EAGAN, Minn. (AP) — The inconsistency, inexperience and injuries the Minnesota Vikings endured with their quarterbacks last season dragged down the entire operation, and coach Kevin O'Connell was determined to avoid a repeat.
The Vikings took significant steps toward improving their running game. They also did everything they could under the salary cap to strengthen the depth chart at the most vital position. Bringing in Kyler Murray to compete with J.J. McCarthy was one move, and bringing back Carson Wentz was the other.
When Murray was sidelined by a concussion in the first quarter of the season opener, Wentz — named the backup over McCarthy before the season — stepped in and helped the Vikings rally past Green Bay. A reliable 11-year veteran who could play well in relief and a commitment by the lead play-caller to stick with the runs even when they weren't yielding much proved to be a winning combination for the Vikings, prompting a candid reflection from O'Connell in his postgame remarks.
Over the 2023 and 2025 seasons, the Vikings went a combined 16-18 and used seven starting quarterbacks. In 2022 (Kirk Cousins) and 2024 (Sam Darnold), they had one starter for all 17 games and finished a combined 27-7.
“In some of the adversity, I don’t think I’ve coached very well, trying to maybe worry about the stat sheet, trying to maybe worry about what it’s going to look like when you pick up the paper, statistically,” O'Connell said. “Are people going to think you’re a good coach? It’s about winning, and that’s where I think the growth is along the way.”
O'Connell was at his play-calling best in the second half. Wentz found Justin Jefferson open on a jet motion to the flat for a short touchdown pass after a fake toss to the left. He also utilized his tight ends over the middle, hitting T.J. Hockenson and Josh Oliver for a total of six completions for 68 yards.
“I’m confident in what I bring to the table,” Wentz said. “I’m kind of the old guy in that huddle, so that’s what I’m called to do. That’s why I’m here. That’s why I believe coaches believe in me to put me out there.”
The defense kept Jordan Love and the Packers from converting third downs nine times in 12 situations and denied both fourth-down attempts.
That same defense was frequently vulnerable on early downs, allowing seven completions of 20-plus yards and three that topped 40 yards, including an 81-yard catch-and-run by Christian Watson in the first quarter. Some of the holes in the secondary were products of the relentless blitzes sent by defensive coordinator Brian Flores, but there were clearly a few coverage gaffes at work, too.
Edge rusher Dallas Turner started his third season with a flourish, tallying seven hits on Love, one sack and one forced fumble. The NFL's NextGen Stats credited Turner with 10 quarterback pressures.
Theo Jackson's starting spot at safety appears tenuous with the return of Harrison Smith. The fifth-year player was beaten by Watson for a touchdown catch with 14 seconds left before halftime with a technique mistake that allowed Watson to release past him on a corner route. Smith played a little more than one-third of the snaps in the first game of his ramp-up after signing right before the start of the regular season. The Vikings also have rookies Jacob Thomas and Jakobe Thomas waiting in the wings behind Jackson.
Murray's condition will be the biggest story of the week for the Vikings, but their injury report beyond that was promising. Running back Jordan Mason was getting precautionary X-rays on a sore thumb.
587 — Jefferson matched Randy Moss for second place in franchise history in career receptions.
5 — The Vikings have beaten the Packers at home in five of the last six years. Over those five victories at U.S. Bank Stadium, Jefferson has six touchdowns and 638 yards on 41 catches.
Flores will have his hands full again this week at Chicago, facing a Bears offense that put up 59 points against Carolina.
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Minnesota Vikings head coach Kevin O'Connell watches warmups before an NFL football game against the Green Bay Packers, Sunday, Sept. 13, 2026, in Minneapolis, Minn. (AP Photo/Bailey Hillesheim)
Minnesota Vikings' Carson Wentz (11), Nick Niemann, left, and Jauan Jennings (14) celebrate a touchdown during the first half of an NFL football game against the Green Bay Packers, Sunday, Sept. 13, 2026, in Minneapolis, Minn. (AP Photo/Bailey Hillesheim)
Minnesota Vikings head coach Kevin O'Connell talks on his headset as he watches play against the Green Bay Packers during the second half of an NFL football game, Sunday, Sept. 13, 2026, in Minneapolis, Minn. (AP Photo/Bailey Hillesheim)
The Supreme Court on Monday rejected President Donald Trump'smail ballot restrictions for now, capping a flurry of last-minute legal action with voting in the midterm elections already underway. The decision allows states to continue sending out mail ballots under the same processes they’ve used for years. The case has major implications because nearly one-third of the country votes by mail.
The Environmental Protection Agency is repealing rules that limit planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions from power plants fueled by coal and natural gas, an action the agency said would remove more than $300 billion in costs for the industry and help “unleash” American energy.
