NY officials raise rainbow flag at Stonewall in rebuke of Trump administration

NEW YORK (AP) — New York politicians defiantly raised a rainbow flag Thursday at the Stonewall National Monument amid a boisterous, cheering crowd, rebuking the Trump administration for removing the well-known symbol of pride from the LGBTQ+ landmark.

“We did it,” said Manhattan Borough President Brad Hoylman-Sigal after helping raise the flag near an existing American flag in a tiny Greenwich Village park jammed with more than a hundred people. Many onlookers chanted “Raise it Up!”

“If you can’t fly a Pride flag steps from Stonewall monument, at the National monument for LGBTQ liberation, where can you fly it?” asked Hoylman-Sigal, a Democrat who is the first openly gay person elected to his job. “So we put it back.”

Until a few days ago, the flag had flown for several years on a flagpole in the park at the heart of the National Park Service-run site. The park is across the street from the Stonewall Inn, the gay bar where a 1969 police raid sparked an uprising and helped catalyze the modern LGBTQ+ rights movement.

The initial rainbow flag-raising, on a pole brought to the park, was short-lived. Activists, annoyed that the rainbow flag was flying lower on a separate pole, promptly took it down and raised it again on the same pole as the American flag, leaving the two flags on the same rope billowing in the chilly breeze.

Jay W. Walker, one of the activists who helped secure the Pride flag in its eventual spot, said advocates would restore it again if the park service pulls it down.

“We will keep doing this,” he said, adding: “Our community is not going to stand for our park, our flagpole, to be disrespected by the Trump administration.”

The park service has said it's complying with federal guidance on flags, including a Jan. 21 park service memo that largely restricts the agency to displaying those of the United States, the Department of the Interior and POW/MIA recognition, with exceptions that include providing “historical context.”

The Interior Department on Thursday dismissed the flag raising as a “political stunt” and criticized the city’s Democratic leadership.

“Today’s political pageantry shows how utterly incompetent and misaligned the New York City officials are with the problems their city is facing,” the department said in a prepared statement.

Activists who had pressed for the flag display consider its removal a deliberate insult that compounds other recent changes that they find objectionable and ominous, such as eliminating many references to transgender people at the monument.

“The new Trump administration is literally stealing our pride, or attempting to,” Ken Kidd, who aided early efforts to get the flag installed permanently, said in an interview Wednesday. “It is a form of identity theft, where they are truly trying to take away those symbols of what we stand for — those symbols of our history, those symbols of our progress, those symbols of our future.”

The flag's removal also drew complaints from a series of New York's Democratic officials, including Mayor Zohran Mamdani, Gov. Kathy Hochul, U.S. Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand.

A rainbow flag still appears on a city-owned pole just outside the park, and smaller ones wave along its fence, where a local volunteer maintains them.

After Democratic former President Barack Obama created the Stonewall monument in 2016, advocates yearned to see the Pride flag fly daily on federal land. When it finally happened some years later, they saw the display as an acknowledgment of LGBTQ+ people's place and visibility in the nation.

Soon after Trump, a Republican, returned to office last year, he took aim at diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives in the U.S. government and beyond. In one such move, his Defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, renamed a Navy ship that had been named for Harvey Milk, a slain gay rights activist and San Francisco city official who served during the Korean War. The vessel is now named for Chief Petty Officer Oscar V. Peterson, a World War II sailor who received the Medal of Honor.

Trump's administration also has scrutinized interpretive materials at national parks, museums and landmarks and sought to remove or alter descriptions that the government says are “divisive or partisan” or “inappropriately disparage Americans past or living.”

The park service has not answered specific questions about the Stonewall site and the flag policy, including whether any flags were removed from other parks.

People react after protestors raised a rainbow flag on a pole in Christopher Park across the street from the Stonewall Inn, Thursday, Feb. 12, 2026, in New York, a few days after it was removed by the National Park Service to comply with guidance from the Trump administration. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)

People react outside the Stonewall Inn as New York politicians and activists raise a rainbow flag on a pole in Christopher Park across the street, Thursday, Feb. 12, 2026, in New York, a few days after it was removed by the National Park Service to comply with guidance from the Trump administration. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)

New York politicians and activists prepare to raise a rainbow flag on a pole in Christopher Park across the street from the Stonewall Inn, Thursday, Feb. 12, 2026, in New York, a few days after it was removed by the National Park Service to comply with guidance from the Trump administration. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)

People demonstrate after New York politicians and activists raised a rainbow flag on a pole across the street from the Stonewall Inn, Thursday, Feb. 12, 2026, in New York, a few days after it was removed by the National Park Service to comply with guidance from the Trump administration. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)

New York politicians and activists raise a rainbow flag on a pole in Christopher Park across the street from the Stonewall Inn, Thursday, Feb. 12, 2026, in New York, a few days after it was removed by the National Park Service to comply with guidance from the Trump administration. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)

MILAN (AP) — An all-time great comeback and a controversial exclusion were the dominant stories at the Milan Cortina Olympics on Day 6.

