2026 Milan Cortina Olympics Begin and Graffiti Towers Agreement Clears a Path for Cleanup

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L.A. Times Studios

News, Daily News, Society & Culture, The Times, California

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🗓️ 9 February 2026

⏱️ 6 minutes

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Summary

It's the first day of the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics. Hockey, curling, alpine skiing, luge, and now a new sport: ski mountaineering, also known as "skimo." And another storyline to follow is the return of superstar skier Lindsey Vonn, who was on the sidelines for five years before returning for this year's Olympics. Meanwhile, a $16 billion plan called the Hudson River Tunnel Project is kaput for now after President Trump announced he's withholding its funding. It was seen as one of the biggest infrastructure projects in the country. Also, in Los Angeles, traffic jams don't just happen on the freeways, they're happening in the sky too, with the airspace over Hollywood Burbank Airport being some of the most congested in the country. In business, the graffiti towers, officially known as the Oceanwide Plaza, reached a bankruptcy agreement that may open the path to its sale and cleanup, and the Teamsters of California are calling for the state to ban Waymo cars after one struck a child in Santa Monica. Read more at LATimes.com.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is an L.A. Times Studios podcast.
0:09.0	Hi, I'm Faith Pino from L.A. Times Studios in New York City.
0:13.6	It's the first day of the Milan-Cortina Olympic Games.
0:17.6	And I won't lie. I'm stoked.
0:19.8	I was always more of a winter than summer Olympic gal after all.
0:23.5	I mean, hockey, curling, alpine skiing, luge. And now a completely new sport, ski mountaineering,
0:30.8	also known as schemo, which is basically a mix of speed hiking and skiing with some wardrobe changes in between.
0:39.3	A good ski mountaineer has to be versatile because our race happens up the hill.
0:46.3	You have to be an aerobic machine to be able to run up the mountain with all this gear attached to you.
0:52.3	And you also need to be really precise with your movements to have really fast, efficient
0:58.0	transitions.
0:59.0	And then you also need to be a skilled, aggressive downhill racer to race back down the mountain.
1:06.0	And another storyline I'm following is the return of superstar skier Lindsay Vaughn.
1:11.9	She was on the sidelines for five years before returning for this year's Olympics.
1:16.8	But just a week ago, she ruptured her ACL.
1:19.2	You know, skiing itself, especially downhill alpine skiing, it really relies on our quad
1:25.7	strength, our hip strength, and our neuromuscular control.
1:28.3	So it is possible with an ACL deficient knee.
1:31.3	So Lindsay Vaughn can stabilize her knee by really garnering her quadriceps strength,
1:35.3	so her specifically her eccentric quadriceup strength,
1:38.3	as well as using her hip and her core strength.
1:41.3	And then she can also use a brace externally.
	...

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