NHL star Quinn Hughes became an Olympic hero for Team USA when he hit an overtime goal to lift his country over Sweden in the men’s hockey qualifying round. 

His statements after the game may have made him a national hero among many Americans. 

“It’s special,” Hughes told reporters of seeing American flags and hearing “U-S-A” chants in the arena.

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Quinn Hughes of the United States celebrates with teammates after scoring a goal in overtime during a quarterfinal playoff match against Sweden at Milano Santagiulia Ice Hockey Arena on Feb. 18, 2026, during the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympic Games in Milan, Italy.  (Gregory Shamus/Getty Images)

“I love the U.S., and it’s the greatest country in the world. So, I’m happy to represent here with these guys, and it was very special.”

Hughes’ overtime goal delivered the U.S. a dramatic 2-1 victory as the team continues its quest for a gold medal. 

The U.S. couldn’t connect on its first five shots of overtime, but, on the sixth, Hughes rang one off the inside of the post that crossed the line to give the Americans the win.

The Americans will take on Slovakia, while Canada, which narrowly escaped being upset by the Czech Republic earlier Thursday, will go against Finland. Canada and Finland both rallied back from deficits to win in overtime.

TEAM USA ADVANCES TO OLYMPIC MEN’S HOCKEY SEMIFINAL AFTER EXHILARATING OVERTIME WINNER

Quinn Hughes of the United States celebrates with teammates after scoring a goal in overtime during a quarterfinal playoff match against Sweden at Milano Santagiulia Ice Hockey Arena during the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympic Games Feb. 18, 2026, in Milan, Italy. (Bruce Bennett/Getty Images)

Hughes’ postgame patriotism was a welcome sight for many American fans on social media. 

“American Hero Quinn Hughes,” one user wrote on X in response to the star’s quotes. 

One user wrote, “This is how every member of Team USA should talk to the cynical media..”

Another user wrote, “Folks mad in the comments cause he loves his country.”

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The United States’ Quinn Hughes celebrates after scoring the winning goal against Sweden during overtime of a men’s ice hockey quarterfinal game at the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan, Italy, Wednesday, Feb. 18, 2026.  (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)

Hughes’ expression of love for his country comes during a year when other American Olympians have been openly critical of the U.S. Team USA athletes Hunter Hess, Amber Glenn and Mikaela Shiffrin have all made statements criticizing the state of the U.S. while competing in Italy. 

Hughes now joins hockey teammate Brady Tkachuk in openly praising the U.S. and expressing honor and gratitude for representing the country in Milan Cortina.

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Police have claimed to have made a big revelation in the suitcase blast case that took place a week ago at Ganeshwar Dham located in Neemkathana area of ​​Sikar district of Rajasthan. According to the police, this matter is related to tantra-mantra and worship material. Five people have been detained in this case, while the main accused Tantrik is still absconding.

The Tantrik had given the suitcase

Additional SP Lokesh Meena said that some people of Udaipurwati and Gudhagadhouji police station areas of Jhunjhunu had come in contact with a Tantrik resident of Nuh of Mewat for their personal work.

The Tantrik gave him a suitcase, in which items related to worship and tantra-mantra were kept. He had told these people to immerse this suitcase in Ganeshwar Dham.

Fell on the stairs and exploded

According to the police, when these people reached Ganeshwar Dham and were proceeding for immersion, the suitcase suddenly fell on the stairs. As soon as it fell, there was a huge explosion.

This incident had created chaos in the area. However, what caused the blast is not yet clear. The investigation is ongoing as to what material was in the suitcase that caused the explosion.

5 accused detained, Tantrik absconding

Seeing the seriousness of the incident, IG Raghavendra Suhasa and SP Praveen Nayak Nunwat reached the spot. The police formed a team and started investigation. After about 5 days of investigation, Dinesh Kumar Jangid, Jairam Saini, Hariram, Nirmal and Tantrik’s associate Saddam alias Raju alias Kala have been detained. Interrogation is going on.

The main accused Tantrik is still absconding and the police is busy searching for him. Police say that the real reason for the blast will be clear only after the forensic report comes. The suspects have been identified on the basis of CCTV footage.

Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced Wednesday that New York City will resume clearing homeless encampments after pausing the policy for a few weeks.

Mamdani paused the policy in January, arguing that it did not do enough to get people into housing. The Democrat said his new initiative will be led by the Department of Homeless Services rather than the police and will involve sustained outreach, which he said will lead to better results.

