MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Field storms became the norm last month at Minnesota, where upsets fervently returned two long-absent rivalry trophies to campus.
The unbeaten UCLA Bruins and their ball-hawking defense are coming this week to try to keep Gophers fans safely in the stands.
Fifth in the latest Associated Press poll and eighth in the first edition of the College Football Playoff rankings, UCLA entered the final third of the schedule as one of three FBS teams left without a loss in this remarkable turnaround in coach Bob Chesney's debut.
After leading James Madison to a playoff berth in just the program's fourth year at the NCAA's top level, Chesney has confidently and energetically taken his acumen from one coast to the other with a sizeable contingent of assistants and players joining him on the journey. But for all they've done to revive the Rose Bowl during this storybook regular season, the hardest part for the Bruins remains.
“I told them the two most meaningless statistics in all of college sports is the score at halftime and your record going into November. November is obviously what matters,” Chesney said. "When you’re 8-0, that doesn’t mean that you relax. At 8-0, it means the standard’s got to raise a little bit more.”
UCLA, which leads the country with 26 takeaways and has allowed the fifth-fewest points per game (13.4), has not missed a beat since quarterback Nico Iamaleava was lost for the year with a leg injury in a defining win at Oregon on Oct. 10. Ty Dieffenbach has deftly taken over, and Wayne Knight has been one of the Big Ten's best running backs with 14 total touchdowns and 807 yards from scrimmage.
This will be a prove-it month for the Bruins, though, in pursuit of their first conference championship since 1998 in the old Pac-10 — and a playoff spot. Oregon and Wisconsin are their only victories over teams with winning records. The five Big Ten teams UCLA has beaten are a combined 8-17 in conference play.
After playing on Saturday at Minnesota, which will be Dieffenbach's first start on the road, the Bruins host Illinois, visit Michigan and face rival USC. Those four remaining foes are a collective 22-11.
“This is as tough a team as we’ve faced and probably will face — playing at their place, early start, all the things that come with it,” Chesney said in preparation for a kickoff time of 9 a.m. Pacific with a gametime temperature forecast for the mid-40s.
The Gophers opened October by beating Michigan at home for the first time since 1977, hoisting the Little Brown Jug trophy and celebrating coach P.J. Fleck's 100th career win.
Three weeks later, their fans rushed the field again when Luke Drzewiecki made a 46-yard kick as time expired to beat Iowa at home for the first time since 2014 and regain Floyd of Rosedale, the bronze pig.
The Gophers were on the verge of an even bigger upset last week when Drzewiecki hit a 60-yard field goal with 19 seconds left in regulation for the lead, but defending national champion Indiana answered with a 60-yarder to tie it and won in overtime. Minnesota fell to 5-3 and 3-2 in the Big Ten.
“The ups and downs have not affected this team, which is awesome, and that can definitely creep into locker rooms, and it hasn’t at all in this locker room,” quarterback Drake Lindsey said. “We’re just going to keep being us and learn from this.”
In Iowa, Indiana and UCLA, the Gophers will have faced three of the top five teams in the FBS in points allowed. Michigan is ranked 18th.
With starting center Ashton Beers out for the season due to a leg injury, Minnesota has been vulnerable to the pass rush and Lindsey has struggled to avoid sacks. The Gophers rank 129th out of 138 teams in the FBS in total yards per game and averaged 15.5 points over four games last month.
“I feel like I’m a lot more comfortable in seeing pressure, but it takes time and I think that’s teams’ answer for us right now,” Lindsey said. “That comes down to me being able to execute and take the hits.”
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Minnesota head coach P.J. Fleck reacts by jumping into the air after an Indiana place kicker missed a field goal attempt during the first half of an NCAA college football game, Saturday, Oct. 31, 2026, in Bloomington, Ind. (AP Photo/Doug McSchooler)
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump met at the White House on Thursday with a Russian envoy who was on the premises for an event with first lady Melania Trump and suggested that some kind of grand deal about European security was in the works, but said he did not meet with visiting Ukrainian officials who also were on hand.
Trump, who has long boasted he could quickly broker an end to Russia’s war in Ukraine, has lately blamed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for refusing to make concessions to end the conflict. During the closing weeks of the midterm election campaign, Trump struck a deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin to remove sanctions from Russian diesel exports.
Trump told reporters he met with Putin envoy Kirill Dmitriev but declined to give details. The meeting took place as Trump’s own envoys held talks with other Ukrainian and European officials at NATO headquarters in Brussels.
“There’s going to be an agreement, it’s going to be a big agreement and it’s going to involve more than Ukraine,” Trump said, adding that it might include all of Europe.
One of the U.S. envoys in Brussels, Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, said on social media that Thursday’s talks with Ukraine, NATO and European allies were productive and focused on security guarantees for Ukraine and a broader security structure for Europe. The United States is holding three-way talks next week in Abu Dhabi with Ukraine and Russia, the first trilateral peace discussions since February.
“We are working intensively with all parties to find practical solutions that can bring this war to an end and establish the foundations for lasting peace,” Kushner wrote.
Dmitriev was at the White House for an event recognizing the recent six-day truce between Russia and Ukraine in the besieged Ukrainian city of Oleshky. The local ceasefire in the war-divided region of Kherson in southern Ukraine was in effect from Oct. 27 to Nov. 1 and amounted to the most significant truce since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Dmitriev thanked the first lady for her “distinguished humanitarian role” in securing the temporary ceasefire. Dmitriev said Putin personally gave instructions as part of the operation and sent his thanks to Melania Trump for her work.
