FRISCO, Texas (AP) — The Dallas Cowboys aren't stacking wins, as coach Brian Schottenheimer says championship teams must do.
They're only stacking uninspired performances, which doesn't reflect well on someone who spent 25 years as an NFL assistant before getting his first chance to run a team.
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Green Bay Packers' Matthew Golden drops a pass in front of Dallas Cowboys' Ameer Speed during the first half of an NFL football game in Green Bay, Wis., Sunday, Oct. 18, 2026. (AP Photo/Nam Huh)
Dallas Cowboys' Javonte Williams is stopped by Green Bay Packers' Evan Williams during the first half of an NFL football game in Green Bay, Wis., Sunday, Oct. 18, 2026. (AP Photo/Nam Huh)
Green Bay Packers' Ty'ron Hopper stops Dallas Cowboys' Brevyn Spann-Ford during the second half of an NFL football game in Green Bay, Wis., Sunday, Oct. 18, 2026. (AP Photo/Matt Ludtke)
Green Bay Packers' Lukas van Ness and Zaire Franklin leap as they help stop Dallas Cowboys' Dak Prescott on a forth down play during the second half of an NFL football game in Green Bay, Wis., Sunday, Oct. 18, 2026. (AP Photo/Mike Roemer)
Dallas Cowboys head coach Brian Schottenheimer argues a call during the first half of an NFL football game against the Green Bay Packers in Green Bay, Wis., Sunday, Oct. 18, 2026. (AP Photo/Matt Ludtke)
Schottenheimer's offense is getting worse in his second season, and the general malaise in a 23-13 loss to the Green Bay Packers on Sunday night looked a lot like that from the embarrassment of a 24-16 defeat to previously winless Tampa Bay 10 days earlier.
Not even extra time to rest, adjust and make even more changes to a beleaguered defense offered any proof that this team can return to the playoffs after missing out the past two years.
“This will test not just Schotty,” quarterback Dak Prescott said after a showing that somehow might have been worse than his game against the Bucs. “It will test myself, test this whole team. It will test this brotherhood that we brag about, that we say we are going to hang our hat on.”
Dallas visits Philadelphia next Monday night in a meeting of 2-4 teams that have combined to win the past five NFC East titles. It's not often that the question for this matchup is which team is in a worse place.
The Cowboys have had all of the pieces from one of the NFL's best offenses available the past two games — and have their two worst performances of the season to show for it.
The Eagles, two-time defending division champions, are trying to figure out how to win with quarterback Jalen Hurts sidelined, possibly for the season, by issues with blood clots.
The situation is dire enough for the Cowboys that Prescott and defensive tackle Quinnen Williams, who called a players-only meeting for his side of the ball last week, talked briefly in the locker room in Green Bay about how to keep the season from spiraling.
“You just have to get that first one. You have to get that first win,” Prescott said. “That is actually what me and (Williams) were just talking about. When you get that first win, you get the confidence going. We know the guys that we have, and then you can get a streak going.”
The next three opponents currently have losing records. Then again, so does Dallas.
The Cowboys play in the NFC East, which had a chance going into Monday night to become the first division since the 1970 merger to have every team play and not win in back-to-back weeks. One-win Washington was at undefeated San Francisco. The Eagles and division-leading New York Giants won't have their starting quarterbacks anytime soon. The odds favor the NFC East champion taking a losing record into a home playoff game.
Prescott has struggled badly against the blitz the past two weeks, something he was quite good at previously. There were some inexplicable plays against the Packers. Some with no hot routes. Another with a desperation throw out of the back of the end zone on fourth down.
“I just have to simplify the plan,” said Prescott, who threw two interceptions and had a third erased by a questionable roughing the passer call. “I don’t want to get too into it, but it is definitely fixable.”
It's not a stretch to say Brevyn Spann-Ford could be on his way to replacing Jake Ferguson as the starting tight end. The Cowboys invested in the third-year undrafted free agent just before the start of the season, and he had a remarkably athletic play for a first down against the Packers. He was almost upended short of the marker, but managed to stay on his feet and get the extra yardage needed. Spann-Ford was targeted five times, with four catches for 35 yards. Ferguson was targeted three times, with two receptions for 13 yards. Spann-Ford is bigger than Ferguson, and a better blocker.
