Lifestyle
For U.S. figure skating, grief over the D.C. crash makes for a bittersweet Olympics
Maxim Naumov performs in exhibition after being named to the 2026 U.S. Olympic Figure Skating Team at the Enterprise Center in St. Louis on Jan. 11.
Brian Munoz/St. Louis Public Radio
hide caption
toggle caption
Brian Munoz/St. Louis Public Radio
Want more Olympics updates? Get our behind-the-scenes newsletter for what it’s like to be at these Games.
At the U.S. Figure Skating Championships in January, almost exactly a year after he lost his parents — who were also his coaches — Max Naumov won a bronze medal and a spot on the Olympic team.
“Fulfilling the dream that we collectively had as a family since I first was on the ice at five years old … It means absolutely everything,” Naumov, now 24, said from nationals in St. Louis. “And I know they’re looking down, smiling, and proud.”
Last January, when Naumov placed fourth at nationals for the third year in a row, he joined his parents, Vadim Naumov and Evgenia Shishkova, for a heart-to-heart in their hotel room in Wichita, Kan. to talk strategy. He remembers not being able to hug his mom. She was sick and did not want him to fall ill so close to his next competition.
“It was a very productive, emotional and just inspiring conversation,” said Naumov. “My dad said that we have to change our mindset, we have to get more consistent in the areas that we talked about and just overall have a resilient attitude to the entire approach of the season.”
That was one of the last times they spoke.
Naumov flew home to Massachusetts after the event ended. His parents — renowned Russian-born pairs skaters who coached at the Skating Club of Boston — stayed a few extra days in Wichita for an invitation-only development camp for promising young skaters and their support systems.
Many of those skaters, relatives and coaches, including Naumov’s parents, were among the 67 people who died on Jan. 29, 2025, when a U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter collided with an American Airlines regional jet on its landing at the Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. The tragedy killed 28 members of the tight-knit figure skating community, many of them based in the Boston and D.C. areas.
The loss of the rising skating stars, beloved parent volunteers and longtime coaches is felt acutely at their home rinks and throughout the entire skating world, especially as the anniversary of the crash approaches. It comes just a week before the start of the Winter Olympics, when Naumov’s story — and the sport itself — will come under an even brighter spotlight.
Maxim Naumov holds a photo of his parents while he waits for his scores after competing in the men’s short program competition during the 2026 U.S. Figure Skating Championships in St. Louis on Jan. 8. His parents were killed last year when an American Airlines regional jet collided with a U.S. Army Blackhawk helicopter over the Potomac River, near Washington, D.C.
Brian Munoz/St. Louis Public Radio
hide caption
toggle caption
Brian Munoz/St. Louis Public Radio
“They were truly just really good people that we respect, family of choice,” said Doug Zeghibe, the CEO of the Skating Club of Boston, which lost two teenage skaters and their moms, in addition to Naumov’s parents. “And I think we’re at the point now where missing them is turning into: what can we do to honor them and remember them and make sure we carry them forward.”
Many in the skating community told NPR that, a year on, there is a continued focus on honoring the victims’ legacies both on and off the ice. Tributes include makeshift memorials and poignant performances, as well as financial and mental health resources for other young skaters — many of whom have Olympic dreams of their own.
“We’re all feeling a greater sense of purpose,” Zeghibe said.
How skaters are channeling their grief
Those interviewed recalled the days after the crash as a painful blur.
“We were all just in shock and nobody knew what to do,” said Heather Nemier, president of the Washington Figure Skating Club, which has some 1,400 members at roughly half a dozen rinks across the D.C. area. “A lot of kids came to the rink and left because they just felt like they couldn’t skate.”
Heather Nemier, president of the Washington Figure Skating Club at the Ashburn Ice House in Ashburn, Va., where a number of the figure skaters trained who were victims in the air crash last January.
