MILAN (AP) — Two Olympic cauldrons for the Milan Cortina Games will pay homage to Leonardo da Vinci.

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“For the first time in the history of the Olympic and Paralympic Games, two cauldrons (in Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo) will be lit and extinguished simultaneously in two different locations,” organizers said in a statement.

The design has been revealed and it is a sun-like structure that is inspired by Leonardo’s intricate knot patterns. Leonardo spent almost 25 years of his life in Milan and many of his most famous works are from his time in the city.

The cauldrons have been designed to open and close — with a diameter that expands from 3.1 meters to 4.5 meters — and will contain the Olympic flame at their core, encased in a glass and metal container.

The cauldron in Milan will be at the city’s Arco della Pace, while it will be in Piazza Dibona in Cortina.

They will be lit simultaneously during the widespread opening ceremony on Feb. 6 and extinguished on Feb. 22. They will burn with the Paralympic flame from March 6-15.

There will also be a special show lasting three to five minutes, hourly at the Milan cauldron in the evenings during the Olympics.

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

By DAVE SKRETTA

ST. LOUIS (AP) — The best figure skater of his generation may just go down as the best of any generation. He’s capable of landing jumps nobody else can, with creativity that is nearly unmatched and plenty of artistry to go with all of his otherworldly execution.

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All that Ilia Malinin must do now is deliver on the Olympic stage.

The 20-year-old American phenom has waited four long years for the Milan Cortina Games, after he was controversially left off the U.S. team for the Beijing Olympics. It was primarily due to his age and inexperience — it certainly wasn’t due to his ability, which had already put him in rarified air — and it fueled Malinin during the past quadrennial to become the best in the world.

Malinin has won the past two world titles, the latest last year in Boston with relative ease. He hasn’t lost a competition in about two years, whether it be lower-level tune-ups, elite-level Grand Prix events or the national championships, where Malinin triumphed for the fourth consecutive time in St. Louis earlier this month.

The scores that he has posted along the way rival the best in history, including the standard set by his countryman, Nathan Chen.

“Ilia is a whole different, like, factor,” says his U.S. teammate, Amber Glenn. “I mean, he’s the son of two incredible figure skaters, and he’s just built, quite literally, different. And like, it’s insane. He’s both talented and hard working, and it’s amazing what he does.”

A family affair

Malinin’s Russian-born mother, Tatiana Malinina, competed at the 1998 Olympics for Uzbekistan, and won the prestigious Grand Prix Final the next year. His Russian-born father, Roman Skorniakov, competed for Uzbekistan at both the 1998 and 2002 Winter Games.

Malinin’s genes go deeper, though. His grandfather, Valery Malinin, competed for the Soviet Union and still coaches in Russia.

So it was never really a question whether he would go into the family business.

Malinin would tag along to the rink with his parents as a kid, though back then he preferred soccer to skating. But once he began to hit those big jumps that have become his hallmark, Malinin was committed. His parents coached him to the junior world title in 2022 after he had missed out on the Winter Games.

With Hall of Fame coach Rafael Arutyunyan soon joining his team, Malinin won his first senior U.S. title, then began winning on the Grand Prix stage. The gold medals soon began to pile up in the most elite competitions in figure skating.

“Ilia challenges himself constantly,” explains Arutyunyan, who coached Chen to gold at the Beijing Games. “Our biggest challenge is keeping the team of people who work with him on the same page. We’re all there for him when he needs his team most.”

Malinin has never needed it as much as now.

As the Milan Cortina Games draw nearer, the pressure is mounting, on the ice and off. Malinin has a number of corporate sponsors, and that comes with a certain amount of weight. His face is omnipresent in NBC spots leading up to its broadcast of the Olympics. And he is accosted by fans for photos and autographs just about everywhere he goes.

“With my team, we’ve been planning a strategic plan to prepare myself mentally and physically, so when I get to the Olympics, that’s when I’m at my peak,” Malinin told The Associated Press in a wide-ranging interview. “We’ve talked for months, and managing what I train and how I train specifically, and what I’m going to do at all the competitions leading up to the Olympics.”

In a class of his own

Malinin began his season by capturing the Lombardia Trophy, then he dominated the Grand Prix de France and Skate Canada, where his score of 333.81 was nearly 80 points better than second-place Aleksandr Selevko of Estonia.

In fact, his personal-best score nearly broke the world record of 335.30 points, set by Chen in 2019 at the Grand Prix Final.

Then, Malinin added another Grand Prix Final title of his own in December, and another national championship in January.