The Dallas running game is at its lowest point of the season. Javonte Williams averaged 3.7 yards on 11 carries (41 yards). The Cowboys ran just 15 times in 70 plays, and only once after Williams' 1-yard run cut the deficit to 17-7 in the third quarter.
KaVontae Turpin's rib injury on the opening kickoff could be a multi-week blow to the return game, although Jonathan Mingo did have a 16-yard punt return. ... LB Dee Winters strained an Achilles tendon not long after getting Dallas' first interception of the season. ... LB DeMarvion Overshown is close to a return after missing five weeks with a hamstring injury.
Sub-20 — The Cowboys have scored fewer than 20 points in consecutive Prescott starts for the first time since 2019, when they lost 13-9 to New England and 26-15 to Buffalo. That team missed the playoffs.
The Cowboys have a four-game losing streak in Philadelphia, and have lost eight of the past nine meetings with the Cardinals, the next opponent. Each of the past three Arizona teams to beat Dallas finished that season with at least 13 losses.
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Green Bay Packers' Matthew Golden drops a pass in front of Dallas Cowboys' Ameer Speed during the first half of an NFL football game in Green Bay, Wis., Sunday, Oct. 18, 2026. (AP Photo/Nam Huh)
Dallas Cowboys' Javonte Williams is stopped by Green Bay Packers' Evan Williams during the first half of an NFL football game in Green Bay, Wis., Sunday, Oct. 18, 2026. (AP Photo/Nam Huh)
Green Bay Packers' Ty'ron Hopper stops Dallas Cowboys' Brevyn Spann-Ford during the second half of an NFL football game in Green Bay, Wis., Sunday, Oct. 18, 2026. (AP Photo/Matt Ludtke)
Green Bay Packers' Lukas van Ness and Zaire Franklin leap as they help stop Dallas Cowboys' Dak Prescott on a forth down play during the second half of an NFL football game in Green Bay, Wis., Sunday, Oct. 18, 2026. (AP Photo/Mike Roemer)
Dallas Cowboys head coach Brian Schottenheimer argues a call during the first half of an NFL football game against the Green Bay Packers in Green Bay, Wis., Sunday, Oct. 18, 2026. (AP Photo/Matt Ludtke)
Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islander adults have become more disillusioned with President Donald Trump and Republicans as the Nov. 3 midterm elections approach, according to a new AP-NORC/AAPI Data poll, giving Democrats a substantial edge on major issues like the economy and health care.
Meanwhile, Trump on Sunday endorsed embattled Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu late in his reelection campaign, a coveted boost because of Trump’s popularity, but one that the American had withheld for months as the vote neared and the leaders’ strategies in the Middle East diverged.
Here's the latest:
Acting Deputy Attorney General Trent McCotter said at a news conference Monday that the charges included unlawfully voting as a noncitizen, falsely claiming U.S. citizenship when registering to vote and “knowingly depriving the residents of California of a fair and impartial election process.”
The charges come after the Justice Department sued the state last week, alleging there are likely noncitizens who were mailed ballots to participate in the November election. California Secretary of State Shirley Weber said the federal government has failed to prove there are noncitizens on the state’s voter rolls.
At least eight of the 28 people charged allegedly voted illegally more than once, McCotter said.
“This Department of Justice will not look the other way while noncitizens vote in federal elections,” he said.
Acting Deputy Attorney General Trent McCotter on Monday walked reporters through how the Trump administration culled a list of 20,000 California voters it believes to be noncitizens.
The administration is currently suing state election officials to prevent them from counting mail ballots from the alleged noncitizens until their immigration status can be confirmed.
McCotter said at a news conference that the government started with California’s publicly available voter file, which includes basic but not detailed voter information. Then, it “enriched and cross-referenced” that information with other federal and public data.
Finally, McCotter said, the administration removed from the list anyone for whom citizenship evidence existed in federal databases, and the Department of Homeland Security “manually verified” the rest.
McCotter didn’t explain what he meant by “manually verified,” but acknowledged the Trump administration hadn’t yet proven that the voters were noncitizens.
Since states run elections, federal databases are often an incomplete and outdated source of information about voter eligibility.
House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries said Sunday the election climate is holding firm for Democrats as he campaigned for Rep. Marcy Kaptur in a heavily contested Ohio congressional district that’s crucial for majority control of the House.
