The Brief

Inside a bright new building in the heart of Skid Row, homeless people hung out in a canopy-covered courtyard — some waiting to take a shower, do laundry, or get medication for addiction treatment. Others relaxed on shaded grass and charged their phones as an intake line for housing grew more crowded.

The Skid Row Care Campus officially opened this spring with ample offerings for people living on the streets of this historically downtrodden neighborhood. Pop-up fruit stands and tent encampments lined the sidewalks, as well as dealers peddling meth and fentanyl in open-air drug markets. Some people, sick or strung out, were passed out on sidewalks as pedestrians strolled by on a recent afternoon.

For those working toward sobriety, clinicians are on site to offer mental health and addiction treatment. Skid Row’s first methadone clinic is set to open here this year. For those not ready to quit drugs or alcohol, the campus provides clean syringes to more safely shoot up, glass pipes for smoking drugs, naloxone to prevent overdoses, and drug test strips to detect fentanyl contamination, among other supplies.

As many Americans have grown increasingly intolerant of street homelessness, cities and states have returned to tough-on-crime approaches that penalize people for living outside and for substance use disorders. But the Skid Row facility shows Los Angeles County leaders’ embrace of the principle of harm reduction, a range of more lenient strategies that can include helping people more safely use drugs, as they contend with a homeless population estimated around 75,000 — among the largest of any county in the nation. Evidence shows the approach can help individuals enter treatment, gain sobriety, and end their homelessness, while addiction experts and county health officials note it has the added benefit of improving public health.

“We get a really bad rap for this, but this is the safest way to use drugs,” said Darren Willett, director of the Center for Harm Reduction on the new Skid Row Care Campus. “It’s an overdose prevention strategy, and it prevents the spread of infectious disease.”

Despite a decline in overdose deaths, drug and alcohol use continues to be the leading cause of death among homeless people in the county. Living on the streets or in sordid encampments, homeless people saddle the health care system with high costs from uncompensated care, emergency room trips, inpatient hospitalizations, and, for many of them, their deaths. Harm reduction, its advocates say, allows homeless people the opportunity to obtain jobs, taxpayer-subsidized housing, health care, and other social services without being forced to give up drugs. Yet it’s hotly debated.

Politicians around the country, including Gov. Gavin Newsom in California, are reluctant to adopt harm reduction techniques, such as needle exchanges or supervised places to use drugs, in part because they can be seen by the public as condoning illicit behavior. Although Democrats are more supportive than Republicans, a national poll this year found lukewarm support across the political spectrum for such interventions.

Anthony Willis, who has an apartment on Skid Row, spends most of his time on the streets. He says he’s addicted to crack and alcohol.

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Los Angeles is defying President Donald Trump’s agenda as he advocates for forced mental health and addiction treatment for homeless people — and locking up those who refuse. The city has also been the scene of large protests against Trump’s immigration crackdown, which the president has fought by deploying National Guard troops and Marines.

Trump’s most detailed remarks on homelessness and substance use disorder came during his campaign, when he attacked people who use drugs as criminals and said that homeless people “have no right to turn every park and sidewalk into a place for them to squat and do drugs.” Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. reinforced Trump’s focus on treatment.

“Secretary Kennedy stands with President Trump in prioritizing recovery-focused solutions to address addiction and homelessness,” said agency spokesperson Vianca Rodriguez Feliciano. “HHS remains focused on helping individuals recover, communities heal, and help make our cities clean, safe, and healthy once again.”

A comprehensive report led by Margot Kushel, a professor of medicine at the University of California-San Francisco, this year found that nearly half of California’s homeless population had a complex behavioral health need, defined as regular drug use, heavy drinking, hallucinations, or a recent psychiatric hospitalization.

The chaos of living outside, she said — marked by violence, sexual assault, sleeplessness, and lack of housing and health care — can make it nearly impossible to get sober.

Skid Row Care Campus

The new care campus is funded by about $26 million a year in local, state, and federal homelessness and health care money, and initial construction was completed by a Skid Row landlord, Matt Lee, who made site improvements on his own, according to Anna Gorman, chief operating officer for community programs at the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services. Operators say the campus should be able to withstand potential federal spending cuts because it is funded through a variety of sources.

Glass front doors lead to an atrium inside the yellow-and-orange complex. It was designed with input from homeless people, who advised the county not just on the layout but also on the services offered on-site. There are 22 recovery beds and 48 additional beds for mostly older homeless people, arts and wellness programs, a food pantry, and pet care. Even bunnies and snakes are allowed.

