SCHLADMING, Austria (AP) — Henrik Kristoffersen ended his wait of nearly 11 months for another World Cup win on Wednesday, triumphing in the last slalom before the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics.
Racing under the floodlights, Kristoffersen beat his Norwegian teammate and first-run leader Atle Lie McGrath by 0.34 seconds with an all-attacking, wild final run.
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Norway's Henrik Kristoffersen, center, winner of an alpine ski, men's World Cup slalom, celebrates on the podium with second-placed Norway's Atle Lie McGrath, left, and third-placed France's Clement Noel, in Schladming, Austria, Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Marco Trovati)
Norway's Henrik Kristoffersen, center, winner of an alpine ski, men's World Cup slalom, celebrates on the podium with second-placed Norway's Atle Lie McGrath, left, and third-placed France's Clement Noel, in Schladming, Austria, Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Marco Trovati)
Norway's Atle Lie McGrath, second-placed in an alpine ski, men's World Cup slalom, back to camera, hugs winner Norway's Henrik Kristoffersen, in Schladming, Austria, Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Marco Trovati)
Norway's Henrik Kristoffersen is overcome by emotion as eh celebrates at the finish area of an alpine ski, men's World Cup slalom, in Schladming, Austria, Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Marco Trovati)
Norway's Henrik Kristoffersen competes in an alpine ski, men's World Cup slalom, in Schladming, Austria, Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Marco Trovati)
Norway's Henrik Kristoffersen celebrates at the finish area of an alpine ski, men's World Cup slalom, in Schladming, Austria, Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Marco Trovati)
His 34th career victory could have hardly come in a more fitting place, as Kristoffersen lives in Salzburg, an hour-long drive from Schladming, where he also earned his first career win in January 2014.
“It’s a little bit of an emotional rollercoaster. I don’t cry a lot, and I never cry for pain or sadness, but today I cry for joy,” Kristoffersen said in a tearful course-side interview.
He hadn't triumphed since winning back-to-back races in one weekend in Slovenia in early March.
Kristoffersen won the traditional night race for a record fifth time, moving him one past Austrian standout Benjamin Raich, the two-time gold medalist from the 2006 Olympics who won the event four times between 1999 and 2007.
“Fifth time Schladming, I guess this is my house,” Kristoffersen said.
The victory also moved him within two wins of Norwegian record holder Aksel Lund Svindal, who took 36 career World Cups before retiring in 2019.
Defending Olympic champion Clément Noël posted the fastest second-run time and the Frenchman improved from eighth to third position, trailing Kristoffersen by 0.54 seconds.
The rest of the field, led by Lucas Pinheiro Braathen in fourth, was more than 1.5 seconds off the pace.
Loic Meillard, who beat Pinheiro Braathen to win a GS on the same hill Tuesday, skied out in the second run of the slalom.
Pinheiro Braathen lost his lead in the slalom season standings. Now on 451 points, he trails his former Norwegian teammate McGrath by a single point.
Kristoffersen, who became the seventh different winner in nine slalom races this season, climbed to fifth with 373 points.
There are two more slaloms scheduled in March.
The last men’s World Cup race before the Olympics is a downhill in Crans-Montana on Sunday.
AP skiing: https://apnews.com/hub/alpine-skiing
Norway's Henrik Kristoffersen, center, winner of an alpine ski, men's World Cup slalom, celebrates on the podium with second-placed Norway's Atle Lie McGrath, left, and third-placed France's Clement Noel, in Schladming, Austria, Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Marco Trovati)
Norway's Atle Lie McGrath, second-placed in an alpine ski, men's World Cup slalom, back to camera, hugs winner Norway's Henrik Kristoffersen, in Schladming, Austria, Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Marco Trovati)
Norway's Henrik Kristoffersen is overcome by emotion as eh celebrates at the finish area of an alpine ski, men's World Cup slalom, in Schladming, Austria, Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Marco Trovati)
Norway's Henrik Kristoffersen competes in an alpine ski, men's World Cup slalom, in Schladming, Austria, Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Marco Trovati)
Norway's Henrik Kristoffersen celebrates at the finish area of an alpine ski, men's World Cup slalom, in Schladming, Austria, Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Marco Trovati)
CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Venezuela's acting President Delcy Rodríguez on Thursday signed a law that will open the nation’s oil sector to privatization, reversing a tenet of the self-proclaimed socialist movement that has ruled the country for more than two decades.
Lawmakers in the country's National Assembly approved the overhaul of the energy industry law earlier in the day, less than a month after the brazen seizure of then-President Nicolás Maduro in a U.S. military attack in Venezuela’s capital.
Acting President Delcy Rodríguez then signed the reform into law before a large group of state oil workers and government supporters.
