MILAN (AP) — Ticket prices for the 2026 Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics range from 30 euros ($33) for men’s and women’s hockey preliminary games all the way up to nearly 3,000 euros ($3,300) for the most costly seats at the closing ceremony inside Verona’s Arena, a large Roman amphitheater.
The most expensive sports event is the men's hockey final with prices ranging from 450 to 1,400 euros ($500 to $1,545).
Local organizers announced Thursday that more than 20% of the tickets for the games in February, 2026, are available for under 40 euros ($44) and more than half are priced at under 100 euros ($110).
Anyone interested in attending should register on the official ticketing platform, to enter a draw that will allocate specific time slots for purchasing tickets in the first phase of sales.
Ticket prices for the Winter Paralympics in March, 2026, start at 10 euros ($11) for children under 14 with more than 200,000 tickets — about 90% of the total — available for less than ($40) euros.
It's not necessary to register for a draw for Paralympics tickets, which will go on sale in March, 2025.
Starting in April, 2025, both Olympic and Paralympic tickets will be available to the general public on a first-come, first-served basis, without the need to register in advance.
The 2026 Games will be held across a large swath of northern Italy, with ice sports in Milan, Alpine skiing in Bormio and Cortina, snowboard and freestyle in Livigno, Nordic sports in Val di Fiemme and biathlon in Anterselva.
Questions remain over whether the sliding center in Cortina will be completed in time or if bobsled, luge and skeleton events will be moved to another track in Austria (Igls), Switzerland (St. Moritz) or New York (Lake Placid).
AP Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/winter-olympics
FILE - Workers operate inside the construction site of the Olympic Village at the Porta Romana former railway yard, in Milan, Italy, March 1, 2023. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno, File)
FILE - Switzerland's Priska Nufer speeds down the course during an alpine ski, women's World Cup downhill training, in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy, Jan. 21, 2022. (AP Photo/Alessandro Trovati, File)
WASHINGTON (AP) — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Thursday that he will allow service members to carry personal weapons onto military installations, citing the Second Amendment and recent shootings at bases across the country.
In a video posted to X, Hegseth said he is signing a memo that will direct base commanders to allow requests for troops to carry privately owned firearms “with the presumption that it is necessary for personal protection.”
He said any denial of a service member's request must be explained in detail and in writing.
“Effectively, our bases across the country were gun-free zones,” Hegseth said. “Unless you're training or unless you are a military policeman, you couldn't carry, you couldn't bring your own firearm for your own personal protection onto post.”
Questions about why service members lacked access to weapons have often emerged following shootings on the nation's military bases. Such shootings have ranged from isolated events between service members to mass casualty events, such as the shootings by an Army psychiatrist at Texas’ Ford Hood in 2009 that left 13 people dead.
Hegseth cited some of the events in his video, including a shooting that injured five soldiers at Fort Stewart in Georgia last year. Officials said the shooter, an Army sergeant who worked at the base, used his personal handgun before he was tackled by fellow soldiers and arrested.
“In these instances, minutes are a lifetime,” Hegseth said. “And our service members have the courage and training to make those precious, short minutes count.”
Defense Department policy has prohibited military personnel from carrying personal weapons on base without permission from a senior commander, with strict protocol for how the firearms must be stored.
Typically, military personnel must officially check their guns out of secure storage to go to on-base hunting areas or shooting ranges, then check all firearms back in promptly after their sanctioned use. Military police are often the only armed personnel on base, outside of shooting ranges, hunting areas or in training, where soldiers can wield their service weapons without ammunition.
Tanya Schardt, senior counsel at the Brady gun violence prevention organization, said in a statement that Defense Department leaders and the military’s top brass have opposed relaxing the current policy, which was originally enacted under President George H.W. Bush.
Schardt noted that most active duty service members who die by suicide do so with a weapon they own personally, not one military-issued, and argued that there will “undoubtedly be an increase in gun suicide and other gun violence.”
While fewer American service members died by suicide in 2024, the suicide rates among active duty troops overall still have gradually increased between 2011 and 2024, according to a Pentagon report released Tuesday.
“Our military installations are among the most guarded, protected properties in the world, and they’ve never been ‘gun-free zones,’” Schardt said. “If there is a problem with violent crime on these installations, then the Secretary of Defense has an obligation to alert the American people and describe how he’s working to prevent that crime.”
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth speaks to members of the media during a press briefing at the Pentagon in Washington, Tuesday, March 31, 2026. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