Tyrone Turner for NPR
hide caption
toggle caption
Tyrone Turner for NPR
The Washington Figure Skating Club lost seven members: three skaters — Franco Aparicio and sisters Everly (Evy) and Alydia (Liddy) Livingston — their coach, and three of their parents. Nemier said the unofficial spots at the Virginia rink where those skaters usually left their stuff sat empty for weeks, since no one wanted to occupy them.
But over the course of the year, she said, their fellow skaters have found ways to process that grief, with help from mental health counselors, therapy dogs, friendship bracelets, letter writing, public memorials and quiet spaces for reflection.
And many have returned to the ice with a newfound motivation. (That was also the case for Naumov, who was unsure if he would skate again until he returned to competition in the summer.)
“I’ve heard a number of [D.C.-area skaters] say, ‘You know, Evy can’t skate anymore but I can, and I’m going to get out there and do my best,’” Nemier said.
At the Ashburn Ice House, a memorial was created with photos and information honoring a coach, three skaters and their parents who died in the crash.
Tyrone Turner for NPR
hide caption
toggle caption
Tyrone Turner for NPR
Sofia Bezkorovainaya, now 15, did just that. The Virginia-based skater moved the crowd — and the internet — at January’s U.S. Figure Skating Championships in St. Louis with her “Over the Rainbow” short program, a tribute to Everly Livingston, her best friend of nearly a decade.
“If there were flies on the ice, she’d pick them up and bring them to the heater so that they could come back to life,” Bezkorovainaya told NPR after competing in St. Louis. “She always cared about everybody, and she was such an amazing skater.”
For months after the crash, Bezkorovainaya said she was “sad all the time” and feared she would never feel better. She even switched to another Virginia rink because of how empty her old one felt without the familiar faces.
Then she decided to learn Livingston’s choreography and compete with it in her memory.
In the opening and closing moments of the program, Bezkorovainaya said, “I look up to the bright lights up there and I hug myself and I imagine her hugging me.” Her long program is dedicated to her late longtime coach, Inna Volyanskaya, whose distinctive corrections she says she can still hear in her head while practicing.
“Doing these programs was like having them with me this season,” she said. “And before I got on the ice, I could always pray to Inna and Evy and everyone else who I was friends with on that plane … like, ‘Please help me do a clean program today.’”
Bezkorovainaya was one of three skaters at nationals whose program explicitly paid tribute to loved ones lost in the crash. Others, including Naumov, held up photos as they waited for their scores.
Sofia Bezkorovainaya skates during the “Legacy On Ice” U.S. Figure Skating Benefit at Capital One Arena in Washington, D.C., on March 2, 2025. She one of three skaters at nationals whose program explicitly paid tribute to loved ones lost in the crash.
Scott Taetsch/Getty Images
hide caption
toggle caption
Scott Taetsch/Getty Images
“I think it’s admirable that they’ve come up with ways of coping with such a terrible loss that is meaningful to them and is meaningful to other people, too,” Nemier said. “And to be able to share that with the public and with the skating community, I think is really important.”
Boston-based Patrick Blackwell, 17, skated to honor his friend Spencer Lane, even including a clip of the music Lane had planned to compete with this season. Blackwell ultimately won gold at the junior level, which he said was “not just for me but the ones who passed a year ago.”
“It’s kind of my gift to Spencer, his dad and every other family member, being able to bring gold home to a place where a lot of lives were lost,” he said.
Clubs look to keep legacies alive
Local and national figure skating organizations are working on more permanent ways to honor the victims’ memories.
And in early March, the U.S. figure skating community came together in Washington, D.C. for “Legacy on Ice,” a benefit show that raised $1.2 million for first responders and victims’ loved ones. It featured moving performances by a huge roster of Olympians, past and present, as well as several young skaters directly affected by the crash, including Naumov.
More recently, the focus has shifted to the next generation of skaters: making sure they remember those who were lost, and making it easier for them to pursue the dreams they shared.