As the bill was being passed, the Treasury Department officially began to ease sanctions on Venezuelan oil that once crippled the industry, and expanded the ability of U.S. energy companies to operate in the South American nation, the first step in plans outlined by Secretary of State Marco Rubio the day before. The moves by both governments on Thursday are paving the way for yet another radical geopolitical and economic shift in Venezuela.
“We’re talking about the future. We are talking about the country that we are going to give to our children," Rodríguez said.
Rodríguez proposed the changes in the days after U.S. President Donald Trump said his administration would take control of Venezuela’s oil exports and revitalize the ailing industry by luring foreign investment.
The legislation promises to give private companies control over the production and sale of oil and allow for independent arbitration of disputes.
Rodríguez’s government expects the changes to serve as assurances for major U.S. oil companies that have so far hesitated about returning to the volatile country. Some of those companies lost investments when the ruling party enacted the existing law two decades ago to favor Venezuela’s state-run oil company, Petróleos de Venezuela SA, or PDVSA.
The revised law would modify extraction taxes, setting a royalty cap rate of 30% and allowing the executive branch to set percentages for every project based on capital investment needs, competitiveness and other factors.
It also removes the mandate for disputes to be settled only in Venezuelan courts, which are controlled by the ruling party. Foreign investors have long viewed the involvement of independent courts as crucial to guard against future expropriation.
Ruling-party lawmaker Orlando Camacho, head of the assembly’s oil committee, said the reform “will change the country’s economy.”
Meanwhile, opposition lawmaker Antonio Ecarri urged the assembly to add transparency and accountability provisions to the law, including the creation of a website to make funding and other information public. He noted that the current lack of oversight has led to systemic corruption and argued that these provisions can also be considered judicial guarantees.
Those guarantees are among the key changes foreign investors are looking for as they weigh entering the Venezuelan market.
“Let the light shine on in the oil industry,” Ecarri said.
Oil workers dressed in red jumpsuits and hard hats celebrated the bill’s approval, waving a Venezuelan flag inside the legislative palace and then joining lawmakers in a demonstration with ruling-party supporters.
The law was last altered two decades ago as Maduro’s mentor and predecessor, the late Hugo Chávez, made heavy state control over the oil industry a pillar of his socialist-inspired revolution.
In the early years of his tenure, a massive windfall in petrodollars thanks to record-high global oil prices turned PDVSA into the main source of government revenue and the backbone of Venezuela’s economy.
Chávez’s 2006 changes to the hydrocarbons law required PDVSA to be the principal stakeholder in all major oil projects.
In tearing up the contracts that foreign companies signed in the 1990s, Chávez nationalized huge assets belonging to American and other Western firms that refused to comply, including ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips. They are still waiting to receive billions of dollars in arbitration awards.
From those heady days of lavish state spending, PDVSA’s fortunes turned — along with the country’s — as oil prices dropped and government mismanagement eroded profits and hurt production, first under Chávez, then Maduro.
The nation home to the world’s biggest proven crude reserves underwent a dire economic crisis that drove over 7 million Venezuelans to flee since 2014. Sanctions imposed by successive U.S. administrations further crippled the oil industry.
Follow AP’s coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean at https://apnews.com/hub/latin-america
Venezuela's acting President Delcy Rodriguez flashes a vee hand sign while greeting oil workers and government supporters at the Miraflores Palace during a rally backing an oil reform bill to loosen state control and open the industry to private and foreign investment in Caracas, Venezuela, Thursday, Jan. 29, 2026. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos)
Venezuela's acting President Delcy Rodriguez takes part in a rally holding up a copy of a new law after lawmakers approved legislation opening the nation's oil sector to privatization, at the Miraflores Palace in Caracas, Venezuela, Thursday, Jan. 29, 2026. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos)
Venezuela's acting President Delcy Rodriguez delivers her first state of the union address at the National Assembly in Caracas, Venezuela, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos)
Workers of Venezuela's state-owned PDVSA oil company rally to back an oil reform bill proposed by acting President Delcy Rodriguez to loosen state control and open the industry to private and foreign investment in Caracas, Venezuela, Thursday, Jan. 29, 2026. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos)
Workers of Venezuela's state-owned PDVSA oil company rally to back an oil reform bill proposed by acting President Delcy Rodriguez to loosen state control and open the industry to private and foreign investment in Caracas, Venezuela, Thursday, Jan. 29, 2026. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos)
Workers of Venezuela's state-owned PDVSA oil company rally to back an oil reform bill proposed by acting President Delcy Rodriguez to loosen state control and open the industry to private and foreign investment in Caracas, Venezuela, Thursday, Jan. 29, 2026. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos)
