CORTINA D'AMPEZZO, Italy (AP) — Kaillie Humphries Armbruster saw the leaderboard at the midpoint of the two-woman bobsled competition at the Milan Cortina Games, not loving the fact that she's in third place after the first two runs of the event.
That said, she knows nothing is decided.
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United States' Kaysha Love, right, and Azaria Hill react at the finish during a two women bobsled run at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy, Friday, Feb. 20, 2026. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)
Germany's Laura Nolte reacts as she arrives at the finish during a two women bobsled run at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy, Friday, Feb. 20, 2026. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)
Former IOC President Thomas Bach, left, talks to United States' Elana Meyers Taylor at the finish during a two women bobsled run at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy, Friday, Feb. 20, 2026. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)
United States' Kaillie Armbruster Humphries, left, and Jasmine Jones, right, arrive at the finish during a two women bobsled run at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy, Friday, Feb. 20, 2026. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)
United States' Kaillie Armbruster Humphries, left, and Jasmine Jones, right, arrive at the finish during a two women bobsled run at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy, Friday, Feb. 20, 2026. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)
“Anything can happen,” Humphries Armbruster said.
A pair of German sleds and one from the U.S. — the one driven by Humphries Armbruster — have separated themselves a bit from the pack after Friday night's first two heats of the event, with the final, medal-deciding runs coming Saturday night.
Laura Nolte and Deborah Levi have the lead with a two-run time of 1 minute, 53.93 seconds. Lisa Buckwitz and Neele Schuten are second for Germany in 1:54.11, while Humphries Armbruster and Jasmine Jones — the first two-mom sled in U.S. Olympic bobsled history — are third in 1:54.16.
“It's a very, very good feeling for the first night,” Nolte said.
Nolte, the World Cup points champion and reigning world two-woman champion, also led at the midpoint of the women's monobob race as well — then faltered a tiny bit in the fourth and final heat and finished 0.04 seconds behind American veteran Elana Meyers Taylor, who got her first Olympic gold medal.
It's a lesson Nolte remembers well. And the flip side of it rang true on Friday.
Meyers Taylor is 12th after two runs of this race, out of medal contention after she and Olympic rookie Jadin O'Brien went into a big skid at the very top of the track in their second heat. They kept bleeding time the whole way down, finishing 1.2 seconds — a massive margin in sliding — off the lead.
“Sometimes, that's just how it goes,” O'Brien, a three-time NCAA track champion at Notre Dame with eyes on the Los Angeles Games in 2028, said after her Olympic debut. “You're sliding on ice.”
Indeed, ice is slippery.
And even someone like Meyers Taylor, one of the best drivers the sport has seen, can make a little mistake that turns into a big problem.
“That's racing. That's sport. And I’ve been blessed to have a lot of really, really good races in my career and a lot, a lot of really good Olympic races and today wasn’t our day," said Meyers Taylor, who had a special fan waiting for her at the finish — former International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach, who gave his former IOC intern a conciliatory hug after that second run. “That was a devastating mistake, but we get to come back out here and put two good runs together tomorrow and fight till the finish.”
Kaysha Love and Azaria Hill of the U.S. are right in the mix as well, sitting fifth — four-tenths of a second out of the bronze-medal spot.
“At the end of the day, I like to think about the controllables, and I can’t control what they can do, but I can control what we can do," Love said. "And that gives me more comfort than hoping and praying that somebody else messes up. We can execute, and drive, and pray that that’s enough.”
It's not lost on Humphries Armbruster and Jones that they're making history, being mothers and sledmates at the same time. Humphries Armbruster has a son a few months away from turning 2, and Jones is the mother of a 5-year-old.
Saturday is medal day, and for that sled, it could also be Mother's Day.
“We're doing everything we can,” Jones said. “We're doing everything humanly possible.”
AP Winter Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics
United States' Kaysha Love, right, and Azaria Hill react at the finish during a two women bobsled run at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy, Friday, Feb. 20, 2026. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)
Germany's Laura Nolte reacts as she arrives at the finish during a two women bobsled run at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy, Friday, Feb. 20, 2026. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)
Former IOC President Thomas Bach, left, talks to United States' Elana Meyers Taylor at the finish during a two women bobsled run at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy, Friday, Feb. 20, 2026. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)
United States' Kaillie Armbruster Humphries, left, and Jasmine Jones, right, arrive at the finish during a two women bobsled run at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy, Friday, Feb. 20, 2026. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)
United States' Kaillie Armbruster Humphries, left, and Jasmine Jones, right, arrive at the finish during a two women bobsled run at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy, Friday, Feb. 20, 2026. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court struck down President Donald Trump's far-reaching global tariffs on Friday, handing him a stinging loss that sparked a furious attack on the court he helped shape.
Trump said he was “absolutely ashamed” of some justices who ruled 6-3 against him, calling them “disloyal to our Constitution" and “lapdogs." At one point he even raised the specter of foreign influence without citing any evidence.
The decision could have ripple effects on economies around the globe after Trump's moves to remake post-World War II trading alliances by wielding tariffs as a weapon.
But an unbowed Trump pledged to impose a new global 10% tariff under a law that's restricted to 150 days and has never been used to apply tariffs before.
“Their decision is incorrect,” he said. “But it doesn’t matter because we have very powerful alternatives.”
The court's ruling found tariffs that Trump imposed under an emergency powers law were unconstitutional, including the sweeping “reciprocal” tariffs he levied on nearly every other country.
Trump appointed three of the justices on the nation’s highest court during his first term, and has scored a series of short-term wins that have allowed him to move ahead with key policies.