The Skating Club of Boston, for example, has created the “Always Champions Campaign” to fund two permanent scholarships, one in honor of each of the two skaters it lost, with criteria set by their families.
The campaign also aims to rename one of the rinks in Boston and create a memorial wall in honor of the six victims.
Flowers and remembrances are displayed for the six athletes, coaches and family members who perished in a plane crash, at The Skating Club of Boston in Norwood, Mass., on March 25, 2025.
Charles Krupa/AP
hide caption
toggle caption
Charles Krupa/AP
“They were all examples — the skaters, the parents, the coaches — of people who we saw, if not six, seven days out of the week,” said club director Mia Corsini Bailey. “Their commitment to the sport on multiple levels is something that we’re carrying forward.”
In the D.C. area, the Washington Figure Skating Club has endowed trophies in memory of the three skaters it lost, with plans to add the winners’ names to a ringside plaque updated every year.
The club is also using its existing foundation to support young figure skaters through the “Livingston Family Dream Fund,” which was set up by relatives of the family of four. The club used the money to give $1,000 grants to the skaters who participated in this year’s national development camp, according to Nemier. There were eight of them, she said, compared to about a dozen last year.
Another painful dimension of the tragedy, one increasingly top of mind in an Olympic year, is where the skaters returning from last year’s development camp were in their careers: right on the brink of making it to nationals, and beyond.
“Those were some of the kids that could have made it to the next Olympics or the Olympics after that,” said Bezkorovainaya, the junior skater.
Corsini Bailey, of Boston, recalls sitting down with 16-year-old Spencer Lane and his parents to talk about that very prospect just before the national development camp last year, and said she saw a similarly bright future for 13-year-old Jinna Han.
“The talent was there, the star power was there, and they truly were that next generation,” she said. “And now we look to: how are their legacies inspiring that next generation … whether they were their peers or they were the younger skaters who were looking up to them. Again, we carry them with us every single day.”
The first time Pop’s Social, a catering company in South Orange, N.J., that specializes in dirty soda, served an alcoholic drink at an event, something strange happened.
At the event in December, its nonalcoholic offering, a spiced pear-cider seltzer with vanilla and peach syrups, cream, lemon and cold foam, was a hit. The Prosecco-spiked version? Not so much.
“People were more interested in the mocktail than the cocktail,” Ali Greenberg, an owner of the business, said in an interview.
Dirty soda — a customizable blend of soda, flavored syrup, creamer and sometimes fruit, served over pebble ice — has been crossing into the mainstream for years, especially after the cast of “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives,” the hit reality show that premiered in 2024, frequented Swig, the Utah chain that started it all.
But its reach has gone far beyond the Mormon corridor, and its rise in popularity has dovetailed with an overall decline in U.S. alcohol consumption. “There’s not a lot of Mormon people in our neighborhood,” said Greenberg. “But there are a lot of people who are sober-curious or not drinking.”
The reality show, which follows a group of Mormon influencers in Utah, helped popularize dirty soda beyond the Mountain States and inspired a wave of TikTok videos on the subject. Swig rapidly expanded — growing from 33 locations in Utah and Arizona in 2021 to now more than 150 locations in 16 states — along with other Utah chains, and spawned copycats nationwide.
Dirty soda has joined other Mormon cultural exports, like tradwife influencers, a “Real Housewives” franchise in Salt Lake City and Taylor Frankie Paul, the Bachelorette who wasn’t, that have captivated America.
With the recent rollouts of dirty soda at McDonald’s, Chick-fil-A and Dunkin’ — behold the Dunkin’ Dirty Soda: Pepsi, coffee milk and cold foam — and the appearance on grocery shelves of Dirty Mountain Dew and a coconut-lime Coffee Mate creamer for homemade dirty sodas, we may have reached peak dirty.