The head of the parliamentary faction of Zelenskyy’s party, Davyd Arakhamia, and Ukraine’s human rights ombudsman, Dmytro Lubinets, also spoke at the event.
Trump did not say why he didn’t meet with the Ukrainian officials, and the White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Arakhamia told the first lady she did an “amazing job" and encouraged her to keep helping the Ukrainian people, who have endured more than four years of war after Putin sent his troops across the border and invaded the country in February 2022.
“Definitely we would like to ask you to keep going and to find new missions and to de-escalate more as much as possible,” Arakhamia said.
The first lady has worked with both countries since last year to reunite families separated by the war. So far, she has helped nearly three dozen children return to their relatives.
She said Thursday that she hoped the Oleshky ceasefire could become more enduring and more widespread.
“Let Oleshky be the modest spark that grows into a lasting flame of peace,” she said.
Zelenskyy, in a speech in Spain last week, said the operation in Oleshky proved “something very simple. When Putin wants the fighting to stop, it stops. And there was real silence, no attacks some days, and we saved hundreds of lives.”
The ceasefire is the latest example of how Melania Trump has become more involved in foreign affairs than some of her recent predecessors, who typically travel abroad to spread U.S. goodwill and largely avoid involvement with warring countries, though there have been some exceptions.
In 2022, months after Russia invaded Ukraine, first lady Jill Biden traveled to western Ukraine to visit with Zelenskyy's wife in a town far away from the front lines. Under tight security, first lady Laura Bush made several visits to war-torn Afghanistan.
In an announcement that came as a surprise, the White House said on Oct. 23 that the first lady had brokered the ceasefire to help with the delivery of much-needed humanitarian aid and to allow civilians to evacuate from a place she described as being “on the brink of disaster.”
An estimated 2,000 people remained in Oleshky when the temporary truce took hold. They were offered the choice of evacuating to territory controlled by Ukraine or Russia, or remaining in the city with replenished food and medical supplies.
Supplies were delivered during the six-day window while hundreds of Oleshky residents crossed into Ukrainian-held territory in a major evacuation operation.
Melania Trump said Thursday that nearly 800 people had been evacuated from Oleshky, and she described how she initiated talks with officials in both countries after learning about the situation at an event she held on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly session in September. She said she and her top adviser, Marc Beckman, worked directly with Russian and Ukrainian leadership to define the terms of the ceasefire.
Food and medical supplies had been scarce for months in Oleshky, once a city of about 24,000 residents that sits on the Dnipro River separating Ukrainian forces from the city’s Russian occupiers. There is no electricity, heat or running water.
Oleshky was captured by Moscow’s forces on the first day of Russia’s full-scale invasion. Its buildings were shelled and burned, and its infrastructure damaged. In June 2023, floodwaters inundated the city after the Kakhovka Dam collapsed from an explosion that an Associated Press investigation found was likely caused by the Russian military. Hundreds of residents were killed.
Those left in the city along Ukraine’s southeastern front face death from hunger or disease as another harsh winter looms. Ukraine has appealed repeatedly for a local ceasefire to organize evacuations. Russia, as the occupying power, is obligated by international law to ensure civilians under its control have what they need to survive.
The first lady presented Putin and Zelenskyy's representatives with large white envelopes and asked them to deliver her personal letter to each leader. Dmitriev presented her with a painting from an 11-year-old girl, while Zelenskyy sent her a Ukrainian award recognizing her role in the ceasefire.
Associated Press writers Michelle L. Price and Mike Corder in The Hague, Netherlands, contributed to this report.
President Donald Trump speaks after signing an executive order in the Oval Office of the White House Thursday, Nov. 5, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
First lady Melania Trump, from right, hands letters written for the presidents of Ukraine and Russia to Davyd Arakhamia, head of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's Servant of the People party and Russian Presidential Envoy Kirill Dmitriev, during a meeting with the first lady and Russian and Ukrainian representatives in the Grand Foyer of the White House, Thursday, Nov. 5, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
Russian Presidential Envoy Kirill Dmitriev speaks during a meeting with first lady Melania Trump and Russian and Ukrainian representatives in the Grand Foyer of the White House, Thursday, Nov. 5, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
Russian Presidential Envoy Kirill Dmitriev speaks alongside first lady Melania Trump during a meeting with Russian and Ukrainian representatives in the Grand Foyer of the White House, Thursday, Nov. 5, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
Russian Presidential Envoy Kirill Dmitriev, left, presents first lady Melania Trump with a gift during a meeting with Russian and Ukrainian representatives in the Grand Foyer of the White House, Thursday, Nov. 5, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
First lady Melania Trump arrives to speak during a meeting with Russian and Ukrainian representatives in the Grand Foyer of the White House, Thursday, Nov. 5, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
First lady Melania Trump attends a meeting with Russian and Ukrainian representatives in the Grand Foyer of the White House, Thursday, Nov. 5, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
Davyd Arakhamia, head of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's Servant of the People party, speaks alongside first lady Melania Trump during a meeting with Russian and Ukrainian representatives in the Grand Foyer of the White House, Thursday, Nov. 5, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
Ukraine's human rights ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets, left, presents first lady Melania Trump with a state award during a meeting with Russian and Ukrainian representatives in the Grand Foyer of the White House, Thursday, Nov. 5, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
First lady Melania Trump speaks during a meeting with Russian and Ukrainian representatives in the Grand Foyer of the White House, Thursday, Nov. 5, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
Ukraine's human rights ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets, left, presents first lady Melania Trump with a state award during a meeting with Russian and Ukrainian representatives in the Grand Foyer of the White House, Thursday, Nov. 5, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
