HOT POINT

MILAN ― The2026 Winter Olympicsopening ceremony is Friday, Feb. 6, at Milan's San Siro Stadium.

The star-studded entertainment includesperformances planned by Mariah Carey, Laura Pausini and Andrea Bocelli. The pageantry concludes with the traditional lighting of the Olympic flame and the parade of nations with participating athletes from around the globe.

You won't want to miss any of it, so be sure you're watching from the beginning. And if you can't catch the ceremony as it happens live, there also will be a prime-time replay.

MEET THE TEAM:Meet all 232 athletes Team USA is sending to Milano Cortina Olympics

What time is the Winter Olympics opening ceremony for Milano Cortina?

The opening ceremony begins at 2 p.m. ET and last around three hours.

Watch it here:Stream your favorite shows, the biggest blockbusters and more.

Advertisement

How to watch 2026 Winter Olympics opening ceremony: TV, streaming

NBC will broadcast the opening ceremony live onPeacockandNBCOlympics.com. An encore presentation of the opening ceremony will air on NBC at 8 p.m. ET for the American primetime viewing audience.

Two Olympic cauldrons

Two Olympic cauldrons will be lit for the first time in Olympic history, one in Milan and one in mountain town Cortina d'Ampezzo, where alpine skiing and other snow events are being held. The cauldrons will be lit at the same time and were designed to emulate Leonardo da Vinci's knot engravings, according to Olympic officials. da Vinci lived in Milan for 17 years of his renowned life.

Multiple Olympic athlete parades

With events held across northern Italy, there will also be four athlete parades across Milan, Cortina d'Ampezzo, Predazzo and Livigno.

2026 Winter Olympics live coverage

Also Friday isfigure skating's first day of action andLindsey Vonn's first day of downhill training. The U.S. mixed doublescurlingteam faces Canada, there's a slate of preliminary round women's hockey games, andluge,ski jumpingand men's Alpine downhill all hold training sessions.

USA TODAY Sports is bringing you the latest updates, news and Olympics results from here in Italy. Follow along fordaily Olympics live updatesandfigure skating live updatesfor Friday.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY:Winter Olympics Opening Ceremony today: How to watch, TV channel, time

The world will compete for glory at the2026 Milano Cortina Winter Olympicsin Italy.

Norway has led themedal tablefor three consecutive Winter Olympics, dating back to 2014.The United Stateslast led the medal table at the event in 1932, which is the lone cycle the Americans accomplished the feat.

REQUIRED READING:Inside the minds of two US Olympians — and how they achieve greatness

Norway led the medal table with 37 total medals and 16 gold medals at the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, ahead of Germany's 27 medals and the U.S.'s 25 medals. Norway also had 39 total medals in 2018 and 27 in 2014.

Who will lead the medal count in 2026? Here's the full list of each country competing in the 2026 Winter Olympics:

How many countries are in 2026 Winter Olympics?

There are 93 countries participating at the 2026 Winter Olympics, including more than 3,500 athletes,according to the Olympics' official website.They'll be competing for a very limited number of honors, with 195 total medals across 16 Olympic disciplines.

It's worth nothing that numerous athletes from Russia and Belarus will compete in the Games as Individual Neutral Athletes (AIN) since the two countries are banned from the International Olympic Committee due to Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Those athletes will not represent their country, but rather themselves.

Countries at 2026 Winter Olympics

Here's the full list of every country participating in the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milano Cortina, including the number of participating athletes for each country:

• Albania (4)

• Andorra (7)

• Argentina (8)

• Armenia (5)

• Australia (53)

• Austria (116)

• Azerbaijan (2)

• Belgium (30)

• Benin (1)

• Bolivia (1)

• Bosnia and Herzegovina (5)

• Brazil (14)

• Bulgaria (20)

• Canada (207)

• Chile (4)

• China (125)

• Chinese Taipei (8)

• Colombia (1)

• Croatia (14)

• Cyprus (2)

• Czech Republic (115)

• Denmark (39)

• Ecuador (1)

• Eritrea (1)

• Estonia (31)

• Finland (101)

• France (157)

• Georgia (8)

• Germany (184)

• Great Britain (53)

• Greece (5)

• Guinea-Bissau (1)

• Haiti (2)

• Hong Kong (4)

• Hungary (15)

• Iceland (4)

• Indiana (2)

• Individual Neutral Athletes (20)

• Iran (4)

• Ireland (4)

• Israel (9)

