By JAMES ELLINGWORTH, AP Sports Writer

MILAN (AP) — It’s the message no figure skater wants to get. At any time, an email could block them from using the music they’ve built their Olympic programs around.

As the skating world grapples with a music standoff involving the lovable, mischievous Minions, U.S. champion Amber Glenn is gripped by “this Minions saga.”

It’s a relatable problem for any skater, and Glenn has a promise to keep.

“I told people they were going to see the Minions at the Olympics. I don’t want to be a liar,” she said Wednesday.

Amber Glenn reacts after competing during the women’s short program at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships, Wednesday, Jan. 7, 2026, in St. Louis. (AP Photo/Stephanie Scarbrough)

Music rights for a single song can be split between numerous artists, companies and other figures. Being a top-level skater means trying their best to secure permission and then hoping there’s no last-minute objections.

“We have tried our hardest to get everything clear, do what we can, and honestly, a producer could just decide, ‘Hey, never mind, no,’” Glenn said.

“I’m honestly just seeing, from what avenues I have available to me, that it is clear and then I’m just hoping and praying that I don’t get an email saying, ‘By the way, they reached out and they said they don’t want you to use it.’ So I think it’s been a very strenuous process for many of us.”

Spanish skater Tomas-Llorenc Guarino Sabate’s Minion problem is especially complex because his short program is a medley of four different songs from the franchise. He has three of the four cleared as of Wednesday and is working on permission from Pharrell Williams for the fourth, Glenn said.

Glenn says she’s happy to leave it to her team to ask permission for music. Her U.S. teammate, men’s gold medal contender Ilia Malinin, tries a personal touch.

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“It’s something that we all worry about, and for me especially, I like to make really unique pieces of music that I skate to,” Malinin said. “I like to reach out to the artist directly and try that as an option. Most of the time it works out in my favor. Especially this year, everyone was so hopeful and so supportive.”

Glenn skates her short program to “Like A Prayer” by Madonna, so even an objection could make her day, she joked.

“If I do get a message from Madonna saying she doesn’t want me to skate to her music, I’ll just be excited to get a message from Madonna,” she said. “But let’s hope that doesn’t happen.”

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

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Wednesday allowed California to use a new voter-approved congressional map that is favorable to Democrats in this year’s elections, rejecting a last-ditch plea from state Republicans and the Trump administration.

No justices dissented from the brief order.

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The justices had previously allowed Texas’ Republican-friendly map to be used in 2026, despite a lower court ruling that it likely discriminates on the basis of race.

Conservative Justice Samuel Alito wrote in December that it appeared both states had adopted new maps for political advantage, which the high court has previously ruled cannot be a basis for a federal lawsuit.

Republicans, joined by the Trump administration, claimed the California map improperly relied on race, as well. But a lower court disagreed by a 2-1 vote.

The justices’ unsigned order keeps in place districts that are designed to flip up to five seats now held by Republicans, part of a tit-for-tat nationwide redistricting battle spurred by President Donald Trump, with control of Congress on the line in midterm elections.

Last year, at Trump’s behest, Texas Republicans redid the state’s congressional districts with an eye on gaining five seats.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat who is eying a 2028 presidential run, vowed to respond in kind, though he had to win over voters, not just lawmakers, to do so.

Filing for congressional primaries in California begins on Monday.

By GRAHAM DUNBAR, Associated Press

MILAN (AP) — Staging future Winter Games as early as January and the Paralympic Winter Games in February is a possibility because of the effects of warmer temperatures, the International Olympic Committee said Wednesday.

Every Winter Games medal was won in February since the 1964 Innsbruck Olympics opened Jan. 29, and moving to January would likely disrupt scheduling of storied World Cup races and events. It also would more directly clash with NFL and NBA schedules.

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The IOC is now reviewing Olympic Games issues in the first year of Kirsty Coventry’s presidency and changing the winter edition dates is an option.

“Maybe we are also discussing to bring the Winter Olympics a little bit earlier,” the IOC member overseeing the sports program review, Karl Stoss, told reporters. “To do it in January because it has an implication for the Paralympics as well.”

The Milan Cortina Paralympic Winter Games will be held March 6-15.

The IOC has long acknowledged under Coventry’s predecessor Thomas Bach that changing climate is a challenge for finding future hosts and organizing competitions.

“(March) is very late because the sun is strong enough to melt the snow,” said Stoss, whose home country Austria is a traditional power in Alpine skiing and ski jumping.

“Maybe the Paralympics will be in February and the other edition will be in January. That would also be a part of our discussion,” he said on the sidelines of the IOC’s eve-of-Olympics meeting in Milan.