The idea for dirty soda came out of a desire for members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which has millions of followers in Utah and surrounding states, to have more options for social drinking, as the church prohibits the consumption of alcohol, hot coffee and hot caffeinated tea.
When Swig introduced dirty soda in 2010, it filled a need, providing a pick-me-up for car-pooling moms and an after-school treat for their kids. It was quickly adopted by many in the community.
“In other cultures, parents go, they pick up their coffee in the morning, and for me and for a lot of my other friends’ parents, it was, ‘Let’s go pick up our dirty soda,’” Whitney Leavitt, a breakout star of “Mormon Wives,” said in an interview.
Leavitt was surprised when her dirty soda order became a recurring question from reporters in recent years. “They were so excited to hear all of the different syrups and creamers that we add to our drinks to make whatever your go-to dirty soda is,” Leavitt said. (Hers is sparkling water with sugar-free pineapple, sugar-free peach and sugar-free vanilla syrups, raspberry purée, a squeeze of lime, and fresh mint if she’s “feeling really fancy.”)
In April, Leavitt became the chief creative and brand officer at Cool Sips, a beverage chain based in New York that sells dirty sodas.
“Mormon Wives” inspired Kaitlyn Sturm, a 26-year-old mother of three from Jackson, Miss., to post recipes for dirty sodas on her TikTok. The one she makes the most contains Coke or Dr Pepper, homemade cherry syrup, a glug of coconut creamer and a packet of True Lime crystallized lime powder, which she combines in a pasta-sauce jar filled with pebble ice. “It kind of has become like a ritual, where I make one for my husband as well, and we have it most evenings,” Sturm said in an interview.
The trend has also hit fast-food menus. The new “crafted soda” menu at McDonald’s is riddled with dirty soda DNA. The Dirty Dr Pepper, with vanilla flavoring and a cold-foam topper, is the chain’s version of what has shaped up to be the universal dirty soda flavor. Since 2024, Sonic, beloved for its porous, soda-absorbing pebble ice, has offered “dirty” drinks — your choice of soda plus coconut syrup, sweet cream and lime.
These drinks might feel new, but there are antecedents in the Italian sodas of the ’90s (fizzy water and a pump of Torani syrup); the Shirley Temple (ginger ale or lemon-lime soda with grenadine and maraschino cherries); and the egg cream, a tonic of seltzer, chocolate syrup and milk. And what is a dirty Dr Pepper with cold foam if not a descendant of the root beer float? “It’s just a soda fountain from 125 years ago,” Kara Nielsen, a food and beverage trend forecaster, said in an interview.
Though Leavitt moved to New York City with her family in December, her dirty soda ritual has remained consistent, with one key difference. “In Utah, we don’t get to walk to dirty soda shops,” Leavitt said. “We have to drive there.”
Annuals include flowers like marigolds and nasturtiums. They grow fast but won’t come back the next spring (though they will drop seeds and possibly propagate). Perennials like lavender and sage will return year after year, but they may take longer to grow. Wildflower and pollinator packets often contain both annual and perennial seeds but are frowned upon by some serious gardeners, because the selection can be haphazard and ill-suited to the area.
It’s a good idea to exercise a little situational awareness. How much rain can you expect? How much sunlight? Dig the earth and feel it between your fingers — is it sandy? Loamy? These are things to keep in mind as you prepare for your journey into horticultural chaos.
“You want to prepare your soil, your site, at least a little bit,” said Deryn Davidson, a sustainable landscape expert at Colorado State University Extension in Longmont, Colo. “Try to get rid of weeds. Make sure the soil is ready to receive seeds.”
Davidson, who has written about chaos gardening, strongly advised covering the seeds with a layer of soil, lest they become bird food. As for watering, that depends on where you live, she added. On the whole, though, the formula is straightforward: “Soil, sun and water is what these seeds need,” Davidson said.