John Wright, who goes by the nickname “Slim,” works as a harm reduction specialist at the new Skid Row Care Campus, a center that provides both harm reduction services and treatment for mental illness and substance use disorder.

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John Wright, 65, who goes by the nickname Slim, mingled with homeless visitors one afternoon in May, asking them what they needed to be safe and comfortable.

“Everyone thinks we’re criminals, like we’re out robbing everyone, but we aren’t,” said Wright, who is employed as a harm reduction specialist on the campus and is trying, at his own pace, to stop using fentanyl. “I’m homeless and I’m a drug addict, but I’m on methadone now so I’m working on it,” he said.

Nearby on Skid Row, Anthony Willis rested in his wheelchair while taking a toke from a crack pipe. He’d just learned about the new care campus, he said, explaining that he was homeless for roughly 20 years before getting into a taxpayer-subsidized apartment on Skid Row. He spends most of his days and nights on the streets, using drugs and alcohol.

The drugs, he said, help him stay awake so he can provide companionship and sometimes physical protection for homeless friends who don’t have housing. “It’s tough sometimes living down here; it’s pretty much why I keep relapsing,” said Willis, who at age 62 has asthma and arthritic knees. “But it’s also my community.”

Willis said the care campus could be a place to help him kick drugs, but he wasn’t sure he was ready.

Research shows harm reduction helps prevent death and can build long-term recovery for people who use substances, said Brian Hurley, an addiction psychiatrist and the medical director for the Bureau of Substance Abuse Prevention and Control at the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health. The techniques allow health care providers and social service workers to meet people when they’re ready to stop using drugs or enter treatment.

“Recovery is a learning activity, and the reality is relapse is part of recovery,” he said. “People go back and forth and sometimes get triggered or haven’t figured out how to cope with a stressor.”

Swaying public opinion

Under harm reduction principles, officials acknowledge that people will use drugs. Funded by taxpayers, the government provides services to use safely, rather than forcing people to quit or requiring abstinence in exchange for government-subsidized housing and treatment programs.

Los Angeles County is spending hundreds of millions to combat homelessness, while also launching a multiyear “By LA for LA” campaign to build public support, fight stigma, and encourage people to use services and seek treatment. Officials have hired a nonprofit, Vital Strategies, to conduct the campaign including social media advertising and billboards to promote the expansion of both treatment and harm reduction services for people who use drugs.

The organization led a national harm reduction campaign and is working on overdose prevention and public health campaigns in seven states using roughly $70 million donated by Michael Bloomberg, the former mayor of New York.

“We don’t believe people should die just because they use drugs, so we’re going to provide support any way that we can,” said Shoshanna Scholar, director of harm reduction at the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services. “Eventually, some people may come in for treatment but what we really want is to prevent overdose and save lives.”

Los Angeles also finds itself at odds with California’s Democratic governor. Newsom has spearheaded stricter laws targeting homelessness and addiction and has backed treatment requirements for people with mental illness or who use drugs. Last year, California voters approved Proposition 36, which allows felony charges for some drug crimes, requires courts to warn people they could be charged with murder for selling or providing illegal drugs that kill someone, and makes it easier to order treatment for people who use drugs.

Even San Francisco approved a measure last year that requires welfare recipients to participate in treatment to continue receiving cash aid. Mayor Daniel Lurie recently ordered city officials to stop handing out free drug supplies, including pipes and foil, and instead to require participation in drug treatment to receive services. Lurie signed a recovery-first ordinance, which prioritizes “long-term remission” from substance use, and the city is also expanding policing while funding new sober-living sites and treatment centers for people recovering from addiction.

‘Harm encouragement’

State Sen. Roger Niello, a Republican who represents conservative suburbs outside Sacramento, says the state needs to improve the lives of homeless people through stricter drug policies. He argues that providing drug supplies or offering housing without a mandate to enter treatment enables homeless people to remain on the streets.

Proposition 36, he said, needs to be implemented forcefully, and homeless people should be required to enter treatment in exchange for housing.

“I think of it as tough love,” Niello said. “What Los Angeles is doing, I would call it harm encouragement. They’re encouraging harm by continuing to feed a habit that is, quite frankly, killing people.”

Keith Humphreys, who worked in the George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations and pioneered harm reduction practices across the nation, said that communities should find a balance between leniency and law enforcement.

