UR MAG

SYDNEY, Feb 19 (Reuters) - Australian police said on Thursday they had launched an investigation after a threatening letter was sent to the country's largest mosque, the third such incident ‌in the lead-up to the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan.

The letter sent to Lakemba ‌Mosque in Sydney's west on Wednesday contained a drawing of a pig and a threat to kill the "Muslim race", local media ​reported.

Police said they had taken the letter for forensic testing, and would continue to patrol religious sites including the mosque, as well as community events.

The latest letter comes weeks after a similar message was mailed to the mosque, depicting Muslim people inside a mosque on fire.

Police have also arrested and charged a 70-year-old ‌man in connection with a third ⁠threatening letter sent to Lakemba Mosque's staff in January.

The Lebanese Muslim Association, which runs the mosque, told the Australian Broadcasting Corp (ABC) it had written to the ⁠government to request more funding for additional security guards and CCTV cameras.

Some 5,000 people are expected to attend the mosque each night during Ramadan. More than 60% of residents in the suburb of Lakemba identify as ​Muslim, according ​to the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

Bilal El-Hayek, mayor ​of Canterbury-Bankstown council, where Lakemba is located, ‌said the community was feeling "very anxious".

Advertisement

"I've heard first-hand from people saying that they won't be sending their kids to practice this Ramadan because they're very concerned about things that might happen in local mosques," he said.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese condemned the recent string of threats.

"It is outrageous that people just going about commemorating their faith, particularly during the holy month for Muslims of Ramadan, are subject to this ‌sort of intimidation," he told ABC radio.

"I have said repeatedly ​we need to turn down the temperature of political discourse ​in this country, and we certainly need ​to do that."

Anti-Muslim sentiment has been growing in Australia since the war in ‌Gaza War in late 2023, according to ​a recent report commissioned by ​the government.

The Islamophobia Register Australia has also documented a 740% rise in reports following the Bondi mass shooting on December 14, where authorities allege two gunmen inspired by Islamic State ​killed 15 people attending a Jewish ‌holiday celebration.

"There's been a massive increase post-Bondi," Mayor El-Hayek said. "Without a doubt, this is ​the worst I have ever seen it. There's a lot of tension out there."

(Reporting ​by Christine Chen in Sydney; Editing by Lincoln Feast.)

A massive wildfire that started in Oklahoma and pushed into Kansas has grown to more than 442 square miles, according toOklahoma Forestry Services. That makes the Ranger Road Fire amegafirethat's only about 15% contained.

The fire caused widespread evacuations Tuesday and Wednesday, as fierce winds and extremely dry conditions sparked multiple wildfires in both states and Texas.

Oklahoma's Governor declared astate of emergencyin three counties: Beaver, Texas and Woodward counties, as the fires destroyed multiple homes and buildings. Gov. Kevin Stitt said additional counties may be added if the fires spread.

(MORE:Tracking A Potential Nor'easter)

Crews are battling at least three other major fires in the state:

Stevens Fire (Texas County): 12,428 Acres - 50% Contained

Side Road Fire (Texas County): 3,680 Acres - 60% Contained

43 Fire (Woodward County): 1,680 Acres - 30% Contained

(MORE:70+ MPH Winds Cause Deadly Pileup In Colorado)

The Oklahoma Highway Patrol reported a fire truck from Rosston Fire overturned, injuring three firefighters. The Oklahoma Forestry Services reported that another firefighter was injured and taken to a hospital on Tuesday, but it wasn't clear where the incident happened.

Advertisement

Kansas

The Ranger Road Fire crossed into Kansas Tuesday, racing into Englewood and Ashland, said the Kansas Division of Emergency Management.

The Kansas Forest Service also reported at least three other fires, two in Seward County plus the Garden City Fire in Finney County.

(MORE:Where Feet Of Snow Could Fall)

Parts of Interstate 70 were shut down after low visibility and blowing dust caused multiple crashes. The highway was closed in both directions between Colby and Oakley but theKansas Department of Transportationsaid all lanes were reopened Tuesday night.