• Italy (196)

• Jamaica (6)

• Japan (196)

• Kazakhstan (36)

• Kenya (1)

• Kosovo (2)

• Kyrgyzstan (2)

• Latvia (67)

• Lebanon (2)

• Liechtenstein (7)

• Lithuania (17)

• Luxembourg (2)

• Madagascar (2)

• Malaysia (1)

• Malta (1)

• Mexico (5)

• Moldova (5)

• Monaco (1)

• Mongolia (3)

• Montenegro (2)

• Morocco (2)

• Netherlands (39)

• New Zealand (17)

• Nigeria (1)

• North Macedonia (4)

• Norway (80)

• Pakistan (1)

• Philippines (2)

• Poland (59)

• Portugal (3)

• Puerto Rico (1)

• Romania (29)

• San Marino (1)

• Saudi Arabia (2)

• Serbia (3)

• Singapore (1)

• Slovakia (53)

• Slovenia (37)

• South Africa (5)

• South Korea (71)

• Spain (20)

• Sweden (110)

• Switzerland (175)

• Thailand (3)

• Trinidad and Tobago (6)

• Turkey (8)

• Ukraine (45)

• United Arab Emirates (2)

• United States (223)

• Uruguay (1)

• Uzbekistan (2)

• Venezuela (1)

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY:How many countries are in Olympics? 2026 Winter Games participants

I've learned to celebrate New Year's Eve with whoever's next to me.

Before I started coveringcollege football, I celebrated with friends and loved ones and a bit of rum.

Then, my career started taking me on the road.

Several years ago, I found myself in a Jacksonville, Florida, haunt when the ball dropped, a couple of days before covering the only bowl game Jeremy Pruitt would coach for Tennessee. The Vols wona thrilling Gator Bowlagainst Indiana. The less said, the better about the rest of the Pruitt era.

Two years later, New Year's Eve took me to the press box at Jerry World, whereAlabama beat Cincinnatiin a College Football Playoff semifinal on the final day of 2021.

I was back on the trail withAlabamatwo years later. That New Year's Eve got sidetracked when my Uber driver wrecked in Los Angeles. On the bright side, Uber comped my ride. The next day, I coveredNick Saban's final game at the Rose Bowlin Pasadena.

In 2022, the year before my eventful trip to California, I typed furiously at Mercedes-Benz Stadium as the new year neared. While others kissed up and down the East Coast, I watched Ohio State's Noah Ruggles hook a field goal at midnight.Georgia prevailedby a single point.

[This column first published in ourSEC Unfilterednewsletter, emailedfreeto your inbox. Want more commentary like this?Sign up herefor our newsletter on SEC sports.]

Georgia's 2022 playoff win set a high New Year's Eve bar

Georgia's 42-41 victory in that CFP semifinal in Atlanta remains the greatest playoff game I've ever covered, with apology tothis year's national championship.

But, it wasn't my favorite New Year's Eve. That came this past year, when the person next to me on New Year's Eve was my wife.

No game or press box can compete with her.

I was lucky enough to draw the CFP quarterfinal game between Georgia and Mississippi in New Orleans in prime time on Jan. 1. The Superdome is just a 200-mile zip on I-10 from our house, so I decided to spend Dec. 31 at home and drive to New Orleans on game day.

This allowed for a rare treat: I watched a college playoff game on the couch with my wife.

She doesn't have a favorite team, and she doesn't watch much football, but games are more fun with a rooting interest, so she chose to root for "the U."

Never has someone who deep down cared so little cheered so vigorously as my wife did when Miami's Keonte Scott scored on a pick-six.

I got a kick out of seeing her newfound (and short-lived) fandom, but I didn't much care who won that Cotton Bowl. I just wanted to see a good game.

We got one, a 24-14 Miami upset of Ohio State.

Then, we flipped the channel and let drunk Anderson Cooper and Andy Cohen entertain us while we rolled dice and sipped cocktails, knowing we'd never catch Cooper or Cohen on the inebriation scale, but cherishing a New Year's Eve at home together all the same.

The next day,I chronicledOle Missfans chanting "Pete! Pete! Pete!" and Trinidad Chambliss spinning, sprinting, passing and otherwise magicking the Rebels toa heroic takedown of Kirby Smart's Bulldogs, while Lane Kiffin tweeted through it.

Yes, indeed, I drew a great CFP quarterfinal assignment, from the 31st through the 1st.