Jeffries also slapped back at President Trump’s abrupt decision to waive sanctions on Russia and said there will be a bipartisan effort in the House to pursue a new sanctions package the president wouldn’t have the ability to waive.
“It’s shocking, but not surprising, that an American president would do so much to undermine the cause of democracy, freedom and dignity for the Ukrainian people,” Jeffries told The Associated Press after visiting church services in Toledo.
Jeffries, who’s in line to become House speaker if Democrats win back the majority, has traveled to some 50 cities campaigning for Democratic candidates.
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The order, first reported by USA Today, will create a new women’s health division at the National Institutes of Health and a task force at the White House focused on the issue.
Melania Trump is expected to speak about prioritizing research and easing taboos around discussions of women’s health issues during a signing ceremony Monday, the White House said.
White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, who recently completed treatment for breast cancer, and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will lead the White House task force. The order doesn’t include specific funding goals.
The initiative comes after a series of meetings the first lady had with federal health officials. “It was abundantly clear that women’s healthcare needs to be modernized, the research gap closed, and further, the need to accelerate the discovery of treatments and cures was glaring,” Melania Trump said in a statement.
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President Trump has a new pitch for Republican candidates: they’re easy on the eyes.
“Look at this beautiful guy,” Trump said at a Saturday rally in Kentucky, referring to U.S. House candidate Ed Gallrein, a former U.S. Navy SEAL with an angular face who stood nearby the stage. “Central casting.”
That’s a common refrain from Trump, who owned the Miss Universe beauty pageant and grew his clout on the reality television show “The Apprentice” before entering politics. Aesthetics have long been part of the president’s measuring stick, either as a source of praise or target for ridicule.
Now, Trump is deploying his handsomeness appraisals as he boosts Republican candidates in a midterm election which already includes debates over which candidates are more masculine. The outcome will determine whether Republicans keep control of Congress or Trump faces emboldened Democratic opposition in Washington.
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The Supreme Court agreed on Monday to consider whether Congress had the constitutional authority to impose a ban on distilling spirits in private homes more than 150 years ago.
Plaintiffs challenging the prohibition on home distilling claim the 1868 law is an antiquated relic of Reconstruction-era politics. They argue that Congress overstepped its taxation powers when it enacted the home distilling ban as part of a tax reform measure designed to curb fraud by commercial distillers.
Government attorneys counter that Congress properly restricted where spirits can be distilled to prevent producers from evading federal excise taxes. They warn that lifting the ban would violate Supreme Court precedent and erode congressional powers.
Federal law makes home distilling a crime punishable by a maximum sentence of five years in prison and a $10,000 fine.
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U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov were both asked about a Wall Street Journal report that Russian President Vladimir Putin could try to use a possible meeting with Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping to try to negotiate a deal on Ukraine behind Kyiv’s back.
Rubio told reporters in Uzbekistan that “I think there’s been talks of a meeting. I don’t know anything’s been finalized. But the president has been clear he’d like the war in Ukraine and Russia to end.”
Peskov, meanwhile, said separately that while the possibility of such a meeting has been mentioned, “no substantive proposals or agreements neither regarding the meeting itself nor its potential agenda and content have been discussed or put forward by anyone.”
He added that Russia appreciates Washington’s ongoing mediation efforts, but “a final settlement is certainly impossible without the participation of someone from Kyiv who is prepared to take on responsibility.”
Republican Rep. Mike Lawler and Democratic challenger Cait Conley put aside their political rancor this weekend — at least for one song — during a street fair that had the two candidates dancing near one another.
Lawler hit a little air guitar. Conley was doing a lot of stomping and clapping.
“Great time at the Suffern Street Fair — even found opportunity for a little bipartisan dance off with @CaitforNewYork!” Lawler wrote in a social media video that included a video of the two opponents awkwardly grooving in close proximity. “Even during the heat of a campaign, it’s good to have a little fun.”
The race in New York’s Hudson Valley is considered one of the country’s most competitive contests this fall.
The Democratic congresswoman carried a dull kitchen knife and two pairs of rusty scissors through a county fairgrounds south of Seattle.
She handed them to Beverly Phoenix, who sat hunched over a table in the back of an exhibit hall, volunteering to help neighbors breathe new life into old tools. Now she offered advice to a member of Congress on using a Dremel, a handheld oscillating device, to sharpen the blades.