Texas

Crews are responding to multiple fires in the Texas Panhandle.

The 8 Ball Fire in Armstrong County has scorched at least 9,000 acres and is about 40% contained, according to the Texas A&M Forest Service.

The Lavender Fire has grown to at least 12,000 acres near Valley de Oro, about 18 miles northwest of Amarillo. That fire is about 20% contained.

At least five other fires were 100% contained on Tuesday night.

The fires across the Panhandle shut down multiple roads and caused evacuations Tuesday.

The National Weather Service in Amarillo warned that critical fire weather would return Thursday, even though winds might be slightly lower. They urged residents to be ready to evacuate.

KARACHI, Pakstan (AP) — Agas explosion ripped through an apartment buildingin Pakistan's largest port city of Karachi on Thursday, killing at least 16 people, including women and children, and injuring several others after part of the structure collapsed, police and rescue officials said.

Pakistan Gas Explosion Building

The explosion happened when people were preparing a pre-dawn meal on the first day of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan in a residential area of Karachi, the capital of Sindh province, local police chief Rizwan Patel said. Rescuers were still removing rubble to search for any survivors trapped under the debris, he added.

The death toll was initially reported at 13 but Patel said it rose to 16 after three more bodies were pulled out from the rubble.

Advertisement

Pakistan's President Asif Ali Zardari expressed sorrow and condolences to the victims' families and directed authorities to ensure the best possible treatment for the injured. He also called for a swift completion of rescue operations and urged the Sindh provincial government to enforce building codes, check gas cylinder safety and conduct a thorough inquiry to help prevent similar incidents.

Most houses and apartment buildings in Karachi, like elsewhere in Pakistan, are supplied with natural gas for cooking. However, many households also rely on liquefied petroleum gas cylinders because of low natural gas pressure.

In July, agas explosion following a wedding receptionat a home in Pakistan's capital, Islamabad, killed eight people, including the bride and groom. The blast occurred as guests had gathered to celebrate the couple, authorities said.

MILAN –Vera Wangis best known as an iconic fashion designer. But she's at the2026 Winter Olympicsbecause of her love of something else.

Almost 60 years ago, Wang was at the height of her figure skating career, competing at the 1968 U.S. Figure Skating Championships in junior pairs with partner James Stuart, according to U.S. Figure Skating.

More:Vera Wang predicts US women's figure skating results, hopes Blade Angels skate free

Wang's fashion career began after she let go of her dream of competing in the Olympics, although she has not let go of figure skating.

"That probably is the love of my life, even more than fashion," Wang, who is in her mid-70s, told Brian Boitano of figure skating on the Milan Magic podcast. "I don't get to say that often, but that's the truth."

As a designer, Wang has worked with Olympic gold medalists such as Michelle Kwan, Madison Chock, Nathan Chen and Evan Lysacek.  She speaks with passion not only about the outfits she designed, but also her days as a competitive skater.

Not all of those days were as elegant as her fashion designs, according to Wang.

She shared a recollection of an incident she said took place at the Philadelphia Spectrum when she was practicing for a pairs competition and her partner dropped her onto the rink ice.

"We were going for a kick, cartwheel lift," Wang said. "I was in the air…at about 25 mph, and he tripped going forward. I fell, flew across the ice and landed on my left side, kicked my blade into my rear."

Wang said she was bleeding and blacked out before seeing coaches come on to the ice to get her.

Vera Wang watches figure skating at the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan

Heart beating as judges watched

Wang also shared memories of her experience with compulsory figures — the figure eights and circles skaters must trace over during competitions.

Under the scrunitizing eyes of judges.

Advertisement

"On the ice, right around you, and watch you tracing figures on a blade this thin. And you had to create these beautiful shapes on the ice."

Circles. Loops. Counters.