The EPA also announced it is taking a separate but related step to prevent future administrations from regulating climate pollution from power plants. The changes represent a fundamental shift from efforts by Democratic Presidents Joe Biden and Barack Obama to address climate change and clean up industrial pollution, often in low-income and majority Black or Hispanic communities.
Also Monday, Trump said he is a sufficient guardrail against rogue artificial intelligence, claiming that any efforts to limit the technology were part of a “SICK conspiracy.” The president specifically said that the administration has already stopped the AI company Anthropic “from doing bad, or potentially bad” things.
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The Supreme Court on Monday rejected Trump ’s mail ballot restrictions for now, capping a flurry of last-minute legal action with voting in the midterm elections already underway.
The decision allows states to continue sending out mail ballots under the same processes they’ve used for years.
The Trump administration had asked the court, once again at the center of a roiling political controversy, to clear the way for restrictions before the pivotal November contests for control of Congress. The case has major implications because nearly one-third of the country votes by mail.
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California Gov. Gavin Newsom said he’ll stay on the sidelines of the 2028 presidential race if former Vice President Kamala Harris, a fellow Californian, decides to run.
He told CNN it would be “mutually assured destruction” if both of them ran, “a gift from God” for all the other candidates. Newsom and Harris both started their political careers in San Francisco local government and rose in tandem to national prominence.
“I wouldn’t do that to her. I wouldn’t do that to you. I wouldn’t waste everyone’s time,” Newsom told CNN’s Jake Tapper while fly fishing in thigh-high water.
Tapper said Newsom could argue that Harris already had her chance as the 2024 Democratic nominee.
“That would be the case you’d make. Pretty good one, actually. That’s objectively true,” Newsom said. But their circles have too much overlap, he added.
“The Venn diagram on that is just pure crossover,” Newsom said.
Asked about the arrangement, Jeffries said flatly, “Of course it’s a concern.”
Democrats have vowed a robust investigation and oversight agenda if they win control of the House in this fall’s election.
Jeffries said that as with other aspects of the “unprecedented corruption that the Trump cartel has unleashed on the American people, beginning on day one in the next Congress, we’re going to hold all the crooks accountable.”
McConnell briefly addressed reporters from a wheelchair outside the Senate chamber, smiling but looking noticeably frail.
Speaking slowly, McConnell joked that he wasn’t sure how many reporters would be there after dodging questions for his almost two decades as leader.
He said he was back in the Senate to work on a pending farm bill and because he has an ongoing interest in NATO and “backing up our good friends who are totally in the fight against the Russians.”
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Trump on Monday nominated the wife of “God Bless the USA” singer Lee Greenwood to serve as the U.S. ambassador to Barbados and the Eastern Caribbean.
Kimberly Greenwood was among a list of nominees the Trump administration sent to the U.S. Senate for confirmation.
Later Monday, Kimberly Greenwood posted on Instagram a picture with her husband and Trump as she thanked the president for the nomination.
“Mr. President, thank you for believing in me and entrusting me with this extraordinary opportunity to serve,” she wrote.
Her husband, Lee Greenwood, is one of Trump’s favorite singers, whose signature patriotic anthem has been his chosen walk-on song at political events for years. Trump even went into business with Lee Greenwood, selling a $59.99 “God Bless the USA Bible,” with him.
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McConnell says he’ll be voting in the Senate on Monday for the first time since June 14, when he was hospitalized for a fall in his home.
McConnell’s three-month absence from the Senate generated a flood of criticism and online speculation, as the Kentucky senator initially remained quiet for weeks about his condition. The 84-year-old senator eventually disclosed that he had been “briefly unconscious” due to a fall and had also been treated for mild pneumonia in the hospital.
“My recovery has been a long and often frustrating process, and the lingering effects of childhood polio haven’t made it any easier,” McConnell said in a statement. “I’m still not quite back to 100%, but I’ve assured Leader Thune that, as I continue with physical therapy on the advice of my doctors, I will do my best to be present for tough votes when our Conference needs me.”
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The president has nominated outgoing Rep. Wesley Hunt, R-Texas, to serve as his top envoy to Saudi Arabia.
Hunt is near the end of his second term representing his Houston-area district. He finished third in the March 2026 Texas Republican primary for the U.S. Senate behind Ken Paxton and John Cornyn.
If confirmed, Hunt will head to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia’s capital, amid tensions in the Middle East as the U.S. and Israel’s war against Iran continues and as fighting between the Saudis and Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen intensifies.
Before politics, Hunt was a U.S. Army officer who served as a diplomatic liaison in Saudi Arabia.
Hunt in a posting on X said he understood “the strategic importance of the partnership between the United States and Saudi Arabia and the profound responsibility of this position.”
