PEORIA, Ariz. — Members of the Gophers coaching staff have been punching in GPS directions to an address on West Speckled Gecko Drive during recent recruiting trips to Arizona.

The destination is Liberty High School, the open division state champions in 2023 and 2024. The Lions’ suburban stadium is the same size as big schools in Minnesota, roughly 5,000 bleacher seats, but unlike up North, its natural-grass field is surrounded by rock, sand and desert flora. Maybe even a gecko from time to time.

The Gophers are staking a recruiting claim here in the Valley of the Sun — a “chilly” 50 degrees on Wednesday morning — optimistic that recruits can develop into valuable collegiate while incubating in actually cold Minneapolis.

Two Liberty players already are on board with the Gophers: offensive lineman Nick Spence is redshirting this year, and linebacker Hudson Dunn will be a true freshman next season.

Dunn also is one of three players from Arizona to sign with the Gophers’ 2026 class, along with offensive lineman Aaron Thomas of Mountain Pointe High School in Phoenix and receiver Rico Blassingame from Tolleson Union High School in the smaller town west of the metro area.

Three recruits from Arizona is equal to the number of Minnesotans in the Gophers’ class for next year, and is second-most compared to four a piece from Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

The Gophers’ recruiting footprint has expanded westward in recent years, primarily into California. But even going back to 2018, Minnesota hit big in the Southwest. Las Vegas safety Jordan Howden is the best success story; the fifth-round NFL draft pick is finishing his third season with the New Orleans Saints.

Gophers head coach P.J. Fleck doesn’t assign recruiting areas to assistants, but leans into each coach’s connections.

“It’s not, ‘We have this guy coaching this position and he recruits that area,’ ” Fleck told the Pioneer Press this week. “There are so many coaches that have so many connections around the entire country. So, we are using those resources to bring in the best student-athletes that fit our program.”

Assistant offensive line coach James Bain, who played at Northern Arizona and Texas-El Paso, has been helping out in Arizona.

The Gophers have had mixed results here in previous years. Current sophomore long snapper Alan Soukup from Phoenix has been ultra-reliable over two seasons, but in the 2021 class, four-star nickel back Steven Ortiz, from Desert Edge High in Goodyear, didn’t pan out and transferred. In that same class was offensive lineman Saia Mapakaitolo from Red Mountain in Mesa, who wound up being a short-timer.

Tolleson head coach Richard Wellbrock has been coaching in Arizona for 30 years and has been impressed with the Gophers’ approach in the state.

“They’ve just done a phenomenal job of, again, in today’s day and age with the transfer portal and everything,” Wellbrock said. “It’s about relationships, and they really did a good job. Coach Fleck was on campus a couple times, and and you feel the energy and you feel that they’re going to develop (Blassingame) into being what him and his family want in him.”

The Gophers have some stiff competition here, with this year’s crop of players off to places such as Texas A&M, Notre Dame, Ohio State, Oklahoma, Clemson, Vanderbilt, Michigan State, Stanford and Nebraska. That’s on top of players headed to in-state Arizona and Arizona State.

Liberty head coach Colin Thomas said the level of talent has “grown a lot” in his 11 years at the school.

“I think with the weather and stuff, the skill positions especially, and there’s a lot of quarterbacks, receiver-type players coming from the state in the last five, six years, more so than lineman,” Thomas said. “… I think it’s certainly on the uptick.”

The Gophers’ appearance in the Rate Bowl at Chase Field in Phoenix on Friday is a cherry on top and gives the new Arizona additions the ability to be around their new program this week.

“I was seeing the (bowl) predictions for the previous weeks, and it was looking like we’re there going,” Blassingame said. “So, I was I was super excited when it was official.”

Dunn and Spence

Liberty has worked to build a “true brotherhood” inside its program. That goal helped them reached a pinnacle with a pair of state championships for both Dunn and Spence. The Lions were state semifinalists in 2022 and 2025.

“We try to have a really good team culture here, and I think seeing a place like Minnesota kind of felt similar,” head coach Colin Thomas said. “A staff that is still going to care about you. It’s just now all about some of the glitz and glam in today’s college football. … I just think finding a place that seems similar to maybe some things that we do here is important for both those kids.”

Dunn was a nightmare pass rusher at Liberty, setting a school record with 36½ sacks, and that production came after the slighter, 6-foot-1, 210-pound player was high on other team’s scouting reports.

“One of, I think, the better linebackers we’ve ever signed,” Fleck said on Dec. 3. “Lot of blue-blood offers.”

Those schools reportedly included Michigan, Miami (Fla.), Oregon and Penn State among others, per 247Sports.

Spence, who is listed at 6-6 and 300 pounds, didn’t have as big a recruiting process as Dunn.

“Nick was a dominant player for us,” Colin Thomas said. “He’s really athletic for kid that size. He’s good in the pass game. I mean, obviously (in 2024) we ran the ball really well and ran behind him every chance we possibly could. Long arms, everything you’d want at that position.”

Offensive lineman Nick Spence of Liberty High School in Peoria, Ariz., jogs off the field in an undated courtesy photo. Spence joined the Minnesota Gophers football team in the 2025 recruiting class, which led to high school teammate, Hudson Dunn, joining in 2026. (Christine Andert / Picture Lady Photography)

Fleck sat down with Spence before traveling to Arizona for the bowl. “He’s coming along,” Fleck shared. “He’s going to be a really good player.”

Gophers linebacker coach Mariano Sori-Marin was a key recruiter of Dunn, as were offensive line coach Brian Callahan with Spence.