“We will meet them looking to connect them with shelter, looking to connect them with services, looking to connect them with a city that wants them to be sheltered and indoors and warm and safe. And that is something that I believe will yield far better results, because it hasn’t even been the driving directive of these policies before,” Mamdani said during an unrelated news conference.

Before taking office in December, Mamdani criticized how Mayor Eric Adams approached the city’s homeless encampments, and he officially paused his predecessor’s policy on Jan. 5.

AFFLUENT UPPER EAST SIDE EXPLODES IN OUTRAGE OVER CONTROVERSIAL HOMELESS SHELTER: ‘UNACCEPTABLE!’

Mayor Zohran Mamdani said the city will restart homeless encampment clearings with an outreach-led approach. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

Mamdani reiterated on Wednesday that he believes Adams’ policy was a “failure.”

“I made a decision with my team to put a pause on that prior administration’s policy as we started to develop our own policy that would generate far better outcomes for the city,” he said.

Under the new approach, the city will first post a notice that a homeless encampment will be cleared and then send homeless department outreach workers there daily for a week to guide people into social services.

On the seventh day, sanitation workers will dismantle the encampment, with the expectation that individuals have vacated the area.

Mamdani said that relentless outreach would help connect with homeless New Yorkers whose “first reaction might be that of skepticism.”

LIZ PEEK: HERE IS THE ONE AND ONLY THING THAT DEMOCRATS ACTUALLY CARE ABOUT

Former Mayor Eric Adams made clearing homeless encampments a centerpiece of his administration, a policy New York City is now resuming under Mayor Zohran Mamdani. (Julia Demaree Nikhinson/The Associated Press)

“Their second reaction might be that of wariness, given their prior experiences within the shelter system,” he said. “But their third, their fourth, their fifth or sixth reaction may be one of interest in the possibility of shelter services, programing support, supportive housing.”

David Giffen, executive director of the Coalition for the Homeless, said his organization was “blindsided” by Mamdani’s announcement, calling it a “political response” that would do little to help the homeless population, according to the Associated Press.

Giffen said the new approach would hurt trust between the city’s outreach workers and unsheltered residents, and may potentially lead to more deaths during extreme weather events.

“When a city worker shows up and throws out all your belongings, you’re not going to trust that person the next time they show up offering you a place to sleep inside,” Giffen said.

At least 19 people have died outside during a prolonged cold stretch in the city, raising concerns about the city’s response.

The mayor’s office said there is no evidence that anyone who died was living in encampments, and it has encouraged homeless people to get to new shelters, heated buses and warming centers.

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New York City will once again clear homeless encampments under a revised policy announced by Mayor Zohran Mamdani. (Michael Nagle/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Fox News Digital reached out to Mamdani’s office for comment.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

EXCLUSIVE: The partial government shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security could have a critical impact on local disaster response without assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, a public safety expert warned.

In an interview with Fox News Digital, Jeffrey Halstead, the director of strategic accounts at Genasys, a communications hardware and software provider to help communities during disasters, said the DHS shutdown could impact emergency response and recovery efforts now that FEMA support has been restricted.

“Every time that the government enters into one of these shutdowns, there’s a distinctive part of the federal government that is impacted, both reviewing the grant program or distributing funds from pre-awarded grant programs. This is exactly the area of DHS as well as FEMA that affects emergency managers, emergency response and recovering different cities, counties, and regions should they face a weather and/or disaster-related event,” Halstead said.

Halstead, also a retired chief of police in Fort Worth, Texas, with more than 30 years in law enforcement, explained that government shutdowns delaying federal funds “drastically impacts” the local response to disasters.

ICE SHUTDOWN FIGHT MIGHT RESTRICT FEMA, COAST GUARD TO ‘LIFE-THREATENING’ EMERGENCIES

The Trump administration ordered FEMA to suspend the deployment of hundreds of aid workers to disaster-torn areas across the country during the DHS shutdown. (Al Drago/Getty Images)

“I know personally, I was in Arizona for over 21 years, in Texas as chief of police for over seven, and then I was in Nevada for a long time, and I worked directly with a few states in the Western United States,” he said.

“The last government shutdown pretty much ended their grant application process, meaning the grants would not be approved, not even be assigned and/or funds not released,” he continued. “This drastically impacts their ability to plan and to coordinate a lot of their planned response events. In Arizona, the central UASI region or the Urban Area Security Initiative, they have none of their grants being reviewed, which replaces outdated equipment, vehicles and funds training so that every quarter they can meet the standards and then be ready should something happen.”