"And you have to go and tiptoe to the center to where you would start your figures," Wang said.

She recalled her heart beating and feeling like she was in a court of law as she was scrutinized by the judges.

She recalled holding up under the glare. For her compulsories, Wang said, she'd won gold medals.

'Wisp of an ice ballerina'

Wang suggested no one alive knows about her skating career because her coaches have passed away. But some of her feats have been documented.

On March 3, 1962, the New York Times published a story that opened as follows:

"Vera Wang, a 12-year-old wisp of an ice ballerina, won the junior ladies singles title in the Middle Atlantic figure skating championships last night. The tiny youngster, whose daily routine includes an hour and fifteen minutes of skating practice before school, triumphed over eleven rivals at the Iceland rink atop Madison Square Garden."

The story also noted Wang was born in New York, the daughter of parents who immigrated from China after World War II. And that she wore a big smile after assuming the lead at those Middle Atlantic figure skating championships in the compulsory school figures.

She and Stuart competed twice at the U.S. Championships, for the final time in Philadelphia in 1968.

"I'm not an Olympian, by I tried to be," Wang said as her interview on the Milan Magic podcast came to a close. "My closing sentence is that I never made it, but my clothes did."

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY:Vera Wang faced figure skating judges before fashion critics

CORTINA D'AMPEZZO, Italy (AP) — Jadin O'Brien thought she was being scammed.

Milan Cortina Olympics Bobsled

TheMilan Cortina Olympics— and the sport ofbobsled, for that matter — were not anywhere near O'Brien's radar a couple years ago, when the Notre Dame track and field star saw that someone sent her a direct message on Instagram. The message was ignored.

Several months later, the same person slid into O'Brien's DMs again. "We would love to have you tryout for bobsled!!!" That was the entirety of the message.

O'Brien, finally, was intrigued. She replied and asked for information. A month and a half later, in mid-August of last year, she drove 12 1/2 hours from Notre Dame to Lake Placid, New York, to see what bobsled was all about.

And now, she's an Olympian.

It is a story perhaps like none other in these Olympics: A rookie, who has raced only twice in her career, is going to compete on the sport's biggest stage with a very real chance of finding her way to the Olympic medal stand. O'Brien will push forOlympic monobob gold medalistElana Meyers Taylor — the person who sent those DMs — on Friday and Saturday in the two-woman competition at Cortina.

"It has really been a roller-coaster of events," O'Brien said. "Everything's happened so fast, but ... I've kind of been conditioned to be able to handle new things very, very fast and then perform despite a lack of experience. So, it has been a whirlwind. I could never have predicted my life would turn out this way, but I'm incredibly grateful and I've loved every second of it."

The Olympics have been on her wish list for a while.

The Winter Olympics, not so much.

How she got here

The 23-year-old O'Brien was a star at Notre Dame — the 2023, 2024 and 2025 national champion in the indoor pentathlon, a five-time All-Atlantic Coast Conference first team pick, a 10-time All-American and a winner of at least a half-dozen All-Academic honors along the way. She was 12th in the Olympic heptathlon trials for the Tokyo Games in 2021 and seventh in the trials for the Paris Games in 2024.

Last summer, she was fifth at the U.S. championships. Two days later, she started training for bobsled. She wound up making that drive to Lake Placid, hit the push track and was pushing with — and in some cases, better than — the team's best in less than two weeks.

A star was born.

"It was insane," Meyers Taylor said. "Not to get too patriotic or whatever, but I think bobsled is one of those traditionally American stories, American dream kind of stories because you can come from nowhere and come in and make an Olympic team. You could come from whatever background and have an opportunity to live your Olympic moment. That's not true in a lot of sports."

Oh, O'Brien has a story. It was not always a fairytale. Far from it, actually.

Around the age of 5, the entire demeanor of a bubbly little girl — whose mother, a track coach, would set up makeshift hurdles in the basement of their Wisconsin home and watch Jadin leap over them with ease, clearly suggesting she had serious track potential — changed. And nobody knew why.

