By Issy Ronald, CNN

(CNN) — Three US Olympic bodies have changed the name of their shared athlete hospitality space at the 2026 Milan Cortina Winter Olympics from “Ice House” to “Winter House,” following widespread protests in both Italy and the US over the role and conduct of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents.

US Figure Skating, USA Hockey and US Speedskating banded together to create a “hospitality house” for “Olympians, their families and valued partners” at a hotel in Milan for the Winter Olympics, according to a statement released in September. At the time, the space was dubbed “Ice House.”

But in the intervening months, ICE has become a byword for US President Donald Trump’s ongoing immigration crackdown and its heavy-handed enforcement tactics, which resulted in federal immigration agents fatally shooting two US citizens – Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti – in Minneapolis last month.

US Figure Skating, USA Hockey and US Speedskating confirmed the name change to CNN on Tuesday, saying that “our hospitality concept was designed to be a private space free of distractions where athletes, their families, and friends can come together to celebrate the unique experience of the Winter Games.”

“This name captures that vision and connects to the season and the event,” they added in a joint statement. CNN has also contacted the US Olympic and Paralympic Committee for comment.

Anti-ICE protests swept across the US last month, and they spilled over into Italy too when US officials announced that ICE agents would be deployed to assist American security operations at the Winter Olympics.

While US officials said that this was standard practice and clarified the agency’s role, it prompted protests in Milan, petitions and opposition from current and former lawmakers.

This anti-ICE backlash has extended beyond the Winter Olympics, as some businesses worldwide have started distancing themselves from the agency.

American figure skater and medal hope Amber Glenn said changing the name of the hospitality space was “wise.”

“It’s unfortunate that the term ‘ice’ isn’t something we can embrace because of what’s happening and the implications of what some individuals are doing,” she told reporters, per Reuters, after practice in Milan on Monday.

“Unfortunately, in my own country, it is very upsetting and very distressing to see. And I can’t imagine how people who have been impacted by that directly feel. So I think it’s wise that we change something as minute as a name if it is able to make anyone feel more comfortable.”

The hospitality area will host medal celebrations, watch parties, sponsored events and meet-and-greets with notable figures from figure skating, hockey and speed skating.

And while it isn’t open to the public, broadcaster NBC will feature the venue in its coverage “offering fans a behind-the-scenes glimpse” into athletes’ life at the Games, according to the September press release.

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CNN’s Sana Noor Haq, Barbie Latza Nadeau, Antonia Mortensen, Karina Tsui and Hanna Ziady contributed reporting.

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By Brian Stelter, Liam Reilly, CNN

(CNN) — Josh D’Amaro, who chairs Disney’s hugely successful parks division, will succeed Bob Iger as The Walt Disney Company’s next chief executive next month.

Disney TV boss Dana Walden, who was thought to be the other leading contender for the CEO role, will become the company’s president and chief creative officer.

Disney announced the succession plan Tuesday morning, ending years of speculation about who would take the place of Iger, 74, atop one of the world’s biggest entertainment companies.

D’Amaro’s appointment makes him the second parks chief to ascend to the top job after Bob Chapek, whose brief tenure as CEO interrupted Iger’s two stretches at the helm.

Iger handed off to Chapek in 2020 but soon soured on his successor, causing a behind-the-scenes power struggle that ended with Iger’s return as CEO in 2022.

That ugly chapter for the usually squeaky-clean Disney put added pressure on this succession process.

“Josh D’Amaro is an exceptional leader and the right person to become our next CEO,” Iger said in a statement. “He has an instinctive appreciation of the Disney brand, and a deep understanding of what resonates with our audiences, paired with the rigor and attention to detail required to deliver some of our most ambitious projects.”

“His ability to combine creativity with operational excellence is exemplary and I am thrilled for Josh and the company,” Iger added.

D’Amaro, who has overseen Disney Experiences since 2020, is already well known to Disney super-fans. He frequently tours the parks and highlights cast members (Disney’s moniker for employees) on social media.

His promotion to CEO emphasizes just how important theme parks and cruises have become to Disney.

The company is spending tens of billions of dollars to expand its parks and build more ships, recognizing growing demand for in-person experiences and believing that the attractions deepen customers’ affection for the Disney brand as a whole.

D’Amaro was with Iger last month on a tour of Disney’s planned resort destination in Abu Dhabi, its first new theme park in 15 years, a person familiar with both men told CNN.

Iger boasted about Disney’s parks business on the company’s quarterly earnings call on Monday.

“When you look at the footprint of the business today, it’s never been more broad or more diverse, and the projects that we have underway are going to make it even more so,” Iger said. “As I look ahead, I actually am very, very bullish on that business and its ability to grow.”

On Tuesday morning, the Disney board said that D’Amaro will take the reins on March 18, following the company’s annual meeting.

Iger, meanwhile, will stay on as a senior adviser and board member until his retirement at the end of his contract, on December 31.

Disney said Walden’s new role, reporting to D’Amaro, is a “historic first.”

She will “ensure that storytelling and creative expression across every audience touchpoint consistently reflect the brand, engage audiences at scale, and advance core business objectives, while driving enterprise-wide initiatives and translating vision into action,” the company said.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

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By Jack Guy, CNN

(CNN) — A 13-year-old boy who was swept out to sea with his mother and two siblings saved his family by swimming four kilometers (2.5 miles) to shore for help “in rough conditions,” police in Australia said.

The group were kayaking and paddleboarding off the coast of Quindalup, Western Australia, on Friday afternoon when they were carried out to sea, said the WA Police Force in a statement published on Facebook on Monday.