“Parents need to be able to walk their kids to the park without being traumatized. You should be able to own a business without being robbed,” he said. “Harm reduction and treatment both have a place, and we also need prevention and a focus on public safety.”

Cindy Ashley hugs her companion dog on an afternoon in late May. She lost her housing due to the hospitalization and was homeless.

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Just outside the Skid Row Care Campus, Cindy Ashley organized her belongings in a cart after recently leaving a local hospital ER for a deep skin infection on her hand and arm caused by shooting heroin. She also regularly smokes crack, she said.

She was frantically searching for a home so she could heal from two surgeries for the infection. She learned about the new care campus and rushed over to get her name on the waiting list for housing.

“I’m not going to make it out here,” she said, in tears.

Hundreds of people from across Greater L.A. journeyed to the Mojave Desert this weekend to protest living conditions at the Adelanto Immigration and Customs Enforcement Processing Center, where an estimated 2,000 people are being held.

Current and former detainees say immigrants there face rotten food, denial of medication and solitary confinement.

The Trump administration, which has denied those charges, has promised to expand the network of immigrant prisons like Adelanto across the U.S., even as the number of people who’ve died in ICE custody grows.

The organizers stage a concert outside the detention center on Saturday to serenade the detainees, while also speaking to how the administration’s policies have harmed their communities.

Sandra Garcia was among dozens of people who boarded three buses outside the Pasadena Community Job Center. She decided to make the trek out of a sense of responsibility, she told LAist. Last summer, immigration agents raided her family’s tamale stand, pinned four of their regular customers to the ground and arrested them. She said it’s something her family can’t forget. Two of Garcia’s cousins have also been detained. One of them, she said, has already been deported.

Since then, Garcia has joined a rapid response network to help alert her neighbors to the presence of federal agents.

“ As a U.S citizen, I'm gonna continue pushing,” she added.

Sandra Garcia said two of her cousins were detained by ICE, as were four customers at her family's business in Pasadena.

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Heavenly Hughes, a longtime Altadena resident, said she joined the caravan “to show that Black and brown unity is important.”

Her parents, she said, bought their home in the early 1970s, and the community she grew up in was the product of redlining.

“Hardworking Black people built this community,” she said of Altadena. When the Eaton Fire broke out, “my friends, my peers, those who helped raise me — they lost everything in the fire.”

The day laborers at the job center have been integral to rebuilding the region, Hughes said. She was going to Adelanto to protest against the detention of these workers and to express her solidarity with them and their families.

“I love when I hear our community saying joy is resistance,” she said. “ We want the people there who are detained to hear our voices.  That they are humans. That they deserve to be treated right.”

Songs of resistance  

As desert winds blew, the activists made their way from the caravans to a mobile stage truck.

“It's heavy to be here,” said Elisa Schwartz, a resident of Valley Village who carried a sign that read: “We’ve seen this shit before.”

“As a Jew, I was raised to know that once you are othered, you are in serious danger,” she added.

To get to Adelanto from her home, Schwartz traveled nearly 100 miles. As she marched along the dusty highway with other protesters, she wished she could go out there every day.

“I hope [this] will mean something to them,” she said.

Demonstrators gathered at the front of Adelanto ICE Processing Center, in San Bernardino County. The privately run detention center has faced accusations of neglect and inhumane conditions, including in a recent lawsuit.

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Up on the stage, the musicians played folk songs about working class solidarity and resistance to repressive governments, like Bob Dylan’s “The Times They Are A-Changin'” and a rendition of Alí Primera’s “Techos de cartón.”

Some protesters created an altar near the stage in honor of those who recently died in immigrant prisons, or at the hands of federal agents. For a while, the mood was somber, and the activists weren’t sure that the detainees could hear the music. The unyielding gusts of wind didn’t help.

A few feet away, brothers Abe and Ben (who asked LAist not to share their last name out of fear of reprisal) distributed groceries from the back of their truck. When a parent or partner is detained, Abe noted, it can wreak economic havoc on a household. They wanted to do their part to help ease their burden.

They would know. In late February, Abe had been detained at Adelanto. And Ben had flown to visit him in Adelanto from the Bay Area.

“It was really hard to see, you know, my older brother, who I grew up with, in these conditions,” Ben said.

Abe, left, said he spent nearly a month in the Adelanto ICE Processing Center. He came to the demonstration with his brother Ben, right, to show support for people who are still inside.

