Snowboarder Scotty James parlayed a never-before-landed trick combination into his fifth straight X Games title on the halfpipe on Saturday and tied Shaun White with eight overall gold medals at the biggest event this side of the Olympics.
In the final major contest before next month's Milan Cortina Games, the 31-year-old Australian capped off his winning run with two straight backside 1440-degree jumps. That's two tricks spinning with his back facing down the hill to start, one while riding forward, the other riding backward — or “switch.” They are among the toughest on the halfpipe.
James briefly put his hand onto the snow to stay upright after the second jump, but the judges rewarded him anyway. His score of 95 easily beat second-place finisher Haku Shimasaki of Japan.
“I felt I wanted to do something for myself and for halfpipe and to push backside riding as much as I can,” said Scott, who wore his trademark red boxing gloves and celebrated by crowd surfing into the hundreds of fans who watched the action in Aspen, Colorado. “Tonight, I think it always was the plan. I wanted to come out and do the first back-to-back backside 14s, and I'm pumped.”
James is looking like the favorite heading into the Milan Cortina Olympics. Last week, he won the Laax Open in Switzerland — a contest in which defending Olympic champion Ayumu Hirano suffered a nasty fall and broke bones in his face, throwing his status for the Olympic halfpipe contest into limbo.
James has Olympic silver and bronze medals. In a documentary on his life that dropped earlier this Winter, he made no secret that he needs the Olympic gold to round out an otherwise impeccable career.
James has also shown a triple cork — three head-over-heels flips — as part of his repertoire this season, though the back-to-back 1440s was something nobody had seen.
He said he has always admired groundbreakers, such as slopestyler Mark McMorris, 2014 Olympic halfpipe champion Iouri Podladtchikov (the iPod) and White, and wanted to use this latest X Games performance to add something new.
“I get a chip on my shoulder every year, thinking maybe I wouldn't be expected to show up and try again and win again,” he said. “I managed to do that today, and I'm speechless, honestly.”
AP Winter Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics
FILE - Silver medal winner Australia's Scotty James celebrates during the venue award ceremony for the men's halfpipe finals at the 2022 Winter Olympics, Feb. 11, 2022, in Zhangjiakou, China. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco, File)
A massive winter storm continued Sunday morning, dumping sleet, freezing rain and snow across the South and up through New England, bringing frigid temperatures, widespread power outages and treacherous road conditions.
The ice and snowfall were expected to continue through Monday in much of the country, followed by very low temperatures, causing “dangerous travel and infrastructure impacts” to linger for several days, the National Weather Service said.
Heavy snow was forecast from the Ohio Valley to the Northeast, while “catastrophic ice accumulation” threatened from the Lower Mississippi Valley to the Mid-Atlantic and Southeast.
“It is a unique storm in the sense that it is so widespread," weather service meteorologist Allison Santorelli said in a phone interview. "It was affecting areas all the way from New Mexico, Texas, all the way into New England, so we’re talking like a 2,000 mile spread.”
As of Sunday morning, about 213 million people were under some sort of winter weather warning, she said. The number of customers without power was approaching 800,000, according to poweroutage.us, and the number was rising.
Tennessee was hardest hit with more than a quarter of a million customers out, and Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi all had more than 100,000 customers in the dark.
More than 10,000 flights had already been canceled Sunday and another 8,000 have been delayed, according to the flight tracker flightaware.com. The biggest hubs hit so far were in Philadelphia, Washington, Raleigh-Durham in North Carolina, New York and New Jersey.
Even once the ice and snow stop falling, the danger will continue, Santorelli warned.
“Behind the storm it’s just going to get bitterly cold across basically the entirety of the eastern two-thirds of the nation, east of the Rockies," she said. That means the ice and snow won't melt as fast, which could hinder some efforts to restore power and other infrastructure.
President Donald Trump had approved emergency declarations for at least a dozen states by Saturday, with more expected to come. The Federal Emergency Management Agency pre-positioned commodities, staff and search and rescue teams in numerous states, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said.
Nashville and the surrounding area was seeing ice accumulations of half an inch or more, with icicles hanging from power lines and overburdened tree limbs crashing to the ground.
"We typically say that once you start seeing, you know, roughly a half an inch of ice, that’s when you’re going to start seeing the more widespread power outages,” Santorelli said.
In Oxford, Mississippi, police on Sunday morning used social media to tell residents to stay home as the danger of being outside was too great. Local utility crews were also pulled from their jobs during the overnight hours.
“Due to life-threatening conditions, Oxford Utilities has made the difficult decision to pull our crews off the road for the night,” the utility company posted on Facebook early Sunday.
“The situation is currently too dangerous to continue,” it said. “Trees are actively snapping and falling around our linemen while they are in the bucket trucks. We simply cannot clear the lines faster than the limbs are falling.”
Icy roads also made travel dangerous in north Georgia.
“You know it's bad when Waffle Hou Associated Press se is closed!!!” the Cherokee County Sheriff's office posted on Facebook with a photo of a shuttered restaurant. Whether the chain's restaurants are open — known as the Waffle House Index — has become an informal way to gauge the severity of weather disasters across the South. Associated Press
Brumback reported from Atlanta. Walker reported from New York. Kristin Hall and Jonathan Mattise reported from Nashville, and Jeff Martin contributed from Kennesaw, Georgia.
Icicles form on a mailbox on a neighborhood street as a winter storm moves through Nashville, Tenn,, Sunday, Jan,. 25, 2026. (AP Photo/Holly Meyer)
A person pushed a bicycle during a winter storm in Philadelphia, Sunday, Jan. 25, 2026. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
Pedestrians walk and ride their bike as heavy snow falls, Sunday, Jan. 25, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Heather Khalifa)
Icicles form on power lines during a winter storm in Nashville, Tenn,, Sunday, Jan,. 25, 2026. (AP Photo/Kristin Hall)
A person walks across a street during a winter storm in Philadelphia, Sunday, Jan. 25, 2026. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
A plow clears snow in front of the U.S. Capitol, Sunday, Jan. 25, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
A person walks across a street during a winter storm in Philadelphia, Sunday, Jan. 25, 2026. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
Workers with Architect of the Capitol shovel snow near the U.S. Capitol, Sunday, Jan. 25, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
A worker shovels snow during a winter storm in Philadelphia, Sunday, Jan. 25, 2026. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
Two people walk along the National Mall as snow falls, Sunday, Jan. 25, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
