Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass called on LA 2028 Olympics chief Casey Wasserman to resign amid the fallout from his name appearing in the Jeffrey Epstein files last month.

Bass is the latest official to call out Wasserman, doing so in an interview with CNN. She said she was unable to fire him, but believed he should “step down.”

“The board made a decision,” she said. “I think that decision was unfortunate. I don’t support the decision. I do think that we need to look at the leadership. However, my job as mayor of Los Angeles is to make sure that our city is completely prepared to have the best Olympics that has ever happened in Olympic history.”

The Justice Department’s release of documents related to Epstein showed Wasserman having a flirtatious exchange with close Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell. Since then, he’s announced he will sell his talent agency as some clients have already announced their departures.

Wasserman’s decision to sell the agency came after the LA28 board’s executive committee met to discuss Wasserman’s appearance in the Epstein files. The committee said it and an outside legal firm conducted a review of Wasserman’s interactions with Epstein and Maxwell with Wasserman’s full cooperation.

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“We found Mr. Wasserman’s relationship with Epstein and Maxwell did not go beyond what has already been publicly documented,” the committee said in a statement, adding that Wasserman “should continue to lead LA28 and deliver a safe and successful Games.”

Wasserman has said previously he flew on a humanitarian mission to Africa on Epstein’s private plane at the invitation of the Clinton Foundation in 2002. He said in a memo to staff that his interactions with Maxwell and Epstein were limited and that he regrets the emails.

“It was years before their criminal conduct came to light, and, in its entirety, consisted of one humanitarian trip to Africa and a handful of emails that I deeply regret sending. And I’m heartbroken that my brief contact with them 23 years ago has caused you, this company, and its clients so much hardship over the past days and weeks,” the memo said.

“I never had a personal or business relationship with Jeffrey Epstein,” Wasserman said in a prior statement. “As is well documented, I went on a humanitarian trip as part of a delegation with the Clinton Foundation in 2002 on the Epstein plane. I am terribly sorry for having any association with either of them.”

United States women’s national soccer team legend Abby Wambach announced she was leaving the agency. Chappell Roan also left the agency.

In the email exchanges, Wasserman told Maxwell, “I think of you all the time. So, what do I have to do to see you in a tight leather outfit?” Another exchange showed Maxwell asking Wasserman whether it would be foggy enough during an upcoming visit “so that you can float naked down the beach and no one can see you unless they are close up?” Wasserman responded, “or something like that.”

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Wasserman has not been accused of any wrongdoing.

Fox News’ Ryan Morik contributed to this report.

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MILAN — Cheating has been part of the Olympics since the ancient games, when violators were punished with fines, public flogging or lifetime bans.

The Milan-Cortina Games have hardly been an exception, although there have been no reports of public flogging.

These Olympics started with controversy when a report in the German newspaper Bild alleged ski jumpers were injecting hyaluronic acid into their penises in an effort to fly further. Then came a different kind of cheating when medal-winning Norwegian biathlete Sturla Holm Laegreid confessed to infidelity in a TV interview.

Both scandals drew attention even if most people already knew that all is not fair in love and soar.

But those paled in comparison to the outcry that erupted when some curlers — Canadian curlers — were accused of bending the rules. That was held up as a great breach of etiquette, instigating calls for additional officials and even video reviews in a sport where competitors have traditionally called their own fouls.

“Curling has historically operated on a culture of trust and self-regulation,” said Heather Mair, chair of recreation and leisure studies at the University of Waterloo and an expert on the social aspects of curling. “At most levels, players call their own infractions. They compete against people they know well, often in relatively small circuits, and they see each other repeatedly over the course of a season.

“That relational fabric has long been part of the sport’s informal governance.”

But when the sport returned to Olympic competition in 1998 after a 74-year break, that began to change. Suddenly, national pride, medals and funding were at stake. And after the Milan-Cortina Games ends, a well-funded professional league, the Rock League, will launch with six teams, further accelerating the sport’s evolution from hobby to profession.

“The whole context of the Olympics is the story here,” Mair said.

“What we’re seeing in curling is this kind of dramatic, heart-wrenching conversation within the sport about cheating and honesty and all this kind of stuff. Did that happen before in this case with the ski jumping? Was there this heart-wrenching conversation about cheating?”

To review, the Canadian men’s and women’s teams were accused of double touching the stone during release. The rules state a player may retouch the handle as many times as they wish when delivering a stone — as long as they do so before the hog line, the thick stripe that marks the end of the release zone. Touching the handle after the hog line is not allowed.

