While several notable conspiracy theorists work in the Trump administration, one who has flown under the radar is beginning to gain traction: Kurt Olsen. The White House hired the attorney last year to oversee election security, and he has recently ramped up his efforts to investigate the 2020 election. With the midterms on the horizon, Olsen’s role within President Donald Trump’s administration may be growing.

Beginnings and election denial
Olsen, 63, graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy and served as a Navy SEAL. He later worked as a lawyer and cofounded a law firm. But his national profile began to climb following Trump’s loss to former President Joe Biden in 2020. Since then, Olsen has built a “long history of fighting” the 2020 election results, said USA Today.

He “joined the Texas attorney general’s attempt” to get the Supreme Court to stop four swing states from certifying Biden's 2020 victory over Trump, said USA Today. The lawyer grew closer to Trump after the election and had “multiple phone calls” with him during the Jan. 6 insurrection, said Politico.

Director of election security
The White House gave Olsen the “power to refer criminal investigations” into things that have been “thoroughly debunked,” said The New York Times. He’s one of several prominent election deniers “using the power of the state to keep Trump’s denialism alive.” But even in a “constellation of conspiracists, Olsen stands out.”

One crucial moment on the national stage for Olsen came in January, when the FBI used a search warrant to seize ballots and records related to the 2020 race from an election center in Fulton County, Georgia. The FBI’s investigation “originated from a referral sent by Kurt Olsen,” said an affidavit for the search warrant. The CIA has also confirmed that the agency is working with Olsen, an unusual move given that he has “no known experience working with the U.S. spy community,” said Politico.

Olsen has a “history of abusing his law license to spread lies about our elections,” Christine P. Sun, a senior vice president at the States United Democracy Center, said to the Times. “Now, he’s using his role in the administration and the power of the federal government to take actions fueled by those same lies.”

The International Olympic Committee boasts that Milano-Cortina 2026 is the “most gender-balanced” Winter Games yet, with the highest level of women’s participation. But there’s one glaring exception: Nordic combined.

The door to this sport is “slammed shut” to women, said The Independent. The three Olympic events in which athletes compete in both ski jumping and cross-country skiing are strictly men-only, despite equivalent women’s World Cup and World Championship events. 

‘Misogynistic mindset’ 
Nordic combined has been part of the Winter Olympics since the Games debuted in 1924. The “daredevil thrill” of ski jumping combined with the “physically exhausting cross-country ski race” makes for a “two-day event unlike any other,” said The Associated Press. 

Cross-country skiing has centuries-old origins in Scandinavian military training, which could explain the “misogynistic mindset,” said ABC News. But ski jumping seems to be the decisive factor. Women have been competing in cross-country events since 1952 but were barred from ski jumping until the early 2000s. For decades, they were “deemed too fragile to stand up to the rigors of repeatedly hurtling themselves off the side of a mountain.” 

To complicate matters, the IOC has “put the entire sport on notice,” said The New York Times. It must boost its small following and increase the number of participating athletes or “risk falling off” the Olympic program. So the women of Nordic combined aren’t just “stuck sitting on the sidelines.” They are “relying on the men’s performance to keep the sport’s future in the Games alive.” 

‘Glacial pace’ of change 
Women were excluded entirely from the first modern Summer Olympics in 1896. Since then, the bans have slowly been eliminated, but the Winter Olympics have changed at a “glacial pace,” said The Independent. 

Women athletes at the recent Nordic combined World Cup in Seefeld, Austria, staged a protest, holding up their ski poles in the shape of an X to symbolize “no exceptions.” “I do what every single other athlete does,” U.S. Nordic combined skier Annika Malacinski said to The Washington Post. “I work my ass off to be where I am, and yet there’s one group of people telling me I’m not doing it hard enough.”

A Mardi Gras reveler parades through the streets of New Orleans during the Krewe of Orpheus procession. The parade marked Lundi Gras, or Fat Monday, the day before Mardi Gras and traditionally the penultimate day of carnival before the beginning of Lent on Ash Wednesday.
Erika Goldring / Getty Images

Cabbage has been dubbed 2026’s vegetable of the year. It might be the “closest thing to a shelf-stable vegetable we have,” said cookbook author Joe Yonan to Real Simple. It can “last for so long that it seems to be always there, waiting for you.”

Cabbage is “having a moment,” said Berk Guldal, the chef-owner of Hamdi restaurant in Seattle, to Martha Stewart, because it’s “endlessly versatile. You can pickle it, ferment it, shave it raw into salads or lightly blanch it, and it still shines.” Consider the following techniques a warmup for your cabbage-centric adventures.

Roast and flavor-assault
Chef Andy Baraghani is the Crown Prince of Cruciferi. He works wonders with his pan-seared cabbage, always utilizing a complementary mixture of ingredients. Standout examples include a garlic-anchovy sauce with loads of fresh dill, and a chunky, zippy sauce with a whole chopped lemon, pistachios, honey, olive oil, and a flurry of shredded cheese.

Cloak it in a familiar costume
A scorching oven setting turns cabbage wedges smoky and charred in chef Hetty Lui McKinnon’s take on chicken Parm. The wedges are then draped with tomato sauce and mozzarella and blasted in the oven again so the cheese bubbles and browns. A finish of croutons and basil leaves provides texture and a green lift.

Cook softly with moisture
Sometimes a soft sauna turn in the oven is what cabbage craves the most. Prolific cookbook author Molly Stevens shows you how to make the “world’s best braised cabbage” by cooking it covered, slowly, with onion, carrot and water — or stock if you are feeling glamorous.