The 100-plus IOC members should meet again in June to make decisions about the Olympic reviews, in a program called “Fit For The Future,” and whether to add new sports and events to the 2030 French Alps Winter Games.

The French Alps edition is currently expected to run Feb. 1-17 and the 2034 Utah Winter Games from Feb. 10–26.

By EDDIE PELLS and STEPHEN WHYNO

In some ways, the goals Canadian snowboarder Mark McMorris set for the Milan Cortina Olympics are the same ones he set in his three previous appearances at the Games.

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“Landing when it matters, landing how I want to, landing my hardest tricks and walking away with some hardware,” he said.

But this time, McMorris listed one other element that no Olympian on the ground four years ago in China will ever take for granted again: “To enjoy it with my friends.”

The last time the Winter Olympians convened, the COVID-19 pandemic was still raging. The Games were forced into sterilized bubbles with athletes facing daily tests; in most cases, at checkpoints where workers stuck swabs up their noses. Every swab brought with it the specter of a positive test, with could mean days or weeks of quarantine that would wipe out an athlete’s ability to compete.

McMorris, the 32-year-old slopestyler who won his third straight bronze medal at those Games, summed up the experience by famously calling his stay in the mountains something like a trip to “sports prison.”

“What I can tell you with absolute certainty is that I am really excited to compete in this Games without COVID tests every 24 hours and just the pandemic breathing down our necks,” said Mikaela Shiffrin, who went without a medal in Beijing. “It’s a very, very different situation to go into this Games and that’s a wonderful thing.”

Short track speedskater Andrew Heo, whose first Olympics were in Beijing, said getting back to a “real, live Games” was one of his biggest motivators over the past four years.

“The Beijing Olympics was cool in itself, because I didn’t have any prior experience,” Heo said. “But so many people told me: This is like nothing compared to what an actual Olympics is like.”

Food, wine and friends instead of masks, swabs and isolation

The contrasts will be everywhere. McMorris and the rest of the action-sports athletes will be in Livigno, one of a handful of Alps resort towns joining Milan in hosting an Olympics that will look and feel nothing like the Beijing Games.

As much as the good wine, good food and not having to eat behind a plastic shield at restaurants, McMorris said he’s simply glad to have the people who have backed him for years along for the ride. Olympians in China told of getting to the starting line but feeling lost without the backing of friends and family, the support systems that drive so much of their day-to-day lives in sports.

“Hopefully I can use their support to fuel myself. It will be good to enjoy the Olympics as a crew this time,” McMorris said.

Summer in Paris brought Olympics back to ‘normal.’ Now Winter gets a chance

For the general public, some of the novelty of a “normal” Olympics has worn off. The well-received, well-attended and well-viewed Summer Games in Paris two years ago marked something of a rebirth of an Olympic brand that was stagnating even before COVID wrapped the Tokyo Summer Games and then Beijing in something resembling a germ-free bubble.

The direness of those Olympics might have been best illustrated by Belgian skeleton rider Kim Meylemans, whose desperate plea for release from quarantine, days after a positive test, went viral four years ago in China.

FILE – A worker wearing a protective suit disinfects the arena after the women’s gold medal hockey game between Canada and the United States at the 2022 Winter Olympics, Feb. 17, 2022, in Beijing. (AP Photo/Petr David Josek, File)

Even those not under quarantine were jarred by the less-than-welcoming feel as they got off the airplane.

“Instead of having, like, a cheering welcome committee, we’re like funneled in to get a cotton swab stuck up our nose and down our throat for a COVID test,” two-time bronze-medal-winning U.S. speedskater Brittany Bowe said. “Every single morning it’s like, you’re in line to go get your COVID test and just hoping and praying like you are not one that’s going to have a positive test.”

The U.S. sled hockey team aiming for a third consecutive Paralympic gold medal has several players whose only experience at this stage came in the Beijing bubble. For some, the return to normal cuts both ways.

“We’ll definitely chat about kind of managing how much time you can spend with your family: Don’t want to give any of them the impression that you can just hang out with them all the time, in all your free time, because you need that recharge personal time, as well,” veteran forward Declan Farmer said. “Just be prepared for that, a little bit of added pressure of having them in attendance.”

For many, though, that is a small price to pay.

Caroline Harvey’s only Olympics came four years ago when she and the U.S. women’s hockey team lost to Canada in the final. The Americans are favorites this time, a status that brings with it the tantalizing prospect of a victory showered with cheers instead of the stunned silence of four years earlier.

“Really looking forward to having family there, friends, having some of that comfort and familiarity within such a stressful obviously environment,” Harvey said.

AP National Writer Howard Fendrich contributed to this report.

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