Miguel Vargas adds to his breakout season with clutch performance for the White Sox

CHICAGO (AP) — On an important afternoon for the Chicago White Sox, Miguel Vargas delivered. With his glove, bat and legs.

Vargas added to his breakout season with a terrific all-around performance in Chicago's 3-1 victory over Detroit on Saturday. The All-Star third baseman hit his 33rd homer, walked twice and made a big play in the field.

“It’s what he’s done all year,” White Sox manager Will Venable said. “Certainly a great day to point to on his growth and some of the things he’s been able to achieve individually. He’s been in the middle of everything for us.”

Vargas also homered Friday night and drove in three runs, but Chicago blew a six-run lead in an 11-8 loss to Detroit. Heading into Saturday’s action, the White Sox were one game behind AL Central-leading Cleveland and third in the wild-card standings, one game better than Texas.

“This is what this team is about. We never give up,” Vargas said. “We always come back and battle the next day and play all nine innings. That’s what we have been doing the whole year, just show up that day.”

Vargas helped Chicago (79-76) get off to a fast start in the first inning. He reached on a two-out walk, swiped second and scored on Munetaka Murakami's single for a 1-0 lead.

The 26-year-old Vargas became the first player in franchise history with at least 30 homers, 30 doubles, 20 steals and 100 runs scored in a single season.

“He’s been awesome,” right-hander Sean Burke said. “Even down the stretch, he’s turned it up another notch on both sides of the ball, which is huge to see. Just running the bases today, too. We’re all super happy with how he’s been playing.”

Vargas also helped Chicago escape a jam in the fourth. With two on and two down, he made a lunging stop on Dillon Dingler's hard grounder to third and threw to first for the out.

Vargas pounded on his chest in celebration after making the play.

“That’s one of my main things coming (into) this year,” he said. “I want to be able to help my team on both sides of the field, and to be able to make that play in that moment means a lot for me. I know I get a little bit too fired up for that, but I just feel the moment. That’s the type of guy I am, and I like this moment. I like these games, and I’m just trying to enjoy it the most.”

Moments after Burke escaped a jam in the top of the sixth, Vargas made it 3-1 when he opened the bottom half with a 390-foot drive to left-center. Vargas began the season with 29 career homers, including 16 for Chicago last year.

“That’s why I wake up every day and work so hard for these types of moments,” he said. “And for me, I think it’s just this group has been pushing me every single day. And I never have been thinking about my individual stats, I just want to go out there and do the best for my team, and have some fun and always try hard.”

See AP’s full MLB coverage here

Chicago White Sox's Miguel Vargas celebrates with teammates in the dugout after scoring on a Munetaka Murakami single during the first inning of a baseball game against the Detroit Tigers Saturday, Sept. 19, 2026, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Paul Beaty)

Chicago White Sox's Miguel Vargas (20) celebrates with manager Will Venable, right, at the dugout after hitting a solo home run during the sixth inning of a baseball game against the Detroit Tigers Saturday, Sept. 19, 2026, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Paul Beaty)

Chicago White Sox's Miguel Vargas celebrates while rounding first base after hitting a solo home run during the sixth inning of a baseball game against the Detroit Tigers Saturday, Sept. 19, 2026, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Paul Beaty)

Chicago White Sox's Miguel Vargas celebrates after hitting a solo home run during the sixth inning of a baseball game against the Detroit Tigers Saturday, Sept. 19, 2026, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Paul Beaty)

Chicago White Sox's Miguel Vargas celebrates while rounding first base after hitting a solo home run during the sixth inning of a baseball game against the Detroit Tigers Saturday, Sept. 19, 2026, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Paul Beaty)

A new lawsuit claims Anthropic, OpenAI, SpaceXAI and Google made an illegal deal to slow the pace of their respective AI development.

The lawsuit, which was filed Friday in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, argues that the leading AI companies violated antitrust laws when they agreed to coordinate slowdown efforts, and that doing so would reduce the value consumers get for paid AI subscriptions.

The coordination largely took place on Sept. 12, the lawsuit argues, when Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei published an essay urging for industrywide cooperation on decelerating advancements in favor of enhanced safety measures. That same day, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, SpaceXAI CEO Elon Musk and Google DeepMind's co-founder and chair Demis Hassabis each publicly responded to Amodei's proposals in agreement.

But the lawsuit also alleges that the coordination began to take shape months earlier. It points to a statement from July 2026 that high-ranking employees from several of the leading AI labs signed that acknowledged the "intense competitive pressure not to unilaterally slow” development. That statement called on the government to support a global effort to slow automated AI development.

It is clear that an agreement among the chief rivals in AI that their progress “should be slower than competition would otherwise produce has an anticompetitive effect on consumers,” the plaintiffs argue.

Lawyers representing four named plaintiffs, who pay for subscriptions to ChatGPT, Claude, Grok or Gemini, are bringing the lawsuit on behalf of a proposed nationwide class of other paid subscribers to those services.

The plaintiffs don't object to the companies individually deciding to slow their own progress in favor of safety. They instead argue in the complaint that antitrust laws forbid them from taking the “shortcut” of agreeing to “substitute collective restraint for individual accountability.” A competitive market allows for responsibility and genuine progress, the lawsuit argues.

“AI will quickly spin out of human control and could kill us all if we allow AI safety and protocol ... to be controlled by private self-serving agreements between the world’s most powerful ‘for profit’ technology companies,” said Nick Rowley, the lead attorney for the plaintiffs.

Representatives for Anthropic, OpenAI, Google and SpaceXAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment Saturday.

In his initial essay proposing the slowdown, Amodei acknowledged potential antitrust challenges, writing that it would be helpful for the U.S. government to mediate “or at least enable” these cross-lab discussions. The government wouldn't need to participate, he wrote, but it would need to “issue a narrow waiver for certain kinds of safety conversations.”

In response, Altman said on social media that OpenAI welcomes the idea of a “federal framework that sets consistent safety requirements,” but said “we do not believe we need to wait for an antitrust exemption or legislation to begin the work of providing this confidence.”

While the recent conversations about pacing development were spurred by increasing concerns about AI evading human control, several leaders in the AI space have long talked about developing a shared set of standards or otherwise coordinating to ensure safety efforts remain paramount.

The plaintiffs in the lawsuit contend they are not against the AI companies asking Congress, the White House or any other agency to develop AI regulation, nor are they against the companies asking for an antitrust exemption.

But achieving that kind of collaboration with the federal government could be an uphill battle.

President Donald Trump rejected the calls for regulation on social media. He has claimed that any efforts to limit the technology are part of a “conspiracy." He called into question why the industry leaders would be calling for regulation that, he says, “if strongly implemented, will drive them into oblivion and bankruptcy.” Trump said Saturday on social media that he is forming an AI task force and will appoint an “AI czar,” but he provided scant detail.

The Trump administration has been vocal about wanting American AI labs to outpace and excel against Chinese competition. While several Democratic leaders and candidates have called for sweeping action on AI regulation, Republicans have largely mirrored Trump's position.

Sen. Josh Hawley, a Republican from Missouri, said in a recent Senate hearing that “there is no world” in which he would agree to give “the most powerful companies in the history of the world” an exemption from antitrust laws to collaborate, arguing that they could collude together and stifle competition.

This combination of photos shows CEO & Co-Founder of Anthropic Dario Amodei, top left, on Jan. 23, 2025, CEO of Google DeepMind Demis Hassabis, top right, and CEO of OpenAI Sam Altman, bottom left, on June 17, 2026, and CEO of SpaceXAI Elon Musk, bottom right, on Jan. 22, 2026. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber, Julia Demaree Nikhinson)