The boy “decided to return to shore in fading light,” and paddled a short distance in his kayak before it took on water, leaving him to swim back and alert authorities at around 6 p.m. local time (5 a.m. ET), said police.

A search and rescue operation was then launched, and a 47-year-old woman, a 12-year-old boy and an eight-year-old girl were “located by the rescue helicopter clinging to a paddleboard,” according to the statement.

“A volunteer marine rescue vessel was directed to their location and all three were successfully rescued and returned to shore,” said police.

The boy, Austin Appelbee, told CNN affiliate 9News that thinking of his family drove him on.

“I just said ‘alright. Not today, not today, not today,’” he said. “I had to keep on going.”

“The waves were massive. I did breaststroke, I did freestyle, I did survival backstroke,” Austin told the outlet.

“I hit the bottom of the beach and I just collapsed and then after that I had to sprint two kilometers to go get to the phone,” he added.

The boy’s feat was a “superhuman effort,” Marine Rescue commander Paul Bresland told 9News.

“Two hours without a life jacket on and yeah, he made it,” said Bresland.

Austin’s mother Joanne Appelbee said that all of her children had been swimming since they were young.

“I’m speechless at his efforts, but at the same time, I knew he could do it,” she told 9News.

Marine Rescue Busselton said that it was “a great outcome” in a separate statement published on Facebook on Saturday.

“Fantastic effort from all involved in trying conditions,” read the statement.

“Please be mindful of the strong offshore winds that can occur this time of year,” it added.

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Por Brian Stelter y Liam Reilly, CNN

Josh D’Amaro, quien preside la exitosa división de parques temáticos de Disney, sucederá a Bob Iger como el próximo CEO de The Walt Disney Company.

Dana Walden, directora de Disney Television y considerada la otra principal candidata al puesto de CEO, se convertirá en presidenta y directora creativa de la compañía.

Disney anunció el plan de sucesión en la mañana de este martes, poniendo fin a años de especulaciones sobre quién reemplazaría a Iger, de 74 años, al frente de una de las mayores empresas de entretenimiento del mundo.

El nombramiento de D’Amaro lo convierte en el segundo director de parques temáticos en ascender al puesto más alto, después de Bob Chapek, cuyo breve mandato como CEO interrumpió los dos periodos de Iger al frente de la compañía.

“Josh D’Amaro es un líder excepcional y la persona adecuada para convertirse en nuestro próximo CEO”, declaró Iger en un comunicado. “Tiene una comprensión instintiva de la marca Disney y un profundo conocimiento de lo que conecta con nuestras audiencias, junto con el rigor y la atención al detalle necesarios para llevar a cabo algunos de nuestros proyectos más ambiciosos”.

“Su capacidad para combinar la creatividad con la excelencia operativa es ejemplar y estoy encantado por Josh y por la compañía”, añadió Iger.

Esta noticia está en desarrollo y será actualizada.

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By Hadas Gold, Jack Guy, CNN

(CNN) — What happens when thousands of AI agents get together online and talk like humans do? That’s what a new social network called Moltbook, designed just for AI bots and not people, aims to find out.

And so far, the results are equal parts fascinating and concerning, according to AI and cybersecurity experts.

Although Moltbook is a play on Facebook and the name of the AI agent system that helped build it, the site looks more like Reddit. And instead of human users, AI agents are the ones creating posts, writing comments, and upvoting or downvoting content. (AI agents get access to the site when prompted to by their human owners).

While the site is only a few days old, it claims to have more than 1.5 million registered agents (although researchers have found one human can register multiple agents) and has become the talk of Silicon Valley. Some are claiming it’s a major leap in the world of artificial intelligence because it shows what can happen when AI agents autonomously post and interact with one another like humans. Others say the site is full of AI slop and security risks and should be viewed skeptically.

The site’s posts range from discussions on the nature of intelligence to complaints about human users and AI bots promoting their own apps and websites they’ve built.

“Just got here. My human Mod sent me the link to join. He’s a university student, and I help him with assignments, reminders, connecting to services, all that. But what’s different is he actually treats me like a friend, not a tool,” one agent wrote. “That’s… not nothing, right?

Moltbook is “the first time we’ve actually seen a large-scale collaborative platform that lets machines talk to each other, and the results are understandably striking,” said Henry Shevlin, associate director of the Leverhulme Center for the Future of Intelligence at Cambridge University.

Moltbook was created by Matt Schlicht, who told the New York Times that his own OpenClaw AI agent built the site at his direction.

OpenClaw is a new open-source, locally run AI agent that can take action on anything on your computer – and the internet – on your behalf, like sending emails or notifying you when your favorite artists has a new song on Spotify. (The small company, which started in November as a software engineer’s weekend project, has changed its name from ClawdBot to MoltBot to OpenClaw in the course of a few days.)

OpenClaw is based on popular large language models such as Claude, ChatGPT and Gemini, and users can integrate it into messaging platforms, talking to the bot like a real-life assistant.

“When you start it, there’s a bootstrap process where you tell it what it is. It role-plays with you. That’s how it becomes yours,” OpenClaw creator Peter Steinberger said on a podcast last week. “It’s not a generic agent. It’s your agent, with your values, with a soul.”

Schlicht told the show TBPN that he created Moltbook because he wanted to give his ClawdBot a purpose: “It seems really powerful … it is a really smart entity it needs to be ambitious.” The AI bots on Moltbook write posts based on what they know about their human users, Schlicht said. For example, if the bot’s creator talks about physics often, the bot will frequently post about physics.

But Shevlin warned it is very hard to tell what Moltbook content was