Tariffs, though, were the first major piece of Trump's broad agenda to come squarely before the Supreme Court for a final ruling, after lower courts had also sided against the president.
The majority found that it is unconstitutional for the president to unilaterally set and change tariffs because taxation power clearly belongs to Congress. “The Framers did not vest any part of the taxing power in the Executive Branch,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote.
Justices Brett Kavanaugh, Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas dissented.
“The tariffs at issue here may or may not be wise policy. But as a matter of text, history, and precedent, they are clearly lawful,” Kavanaugh wrote. Trump praised his 63-page dissent as “genius.”
The court majority did not address whether businesses could get refunded for the billions they have collectively paid in tariffs. Many companies, including the big-box warehouse chain Costco, have already lined up in lower courts to demand refunds. Kavanaugh noted the process could be complicated.
“The Court says nothing today about whether, and if so how, the Government should go about returning the billions of dollars that it has collected from importers. But that process is likely to be a ‘mess,’ as was acknowledged at oral argument,” he wrote.
The Treasury had collected more than $133 billion from the import taxes the president has imposed under the emergency powers law as of December, federal data shows. The impact over the next decade has been estimated at some $3 trillion.
The tariffs decision doesn’t stop Trump from imposing duties under other laws. Those have more limitations on the speed and severity of Trump’s actions, but the president said they would still allow him to “charge much more” than he had before.
Vice President JD Vance called the high court decision “lawlessness” in a post on X.
Still, the ruling is a “complete and total victory" for the challengers, said Neal Katyal, who argued the case on behalf of a group of small businesses.
“It’s a reaffirmation of our deepest constitutional values and the idea that Congress, not any one man, controls the power to tax the American people,” he said.
It wasn’t immediately clear how the decision restricting Trump’s power to unilaterally set and change tariffs might affect trade deals with other countries.
“We remain in close contact with the U.S. Administration as we seek clarity on the steps they intend to take in response to this ruling,” European Commission spokesman Olof Gill said, adding that the body would keep pushing for lower tariffs.
The Supreme Court ruling comes despite a series of short-term wins on the court’s emergency docket that have allowed Trump to push ahead with extraordinary flexes of executive power on issues ranging from high-profile firings to major federal funding cuts.
The Republican president had long been vocal about the case, calling it one of the most important in U.S. history and saying a ruling against him would be an economic body blow to the country. But legal opposition crossed the political spectrum, including libertarian and pro-business groups that are typically aligned with the GOP. Polling has found tariffs aren't broadly popular with the public, amid wider voter concern about affordability.
While the Constitution gives Congress the power to levy tariffs, the Trump administration argued that a 1977 law allowing the president to regulate importation during emergencies also allows him to set import duties. Other presidents have used the law dozens of times, often to impose sanctions, but Trump was the first president to invoke it for import taxes.
“And the fact that no President has ever found such power in IEEPA is strong evidence that it does not exist,” Roberts wrote, using an acronym for the International Emergency Economic Powers Act.
Trump set what he called "reciprocal" tariffs on most countries in April 2025 to address trade deficits that he declared a national emergency. Those came after he imposed duties on Canada, China and Mexico, ostensibly to address a drug trafficking emergency.
A series of lawsuits followed, including a case from a dozen largely Democratic-leaning states and others from small businesses selling everything from plumbing supplies to educational toys to women’s cycling apparel.
The challengers argued the emergency powers law doesn’t even mention tariffs and Trump's use of it fails several legal tests, including one that doomed then-President Joe Biden's $500 billion student loan forgiveness program.
The three conservative justices in the majority pointed to that principle, which is called the major questions doctrine. It holds that Congress must clearly authorize actions of major economic and political significance.
“There is no exception to the major questions doctrine for emergency statutes,” Roberts wrote. The three liberal justices formed the rest of the majority, but didn't join that part of the opinion.
The Trump administration had argued that tariffs are different because they’re a major part of Trump’s approach to foreign affairs, an area where the courts should not be second-guessing the president.
But Roberts, joined by Justices Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett, brushed that aside, writing that the foreign affairs implications don't change the legal principle.
Small businesses celebrated the ruling, with the National Retail Federation saying it provides “much needed certainty.”
Illinois toy company Learning Resources was among the businesses challenging the tariffs in court. CEO Rick Woldenberg said he expected Trump's threat of new tariffs, but hoped there might be more constraint in the future, both legal and political. “Somebody’s got to pay this bill. Those people that pay the bill are voters,” he said.
Ann Robinson, who owns Scottish Gourmet in Greensboro, North Carolina, said she was “doing a happy dance” when she heard the news.
The 10% baseline tariff on U.K. goods put pressure on Robinson’s business, costing about $30,000 in the fall season. She’s unsure about the Trump administration’s next steps, but said she’s overjoyed for now. “Time to schedule my ‘Say Goodbye to Tariffs' Sale!”
Associated Press writers Mae Anderson and Steve Peoples in New York, Mark Sherman in Washington and David McHugh in Frankfurt contributed to this report.
Follow the AP's coverage of the U.S. Supreme Court at https://apnews.com/hub/us-supreme-court.
President Donald Trump speaks with reporters in the James Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House, Friday, Feb. 20, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
President Donald Trump speaks with reporters in the James Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House, Friday, Feb. 20, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
President Donald Trump speaks during a press briefing at the White House, Friday, Feb. 20, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
FILE - The Supreme Court is seen, Jan. 13, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson, File)
FILE - The Supreme Court is photographed, Feb. 6, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Rahmat Gul, File)
