GEAR MAG

TRUCKEE, Calif. (AP) — Officials worked to lower the risks of more deadly slides Friday in the areawhere an avalanchestruck in California's Sierra Nevada so crews could safely recover the bodies of the people killed.

APTOPIX California Avalanche

Rescue crews loaded up a snow vehicle with skis and other supplies and headed toward the area near Castle Peak, northwest of Lake Tahoe, while helicopters circled overhead. Avalanche mitigation work is designed to intentionally release unstable snowpack to reduce the risk when rescue crews go in.

The Nevada County Sheriff's office previously said the mitigation work would include controlled explosions, but later said Friday's efforts only involved using water to break up snow. The work was done in partnership with Pacific Gas & Electric.

Brutal weather and the threat of more avalanches have kept crews from safely recovering the bodies of the eight people killed and another still missing from Tuesday's avalanche, which was roughly the size of a football field.

Authorities are investigating the avalanche, including whether criminal negligence played a role in the tragedy, a sheriff's office leading one of several investigations said Friday.

Why the tour company that organized thebackcountry ski tripdidn't cancel in the face of a powerful storm and what their guides knew as the weather worsened are the questions being considered.

Both the Nevada County Sheriff's office and a state agency that regulates workplace safety have opened investigations. Ashley Quadros, a spokesperson with the sheriff's office, declined on Friday to share more information, saying it is an open investigation.

Six of the people who died were part of a close-knit group of friends who were experienced backcountry skiers and knew how to navigate the alpine wilderness, their families said. The three others who are dead or presumed dead were guides.

"We are devastated beyond words," the families said in a statement released Thursday through a spokesperson. The women were mothers, wives and friends who "connected through the love of the outdoors," they said, and were carrying avalanche safety equipment and prepared for backcountry travel.

Victims were loved by their neighbors

The six were identified as Carrie Atkin, Liz Clabaugh, Danielle Keatley, Kate Morse, Caroline Sekar and Kate Vitt, and they lived in the San Francisco Bay Area, in Idaho and in the Lake Tahoe area. The families asked for privacy while they grieve.

Just north of San Francisco, where Keatley lived with her family in the city of Larkspur, resident Rob Bramble was shocked to learn that the friendly woman he would say hello to in passing was among the victims.

"She was just a great mom. I'd always see her with the kids, picking them up, just seemed like a great mom and a great family," said Bramble, whose daughter babysat for the family a few times.

Keatley and her husband owned a wine business and often shared their namesake wines at community events, Larkspur Mayor Stephanie Andre said.

"She was warm, kind and exuded a special quality that drew people to her," Andre said in a statement.

Morse also lived with her husband and three children north of San Francisco, and worked in the biotech industry, according to her LinkedIn profile. Vitt previously worked at SiriusXM and Pandora, according to her online profile, and lived north of the city with her two sons and husband.

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Atkin was a former corporate executive who lived in Lake Tahoe with her husband and two children, according to her leadership coaching website. She's a talented student who could "run like the wind" and made it to state finals for hurdling two years in a row, recalled Jerome Bearden, her high school hurdling coach. She later had a track and field scholarship to Harvard.

"Everybody liked Carrie," said Bearden, who heard about her death from a former student on Friday. "She was a good person."

Sekar and Clabaugh were sisters, their brother, McAlister Clabaugh, told The New York Times. Sekar was a mother of two who lived in San Francisco.

Liz Clabaugh was a nurse who oversaw a new graduate nursing residency program at St. Luke's Health System in Boise, Idaho. She was also a mom and ran a Facebook page featuring encouragement and advice for new nurses. Photos showed that her family were frequent adventurers outdoors.

Clabaugh also had served as a health volunteer in Zambia with the Peace Corps, according to a Facebook page for Peace Corps alumni.

The names of the other victims have not been released.

The 15 skiers began their three-day trip Sunday, just aswarnings about the stormwere intensifying. By early Tuesday, officials cautioned that avalanches were expected.