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Abe was detained for three weeks after being arrested at an annual check-in. When asked about what it was like inside, he said he always ate canned food — “nothing was fresh” — and that getting medical attention could take up to a week. He most looked forward to the one hour per day he was allowed to be outside.

“You're behind the fence, inside the cages, but at least you're in the sun,” he said.

While he was detained, Ben’s friends suggested that he launch a GoFundMe page to help the family cover his brother's attorney’s fees. More than 200 people contributed. That level of support “was hope giving,” Ben said. Now that Abe is free, he, his brother and Abe’s wife decided to go to the protest and pay it forward.

Singers performed from a truck outfitted with huge speakers.

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Demonstrators gathered around a delivery truck that served as a stage for performers and speakers.

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Getting in contact with people inside

Jax Santana, whose father, Ramiro Santiago Pacheco Martinez, was detained last November, told the crowd that her father was a day laborer in Pomona; that he was the one who taught her to drive and cheered for her at her graduation; that she and her four siblings wanted him home.

As the sun began to set, the crowd moved the mobile stage across the street, closer to the detention center.

The musicians played more upbeat music including cumbia and quebradita.

Jax Santana came to the demonstration to speak out for her father, Ramiro Santiago Pacheco Martinez. He was detained in November and is being held at Adelanto ICE Processing Center.

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Demonstrators marched around the Adelanto ICE Processing Center on Saturday to demand the release of people detained at the facility. Their goal was to make enough noise that people inside the detention center could hear them.

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Santana took the mic for a second time. Using a government-approved messaging system, they were able to make contact with their father.

“He can hear us!” Santana told a cheering crowd. “They all can hear us!”

Then, Santana led the crowd in chanting: “No estan solos! You’re not alone!"

As the chanting died down, Santana shared one more message from their father: “You better be dancing,” he said.

A federal judge Monday dealt a major blow to the Trump administration's efforts to overhaul the nation's vaccine policies, including the controversial decision to slash the number of federally recommended vaccinations for children.

U.S. District Court Judge Brian Murphy in Boston put a hold on the decisions made by an influential Centers for Disease Control and Prevention vaccine advisory committee, ruling that Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. had improperly replaced the entire committee.

The decision was hailed by the American Academy of Pediatrics and other leading health groups that brought the lawsuit, as well as infectious disease experts around the country.

"Today's ruling is a historic and welcome outcome for children, communities, and pediatricians everywhere," said Dr. Andrew Racine, the pediatric academy's president.

The administration plans to appeal the decision, according to Department of Health and Human Services spokesman Andrew Nixon. "HHS looks forward to this judge's decision being overturned just like his other attempts to keep the Trump administration from governing," Nixon wrote in an email to NPR.

Nixon, confirmed, however that the ruling had forced the CDC vaccine committee, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, or ACIP, to postpone a meeting that was planned for Wednesday and Thursday. The committee was expected to raise new questions about the COVID-19 vaccines and possibly revamp how federal vaccine policies are formulated.

The judge ruled that Kennedy and his committee had made arbitrary and capricious decisions, ignoring a long-used, well-regarded scientific process for developing vaccine policies. He wrote in his ruling, "the government has disregarded those methods and thereby undermined the integrity of its actions."

The ACIP, whose members Kennedy fired and replaced largely with new members who also criticized vaccines, had issued a series of contentious recommendations, including a recommendation that all babies get vaccinated against hepatitis B at birth. The judge's ruling stays the appointment of 13 committee members appointed by Kennedy since June 2025, when the previous members were fired.

Administration lawyers had argued that the changes were the result of different interpretations of vaccine data.

"This is a significant victory for public health, evidence-based medicine, the rule of law, and the American people," Richard Hughes, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, told reporters after the ruling.
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Team USA finished second in the overall Paralympics medal count, after 10 days of competition in which American athletes made dazzling debuts, defended titles and cemented legacies.

One of the many made-for-TV moments came just hours before the closing ceremony on Sunday, when the U.S. sled hockey team defeated rival Canada to claim its record fifth gold medal in a row.

"You don't ever start out and try to be the only five-time gold medalist in the sport," said captain Josh Pauls after personally achieving that very feat. "But to be with these guys, to lead them and kind of pass on that tradition, it's the ultimate honor."

The day — and the Games — ended with the closing ceremony in Cortina d'Ampezzo, featuring performances, speeches and the extinguishing of the Paralympic flame. American skiers Kendall Gretsch and Andrew Kurka, who are both leaving Italy with new medals, carried the flag for Team USA.

