minds,” “One Tree Hill,” and “How I Met Your Mother.” He played himself with a crackpot intensity in the Krysten Ritter-led ABC drama “Don’t Trust the B— in Apartment 23,” and the short-lived “CSI” spinoff “CSI: Cyber” and CBS’ “Friends With Better Lives.”

He’s also appeared in a number of movies, such as Kevin Smith’s 2001 comedy “Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back” and its 2019 sequel, “Jay and Silent Bob Reboot.” He also was in the Bret Easton Ellis adaptation of “The Rules of Attraction” in 2002 opposite Jessica Biel and Kate Bosworth.

In 2025, he was unmasked as Griffin on “The Masked Singer,” after singing a cover of John Denver’s “Take Me Home, Country Roads” and “I Had Some Help” by Post Malone and Morgan Wallen.

Early life as a theater kid

Van Der Beek, who was raised in Cheshire, Connecticut, started acting at 13 after suffering a concussion playing football that prevented him from playing for a year on doctor’s orders. He landed the role of Danny Zuko in his school production of “Grease.”

He stuck with theater, landing at 16 in 1994 an off-Broadway role in “Finding the Sun” by Pulitzer Prize-winner Edward Albee and one of the sons in a revival of “Shenandoah” at the prestigious Goodspeed Opera House in his home state.

He earned a scholarship to New Jersey’s Drew University but left school early when he got “Dawson’s Creek.” In 2024, he returned to campus to accept an honorary degree for his “selfless service and exemplary commitment to the mission of Drew,” the university said.

Drew University President Hilary Link welcomed Van Der Beek with a popular quote from his “Dawson’s Creek” character: “Edge is fleeting,” she said, “but heart lasts forever. So on this morning, we pay tribute to that heart.”

He is survived by his wife, Kimberly, and six children, Olivia, Joshua, Annabel, Emilia, Gwendolyn and Jeremiah.

AP Music Writer Maria Sherman contributed to this report.