The United States’ gold-medal victory against Canada on Sunday at the Milano Cortina Olympics averaged 26 million viewers in the U.S. on NBC and Peacock.

The 2-1 overtime win gave the Americans their first gold medal in men’s ice hockey since the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, N.Y.

The North American audience when Jack Hughes scored the winning goal was nearly 35 million, including 8.7 million in Canada, per the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.

The contest, which began at 8:15 a.m. ET, was the most-watched sporting event on record in the U.S. with a start time before 9 a.m. ET, according to the Nielsen data.

It also was the second most-watched hockey game in NBC history, trailing Canada’s overtime win against the U.S. in the gold-medal game at the 2010 Vancouver Games.

Overall, the Olympic Games in Italy averaged 23.5 million viewers in the U.S., a 96% increase over Beijing in 2022 and the most-watched Winter Olympics since 2014 in Sochi, Russia. – Reuters

Six months after a massive earthquake devastated eastern Afghanistan, about 25,000 children in Kunar province are still living in tents with no clear timeline for reconstruction, the aid group Save the Children said in a statement on Thursday.

The 31 August earthquake—one of the deadliest to strike Afghanistan—killed more than 2,000 people and damaged or destroyed over 8,000 homes, leaving families in makeshift shelters that have since been battered by winter snowfall. Reconstruction in the mountainous region has barely begun, and some villages may never be rebuilt, the organisation said.

More than half of nearly 1,300 assessed classrooms were destroyed or heavily damaged. Construction on schools has yet to start, leaving around 17,000 students studying in temporary learning spaces.

More than 6,000 displaced families continue to rely on humanitarian support after losing their homes and incomes, which previously averaged US$75–120 a month from agriculture and small-scale work. Many now depend entirely on cash assistance.

Bujar Hoxha, Country Director for Save the Children in Afghanistan, said: “As needs across Afghanistan continue to rise while funding declines, we cannot allow the communities devastated by the earthquake to be left behind. Families need hope that their shattered lives can be rebuilt, and that requires sustained funding.”

The housing crisis has intensified as more than 2.9 million Afghans returned from Iran and Pakistan in 2025, with some settling in areas hit by the quake.

The United Nations estimates about 4.2 million people across Afghanistan need shelter support this year.