NPR News: 02-18-2026 4AM EST
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Live from NPR News, I'm Giles Snyder. At the Winter Olympics, the women's alpine skiing slalom event gets underway this hour, and one of America's greatest skiers is hoping to end a metal drought. Steve Futterman reports from Milan.
Before the Olympics began, Michaela Schifrin talked about having so much attention focused on her.
Pressure can exist, but pressure is a privilege, and I'm grateful for that.
So far, she has competed in three events. Her best finish was the team combined, where she just missed a medal, finishing fourth. Her final event is the slalom. It's her best event. At the 2014 Olympics, she won gold in the slalom. Schifrin has a career total of two golds and one silver. But since 2018, she has been shut out. There were no medals four years ago in Beijing. Today, she hopes to finish in the top three. For NPR News, I'm Steve Futterman in Milan.
In Northern California, nine backcountry skiers remain missing following an avalanche in the Sierra Nevada. But authorities say six survivors have been rescued. The Nevada County Sheriff's Office says two have been sent to a hospital for treatment. Calls are growing for Casey Wasserman to step down as head of the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics organizing committee after his name appeared in the Justice Department's release of the Jeffrey Epstein files. West Hollywood City Council member Chelsea Byer spoke to reporters at a gathering of local officials and activists.
We should all care deeply that our own Olympic Games here in Los Angeles would risk the distraction, at the very least, of Wasserman's mired history, competing for airtime over what that stage is truly meant for.
The Justice Department's Epstein files included email exchanges from 2003 between Wasserman and Glenn Maxwell, Epstein's former girlfriend. Wasserman has not been accused of Any wrongdoing in the Olympic Committee, the LA-28 Olympic Committee, backed him as chairman last week. A federal judge in Fort Worth declared a mistrial in the case of nine people charged in a non-fatal shooting outside an ICE detention center last year. Penelope Rivera of member station KERA reports an attorney's shirt displayed with a judge called a politically charged message.
The defense attorney wore a t-shirt featuring historic American civil rights leaders. It appeared to be in honor of Jesse Jackson, who died Tuesday morning. The judge said the shirt was inappropriate, abruptly stopping jury selection and announcing a mistrial. Amber Lowry, whose sister is one of the defendants, said it was frustrating for the defendants' loved ones.
We've got our support people over here. Everybody's worked really hard to make this happen. So it is disappointing in that regard to just have him say, oh, I don't like your shirt, so we're going to start over again next week. It's very frustrating.
Both sides will return to pick from a new jury pool Monday, and the defense lawyer could face sanctions. For NPR News, I'm Penelope Rivera in Fort Worth.
This is NPR. Investigators in the Nancy Guthrie disappearance have encountered a setback. A Pima County Sheriff's Department and the FBI says DNA on a glove found near Guthrie's Arizona home did not match anyone already known to police. The glove was found discarded about two miles from Guthrie's home. It resembled a pair worn by an armed man in a ski mask seen on video footage, apparently trying to disable her doorbell camera. The 84-year-old mother of Today's Show anchor Savannah Guthrie was reported missing on February 1st. Indonesia says it is preparing to deploy peacekeeping troops to Gaza as part of President Trump's Board of Peace. NPR's Katerina Barton reports that Indonesia is so far the only country to publicly commit peacekeepers to the initiative.
Indonesia's military says it is offering up to 8,000 peacekeeping troops to support Trump's ceasefire plans in Gaza. And 1,000 among them could enter the war-torn area as soon as early April. The Indonesian president, Praboyo Subianto, is in Washington this week. He's expected to meet with Trump at the inaugural Board of Peace summit on Thursday.
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