"I've been involved in four Games and have only been able to go to two closing ceremonies: in PyeongChang, where I won my gold and silver, and this year, where I won my bronze," said Kurka, who medaled in men's super-G. "It's been a career filled with ups and downs, but even the small victories count for me."

Andrew Kurka and Kendall Gretsch carry the U.S. flag during the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Paralympic Games closing ceremony in Cortina on Sunday.

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At the ceremony, International Paralympic Committee (IPC) President Andrew Parsons declared the Games — the 50th anniversary of the Winter Paralympics — officially over, and a success: "The biggest and most beautiful Winter Paralympics with more athletes, more nations, more women and more global broadcast and digital coverage than ever before."

A record 611 athletes from 55 countries competed in 79 medal events across six sports.

China topped the medal count for the second Winter Games in a row, with 44 total medals (15 gold), followed by the U.S. with 24 total medals, including 13 gold. The U.S. improved on its fifth-place standing from 2022. This is the same number of gold medals it won in 2018, in what officials are calling its "strongest gold-medal showing in the last 20 years."

A total of 28 American Paralympians and two guides reached the podium this year. Six of them won medals for the first time, and six of them earned multiple medals, according to the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee (USOPC).

In third place — both overall and in gold medals — was Russia, which was allowed to participate under its own flag for the first time since 2014 despite its ongoing war in Ukraine. Ukrainian athletes boycotted both the opening and closing ceremonies in protest.

But even in a moment of intense geopolitical upheaval, amid conflicts in Europe and the Middle East, the IPC's Parsons said the Paralympics offered "proof that sport can unite us through respect, fairness and human achievement."

"Paralympians, you rose above pressure, expectation and global tension to keep the focus where it belongs: on you and your sport," he said. "You expanded the imagination of the world. You have shown that excellence is universal and that determination knows no boundaries."

Parsons passed the proverbial torch to the next Winter Paralympics host: the French Alps for 2030. Those will follow the 2028 Summer Olympics and Paralympics in Los Angeles.

Team USA highlights

Team USA's Declan Farmer, center, fights for the puck during the gold-medal match against Canada.

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On the ice: 

The U.S. sled hockey team got off to a strong start in an early-round match against Italy, when it beat the host nation 14-1 — the largest margin of victory in the sport's U.S. history.

It stayed dominant, outscoring opponents 46-6 throughout the tournament before becoming the first Paralympic or Olympic team to win five consecutive winter gold medals.

"You are going to enjoy something like this, for sure," Coach David Hoff said afterward. "But I don't know if it's just the wins. It's so much more than that. They just love playing together."

Team USA beat Canada 6-2 on Sunday, thanks to a hat trick from Jack Wallace — who was named "best defender" of the tournament — and goals by Kayden Beasley, Brody Roybal and four-time Paralympian Declan Farmer.

Farmer, the top scorer and official MVP of these Games, scored 15 goals and 26 points throughout the tournament to become the all-time leading scorer in Paralympic sled hockey history at just 28 years old. But he was quick to share the credit with his teammates.

"A lot of the guys stepped up and had their best games of the tournament, and we just carried each other," said Farmer. "I'm just so happy for the guys, we earned it together."

You're forgiven if you have deja vu from last month: This win makes the U.S. the first country to sweep all three Olympic and Paralympic hockey tournaments in one year.

Team USA also made history in wheelchair curling, with Steve Emt and Laura Dwyer finishing fourth in the brand-new mixed doubles event. That's the United States' best-ever Paralympic finish in the sport.

"In the two years we've been together, we've shown the world what we're capable of doing and we're going to go home, take some time off, relax, re-group and come back even better next year," said Emt, the most decorated Paralympic curler in U.S. history.

In Para Nordic Skiing (cross country and biathlon):

Oksana Masters competes in the para cross-country skiing 20km in Tesero, Italy, on Sunday.

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Eight-time, dual-season Paralympian Oksana Masters, the most decorated Winter Paralympian in U.S. history, is leaving Italy with four new gold medals and a bronze in biathlon and cross-country skiing events, bringing her career total to 24 medals.

That's despite a concussion, infection and injury that almost kept her from competing in the first place.

"I think that is what makes it so special, because nothing is guaranteed," Masters told NPR on Saturday. "A win's not guaranteed, and the podium's not guaranteed, and so that's been a really great motivator for this whole … year so far."