Why CFP won't play on New Year's Eve in 2026

Schedules change, though. Bowls rotate assignments. So, alas, I won't call this tradition.

Dec. 31 falls on a Thursday in 2026. The CFP doesn't want to go up against the NFL's "Thursday Night Football." So, the CFP will take a one-year hiatus from having a New Year's Eve game.

This season, one quarterfinal will be on Dec. 30, with three more on Jan. 1. No quarterfinals will be played in New Orleans. The Sugar Bowl has a semifinal on its dance card in mid-January. I suspect I'll be there.

Don't know yet where I'll be on New Year's Eve. Depends on which quarterfinal assignment I draw.

No matter where I am, I'll celebrate with whoever's next to me. Perhaps I'll find myself next to a fellow sportswriter in a pub, before we cover a game the next day. Maybe, after "Thursday Night Football" ends, the barkeep will flip the channel to see what Anderson and Andy are up to. (I have a guess.) Then, the next day, if we're lucky, we'll cover a game as good as the one I covered in 2022 in Atlanta.

That wouldn't be bad. It just won't match 2025.

Blake Toppmeyeris the USA TODAY Network's senior national college football columnist. Email him atBToppmeyer@gannett.comand follow him on X@btoppmeyer.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY:CFP changes 2026 playoff schedule, making New Year's Eve plans

TAIPEI, Feb 6 (Reuters) -Artificial intelligenceis not a bubble, and 2026 AI-related order growth ​will be more than last year, Simon ‌Lin, the chairman of Taiwanese electronics manufacturer Wistron, said on ‌Friday.

"We believe AI really does help all industries, so I don't think it's a bubble; I think it will mark a new era. A new ⁠AI era is arriving," ‌Lin, whose company is anNvidiasupplier, told reporters in Taipei.

Wistron's order situation ‍is good up into 2027, and for this year growth will be "significant" compared with the prior year, he ​added.

The company said last year that its new ‌U.S. manufacturing facilities for Nvidia would be ready in 2026 and the firm was in talks with other potential customers.

Advertisement

Volume production there will start in the first half of this year, Lin said.

Part ⁠of the facilities will be ​used by Nvidia to support its ​plan to build AI servers worth up to $500 billion in the U.S. over the next ‍four years.

The U.S. ⁠firm said last April it planned to build supercomputer manufacturing plants in Texas, partnering with ⁠Foxconn in Houston and Wistron in Dallas.

(Reporting by Wen-Yee Lee. ‌Writing by Ben Blanchard. Editing by Christian ‌Schmollinger and Mark Potter)

By Mohammed Benmansour and Parisa Hafezi

MUSCAT/DUBAI,, Feb 6 (Reuters) - Iran and the United States started high-stakes negotiations on Friday to try to overcome sharp differences over Tehran's nuclear programme, with Oman shuttling between the sides, but a dispute over widening the agenda risks derailing diplomacy and triggering another Middle East ​conflict.

While both sides have signaled readiness to revive diplomacy over Tehran's long-running nuclear row with the West, Washington wants to expand the talks to also cover Iran's ‌ballistic missiles, support for armed groups around the region and "treatment of their own people", U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Wednesday.

Iran has said it wants Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi and U.S. Middle East envoy Steve ‌Witkoff to discuss only the nuclear issue in Muscat. U.S. President Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, who helped mediate in Gaza ceasefire talks, is also due to take part in the discussions.

"Iran enters diplomacy with open eyes and a steady memory of the past year. We engage in good faith and stand firm on our rights. Commitments need to be honored," Araqchi said on X on Friday.

An Iranian official told Reuters the talks have not officially started, although Iran's demands have been conveyed to the United States via Oman. The official said indirect negotiations "possibly" would begin after a ⁠meeting between Witkoff and Oman's foreign minister. Previous Iran‑U.S. talks ‌adopted a shuttle diplomacy approach.

Tehran's clerical leadership remains deeply worried that Trump may still carry out his threats to strike Iran after a military buildup by the U.S. Navy near Iran.

In June, the U.S. struck Iranian nuclear targets, joining in the final stages of a 12-day Israeli ‍bombing campaign. Tehran has since said its uranium enrichment work has stopped.

The U.S. naval buildup, which Trump has called a massive "armada", has followed a bloody government crackdown on nationwide protests in Iran last month, heightening tensions between Washington and Tehran.

Trump has warned that "bad things" would probably happen if a deal could not be reached, ratcheting up pressure on the Islamic Republic in a standoff that has led to ​mutual threats of air strikes.