Gov. Brian Kemp endorsed Republican Senate nominee Mike Collins on Monday after urging GOP primary voters not to nominate him.
In a statement, Kemp called the congressman a “common-sense leader” who can defeat Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff.
Kemp’s decision comes after weeks of bruising headlines about Collins’ fundraising, associations with white nationalists and a House ethics investigation. Collins has denied wrongdoing.
Republican Senate leaders initially wanted Kemp, who is term-limited as governor, to challenge Ossoff. The 63-year-old governor demurred. Instead he recruited former football coach Derek Dooley. Kemp campaigned with Dooley through his June runoff loss, arguing Collins was too conservative to win the battleground state.
“There’s only one candidate in the race, in my opinion, that can beat Jon Ossoff,” Kemp told The Associated Press during the primary campaign. “It’s a lot different running statewide than in a ruby red congressional district.”
It’s not clear how much Kemp will campaign with Collins.
A whistleblower’s account released Monday contends a new Trump administration voter probe is ordering federal officials to unlawfully misrepresent themselves to access state voter data and create federal records that could wrongly implicate U.S. citizens.
The Department of Homeland Security’s new “Unlawful Voter Initiative” investigates voters based on unreliable data sources that may not accurately identify someone’s citizenship, according to the report released by Democratic Sens. Alex Padilla and Chuck Schumer.
The whistleblower said a group of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services staff has been mandated to review at least 40 voters a day to surface potential noncitizen voters. The effort builds on Trump’s fixation on finding noncitizens who are illegally on the rolls, even though research shows they are exceptionally rare.
In a news conference, Schumer called the initiative an “illegal scheme” and said Trump was willing to go to extreme lengths to “cheat, lie and steal in this election.”
DHS didn’t immediately comment.
Sen. John Thune says any legislation in Congress to regulate artificial intelligence should “strike a balance” and have a “light touch.”
“You don’t want to stifle innovation, but I think you also want to make sure that the more advanced threats can be mitigated and there’s a capability and place to do that,” Thune said as the Senate returned to Washington after a five-week recess.
He said he thinks Congress could find a way to put guardrails around “those types of more consequential threats” without harming innovation and U.S. advancement.
Thune, who was chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee before he was leader, has been working on bipartisan legislation to regulate AI companies. But he has not yet introduced the bill.
“It’s very real, despite what Donald Trump has to say,” said Rep. Hakeem Jeffries.
Jeffries said congressional action is needed “immediately.”
He said Republicans need to quit burying their heads in the stand, as a rubber stamp to Trump.
“We can’t wait until the next Congress,” he said. “We need to act now.”
House Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters that he expects Trump to summon AI platform providers to the White House in the coming days.
Johnson said the meeting hasn’t been scheduled yet, but it’s in process.
“There will be a deliberate discussion about the responsibility of the companies to maintain safety, and what role, if any, the government has to play in that,” Johnson said.
Johnson said he’s wary of taking steps that could slow down innovation, saying the U.S. must maintain an edge over China in AI development.
“Whoever achieves automated general intelligence first probably has an edge over everybody else around the world,” Johnson said.
In a video posted Monday on social media, Seth Bodnar takes aim and fires at a small camera.
“Are you tired of security cameras watching your every move? Yeah, me too,” Bodnar, a military veteran, said.
Flock cameras have emerged as a theme in the midterm elections. Across the political spectrum, candidates have been increasingly critical of Flock Safety, which sells the cameras to police around the country.
The cameras take photos of license plates, and that data can be shared across law enforcement agencies. Critics have raised privacy concerns. Supporters say the cameras have strengthened policing.
The company didn’t respond to a request for comment. But in response to previous questions about campaigns’ rhetoric, a spokesperson emphasized the role the technology has played in solving crimes.
Trump lashed out at AI critics on social media, saying that the AI companies calling for government regulation of their sector could end up bankrupt.
“Concerning AI, when, in the History of Business, did anyone see the Leaders of an Industry call for Regulation that, if strongly implemented, will drive them into oblivion and bankruptcy?” Trump said.
The president then said that claims that AI posed a threat to humanity was “hoax” along the lines of his two impeachments during his first term.
“AI taking over the World, destroying Humanity, and all other things bad, is a HOAX,” Trump said.
In a post on her Instagram page Monday morning signed by the couple, Bettina Trump wrote that the man, Umar Kremlev, was a “dear friend,” who “very generously hosted two incredible nights of celebrations for us AFTER our wedding.”
ProPublica, a nonprofit investigative website, reported earlier Monday that the wedding between Trump Jr. and socialite Bettina Anderson in the Bahamas was heavily funded by Kremlev, a Russian oligarch who heads the International Boxing Association. He also has close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
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Democratic-led states and cities filed lawsuits Monday challenging a federal rule set to take Friday that they say gives the Trump administration broad discretion to deny green cards to immigrants who use food stamps and other public benefits.
