MILAN (AP) — Bernat Armangue is based in Madrid and has worked for The Associated Press for 20 years, covering news and sports across Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. Here’s what he had to say about this extraordinary photo.
When the Olympic flame lights up the cauldron, the Games are said to begin. Athletes will compete for days in their arenas, yet the competition began years earlier when they chose to challenge themselves. And it does not end when the cauldron flame dies out, since life goes on and brings with it new challenges.
Fire is hypnotic. You can stare at it, trying to read its movements, only for it to surprise you again and again. Perhaps that is why we cannot look away.
From a technical point of view, there is no mystery: a slow shutter speed to give a sense of movement; a camera mounted on a static head to avoid unnecessary motion from a shaking human hand; a closed aperture to increase depth of field. The shot was taken with a remote, because we often need to shoot multiple images from multiple cameras at the same time.
Perhaps for the same reason that, on a cold Friday evening, Milan residents and visitors gathered patiently at Arco della Pace to welcome the Olympic flame as it reached its destination.
Because we seek understanding; because we do not know if it will be the last time; because maybe one day we will share our knowledge and our challenges with future generations. Maybe our memories, like the Olympic flame, will travel through time and across continents.
AP Winter Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics
Italian former skier Deborah Compagnoni and Italian former skier Alberto Tomba light the cauldron at the Arco della Pace during the Olympic opening ceremony at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Milan, Italy, Friday, Feb. 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue)
BOGUE CHITTO, Miss. (AP) — Powerful storms that included at least three tornadoes tore through several Mississippi counties, damaging around 500 homes, uprooting trees and injuring at least 17 people, authorities said Thursday.
There were no immediate reports of deaths after storms cut across the state's southwest on Wednesday night, said Scott Simmons, a spokesperson for the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency.
He said 12 of those hurt were transported from a hard-hit trailer park in the small community of Bogue Chitto, about an hour's drive south of the state capital in rural Lincoln County.
Most of the two dozen homes at Gene’s Mobile Home Supply were flattened into heaps of splintered boards and twisted metal. People picked through the debris Thursday morning under cloudy skies as a chainsaw buzzed in the background.
“I was just watching TikTok on my bed and thought it was thunder. I went to my living room. I went back to my room, and the room’s gone,” resident Max Mahaffey told WAPT-TV.
He said he wasn't injured, but his grandmother hurt her ankle and some of his neighbors suffered cuts and bruises.
One intact trailer lay flipped on its roof near the tree line. Several cars, some with hazard lights blinking, appeared to have been picked up by the storm.
“We know there were at least three tornadoes,” said Daniel Lamb, a meteorologist in the National Weather Service office in Jackson.
“The same storm produced at least two tornadoes from Franklin, Lincoln into Lawrence counties, and then there was another one from Lamar possibly into Forest County.”
He said there may have been more. “Those are just the ones that we are able to confirm by radar before even having gone down there.”
“Pray for Mississippi,” Gov. Tate Reeves posted online, saying the state Emergency Management Agency was coordinating response efforts.
Many roads were still blocked in Lincoln County and teams from the agency were assessing the damage.
“We ask that you please refrain from sightseeing as crews are working,” the department posted early Thursday.
The governor said a volunteer rescue group was providing a 50-person shelter pod, a high-powered generator and 10 pallets of supplies to the county, which reported at least 200 damaged homes.
Lamar County to the southeast reported about 275 homes damaged, according to the state emergency management agency. Another 10 to 12 homes were damaged in Lawrence County.
More storms were expected Thursday with the possibility of tornadoes across parts of Alabama, Georgia and Florida, the weather service said. Strong storms also were possible for parts of the Carolinas and Texas.
McCormack reported from Concord, New Hampshire.
In this frame grab from video taken by WDAM, damaged trees and a house or structure following a storm that tore through part of Lamar County, Mississippi, Wednesday, May 6, 2026. (WDAM via AP)