Avalanche safety experts say it is not uncommon for backcountry skiers to go out when there is an avalanche watch or even a warning.

Blackbird Mountain Guides, which was leading the expedition, said the guides who were on the trek were trained or certified in backcountry skiing and were instructors with the American Institute for Avalanche Research and Education.

"We don't have all the answers yet, and it may be some time before we do," founder Zeb Blais said in a statement. "In the meantime, please keep those impacted in your hearts."

The slide wasthe deadliest in the U.S. since 1981, when 11 climbers were killed on Mount Rainier in Washington state.

This story has been corrected to show that Friday's avalanche mitigation efforts used water, not controlled explosives as the Nevada County Sheriff's office had previously indicated.

Watson reported from San Diego and Har from Marin County, California. Associated Press writers Olga Rodriguez in San Francisco; John Seewer in Toledo, Ohio; Hallie Golden in Seattle; Jessica Hill in Las Vegas; and Matthew Brown in Billings, Montana, contributed.

By Nate Raymond

Feb 20 (Reuters) - A federal appeals court on Friday cleared the way for a Louisiana law requiring the display of the Ten Commandments in all classrooms of the state's public schools and universities ‌to take effect.

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans on a 11-7 vote overturned a judge's ‌ruling declaring the state's law was unconstitutional, saying the law needed to be assessed based on how local school boards ultimately would implement it.

The ruling marked ​a setback for parents who had sued over the Republican-led state's enactment of the law, which they argued trampled on their religious rights under the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment. Their lawyers had no immediate comment.

Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry, a Republican, in 2024 signed into law the measure known as H.B. 71, which required the display of posters or framed versions of the Ten Commandments in K-12 ‌schools and state-funded colleges.

In the Christian and ⁠Jewish faiths, God revealed the Ten Commandments to the Hebrew prophet Moses.

The law made Louisiana the first state to require displays of the Ten Commandments since the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a ⁠similar Kentucky law in 1980. Arkansas and Texas passed their own laws in 2025 requiring similar displays, prompting litigation and rulings blocking those laws.

A trial court judge blocked the law in November 2024, and a three-judge 5th Circuit panel upheld that ruling in October. But the ​full ​appeals court subsequently voted to hear the case, leading to Friday's decision.

In ​an unsigned opinion, the 5th Circuit's majority said ‌because the law gave school boards discretion on how to implement the law, it could not be deemed unconstitutional in all applications and that context would matter.

"We do not know, for example, how prominently the displays will appear, what other materials might accompany them, or how—if at all—teachers will reference them during instruction," the majority said. "More fundamentally, we do not even know the full content of the displays themselves."

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The court's majority, all appointees of Republican presidents, called their ruling narrow, saying nothing prevented future challenges ‌to the law based on how it is applied once it had ​been implemented.

U.S. Circuit Judge James Dennis, in a dissenting opinion joined by ​five fellow appointees of Democratic presidents, called the majority's ​ruling a "calculated stratagem" to evade Supreme Court precedents.

"By placing that text on permanent display in public school ‌classrooms, not in a way that is curricular or ​pedagogical, the State elevates words ​meant for devotion into objects of reverence, exposing children to government‑endorsed religion in a setting of compulsory attendance," Dennis wrote.

The case is Roake et al v Brumley et al, 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, No. 24-30706.

For the plaintiffs: ​Jonathan Youngwood of Simpson Thacher & Bartlett

For the ‌state: J. Benjamin Aguinaga of the Louisiana Department of Justice

Louisiana's Ten Commandments law struck down by US ​appeals court

US judge blocks Louisiana from requiring Ten Commandments in classrooms

Louisiana requires display of Ten Commandments in ​all classrooms

(Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston, Editing by Alexia Garamfalvi)

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. military said Friday that it has carried out anotherdeadly strike on a vesselaccused of trafficking drugs in the Eastern Pacific Ocean.