It was an unassuming campaign stop that reinforced Gluesenkamp Perez’s message of self sufficiency. The owner of an auto repair shop with her husband, Gluesenkamp Perez has positioned herself as someone who can help her party bridge the divide between urban and rural, blue collar and white collar, left and right.
If Democrats are going to take back control of the U.S. House, they need to hold districts like this one in Southwest Washington, which twice elected Gluesenkamp Perez while also supporting Trump in all of his campaigns.
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Chris Martinez feels like Donald Trump has made a fool of him.
The 28-year-old maintenance technician from Casa Grande, Arizona, voted for the Republican president expecting to get a thriving economy and no wars.
Instead, gas prices are so high that Martinez returned one of his vehicles to the lender, he shifted his food shopping to a discount grocer and he has watched as the United States has spent months in conflict with Iran.
“He’s doing nothing for us, to benefit us,” Martinez said. “And it kind of sucks because I got duped and I feel like a dummy.”
As a group, Latinos shifted toward Trump two years ago, helping return him to the White House with a Republican-controlled Congress. Now, many like Martinez are souring on the president and his party, which could upend the balance of power in Washington in the Nov. 3 elections.
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Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke to reporters in Uzbekistan and was asked to comment on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s remarks to NBC, in which he said Washington’s intelligence sharing “was blocked for some period of time and then it was deblocked.”
“I don’t know where he’s getting these things from or why he’s saying these things to the press,” Rubio said. “There’s been no pause.”
Zelenskyy should be focused on “bringing an end to this war,” Rubio said. “That’s what we want everybody to be focused on,” he added.
Rubio stressed that “we want the war to end.” “We see nothing good coming from this war, and we see a lot of downside to it, including the very real risk of escalation” and the conflict “spreading into another country,” he said.
The economic strain is becoming a growing political concern for Republicans in states they’ve long dominated. President Trump is heading to Kansas on Monday and Iowa later in the week, the latest in a series of stops where he’s trying to energize his base in the final weeks before the midterm elections.
The visits come as Republicans pour money into Senate races in Kansas, Nebraska and Iowa amid concerns about voter enthusiasm. The anxiety may be especially notable in Kansas — a state Trump won by 16 percentage points against Democrat Kamala Harris in 2024 — as Republican Sen. Roger Marshall faces a tough challenge from Democrat Adam Hamilton. Democrats haven’t won a Senate election in Kansas in 94 years.
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Trump on Sunday endorsed embattled Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu late in his reelection campaign, a coveted boost because of Trump’s popularity but one that the American had withheld for months as the vote neared and the leaders’ strategies in the Middle East diverged.
Trump said in a post on social media that Netanyahu “has been a Great Warrior Prime Minister, and an even greater Partner for Peace in combating the Islamic Republic of Iran.”
Israelis are set to vote Oct. 27, in the first national elections since Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
The absence of an endorsement was a setback for the Likud politician, who had billed his tight ties to the Republican president as a selling point for staying in power.
It was not immediately clear what impact the endorsement would have on what is expected to be a tight race. Trump is still popular in Israel, but many Israelis, including leading commentators, have expressed disappointment over the inconclusive outcome of the Iran war and Trump’s ceasefire proposal.
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Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islander adults have become more disillusioned with President Donald Trump and Republicans as the Nov. 3 midterm elections approach, according to a new AP-NORC/AAPI Data poll, giving Democrats a substantial edge on major issues like the economy and health care.
The survey, which was conducted from Sept. 8-15 by AAPI Data and The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, reveals that Trump’s standing on the economy has fallen among AAPI adults over the course of his second term.
About one-quarter of AAPI adults approve of the way Trump is handling his job as president overall. Only about 2 in 10 approve of his performance on the economy, which the vast majority of AAPI adults see as one of the most important issues for the upcoming election.
But although AAPI adults trust Democrats more than Republicans on a wide range of issues, views of the Democratic Party itself are still split.
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FILE - Chinese Americans supporters of former President Donald Trump stand outside the hotel where the 2023 Fall California Republican Convention is being held in Anaheim, Calif., Sept. 29, 2023. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes, File)
President Donald Trump walks on the South Lawn upon his arrival to the White House, Sunday, Oct. 18, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)
