MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — As the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown in Minnesota winds down, Minneapolis will need to decide how to manage makeshift memorial sites for two U.S. citizens killed by federal agents last month.
Piles of flowers, signs and artwork swiftly formed to commemorate the lives of Renee Good and Alex Pretti at the locations where they were fatally shot. The memorials are the site of candlelight vigils and musical performances and draw a regular stream of visitors.
The public grieving spots echo the community-driven memorial to George Floyd, who was murdered in 2020 by a police officer less than one mile (1.61 kilometers) from Good's killing. It took the city more than five years to figure out how to officially memorialize the site of George Floyd Square, and construction is set to begin this year.
Now, the city has two more high-profile memorials to manage.
A memorial for Good sprung up within hours of her Jan. 7 killing on a Minneapolis street.
And before the smell of tear gas used by federal agents had dissipated on the day of Pretti's killing on Jan. 24, Minneapolis protesters were already using branches, police tape and candles to mark the space. Later, people placed crosses, stuffed animals, American flags and images of Pretti.
Minnesota resident Karel Hoffmann said that while she remained outraged with Good and Pretti’s killings, the memorials represented community solidarity.
“This is so unfair, the trauma, for everyone, is too much,” Hoffmann said as she visited Pretti's memorial recently. “We’re all in this together. And I’m really glad they have this here so everybody can come and be together.”
Lynn Elrod, a nurse, visited Pretti’s memorial last month and added her own offering: a plastic evergreen tree with red hearts and portraits of him and Good.
“I printed both of their pictures and put those on there again, just to signify the love that we have for both of them, really, and their contributions to the community and supporting their neighbors,” Elrod said.
The residential street where Good died remains open, but orange traffic cones offer a narrow walkway for those paying their respects, and a small band of volunteers watches over the mound of flowers, artwork and handwritten signs that has amassed between the sidewalk and the street.
Around the Pretti memorial along a commercial district known as “ Eat Street,” traffic lanes have been temporarily shifted and parking is closed off, said Jess Olstad, a spokesperson for the city of Minneapolis.
“The City’s top priority is to give our community space to grieve and heal,” Olstad said. “This both ensures emergency vehicles can get through the area and protects those who gather or visit the memorial.”
Olstad added that the city is “actively working on next steps, including continued community engagement regarding both memorials.”
Ally Peters, a spokesperson for Mayor Jacob Frey, said last week that it was “too early” to comment on whether the memorials would be made permanent.
Brook is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.
People gather around a memorial site for Alex Pretti on Saturday, Jan. 31, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
People visit a makeshift memorial for 37-year-old Alex Pretti, who was fatally shot by a U.S. Border Patrol officer last week, on Saturday, Jan. 31, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Ryan Murphy)
A view of George Floyd Square in Minneapolis, Saturday, Jan. 31, 2026. (AP Photo/Ryan Murphy)
MILAN (AP) — Ilia Malinin wound his way through the tunnels beneath the Milano Ice Skating Arena on Friday night, trying in vain to explain — or even just understand — exactly what went wrong in an Olympic free skate that could only be described as a disaster.
Out in the arena, Mikhail Shaidorov was taking a victory lap wearing the gold medal everyone expected the American to win.
And playing over the loudspeakers: Coldplay’s song “Viva La Vida,” and the lyrics that begin, “I used to rule the world ...”
In one of the biggest upsets in figure skating history, Malinin fell twice and made several other glaring mistakes, sending the “Quad God” tumbling all the way off the podium and leaving a star-studded crowd in stunned silence. And that cleared the way for Shaidorov, the mercurial but talented jumping dynamo from Kazakhstan, to claim the first gold medal for his nation at these Winter Games.
“Honestly, I still haven't been able to process what just happened,” Malinin said. "I mean, going into this competition, I felt really good this whole day. Feeling really solid. I just thought that all I needed to do was trust the process that I’ve always been doing.
“But it’s not like any other competition. It’s the Olympics,” he added, “and I think people (don’t) realize the pressure and the nerves that actually happen from the inside. So it was really just something that overwhelmed me and I just felt like just I had no control.”
Out of control is a good way to summarize the performance.
The 21-year-old Shaidorov finished with a career-best 291.58 points, while Yuma Kagiyama earned his second consecutive Olympic silver medal and Japanese teammate Shun Sato took bronze.
Then there was Malinin, also 21, who dropped all the way to eighth. The two-time world champion finished with 264.49 points, his worst total score in nearly four years, and one that ended a two-plus year unbeaten streak covering 14 full competitions.