So when did Canada’s Marc Kennedy and Rachel Homan last touch their stones?

During Canada’s win over Sweden on Friday, the Swedes taped Kennedy’s release and the video showed him touching the stone with his index finger after releasing the handle. Kennedy, who was mic-d up, responded to Sweden’s allegations by swearing, which is also a break from curling culture.

A day later, World Curling, the governing body for the sport, deployed additional officials to monitor the hog line, and Homan had a stone disqualified in Canada’s loss to Switzerland when it was determined she touched it twice.

“This feels like a new era of surveillance for the sport,” Mair said. “I just don’t know how else we manage it.”

Modern stones have hog-line sensors built into the handles, so they reliably detect late release of the handle. But they don’t detect a brief touch on the granite itself. And without an umpire watching closely — or without video evidence — that kind of infraction can be difficult to spot.

“Despicable,” Canadian men’s skip Brad Jacobs said of the additional scrutiny. “As Canadian curlers, we were targeted. And to go out and pull her rock like that, I think it was a tragedy.”

Canada’s Rachel Homan competes against China at the Milan-Cortina Games on Monday.

(Fatima Shbair / Associated Press)

Canadian coach Paul Jacobs took a more nuanced approach, conceding there’s a problem but disagreeing with the solution.

“If you listen to what Sweden said, and I think they’re right, this has been a problem that they’ve tried to identify to our international federation. And it wasn’t acted on,” Jacobs said. “Now we’re trying to quickly fix things at an Olympics, and I think it’s the wrong thing to do.

“A double-touch stone, or whatever it is, none of these officials have ever gone through any of their courses. We have untrained people doing things they’ve never done before. And we’re not at some bonspiel in Saskatchewan just trying things out. We’re at the Olympics.”

For Mair, the lament is that the very public controversy playing out on that Olympic stage will force changes at the top level of the sport that will trickle down to the grassroots. And what will be lost when that happens will alter curling forever.

“Once they start messing around with this trust, I think we’re on a pretty sad path,” Mair said. “This feels so ugly. But the value of these Olympic medals are such that, I guess this stuff can be sacrificed.”

Blizzard conditions during the alpine skiing men’s slalom competition at the 2026 Milan Cortina Games led to chaos for the participants, and a medal favorite lost his cool at the end of Monday’s runs.

Out of the 96 competitors in the field, 52 of them were unable to complete their first runs on the mountain due to the snowy conditions. Skiers were having trouble keeping their balance, let alone hitting each gate.

Norway’s Atle Lie McGrath, competing in his second Olympic Games, was leading the field after the disastrous first run for many of his opponents.

McGrath held a whopping 59-second lead heading into the second run, which is great for any slalom skier hoping to take home gold.

But, after straddling a gate on his second run, McGrath ruined his chances at taking home any medal, let alone gold.

McGrath knew that and reacted as such, launching his ski poles out of frustration. Then, after he was making his way off the course, he laid in the snow with his hands on his head, wondering what went wrong.

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In turn, Switzerland’s Loïc Meillard won the gold medal, followed by Fabio Gstrein taking home silver and McGrath’s Norwegian teammate Henrik Kristoffersen winning bronze.

“It’s amazing,” Meillard said after winning gold, per the New York Post. “It’s been long days, a lot of expectations and about what you want to achieve, a lot of pressure on yourself.”

Gstrein added, “The feeling is great, really nice and cool,” after winning his silver medal.

McGrath’s wipeout despite being the gold-medal favorite heading into the second run is just another example of how these Winter Games have not been going according to plan for many of the top athletes competing.

On the United States’ side, snowboarder Chloe Kim and figure skater Ilia Malinin are just two examples of expected gold-medal finishers who had wipeout moments in their decisive events.

Kim needed higher than a 90 on his third attempt at the women’s halfpipe to make Olympic history with three straight gold medals after 17-year-old Gaon Choi of South Korea had a clean final run to overtake first place.

Kim fell after attempting a trick, thus leaving her with the silver medal.

As for Malinin, he wasn’t on the podium like Kim, falling twice during the men’s free skate. The 21-year-old, nicknamed “Quad God,” finished eighth in the event, shocking everyone in Milan.

But that’s the nature of the high-pressure moments the Olympics can bring out in these athletes. Execution is key, and when things don’t go the way they are hoped to, frustration can leak out.

In McGrath’s case, that frustration involved some pole throwing.

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