This comes as the Trump administration ordered FEMA to suspend the deployment of hundreds of aid workers to disaster-torn areas across the country during the DHS shutdown.

More than 300 FEMA disaster responders were preparing for upcoming assignments, but were told to halt their travel plans. Grant systems are also not fully operational until lawmakers can reach a deal to fund the department.

“The biggest impact is funding, the grants being distributed and then getting all that equipment and training aligned so that they can actually have a very successful year getting ready for a disaster,” Halstead said.

DHS SHUTDOWN EXPLAINED: WHO WORKS WITHOUT PAY, WHAT HAPPENS TO AIRPORTS AND DISASTER RESPONSE

More than 300 FEMA disaster responders were preparing for upcoming assignments, but were told to halt their travel plans. (Kent Nishimura/Getty Images)

“Should there be a traumatic weather event, critical incident or something that would require FEMA support, FEMA staff or FEMA resources, those may not be available,” he added. “This drastically impacts the city, county, state and federal collaboration efforts that literally are immediately engaged, aligned and resources deployed, sometimes within 12 hours. So this greatly inhibits their ability to plan effectively should a critical event, disaster event, or weather-related event come their way. They won’t have all these federal assets and resources that they have come to depend on, rely on, and work with in both their planning as well as training events or previous disasters where they responded and provided support.”

As part of the move to end FEMA deployments, staffers currently working on major recovery efforts will remain on the sites and cannot return home unless their assignment ends, but no new personnel can join or relieve them without DHS approval.

Recovery efforts are still ongoing in places like North Carolina, where Hurricane Helene devastated the region in the fall of 2024.

As Halstead noted, the recovery effort is the “final piece for the emergency management cycle to get back to normalcy for that region.”

“When that is dramatically impacted, you still see some areas of North Carolina a couple of years later still struggling in the recovery phase being completed,” he said. “That is directly related to all of these stalls and delays in FEMA, FEMA funding and the financial support needed to get the recovery phase completed.” 

PARTIAL GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN DRAGS ON AS DHS FUNDING TALKS STALL

FEMA staffers working on major recovery efforts will remain on the sites and cannot return home unless their assignment ends, but no new personnel can join or relieve them without DHS approval. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

Asked about the importance of federal funding given recent extreme weather across the U.S. such as snow on the East Coast, flooding in California and fire disasters in the High Plains that forced evacuations, Halstead said it is “extremely critical” and that the delay in funds can impact the safety of local residents.

“It’s absolutely extremely critical for emergency managers, your fire departments as well as law enforcement, to utilize not just these partnerships and the resources, but the funding allocations so that they can plan effectively in responding, operational control of the disaster, and then getting into that recovery mode … Then sometimes that delay, it’s going to impact the safety and the welfare of Americans,” Halstead explained.

Republicans and Democrats in Congress have yet to reach a deal to end the partial shutdown, in large part due to Democrats’ demand for stricter oversight and reforms of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) following the fatal shootings last month of two U.S. citizens by federal agents in Minneapolis, which the GOP has thus far resisted.

President Donald Trump argued earlier this week that it is a “Democrat shutdown” and “has nothing to do with Republicans.”

Halstead said he would like lawmakers on Capitol Hill to negotiate in good faith to end the shutdown so that first responders will have “effective means to do our jobs safely and very, very efficiently.”

Recovery efforts are still ongoing in places like North Carolina, where Hurricane Helene devastated the region in the fall of 2024. (Travis Long/The News & Observer/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)

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“I know a lot of people are really upset because they leverage a significant political issue over a common funding agreement that should have been approved very quickly,” he said. “This has happened a lot in the last two to three years. We’ve seen shutdown after shutdown after shutdown. What a lot of citizens don’t realize is that when the government is shut down, all of this work — grant reviews, proposals, funding, disbursements — those are all delayed. Then there is a significant lag time getting back to an open government.”

“They’re still negotiating all these extremely politically sensitive topics that are really divisive within not just Capitol Hill, but really our country,” Halstead added. “Then all of that backlog is now taking even longer to get approved, funded and funds being dispersed. So it’s a compounding effect on all of our emergency managers and our first responders to do their jobs effectively.”

Halstead highlighted that a deal to reach the shutdown is unlikely before Trump’s State of the Union address next week, in which the president affirmed he would give the speech regardless, and that the ongoing delays in FEMA funding could last weeks.

“It may be another two weeks at least until we can get this funded and get it back open,” Halstead said. “But then we still have these significant backlogs. It will take a significant amount of time.”