Not everyone is a fan of the trend, or at least the way it has been portrayed on social media. “Nature is not chaos — nature is pattern,” said Robin Wall Kimmerer, a botanist and the author of “Braiding Sweetgrass,” which recommends imbuing modern life with Indigenous wisdom.
“It seems unrealistic,” Kimmerer said of the chaos gardening videos she has watched. The feeling of effortlessness they convey — a common social media effect, almost always the result of deft editing — seems to elide the work that goes into a garden, whether chaotic or not, she suggested.
“I want my garden to be natural and biodiverse,” she said. “That’s a good impulse. I don’t think this technique is going to get you there, but that’s an important impulse.”
Boitnott, the maker of the viral video, offered a simple reason for why chaos gardening has become popular: “It just makes you happy.”
Admission: I suffer from eyestrain. Even right this very second. As a reporter working on a computer more than eight hours most days, my eyes often feel fatigued and itchy by evening.
I’m not alone: More than half of the U.S. population lives with computer vision syndrome, also known as digital eyestrain, and nearly 16.4 million Americans suffer from dry eye syndrome. So I was especially excited to stumble on New Vogue Spa, in the City of Industry, which offers a relaxing, if intriguing, treatment called “Eyeball Care” — something I’d never heard of before at a day spa.
New Vogue Spa is an Asian-style spa with Korean and Chinese influences. The spa’s offerings include massages and body scrubs — I was curious about the “Red Wine Body Scrub” — but I couldn’t help exploring eyeball care, which was much needed after my 50-minute drive from Silver Lake. (The City of Industry is about 30 minutes from downtown L.A. without heavy traffic.)
So it came to be that I found myself lying on a massage table, wearing what looked like protruding diving goggles, with clouds of cool, aromatic steam oozing from both sides of it and engulfing my face. A spindly plastic tube extended from my forehead to the “Eye Spa” machine. Serene spa music, a blend of classical piano and loudly chirping birds, trilled in the background as the machine sloshed and gurgled. It felt like lying, creekside, in a spa robe wrapped in a blanket of chamomile and rosemary-scented fog.
-
Share via
As my esthetician, Jenny Chen, adjusted the eye mask and added essential oils to the mist, New Vogue manager Lesley Xie explained that the 60-minute, $125 Eyeball Care treatment aims to hydrate and stimulate blood circulation in the eye area, decrease puffiness and dark circles and aid eye fatigue and dry eye syndrome.
“It’s really helpful for overall eye health for people who are on computers for a long time or sleep really late or who are reading a lot,” she said.
2
1. The Eyeball Care treatment included a mask filled with cool, aromatic steam to help relieve fatigued eyes. 2. Slippers in the Himalayan Salt Room.
Xie said that eyeball care treatments are common in China. When she was growing up in Guangdong in Southern China, elementary school students were given a break every afternoon to perform “eye exercises,” which involved gently massaging pressure points around their eye areas, for 5-10 minutes.
“It released eye stress because we studied from eight o’clock in the morning until almost noon time,” she said. “It was a break for our eyes to prevent nearsightedness and tired eyes.”
New Vogue Spa’s treatment was supremely relaxing from the onset — part Head Spa, part facial, part eye care. Chen began by massaging my scalp for about 10 minutes, as I tried not to fall asleep.
Next she cleaned my face, applied massage cream and gently massaged my face and eye area, manipulating the outer corners of my eye sockets as well as under my brow bones and on my temples. She was precise and firm but careful — as she pressed on the outside corner of my eye, I felt tension draining down the side of my cheek and neck.
Esthetician Jenny Chen conducts “Golden Eye therapy” on reporter Deborah Vankin.
Xie said the massage is based on traditional Chinese medicine, focusing on stimulating acupressure points around the eyes.
“Gentle massage of these areas is believed to help promote blood circulation, relax the muscles responsible for focusing and relieve visual fatigue,” she said. “While it’s not a medical treatment for vision conditions, it’s widely used as a preventative and restorative method.”