Four-time Paralympian Jake Adicoff, with guides Reid Goble and Peter Wolter, won four gold medals in four visually impaired skiing events to set a new record for the most Para cross-country golds won by a Team USA athlete in a single Games.

Joshua Sweeney, Oksana Masters, Sydney Peterson, Jake Adicoff and his guide Reid Goble of Team USA participate in the medal ceremony after the para cross-country skiing mixed 4x2.5km relay.

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"It's incredibly scary to put a high goal out to the public," the 30-year-old said. "I was doubting it so much this week, I didn't know what was going to happen, but the races came together and I'm just overjoyed."

One of those was the mixed 4x2.5km relay, where the all-star team of Adicoff, Masters, Josh Sweeney and Sydney Peterson came from behind in the final leg to defend the U.S. title.

Peterson, competing in her second Paralympics, won four medals — three of them gold — this time around.

And Kendall Gretsch, closing ceremony flag-bearer, won four medals at her third Winter Paralympics (and fifth total): one gold, one silver and two bronze. That brings her total medal count to 11 across Summer and Winter Games.

In Alpine skiing:

Andrew Kurka competes in the super-G leg of the para Alpine skiing men's combined.

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Andrew Kurka won bronze in the men's super-G sitting, adding to his silver and gold from 2018.

"I'm happy to be here. I'm happy to have a great career. Gold, silver, and bronze, happy to be done," said Kurka, who wrote on Instagram after the closing ceremony that he is stepping back from ski racing to deal with injuries.

In 2022, he competed with a broken nose, thumb and humerus bone, finishing fourth in the sitting downhill event before withdrawing from the rest of competition. Kurka said in Italy that he's broken over 20 bones in his career.

"When it comes to it, losing is nothing compared to the pain of failure," he said after winning bronze. "And when it comes down to today, I was just happy to get across that finish line without any injuries and in a relatively quick time. Usually, if I cross the finish line, it's pretty fast."

Meanwhile, Patrick Halgren won silver in the men's super-G standing event — the first for Team USA since 1998.

Patrick Halgren celebrates after winning a silver medal in the alpine skiing men's super-G standing on Monday.

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The 33-year-old wasn't necessarily a favorite for the podium, having placed 26th and 24th at his events in the Beijing Paralympics. But Halgren said he felt the presence of his late twin brother Sven — his source of encouragement to try para Alpine skiing — who died in a motorcycle accident in 2016. Halgren himself lost most of his left leg, and nearly his life, in a motorcycle accident three years earlier.

Halgren, who wowed the internet with his winning performance and rock-star persona, dedicated his win to Sven and called it the "best day of my life until tomorrow."

"You celebrate the victories the same as the defeats," he added. "I've been blessed to have to develop my character over the last 11 years, losing my leg, and could either roll over and die, or I could become the greatest Patrick Halgren on Earth, and that's what you're seeing."

In snowboarding: 

Kate Delson, center, and Brenna Huckaby, right, of Team U.S. pose for a photo on the podium during the medal ceremony for the para snowboard banked slalom.

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Three-time Paralympian Brenna Huckaby leaves Italy as the most decorated Paralympic snowboarder in history.

She won bronze in the women's banked slalom event — which she dominated in 2022 — to bring her career total to five medals. That came days after she finished sixth in the snowboard cross event, which she still saw as a win.

"I'm here representing a very small portion of people who want to see themselves represented," Huckaby said. "They want to know that if they lose their leg above the knee, life does not end. I accomplished that here simply by being. So I'm happy."

First-time Paralympian Kate Delson medaled in both of those events, winning gold in the banked slalom and silver in snowboard cross.

"I was just stoked to be here, I think it's such a fun course," Delson said after. "I got to get a medal with my teammate, [Huckaby], one of my best friends in the world, that's unreal."

On the men's side, Noah Elliott won gold in the banked slalom, a repeat of 2018, and silver in snowboard cross to double his career medal count.

Mike Schultz brought home a bronze medal in his final Paralympics, for which he outfitted many athletes with their prosthetics.

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And Mike Schultz earned his fourth career medal — bronze in banked slalom — at the last race of his third and final Paralympics.

"To finish my last run and bring home a bronze medal, that's storybook stuff there," Schultz said in an emotional Instagram video after watching a compilation of congratulatory messages from his U.S. snowboarding teammates, whom he called his family.

All the while, the 44-year-old outfitted many para athletes — including some who beat him — with high-performance prosthetics, a business he has run for over a decade, which he plans to pursue in retirement.
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