Malinin won that won easily, despite a dialed-back free skate as he sorted out some issues with a new set of skates.

“He has such a passionate fire for skating,” says his choreographer, Shae-Lynn Bourne. “He’s one of those that have skates on an hour before we work and an hour after we work. He just puts the time in, and he’s constantly — not just loves to skate, but he’s not someone who will ever coast, or just go on what he knows he can do. He constantly wants to be challenged.”

That’s why Malinin pushed himself to land the quad axel, a 4 1/2-rotation jump nobody else has landed in competition. And it was the impetus behind his signature “raspberry twist,” and a myriad other spins, leaps and moves that seem to defy gravity and logic.

“It’s been amazing to see him, not only how he deals with the pressure but how he’s really matured as a person,” says Jason Brown, a two-time Olympian. “We’re behind him every step of the way. Everyone feels that way.”

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

By SAMY MAGDY

CAIRO (AP) — Israeli forces on Wednesday killed at least 11 Palestinians in Gaza, including two 13-year-old boys, three journalists and a woman, hospitals in the war-battered enclave said.

It was one of the deadliest days in Gaza since the ceasefire took effect in October and comes at a time when the U.S. is trying to push the deal forward and implement its challenging second phase.

The two boys were killed in separate incidents. In one strike, a 13-year-old, his father and a 22-year old man were hit by Israeli drones on the eastern side of the central Bureij refugee camp, according to officials from Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in the central town of Deir al-Balah, which received the bodies.

It wasn’t immediately clear whether the three had crossed into Israeli-controlled areas.

The Israeli military said one strike came after it spotted and struck several people who were operating a drone in central Gaza that posed a threat to its troops.

A mounting death toll

The other 13-year-old was shot and killed by troops while collecting firewood in the eastern town of Bani Suheila, the Nasser hospital said after receiving the body. In a video circulated online, the father of Moatsem al-Sharafy is seen weeping over his body on a hospital bed.

The boy’s mother, Safaa al-Sharafy, told The Associated Press that he left to gather firewood so she could cook.

“He went out in the morning, hungry,” she said, tears running down her cheeks. “He told me he’d go quickly and come back.”

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Later Wednesday, an Israeli strike on the central town of Zahraa hit a vehicle carrying three Palestinian journalists who were filming a newly established displacement camp managed by an Egyptian government committee, said Mohammed Mansour, the committee’s spokesman.

Mansour said the journalists were documenting the committee’s work in the newly established camp in the Netzarim area in central Gaza. He said the strike occurred about 5 kilometers (3 miles) from the Israeli-controlled area.

He said the vehicle was known to the Israeli military as belonging to the Egyptian committee.

Video footage circulating online showed the charred, bombed-out vehicle by the roadside, smoke still rising from the wreckage, with debris scattered about.

Nasser Hospital officials also said they received the body of a Palestinian woman shot and killed by Israeli troops in the Muwasi area of the southern city of Khan Younis, which is not controlled by the military.

In a separate attack, three brothers were killed in a tank shelling in the Bureij camp, according to Al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital, where the bodies were taken.

The deaths were the latest among Palestinians in Gaza since the ceasefire that stopped the war between Hamas and Israel went into effect in October.

More than 470 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire, according to the strip’s health ministry. At least 77 have been killed by Israeli gunfire near a ceasefire line that splits the territory between Israeli-held areas and most of Gaza’s Palestinian population, the ministry says.

The ministry, which is part of the Hamas-led government, maintains detailed casualty records that are seen as generally reliable by U.N. agencies and independent experts.

A mother’s plea

The first phase of the October ceasefire that paused two years of war between Israel and Hamas focused on the return of all remaining hostages in exchange for the release of hundreds of Palestinian detainees and a partial withdrawal of Israeli forces in Gaza.

The bodies of all but one hostage have been returned to Israel. Ran Gvili, a 24-year-old police officer known affectionately as Rani, was killed while fighting Hamas fighters during the Oct. 7, 2023 attack that triggered the war. Gvili’s body still has not been recovered.

His relatives on Wednesday called again on the government and Trump to ensure the release of his remains.

“We need to continue to amplify Rani’s voice, explain about him, talk about him, and explain to the world that we, the people of Israel, will not give up on anyone,” his mother, Talik Gvili, said. She told the AP the family still doesn’t “really know where he is.”

Hamas said Wednesday it has provided “all information” it has on Gvili’s body to the ceasefire mediators, and accused Israel of obstructing search efforts in areas it controls in the Gaza Strip.