U.S. Southern Command said on social media that the boat "was transiting along known narco-trafficking routes in the Eastern Pacific and was engaged in narco-trafficking operations." It said the strike killed three people. A video linked to the post shows a boat floating in the water before bursting into flames.

Friday's attack raises the death toll from the Trump administration's strikes on alleged drug boats to at least 148 people in at least 43 attacks carried out since early September in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean.

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President Donald Trump has said the U.S. is in "armed conflict" with cartels in Latin America and hasjustified the attacksas a necessary escalation to stem the flow of drugs. But his administration has offered little evidence to support its claims of killing "narcoterrorists."

Criticshave questioned the overall legalityof the strikes as well as their effectiveness, in part because the fentanyl behind many fatal overdoses is typically trafficked to the U.S.over land from Mexico, where it is produced with chemicals imported from China and India.

The boat strikes alsodrew intense criticismfollowing the revelation that the military killed survivors of the very first boat attack with a follow-up strike. The Trump administration and many Republican lawmakers said it was legal and necessary, while Democratic lawmakers andlegal experts saidthe killings were murder, if not a war crime.

MILAN (AP) — We've got this. Really, we do.

Milan Cortina Olympics France 2030 Crisis

Organizers of the2030 French Alps Olympicsworked Saturday to put a positive sheen on their project that already was on the tightest of hosting schedules before beingrocked by inner turmoil.

"We're confident in our capacity to deliver these games in 2030 with a high degree of excellence," said Edgar Grospiron, the former Olympic champion freestyle skier who leads the organizing committee.

The French Alps is officially next up on Sunday evening after a formal handover of the Olympic flag to its sports and public officials at the Milan Cortina Winter Games closing ceremony, being staged in Verona.

Hours earlier, the French organizing committee holds a board meeting amid tension between Grospiron and his director general, Cyril Linette, who is set to be the latest executive exit from a teamlaunched just one year ago.

Grospiron acknowledged the "turbulence" Saturday at the traditional Olympic news conference for the next games host.

"For these games to be successful we do need stability, serenity, continuity and the organizing committee needs this," he said. "We want to show the whole world, but also particularly the French, and I am sure that they will really see the worth of what we've done."

The French Alps Winter Games — withspeed skating destined to go abroad, at Turin, Italy, or Heerenveen in the Netherlands, where venues already exist — has always been on the tightest timeline of any modern Olympics.

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Sweden denied again

The outline of a bid came together only in 2023. At the time, the International Olympic Committee was intalks with Swedish officialswho had revived the Stockholm proposal that lost a hosting vote in 2019 against the Italian bid for these Winter Games that close Sunday.

Riding enthusiasm of preparations for the 2024 Paris Summer Games, from local Olympic officials and President Emmanuel Macron — whose term in office expires next year — the IOC and its then-leader Thomas Bach pivoted to France again. It left abitter taste in Sweden.

IOC members confirmed the French Alps win in Paris at their eve-of-games meeting, giving the project just 5½ years to prepare.

"We know, obviously, that there is little time," Grospiron said. "Not just the time but the budget is tight. But we know we can do it."

Spread-out Winter Games

Likethe Milan Cortina Olympics, the French Alps has a split between snow sports in storied mountain resorts and skating in a snow-free city, the French Riviera resort Nice.

The final plan of venues, now including Alpine ski resort Val d'Isere, will be confirmed in June when the IOC decides the list of sports and events.

Until then, a top official from the hugely successful Paris Olympics, Étienne Thobois, is helping stabilize the French Alps team. The expertise gained at Paris shapes to be key for the next Winter Games.

"That also gives us the chance to go quickly," Grospiron said, "and have this rhythm that is ours and be ready on time."

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

There are around2,900 athletescompeting in 116 events at the 2026 Milano Cortina Winter Olympic Games, with each one hoping to bring home a medal.