And then there's Chloe Kim, the American snowboarder who fell just short in her bid to become the first to win three consecutive Olympic gold medals in her sport.

NHL players on the U.S. and Canada teams also joined the action in their opening men’s hockey games.

For much of last year, it wasn't clear if Federica Brignone of Italy could compete at her home Olympics at all, let alone contend for a medal.

She came away with gold in the women's super-G on Thursday, following a year spent largely in rehab after breaking multiple bones in her leg. She only returned to racing last month.

Brignone shrugged off difficult, foggy conditions to win her fourth career Olympic medal and become, at 35, the oldest female gold medalist in women’s Alpine skiing. Romane Miradoli of France took silver and Cornelia Huetter of Austria got bronze.

Brignone's gold was one of four medals Thursday for Italy as the host nation pulled away in the medal count with 17. Norway and the U.S. have 14 apiece, and Norway leads the way in gold medals with seven.

For Chloe Kim, it was a third medal but not a three-peat. The American snowboarding star won the halfpipe in 2018 and 2022, but 17-year-old Gaon Choi ended her reign.

Kim was in first ahead of the last run but Choi snatched the lead with a score of 90.25. Kim fell on her final attempt to beat it.

Choi, a South Korean who was mentored by Kim, recovered after taking a hard fall on her first run. She is the first non-American to win the gold medal on the women’s side of snowboarding’s premier event since Torah Bright of Australia at the 2010 Vancouver Games.

As the men's skeleton competition got underway, all the attention was on a Ukrainian athlete who wasn't on the track.

Vladyslav Heraskevych was barred from racing after refusing to give up his plan to race in a helmet commemorating athletes who have been killed since Russia invaded his country. The International Olympic Committee said the helmet broke rules against making statements on the field of play.

IOC President Kirsty Coventry turned up at the sliding track in a last-minute bid to change Heraskevych's mind ahead of the opening run of the competition Thursday morning.

Heraskevych, who had been a contender for the medals, refused and was excluded from the Olympics.

Heraskevych said it “looks like discrimination” to bar him from competing. Coventry, who said she'd hoped to find a compromise, was tearful on what she called an “emotional morning.”

Two goals from Brock Nelson put the U.S. on course for a 5-1 win over Latvia in the men's hockey tournament, which is packed with NHL stars for the first time in over a decade.

Connor McDavid had three assists and Jordan Binnington made 26 saves to help Canada beat Czechia 5-0 in the opening game of its Olympic campaign.

The Canadian women responded after their worst-ever Olympic loss by beating Finland 5-0 to end the preliminary round. That sets up a quarterfinal meeting with Germany on Saturday.

The most decorated short-track speedskating Olympian in history has yet another medal.

Arianna Fontana of Italy earned her 13th career medal from six Olympics with silver in the women's 500 meters but missed out on a three-peat in the event she won in 2018 and 2022. Xandra Velzeboer of the Netherlands won and also broke her own world record in the semifinals. There was another Dutch gold minutes later for Jens van ‘t Wout in the men’s 1,000.

In a major upset, Cooper Woods of Australia won freestyle gold in men's moguls by edging Canadian great Mikael Kingsbury — the sport’s most decorated skier — in a tiebreaker.

American Jessie Diggins overcame bruised ribs to take bronze in women's 10-kilometer cross-country skiing. Frida Karlsson won her second gold medal of these Games, leading a 1-2 finish for Sweden.

Italian speedskater Francesca Lollobrigida, whose great aunt was movie star Gina Lollobrigida, won her second gold of the Olympics by a tenth of a second in the women's 5,000.

Alessandro Haemmerle of Austria and Eliot Grondin of Canada repeated as gold and silver medalists, respectively, in men’s snowboardcross.

Germany won the team luge, as it has done at every Olympics since the event was added in 2014.

AP Winter Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics

Arianna Fontana of Italy wins silver during the short track speed skating women's 500m at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Milan, Italy, Thursday, Feb. 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Ashley Landis)

Silver medalist United States' Chloe Kim holds an American flag as she celebrates after the women's snowboarding halfpipe finals at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Livigno, Italy, Thursday, Feb. 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Abbie Parr)

Australia's Cooper Woods competes during the men's freestyle skiing moguls finals at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Livigno, Italy, Thursday, Feb. 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)

Ukrainian skeleton athlete Vladyslav Heraskevych left, holds his crash helmet at the mixed zone of the sliding center at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy, Thursday, Feb. 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)

Italy's Federica Brignone, gold medalist in an alpine ski, women's super-G race, waves to supporters at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy, Thursday, Feb. 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)