The lawsuits challenge Trump’s plan to revive a “public charge” rule that he originally imposed during his first term but that was reversed under President Joe Biden.
New York Attorney General Letitia James, who is leading a coalition of 21 other states in one of the suits, said the rule would force needy immigrant families to choose between seeking assistance and seeking legal status in the country.
The Environmental Protection Agency is repealing rules that limit planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions from power plants fueled by coal and natural gas, an action the agency said would remove more than $300 billion in costs for the industry and help “unleash” American energy.
The rule change, first proposed last year, represents a fundamental shift from efforts by Democratic Presidents Joe Biden and Barack Obama address climate change and clean up industrial pollution.
EPA officials said the change would allow utilities to make the best decisions for their ratepayers rather than be forced to closed aging or inefficient plants.
Former Sen. Joe Manchin said Monday that he will campaign on behalf of Republican Sen. Susan Collins as she fights a tough reelection campaign in Maine.
Manchin was a longtime Democrat and centrist who became an independent while nearing the end of his time in office in 2024. He said during an appearance on CNBC that he considers Collins a dedicated public servant.
“You lose the Susan Collins of the Senate, you’re losing the soul of the Senate. Basically, a person you can talk to, wants to do the right thing all the time,” Manchin said.
Collins, the only Republican senator in New England, faces Democratic former Maine Senate President Troy Jackson in November. The race is critical to Democratic aspirations to take control of the Senate.
Laura Allen, whose family owns a Texas ranch, was among the people who turned out Monday for the announcement of the lawsuit. The Trump administration plans to build a wall and other border infrastructure through the remote Big Bend area.
“Where this project goes will be right through the middle of the property, over 2 miles from water,” Allen, a former county judge and two-time Trump voter, said in Marfa, Texas. “All of our working facilities will now be behind the walls, with no guarantee of what will happen to us.”
She pointed out that illegal border crossings have plunged since Trump returned to office.
“Thank you, President Trump. You’ve secured the border. But now let it go. It’s time,” she said.
The Kennedy Center Board of Trustees plans to propose adding Trump’s name to the facility’s exterior in recognition of his saving the building from its “precarious fiscal position,” according to a new court filing in a suit aimed at blocking the addition of his name to the building.
The filing made by Democratic Rep. Joyce Beatty of Ohio, an ex-officio member of the board who’s led an effort to block Trump putting his name on the building, said she was alerting the court to the proposal because it could implicate a pending decision before the court.
“The Board understands that without such appropriate recognition it is unlikely that President Trump will provide the fundamental oversight of the renovation of the main building and lead the fiscal rescue of the Center,” the board wrote in the proposed resolution.
The document proposes 10 options for adding the president’s name to the building’s exterior.
The president has long resisted efforts for greater government oversight of AI, embracing his philosophy of “I alone can fix it.” He revoked a Biden executive order on AI oversight and didn’t provide a fuller order of his own until more than 16 months later this past June.
Now AI has emerged as a political liability ahead of November’s elections, with many voters opposing the construction of data centers and expressing worries that AI could lead to job losses and undermine the education of children.
Rahm Emanuel, the former Chicago mayor, Democratic congressman and White House chief of staff, said Saturday that the Anthropic CEO’s essay was “an admission that we’re driving down a dark, winding road on wet pavement with the headlights off. And where’s President Trump? Looks like he nodded off again. It’s time to turn the lights on, put both hands on the wheel, and regain control before it’s too late.”
The yield on the 10-year Treasury hit 5% on Monday for the first time since 2023.
The upward pressure on inflation has much of Wall Street expecting the Federal Reserve to hike its main interest rate on Wednesday, despite Trump’s lobbying.
Such a move then filters out through the rest of the bond market, makes it more expensive for U.S. households and businesses to borrow money, slows the overall economy and undercuts prices for investments. That hopefully would remove some of inflation’s fuel, though Trump has been lobbying for lower interest rates instead of higher.
Besides high inflation, worries about rising debt for the U.S. and other governments have helped send longer-term Treasury yields to their highest levels in years. The jump has already led to the highest average long-term mortgage rate in more than 14 months.
Visitors walk past a display depicting artificial intelligence and a human hand at the China International Supply Chain Expo in Beijing on Monday, June 22, 2026. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)
A large box of pre-assembled mail-in ballots at the Wake County Board of Elections on Thursday, Sept. 3, 2026, in Raleigh, N.C. (AP Photo/Matt Ramey)
President Donald Trump speaks with reporters while in flight on Air Force One from Shannon, Ireland to Joint Base Andrews, Md., Sunday, Sept. 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