The prized gold, silver and bronze medals will go home with only a small portion of the competitors. The distribution of awards at past Olympics provides some insight into which countries and athletes are the most likely to dominate this year.

During the2022 Winter Gamesin Beijing, Norway took home the most medals: 37, including 16 gold. After the Norwegians came the ROC — the banner under which Russian athletes compete — followed by Germany, Canada and the United States.

The U.S. came out on top at themost recent Summer Gamesin Paris in 2024, taking home 126 medals, including 40 gold. It was followed by China, Britain and France.

But which countries have taken home the most medals overall, and which athletes have won most often in Olympic history?

Which countries have the most Olympic medals?

While the International Olympic Committee does not compile rankings, the Olympic Foundation for Culture and Heritage does keep a medal tally. It puts theU.S. at the top, with 3,103 total medals.

The Olympic Foundation for Culture and Heritage, which is described by the Olympics as the "leading international exponent in promoting and disseminating Olympism in the fields of culture, heritage and values-based education," counts one medal per event, regardless of how many athletes may compete in a winning team. The organization does not count medals won in the arts competitions or medals won during demonstration events.

The U.S. is followed in the overall medal count by the Soviet Union, which was disbanded in 1991, with its former republics now competing as independent countries. The Soviet Union earned 1,204 medals. Germany comes in third with 1,091 medals.

Germany's exact medal count is a point of contention because Germany has not always competed in each Olympics as a unified country, which can lead to confusing medal counts. At one point, the Federal Republic of Germany team represented West Germany while the German Democratic Republic team represented East Germany.

While the U.S. leads in the overall medal count, it does not hold the top spot when it comes to Winter Olympics medals. Norway dominates there, with 404 medals earned during the Winter Games.

The U.S., with 330, and Germany, with 286, are next in the Winter Olympics rankings.

Which countries have the most Olympic gold medals?

The U.S. has the most gold medals overall: a total of 1,220, according to the Olympic Foundation. In second place, the Soviet Union racked up 473 gold medals. Germany is third, with 355 gold medals.

Great Britain, France, Italy, China, Sweden and Norway have all won more than 200 gold medals apiece, according to the Olympic Foundation.

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The Winter Olympics specific rankings see Norway on top, with 148 gold medals, followed by the U.S. and Germany, with 114 and 113 gold medals, respectively.

At the 2026 Games, Norway set a new record for the mostgold medals at a single Winter Olympics, with 17, topping the 16 it won four years earlier.

Which athletes have the most Olympic medals overall?

American swimmerMichael Phelpsis handily the Olympic athlete with the most medals. Phelps, who first appeared in the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games, has 23 gold medals, three silver and two bronze, won across five games.

Former Soviet gymnastLarisa Latyninais the most successful female Olympian, with 18 Olympic medals: nine gold, five silver and four bronze.

Norwegian skier Marit Bjørgen became the most decorated winter Olympian in 2018, with 15 medals, including eight gold.

Ole Einar Bjørndalen, also a Norwegian skier, holds the most medals for a male winter Olympian, with 14.

Speed skater Apolo Anton Ohno, who has earned eight medals across three Winter Olympics, holds the top spot for U.S. winter Olympians.

Which athletes have the most Olympic gold medals?

Phelps is not only the athlete with the most decorated Olympian; he's also the athlete with the most Olympic golds, earning 23 gold medals across five games. And Latynina, in addition to being the winningest female Olympian overall, also holds the record for most golds by a female athlete at the Olympics. She competed in three games, starting in 1956 in Melbourne.

Norwegian skier Johannes Hoesflot Klaebo holds the record for the most Winter Olympic gold medals after winningthe 11th gold of his careerat the Milan-Cortina Games. He's won 13 medals overall.

Skiers Bjørgen and Bjørndalen, with eight gold medals apiece, are tied with Bjørn Dæhlie, another Norwegian skier, for second place in the gold medal count.