The ceasefire also allowed a surge in humanitarian aid into Gaza, mainly food. But residents say shortages of blankets and warm clothes remain, and there is little wood for fires. There’s been no central electricity in Gaza since the first few days of the war in 2023, and fuel for generators is scarce.

More than 100 children have died since the start of the ceasefire — including a 27-day-old girl who died from hypothermia over the weekend.

Israel targets more sites in Lebanon

Israel’s air force carried out strikes Wednesday in three villages in southern Lebanon that it said were part of the militant Hezbollah group’s infrastructure.

The strikes came more than an hour after the Israeli military issued warnings to evacuate the areas, including southern village of Qennarit, just south of the port city of Sidon.

Earlier Wednesday, two drone strikes hit cars in the villages of Bazouriyeh and Zahrani, killing two people, according to state-run National News Agency.

The strikes were the latest in near-daily Israeli military action since a ceasefire signed more than a year ago ended the 14-month Israel-Hezbollah war. The agreement included a Lebanese pledge to disarm militant groups, which Israel says has not been fulfilled.

Associated Press writer Bassem Mroue in Beirut contributed to this report.

Following testimony from a state representative and a review of dozens of pages of text messages, a Ramsey County family court referee tossed out a petition this week for a restraining order against newly elected St. Paul Mayor Kaohly Her filed by a former family friend.

Shirly Yang, a former confidante of the mayor, told the court she attends weekly therapy and was driven to thoughts of suicide after her friendship with Her deteriorated into a war of words by text message last summer, causing Yang to fear retaliation.

Yang said the two served together on the board of the National Kidney Foundation in Minnesota from October 2023 until October 2025, when the executive director dropped her from her board seat, citing her “public conflict” with Her, who was then still a state representative.

Yang said she was a suburban “nobody, twice divorced” and in the midst of a child-custody dispute when Her introduced her last year to state Rep. Ethan Cha, a DFLer who represents Woodbury and part of Washington County.

The two started an on-again, off-again romantic relationship, and Her began asking increasingly intrusive questions about their sex lives, oversharing about her own personal life, and calling or texting from 6 a.m. to 1 a.m., said Yang, who represented herself before the court.

“I tried to set boundaries without hurting her feelings,” said Yang, whose petition describes unwanted conversations Her allegedly initiated around spirituality, sexuality and the personal lives of the mayor’s children.

Under direct examination from Yang, Cha testified that he considered himself a neutral party between the two women and had tried without success to get both sides to de-escalate the situation and avoid legal proceedings.

Her, who appeared in court represented by attorney Charlie Nauen and Rachel Kitze Collins of Lockridge Grindal Nauen, did not testify Tuesday. Nauen noted in his questions to Yang that both women had blocked each other on social media and have had almost no contact since the end of last July, other than meeting for mediation Nov. 2 with two elders in the Hmong community.

Yang displayed a thread of text messages from last July on an overhead screen. Her had written to Cha at the time that if Yang’s behavior continued she risked being psychiatrically committed, at great loss to her four children.

“Please get her to stop sending threats,” Her wrote at the time. “I don’t want to take action against her and get her committed. I can lose a race but she can lose her life and livelihood.”

Yang said she was “terrified” by the wording. Her and her husband “threatened legal action if I refused to talk to them,” Yang wrote, in her petition for a harassment restraining order. “I felt helpless.”

Cha testified he felt Her had escalated the situation, but that he also had concerns about Yang’s mental stability.

Yang, who continued to criticize Her and her mayoral campaign on Facebook, posted a picture to social media of one of Her’s campaign fliers with the candidate’s name crossed out on Oct. 13. When she lost her board seat with the National Kidney Foundation a week later, she said she came to see the July text thread as a serious threat on her life and employment, and filed a petition for an emergency restraining order Nov. 17.

It was not initially approved. In blocking the subsequent petition Tuesday, court referee Elizabeth Clysdale said there was no evidence the July text was intended in a threatening manner or that there was a sustained pattern of intrusive behavior.

In an interview after the 90-minute hearing, Yang said she had no plans to appeal the decision and that she thought her anti-bullying message to the mayor had gotten through.

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“Mayor Her is pleased with the referee’s decision to dismiss this matter from the bench, finding that the petitioner did not meet her burden of proof,” Nauen wrote in a public statement Tuesday.

“In this day and age, public figures are subject to many unfounded allegations attacking their integrity,” he added. “Mayor Her appreciated the opportunity to clear her name and looks forward to getting back to work. She hopes petitioner finds peace and wishes her well.”