The massage was followed by “Golden Eye therapy,” during which Chen used an electronic device on my face with a metal roller ball on it. It uses “ultrasonic vibration technology,” Xie said, to help the skin absorb the applied moisturizing cream and combat eye puffiness.
The main event was the “cooling steam therapy,” which Xie said was meant to be calming and refreshing and help relieve tired eyes. Chen fitted me with what looked like an enormous diving mask that quickly filled with cool, hydrating mist — I felt droplets of water dripping from my eyes and down my cheeks. The Eye Spa machine uses a “cold mist atomization process,” Xie said, “that disperses micro-particles of moisture combined with soothing essential oils.”
At the end of my treatment, Chen gave me under-eye gel pad masks, for added hydration, while conducting one last head massage. She applied moisturizing eye cream, face cream and sunscreen before sending me off.
Dr. Kristina Voss, an ophthalmologist with Keck Medicine of USC, was enthusiastic about the Eyeball Care treatment.
“It sounds wonderful. Anything that makes you feel good, I generally support,” she said. “It sounds safe because they’re not putting pressure on the eye. Direct pressure on the eyeball [is dangerous]. And I’d be nervous if they were putting something in the eye, but they’re not. Steam, or even cool condensation from a humidifier, is effective for dry eye. Massaging pressure points probably doesn’t treat dry eye, but could potentially treat eyestrain or tension headaches that can be interpreted as eyestrain.”
Los Angeles Times features writer Deborah Vankin inspects her eyeballs after her treatment.
Temporary relief aside, however, Voss warned that the treatment is not a replacement for seeing a doctor if a condition is ongoing.
“It’s relaxing and complementary to a doctor’s dry eye treatments — like medicated drops or in-office treatments — but it’s not a simple fix or cure all,” she said. “Ongoing doctor’s care would be important.”
After my treatment, I was invited to linger in the co-ed Himalayan Salt Room and Red Clay Room or woman-only spa area, complete with a warm soaking tub, lounge area and treatment rooms for body scrubs. (I skipped the adjacent New Vogue MedSpa, where you can get botox, dermal filler or microneedling treatments.)
Guests are also treated to a cup of homemade snow fungus tea (made from tremella mushrooms) with a single jujube, or red, date, floating inside. New Vogue makes a fresh batch every morning for guests, simmering the collagen-rich drink so long it becomes somewhat gelatinous.
2
3
1. The Himalayan Salt Room. 2. The co-ed lounge area. 3. The Red Clay Room.
“Snow fungus focuses on deep hydration and skin plumping, while red dates support circulation and a healthy glow,” Xie said, calling the concoction “a warm bowl of snow fungus and red date soup.”
I can’t speak to the medicinal benefits of snow fungus tea. But after a glass of the warm, woody-tasting drink — together with the hour-long tension-taming eye treatment — I saw the world in a whole new way while walking out the door: clearly, from a relaxed perspective and with the bigger picture in focus.
-
New York1 hour agoAirbnb Turns to Black Leaders in Its Bid to Make a Comeback in New York
-
Detroit, MI2 hours agoMetro Detroit braces for Frost Advisory, Freeze Warning overnight before rain arrives
-
San Francisco, CA2 hours ago50 Beagles Rescued From Wisconsin Lab Arrive in Bay Area, SF Activist Faces Felony Charges
-
Dallas, TX2 hours ago
Former Cowboys QB Craig Morton passes away at age 83
-
Miami, FL2 hours agoBrickell Avenue Bridge openings spark rush hour gridlock concerns in downtown Miami
-
Boston, MA2 hours agoWhat we know about accused Memorial Drive gunman Tyler Brown
-
Denver, CO3 hours agoBroncos Ring of Famer Craig Morton, who led Denver to first Super Bowl, dies at 83
-
Seattle, WA3 hours agoVictim identified in deadly Seattle beer garden shooting on Lake City Way; suspect sought