Jefferson aims to rejoin the Vikings this week, with a long-awaited trip to play his hometown Saints

EAGAN, Minn. (AP) — Justin Jefferson began developing his exceptional pass-catching skills as the youngest of three boys in a football-loving family in the New Orleans area, before following both of his older brothers to LSU a little more than an hour up the road.

Jefferson is headed home this weekend with the Minnesota Vikings, just the second time he'll face the Saints in the Superdome in his seven-year NFL career. The sprained ankle that sidelined him in the first quarter at Tampa Bay on Sept. 27 and last week against Miami will be hard-pressed to keep him out again on Sunday.

“Being back at home in Louisiana is definitely something that I wanted to do, so the plan is for me to play, but who knows? We’ve got to take it a day at a time,” said Jefferson, who was a limited participant in practice on Wednesday and Thursday after being held off the field for the entirety of the previous week.

The Vikings most recently played in New Orleans on Dec. 25, 2020, when pandemic conditions limited attendance that afternoon to 3,000 and the Saints romped to a 52-33 victory near the end of a promising but frustrating rookie season for Jefferson.

This time, the Vikings will take a 4-0 record and a brighter outlook to the other end of the Mississippi River.

“It’s definitely been a long time coming, to be able to get back home in front of my friends and family,” said Jefferson, who had six catches for 85 yards in New Orleans in 2020. “Definitely got a lot of people tuning into that game, and hopefully I’ll be able to give them a show.”

This trip also comes with an unexpected bonus: Odell Beckham Jr.

The 33-year-old signed with the Vikings this week to add some depth for a lagging passing attack, with Jefferson on the mend and Jordan Addison also working through a strained hamstring that kept him out of practice on Wednesday.

Beckham is not only a fellow former LSU wide receiver but a close friend of the Jefferson family, having been a freshman on the 2011 team when Jordan Jefferson — Justin's oldest brother — was a senior quarterback.

“It's pretty special to be able to be here with him,” said Beckham, joking that he chose jersey No. 9 because Jefferson — who wears No. 18 — learned half of his game from him. “He’s been like family to me for a long time.”

Jefferson sure won't dispute Beckham's influence on his career, from his youthful awe of watching Beckham try to perfect his one-handed catches at LSU practices to modeling the “wiggle” Beckham uses at the top of his routes to create space from defenders.

For Beckham, there's no guarantee the Vikings will choose to promote him from the practice squad and use him in the game on Sunday, even though he confidently said he'd be ready to go. Either way, the trip will spark nostalgia for him, too, as a native of Baton Rouge born to two LSU athletes.

Beckham moved to New Orleans for high school, playing at Isidore Newman, where the Manning brothers went before him. Jefferson, who was born in St. Rose, played at Destrehan High School, a suburb about 20 miles up the river.

The Vikings have their bye week after this, which would double the recovery time for Jefferson if he were to be held out once more as a precaution, but neither the team nor the player said the schedule would factor into the decision about his status on Sunday.

“I hate missing games. I wanted to be out there last week, especially at home,” Jefferson said. “I never want to miss any time, so it’s been a little tough.”

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Minnesota Vikings wide receiver Justin Jefferson (18) warms up before an NFL football game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in Tampa, Fla., Sunday, Sept. 27, 2026. (AP Photo/Jason Behnken)

Minnesota Vikings wide receiver Justin Jefferson stretches during an NFL football practice Wednesday, Oct. 7, 2026, in Eagan, Minn. (AP Photo/Abbie Parr)

Minnesota Vikings wide receivers Odell Beckham Jr., left, and Justin Jefferson, right, stretch during an NFL football practice Wednesday, Oct. 7, 2026, in Eagan, Minn. (AP Photo/Abbie Parr)

Minnesota Vikings wide receivers Odell Beckham Jr., left, and Justin Jefferson, middle, stretch during an NFL football practice Wednesday, Oct. 7, 2026, in Eagan, Minn. (AP Photo/Abbie Parr)

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Pentagon says the firing squad execution of Fort Hood shooter Nidal Malik Hasan will be livestreamed after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the execution would be “public.”

Hegseth, speaking to the conservative TV outlet Real America’s Voice News on Wednesday, said the execution of Hasan will take place at Fort Hood on Dec. 3. Hasan was convicted of killing 13 people and injuring 32 others in a shooting at the military base in 2009.

“We’ll make sure that people are able to watch it, that it’s public,” Hegseth said.

Hegseth spoke to the outlet aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier while visiting the long-deployed crew, who supported the Iran war, before their arrival at their home port in San Diego.

When asked if Hasan had made any final requests or reached out to the Trump administration, Hegseth simply replied: “Don’t care. We’ll see him on December 3rd.”

Officials in the Pentagon clarified Thursday that the execution will be livestreamed and that more details would follow.

Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell had said Monday that President Donald Trump had approved the execution of Hasan.

Trump has previously been critical of public executions in Iran, at times using the possibility of protesters being killed by the Iranian government as a possible rationale for military action. Those warnings preceded his ultimate choice to attack Iran at the end of February over its ballistic missiles and the risk of it developing nuclear weapons.

“We’ve been told that the killing in Iran is stopping,” Trump told reporters on Jan. 14 of this year. “It’s stopping and there’s no plan for executions.”

He repeated that claim on Jan. 20 at a White House press briefing, saying: “We let them know that if that happens, that will be a very bad day for them. And they decided not to do it. They didn’t hang the people.”

Slightly more than a month later in his State of the Union address, Trump said, “We stopped them from hanging a lot of them with the threat of serious violence.”

The White House on Thursday immediately referred questions about the plans for the livestreamed execution to the Pentagon.

However, experts on military law said Hasan could choose to resist execution and file a habeas petition in civilian court, which could significantly delay the execution.

“It frankly might outlast the current administration, and who knows if the next one will have the same penchant for executions,” Eugene R. Fidell, a visiting lecturer at Yale Law School specializing in military law.

Hasan, an Army psychiatrist who held the rank of major, walked into a medical building where soldiers were were waiting in long lines to receive immunizations and medical clearance for deployment. He shouted “Allahu akbar” — Arabic for “God is great!” — and opened fire with a laser-sighted handgun.

During the trial it was revealed that Hasan spent weeks planning the deadly attack, and his preparation included videotaping a sales clerk showing him how to change the magazine on the pistol that he purchased. He would later go to a gun range outside Austin and ask for advice on how to reload with speed and precision from an instructor.

Soldiers later testified that Hasan’s rapid reloading made it all but impossible to stop the shooting. Investigators recovered 146 shell casings inside the building and dozens more outside, where Hasan shot at the backs of soldiers fleeing toward the parking lot.

Hasan said it was an effort to stop them from going to Afghanistan and killing his fellow Muslims. A military judge barred him from presenting that as a defense during his trial. Hasan made almost no effort to defend himself in court, telling jurors when he acted as his own counsel that evidence would show he was the shooter and describing himself as a soldier who had “switched sides.”

Hegseth said the military hasn’t executed a servicemember by firing squad since World War II. The last military execution took place on April 13, 1961, when Army Pvt. John Bennett was executed by hanging.

FILE - This undated photo provided by the Bell County Sheriff's Department shows former Army psychiatrist Maj. Nidal Hasan. (Bell County Sheriff's Department via AP, File)