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Don’t mention it! Ledecka bans word ‘Olympics’ to ease nerves

AFP/Editor

Two-time Olympic champion Ester Ledecka said Friday she would ban her team, family, journalists and everyone around her from saying the word “Olympics” in her presence under a hefty fine.

The 2022 Games in Beijing will from now on be dubbed “the little Chinese friendly” to ease the pressure, following good experience from the 2018 Winter Olympics, Ledecka told reporters in Prague.

Ledecka stunned the Alpine skiing world in Pyeongchang by winning the Super-G before earning another gold as the odds-on favourite in the snowboarding parallel giant slalom a week later.

“We used to call it ‘the little Korean friendly’. It was never ‘the Olympic Games’ for us,” said Ledecka, who turned 26 this week.

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“We paid 10 euros ($12) to a little cashbox every time someone from the team said ‘Olympics’ and we made a lot of money.

“I would like to do it again because then you have lots of money for chocolate, ice cream and things like that,” said Ledecka, who now gives priority to Alpine skiing over snowboarding.

Dubbed “an amphibian” for combining both sports, Ledecka took fourth spot in both downhill and Super-G at the Alpine skiing world championships this year and won her only parallel giant slalom in the 2020/2021 snowboarding season.

To get ready for icy slopes, Ledecka is planning to take up training on ice with National Hockey League legend and compatriot Jaromir Jagr who has recently sent her a pair of skates as a gift.

Jagr, a 49-year-old two-time Stanley Cup winner who is second only to Wayne Gretzky in all-time NHL points earned, still plays ice hockey for his own Rytiri Kladno team in the second Czech league.

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FBI Most Wanted Fugitive Arrested in Mexico and Deported to U.S.

Authorities in Mexico announced Thursday that Samuel Ramírez Jr., a U.S. citizen accused of murdering two women and listed among the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitives, was arrested in the northern state of Sinaloa.

Ramírez Jr., 33, was detained Tuesday in Culiacán just 1 hour and 13 minutes after being added to the Federal Bureau of Investigation Ten Most Wanted list, the agency said in a statement.

The suspect, who was born in California, has already been deported to the U.S. state of Washington, where he faces charges related to the fatal shooting of two women at a bar in Federal Way in May 2023.

A court issued an arrest warrant for Ramírez in November last year, and the FBI initially offered a $25,000 reward for information leading to his capture, later increasing the amount to up to $1 million.

“To protect individuals’ privacy and ensure continued cooperation from the public, the FBI does not confirm the identity of those who provide information,” the agency said in its statement.

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UN experts warn Nicaragua runs vast transnational network to monitor exiled dissidents

Nicaragua maintains an “extensive” transnational network to monitor and intimidate opposition figures living in exile, affecting “hundreds of thousands” of people, the United Nations Group of Human Rights Experts on Nicaragua warned on Tuesday.

In a statement, the experts said their report “details an extensive transnational architecture of surveillance and intelligence used to monitor, intimidate and attack the hundreds of thousands of Nicaraguans living abroad.”

The report, which will be presented on March 16 to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, states that the structure maintained by the government of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo includes the army, the police, migration authorities and diplomatic missions.

According to the statement, “the government has arbitrarily stripped 452 Nicaraguans of their nationality, left thousands more exiled in a situation of de facto statelessness, and prevented many from returning to Nicaragua.”

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Trump: ‘We Think It’s True’ Amid Claims Iran’s Supreme Leader Was Killed

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Saturday that he believes multiple reports claiming the death of Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, during the U.S. and Israeli offensive against the Islamic Republic are likely true, though he stopped short of confirming the news.

“We have a feeling that the information is correct,” he said, according to NBC News. “I don’t want to say anything definitive until I see it, but we think that’s the case. And many of their leaders have disappeared,” he added.

Earlier, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said there were “many indications” that Khamenei had died in an attack on his residential compound.