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COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) — Pakistan captain Salman Ali Agha won the toss and chose to bat first against New Zealand in the first match of the Super 8s at theT20 World Cupon Saturday.

New Zealand Pakistan T20 WCup Cricket

But the start of the Group 2 game at R. Premadasa Stadium was delayed by rain.

Pakistan has called up Fakhar Zaman, who did not play in the team's last group-stage match against Namibia, in place of Khawaja Nafay. New Zealand has brought back regular captain Mitchell Santner, Ish Sodhi and Lockie Ferguson.

Both teams came second in their respective groups in the preliminary round and are grouped with Sri Lanka and England in Group 2.

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Pakistan: Salman Ali Agha (captain), Sahibzada Farhan, Saim Ayub, Babar Azam, Fakhar Zaman, Shadab Khan, Usman Khan Mohammad Nawaz, Faheem Ashraf, Salman Mirza, Usman Tariq.

New Zealand: Mitchell Santner (captain), Tim Seifert, Finn Allen, Rachin Ravindra, Glenn Phillips, Mark Chapman, Daryl Mitchell, James Neesham, Matt Henry, Ish Sodhi, Lockie Ferguson.

AP cricket:https://apnews.com/hub/cricket

SOCORRO, Texas (AP) — In a Texas town at the edge of the Rio Grande and a tall metal border wall, rumors swirled that federalimmigrationofficials wanted to purchase three hulking warehouses totransform into a detention center.

Immigration Detention Georgia

As local officials scrambled to find out what was happening, a deed was filed showing the Department of Homeland Security had already inked a $122.8 million deal for the 826,000-square-foot (76,738-square-meter) warehouses in Socorro, a bedroom community of 40,000 people outside El Paso.

"Nobody from the federal government bothered to pick up the phone or even send us any type of correspondence letting us know what's about to take place," said Rudy Cruz Jr., the mayor of the predominantly Hispanic town of low-slung ranch homes and trailer parks, where orchards and irrigation ditches share the landscape with strip malls, truck stops, recycling plants and distribution warehouses.

Socorro is among at least 20 communities with large warehouses across the U.S. that have become stealth targets for Immigration and Customs Enforcement's $45-billionexpansion of detention centers.

Aspublic supportfor the agency and President Donald Trump's immigration crackdownsags,communities are objecting to mass detentions and raising concerns that the facilities could strain water supplies and other services while reducing local tax revenue. In many cases, mayors, county commissioners, governors and members of Congress learned about ICE's ambitions only after the agency bought or leased space for detainees, leading to shock and frustration even in areas that have backed Trump.

"I just feel," said Cruz, whose wife was born in Mexico, "that they do these things in silence so that they don't get opposition."

Communities scramble for information

ICE, which is part of DHS, has purchased at least seven warehouses in Arizona, Georgia, Maryland, Pennsylvania and Texas, signed deeds show. Other deals have been announced but not yet finalized, though buyers scuttled sales in eight locations.

DHS objected to calling the sites warehouses, stressing in a statement that they would be "very well structured detention facilities meeting our regular detention standards."

The process has been chaotic at times. ICE this past week acknowledged it made a "mistake" when it announced warehouse purchases in Chester, New York, and Roxbury, New Jersey. Roxbury then announced Friday that the sale there had closed.

DHS has confirmed it is looking for more detention space but hasn't disclosed individual sites ahead of acquisitions. Some cities learned that ICE was scouting warehouses through reporters. Others were tipped off by a spreadsheet circulating online among activists whose source is unclear.

It wasn't until Feb. 13 that the scope of the warehouse project was confirmed, when the governor's office in New Hampshire, where there is backlash to a planned 500-bed processing center, released a document from ICE showing the agency plans to spend $38.3 billionto boost detention capacity to 92,000 beds.

Since Trump took office, the number of people detained by ICE has increased to 75,000 from 40,000, spread across more than 225 sites.