“Honestly, yeah, I was not expecting that,” Malinin said. “I felt going into this competition I was so ready. I just felt ready going on that ice. I think maybe that might have been the reason, is I was too confident it was going to go well.”
Much of Malinin' journey during the Milan Cortina Games had felt a little bit off.
He was beaten by Kagiyama in the short program of the team event, later acknowledging for the first time the pressure of winning at the Olympics was starting to get to him. And he still wasn’t quite his dominant self in the team free skate, even though a head-to-head win over Sato was enough to clinch the second consecutive gold medal for the American squad.
But by the time of his individual short program Tuesday night, Malinin’s fearless swagger and unrivaled spunk seemed to be back. He took a five-point lead over Kagiyama and Adam Siao Him Fa of France that seemed insurmountable going into Friday night.
“Going into the competition,” Malinin said, “I felt like this is what I wanted to do, this is what we planned, this is what I practiced, and really just needed to go out there and do what I always do. That did not happen, and I don’t know why. ”
Malinin had decided to practice early in the day at U.S. Figure Skating’s alternate training base in Bergamo, just outside of Milan, and that gave him a brief reprieve from the pressure of the Olympic bubble. And he was the essence of calm throughout his warmup, never once falling in all of his practice jumps while wearing his familiar glittering black-and-gold ensemble.
Then came the performance that might well haunt Malinin for the rest of his career.
As the atmospheric music with his own voice-over began, he opened with a quad flip, one of a record-tying seven quads in his planned program. Then he appeared to be going after the quad axel that only he has ever landed in competition and had to bail out of it.
Malinin recovered to land his quad lutz before his problems really began.
He only doubled a planned quad loop, throwing his timing off. He fell on a quad lutz, preventing him from doing the second half of the quad lutz-triple toe loop combination. And in his final jumping pass, which was supposed to be a high-scoring quad salchow-triple axel combination, Malinin only could muster a double salchow — and he fell on that.
“He never messes up,” Italy's Daniel Grassl said, “so obviously we’re all a little surprised by how it went.”
By the time the music stopped, Malinin was left trying to mask his sorrow for a crowd that included Nathan Chen, the 2022 Olympic champion, along with seven-time Olympic gold medal gymnast Simone Biles, actor Jeff Goldblum and his wife, Emilie.
"I knew that I could not have necessarily a perfect program and still manage to have a good skate. But just really, something felt off," Malinin said, “and I don’t know what it was, specifically. I’m still trying to understand what that was.”
Shaidorov seemed just as shocked as everyone as the realization hit that he had won the gold medal.
He was only in sixth after the short program and an afterthought as the night began. But the world silver medalist, known for high-flying jumps but maddening inconsistency, delivered the performance of his life, landing five quads in a technically flawless program.
“It was my goal,” Shaidorov said simply, when asked about the gold medal. "It’s why I wake up and go to training. That’s it.”
AP Winter Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics
Mikhail Shaidorov of Kazakhstan reacts to his scores after competing during the men's free skate program in figure skating at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Milan, Italy, Friday, Feb. 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Ashley Landis)
Mikhail Shaidorov of Kazakhstan competes during the men's free skate program in figure skating at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Milan, Italy, Friday, Feb. 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)
Ilia Malinin of the United States does a back flip while competing during the men's free skate program in figure skating at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Milan, Italy, Friday, Feb. 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Stephanie Scarbrough)
Ilia Malinin of the United States falls during the men's free skate program in figure skating at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Milan, Italy, Friday, Feb. 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)
Ilia Malinin of the United States competes during the men's free skate program in figure skating at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Milan, Italy, Friday, Feb. 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Ashley Landis)
Ilia Malinin of the United States competes during the men's figure skating short program at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Milan, Italy, Tuesday, Feb. 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Ashley Landis)
Ilia Malinin of the United States competes during the figure skating men's team event at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Milan, Italy, Sunday, Feb. 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Stephanie Scarbrough)
Ilia Malinin of the United States competes during the figure skating men's team event at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Milan, Italy, Saturday, Feb. 7, 2026. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)
Ilia Malinin of the United States competes during the men's figure skating short program at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Milan, Italy, Tuesday, Feb. 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Stephanie Scarbrough)
Ilia Malinin of the United States wobbles while competing during the figure skating men's team event at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Milan, Italy, Sunday, Feb. 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue)