She couldn't run. She couldn't smile. She didn't want to be around other kids. Anxiety took over, her mind often drifted to the darkest possible places such as her own death or the deaths of those around her. Her family, devout believers in their Catholic faith, even enlisted the help of an exorcist from their Archdiocese. It took years to figure out the cause.

In time, she was diagnosed with Pediatric Autoimmune Neuropsychiatric Disorders Associated with Streptococcal Infections — a rare syndrome known as PANDAS. When she was 10, life started to get normal again.

"My story, with everything I've gone through, is one of resilience," O'Brien said. "I know I have the drive and the willpower to do some amazing things, and I try to glorify God while doing it."

There's been a lot of winning over O'Brien's life. But overcoming PANDAS doesn't mean the road has been easy. Her college career was marred by a series of injuries and challenges — badly torn quadricep muscles, hamstring issues, a stress fracture in her leg, a sprained hand (which isn't ideal for someone who needs to throw a shot put in competition), even food poisoning on the eve of an NCAA championship meet.

Advertisement

And then, last month in St. Moritz, Switzerland, her bobsled career took its first very bad turn.

A bad crash nearly changes everything

O'Brien's first crash came in January, during a training run in St. Moritz. She and Meyers Taylor were a few days away from their World Cup race when their sled toppled. All bobsled crashes are severe, on some level.

This one was worse than most.

The front axle came off the sled, all control was lost and Meyers Taylor and O'Brien were being thrown around like crash test dummies. O'Brien remembers not being able to move for a few moments, wondering if she was critically injured. Her season — her Olympic shot — could have ended right there.

They raced four days later.

O'Brien isn't sure how; her back was still extremely sore, and the back is sort of important for a bobsled push athlete.

"It was not easy getting back on the line to race in St. Moritz after that," O'Brien said. "We were both very, very beat up. I decided to put my body on the line for E because I felt that I had the best chance of getting her a top-10 finish. And I said, 'You know what? Regardless of this helps or hurts me when it comes to Olympic decision-making, who's on the team, I'm not going to let a regret linger in my mind.' And so, I chose to compete."

A week later, the U.S. selection committee met to decide who would race in Cortina. The pilots — Meyers Taylor, Kaillie Humphries Armbruster and Kaysha Love — were all Olympic locks. A pair of push athletes — Jasmine Jones (who'll race with Humphries Armbruster) and Azaria Hill (who'll race with Love) — were pretty much considered to be locks as well. That left three women for one push spot, and O'Brien got the nod.

"I had no idea that I was going to be named to the team. I really didn't," O'Brien said. "And I remember sitting there and just praying, 'Lord, if this is your will, please let it happen.'"

Inside a conference room at an airport hotel in Munich, U.S. bobsled coach Chris Fogt announced the pairings. Humphries Armbruster and Jones were the first duo he revealed. Hill and Love were next. And then he said, "Elana and Jadin."

"My mouth, like, dropped," O'Brien said.

The track star with the U.S. flag on the wall of her apartment in South Bend, Indiana — someone who spent years dreaming of a Summer Games medal — was headed to the Winter Olympics.

The future

Whatever happens this weekend — a medal is absolutely within O'Brien's reach, especially with Meyers Taylorcoming off the monobob gold— the track star expects to go back to track, at some point.

She plans to continue in bobsled as well.

It's amazing how much things have changed for O'Brien in the span of about six months. From answering that DM from Meyers Taylor, to making the Olympic team, to watching her pilot win gold and now getting the chance to compete, it has truly been a whirlwind she never saw coming.

And now, she hopes, it's time to win.

"We have a job to do and so I think once the job is done, once we accomplish what we came here to do, then it'll sink in," O'Brien said. "I'm very much an advocate for not getting carried away with excitement and staying level. Once we finish our job, then I think it'll hit way more than it is now."

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