"While these negotiations are taking place, I would remind the Iranian regime that the president has many options at his disposal, aside from diplomacy, as ‌the commander-in-chief of the most powerful military in the history of the world," White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt on Thursday told reporters.

Iran has vowed a harsh response to any military strike and has cautioned neighbouring Gulf Arab countries hosting U.S. bases in the oil-rich region that they could be in the firing line if they were involved in an attack. Iran has one of the Middle East's biggest stockpiles of ballistic missiles.

MISSILE PROGRAM IS A RED LINE FOR TEHRAN

Negotiators in Oman will have to navigate Iran's red line on discussing its missile programme to reach a deal and avert future military action. Tehran has flatly ruled out talks on its "defence capabilities, including missiles and their range."

In a show of defiance, Iran's ⁠state TV said hours before the talks that "one of the country's most advanced long-range ballistic missiles, the ​Khorramshahr-4," had been deployed at one of the Revolutionary Guards' vast underground "missile cities".

However, Tehran is willing to show "flexibility ​on uranium enrichment, including handing over 400 kg of highly enriched uranium (HEU) and accepting zero enrichment under a consortium arrangement as a solution," Iranian officials told Reuters last week.

Iran also insists that its right to enrich uranium is not negotiable and demands the lifting of sanctions, reimposed since ‍2018 when Trump ditched Iran's 2015 nuclear deal ⁠with six powers.

The United States, its European allies and Israel accuse Tehran of using its nuclear programme as a veil for efforts to try to develop the capability to produce weapons. Iran says its nuclear programme is for peaceful purposes only.

Israel has likened the danger of Iran's missiles to its nuclear programme. Prime Minister Benjamin ⁠Netanyahu said in January that Iran's "attempt to build atomic weapons" and "20,000 ballistic missiles" were like "two lumps of cancer".

Tehran's influence throughout the region has weakened severely with its regional allies - known as the "Axis of Resistance" - either dismantled or ‌badly hurt since the start of the Hamas-Israel conflict in Gaza and the fall of Bashar al-Assad in Syria.

(Reporting by Parisa Hafezi in Dubai, Humeyra ‌Pamuk and Steve Holland in Washington; Editing by Cynthia Osterman, Michael Perry and Michael Georgy)

MADRID (AP) — A woman in Spain who was swept up by a swollen river remained missing Friday as Storm Leonardo pummelled the Iberian Peninsula.

Spain Floods

The woman, 45, was reported missing after she fell into a river in the country's southern Malaga province on Wednesday while trying to rescue her dog. Air and canine units have been deployed to find her, Spanish police and local authorities said Friday.

The ongoing storm has forced thousands of people in southern Spain to evacuate their homes and dozens of roads remained closed due to flooding and landslides.

Advertisement

Leonardo is the latest in a series of storms to affect Spain and Portugal in recent weeks.

Parts of Portugal were battling strong winds and heavy rain as river levels have risen. Portugal's Civil Protection authority issued an alert for the regions near the Tagus River on Thursday due to rising water levels.

A storm in Portugal in late January also left a trail of destruction in the country and killed several people, Portuguese authorities said.

The Brooklyn Nets ended their sometimes sour relationship with guard Cam Thomas on Thursday by releasing him to allow him to be a free agent, according to multiple reports.

Thomas signed a $5.9 million qualifying offer last summer after he and the Nets could not agree to contract terms. Brooklyn reportedly tried to shop him before Thursday's trade deadline.

Now he is in an unrestricted free agent instead of being restricted, which would have given the Nets the right to match any offer sheet.

"Super excited, ready to actually help and contribute to another team," Thomas, 24, told ESPN. "My next team is getting elite scoring, good playmaking and a good combo guard."

Advertisement

Thomas ranked second on the team with a 15.6 scoring average and averaged 3.1 assists and 2.0 turnovers per game in 24 contests (eight starts) this season after missing 20 games because of a strained left hamstring.

He was Brooklyn's leading scorer in the 2023-24 regular season (22.5) and averaged a team-best 24.0 scoring average in only 25 games in 2024-25 before he was limited by hamstring issues.

For his career, Thomas averages 15.2 points, 2.5 rebounds, 2.2 assists and 23.3 minutes in 239 regular-season games (88 starts).

Brooklyn selected Thomas with the 27th overall pick of the 2021 NBA Draft.

--Field Level Media