ICE could use the warehouses to consolidate and to increase capacity. The document describes a project that includes eight large-scale detention centers, capable of housing 7,000 to 10,000 detainees each, and 16 smaller regional processing centers. The document also refers to the acquisition of 10 existing "turnkey" facilities.

The project is funded throughthe big tax and spending cuts billpassed by Congress last year thatnearly doubled DHS' budget.To build the detention centers, the Trump administration is using military contracts.

Those contracts allow a lot of secrecy and for DHS to move quickly without following the usual processes and safeguards, said Charles Tiefer, a professor emeritus of law at the University of Baltimore Law School.

Socorro facility could be among the largest

In Socorro, the ICE-owned warehouses are so large that 4 1/2 Walmart Supercenters could fit inside, standing in contrast to the remnants of the austere Spanish colonial and mission architecture that defines the town.

At a recent City Council meeting, public comments stretched for hours. "I think a lot of innocent people are getting caught up in their dragnet," said Jorge Mendoza, an El Paso County retiree whose grandparents immigrated from Mexico.

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Many speakers invoked concerns aboutthree recent deathsat an ICE detention facility at the nearby Fort Bliss Army base.

Communities fear a financial hit

Even communities that backed Trump in 2024 have been caught off guard by ICE's plans and have raised concerns.

In rural Pennsylvania's Berks County, commissioner Christian Leinbach called the district attorney, the sheriff, the jail warden and the county's head of emergency services when he first heard ICE might buy a warehouse in Upper Bern Township, 3 miles (4.8 kilometers) from his home.

No one knew anything.

A few days later, a local official in charge of land records informed him that ICE had bought the building —promotedby developers as a "state-of-the art logistics center" — for $87.4 million.

"There was absolutely no warning," Leinbach said during a meeting in which he raised concerns that turning the warehouse into a federal facility means a loss of more than $800,000 in local tax dollars.

ICE has touted the income taxes its workers would pay, though the facilities themselves will be exempt from property taxes.

A Georgia detention center could house twice the population of the city where it's located

In Social Circle, Georgia, which also strongly supported Trump in 2024, officials were stunned by ICE's plans for a facility that could hold 7,500 to 10,000 people after first learning about it through a reporter.

The city, which has a population of just 5,000 and worries about the infrastructure needs for such a detention center, only heard from DHS after the $128.6 million sale of a 1 million-square-foot (92,900-square-meter) warehouse was completed. Like Socorro and Berks County, Social Circle questioned whether the water and sewage system could keep up.

ICE has said it did due diligence to ensure the sites don't overwhelm city utilities. But Social Circle said the agency's analysis relied on a yet-to-be built sewer treatment plant.

"To be clear, the City has repeatedly communicated that it does not have the capacity or resources to accommodate this demand, and no proposal presented to date has demonstrated otherwise," the city said ina statement.

And in the Phoenix suburb of Surprise, officials sent a scathing letter to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem after ICE without warning bought a massive warehouse in a residential area about a mile from a high school. Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes, a Democrat, raised the prospect of going to court to have the site declared a public nuisance.

Crowds wait to speak in Socorro

Back in Socorro, people waiting to speak against the ICE facility spilled out of the City Council chambers, some standing beside murals paying tribute to the World War II-era Braceros Program that allowed Mexican farmworkers to be guest workers in the U.S. The program stoked Socorro's economy and population before President Dwight D. Eisenhower's administrationin the 1950sbegan mass deportations aimed at people who had crossed the border illegally.

Eduardo Castillo, formerly an attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice, told city officials it is intimidating but "not impossible" to challenge the federal government.

"If you don't at least try," he said, "you will end up with another inhumane detention facility built in your jurisdiction and under your watch."

Hollingsworth reported from Kansas City, Missouri. Holly Ramer in Concord, New Hampshire, and Marc Levy in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, also contributed.