“They’re very professional about how they go about their business,” Collin Thomas said of the Gophers. “They stay in contact with the kid regularly and do it in a very good manner that you feel very good about sending kids from (that) program to play for a coach like Coach Fleck and their staff.”

Thomas

Thomas was committed to Ohio State from June until November, when the 6-7, 300-pound offensive tackle flipped to the Gophers.

“I just feel like Minnesota was really the place for me,” he told the Pioneer Press.

Minnesota also beat out Florida State, where Thomas’ father, Eric, played O-line and won a national championship in 1999 before stints in the NFL with the Jacksonville Jaguars and Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

“Gifted athlete,” Fleck said of Aaron, who also plays basketball. “… He’s got that winning blood running through his veins.”

Eric Thomas has worked to help his son, but tried to not sway his college decision.

“I’ve taken away a lot of knowledge from my dad, just from his experience playing offensive line,” Aaron said. “So, he’s giving tips and tricks on what to do. We work on footwork together, and we watched film together.

Offensive lineman Aaron Thomas of Phoenix poses for a photo with Minnesota Gophers offensive coordinator Greg Harbaugh, left, and offensive line coach Brian Callahan in an undated photo. Thomas is one of three prospects from Arizona in the Gophers 2026 football recruiting class. (Courtesy of Aaron Thomas)

“He’s just really big on making your own path in life, and really, he’s really big on hard work.”

There is a comfort for Thomas knowing there are other Arizonans joining him at Minnesota.

“It’s cool to have some people that are from the same place that you’re from, and there’s some people there right now, like Nick Spence,” Thomas said.

Blassingame

The 6-foot-1, 170-pound receiver moved from Auburn, Wash., to Tolleson and stayed true to a once-underwhelming program.

“Everyone here in Arizona that has reached out to him, and as well as Bishop Gorman (a powerhouse program in Las Vegas) and the Trinity League over in California have tried to take him,” Wellbrock said.

Blassingame wanted to “not let my teammates down” and they put together a winning season last fall. The four-star prospect caught 178 passes for 2,284 yards and 20 touchdowns in his career.

“The commitment and loyalty is what we are looking at right now,” Fleck said. “Not to say people aren’t looking for great opportunities, but who is staying at a school for a long time? That matters to us.”

Receiver Rico Blassinggame of Tolleson, Ariz., poses for a photo with Minnesota Gophers head football coach P.J. Fleck in an undated photo. Blassingame is one of three prospects from Arizona in the Gophers 2026 football recruiting class. (Courtesy of Rico Blassingame)

Blassingame built a connection with U receivers coach Matt Simon and he committed to Minnesota over other finalists Arizona and California. He also helped bring players into the UMN class.

“With Hudson, we kind of built our relationship after we committed. We both (have) been some early commits for a long time,” Blassingame said. “Our parents as well have talked a lot and met up here in Arizona, so it’s good to have that connection.

“And then with Aaron Thomas, I’ve been trying to get him to commit (to Minnesota) since before he committed to Ohio State. I was on him early.”

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State Rep. Samakab Hussein says an intruder attempted to break into his family’s St. Paul home the evening of Dec. 19.

In a statement, Hussein said his family was “shaken up” by the attempted break-in, though his wife and children weren’t home at the time. It wasn’t immediately clear on Wednesday if anyone had been arrested.

State Rep. Samakab Hussein, DFL-St. Paul. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)

“While we are safe, safety should not be a matter of luck. I am grateful for law enforcement’s swift response to this incident, but we cannot regard this as an isolated occurrence,” Hussein said. “No public servant should have to assess their survival based on timing, and no family should feel their commitment to their community has placed them in danger.”

Hussein, a Democratic-Farmer-Labor representative elected in 2022, represents a central St. Paul district that includes Frogtown, Summit-University, and portions of Midway and North End. He’s the first Somali-American representative for the district.

The St. Paul Police Department could not immediately provide details on the incident early Tuesday afternoon, including whether the attempted break-in was related to Hussein’s political beliefs or office.

Lawmaker safety has become a major discussion at the state Capitol this year following the assassination of former DFL House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, at their home in Brooklyn Park, and the shootings of DFL state Sen. John Hoffman and his wife, Yvette, at their home in Champlin on June 14.

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As of the end of October, there had been 50 threats to Minnesota officials in 2025, according to the State Patrol. That’s up from 19 total in 2024.

In response to threats this year, the Legislature has removed lawmakers’ addresses from its website and boosted its security presence at the Capitol. More changes could come in the 2026 legislative session.

By LINDSAY WHITEHURST and SEUNG MIN KIM, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. Justice Department has released tens of thousands more documents related to Jeffrey Epstein, a tranche that included multiple mentions of President Donald Trump but added little new revelatory information to the long-anticipated public file on the late financier and convicted sex offender.

The release is the most voluminous so far and comes after a massive public campaign for transparency into the U.S. government’s Epstein investigations.

Many of the mentions of Trump in the file came from news clippings, though it includes an email from a prosecutor pointing out the flights that Trump took on Epstein’s private jet during the 1990s.

The two men were friends for years before a falling out. Trump has not been accused of wrongdoing in connection with Epstein. The Justice Department issued a statement that some documents contain “untrue and sensationalist claims” about Trump made shortly before the 2020 election.

Here are some takeaways:

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Prosecutor flagged Trump’s travel on Epstein’s jet

Among the mentions of Trump in the latest batch of the Epstein files is a note from a federal prosecutor from January 2020 that said Trump had flown on the financier’s private plane more often than had been previously known.

An assistant U.S. attorney from the Southern District of New York said in an email that flight records the office received on Jan. 6, 2020, showed that Trump was on Epstein’s jet “many more times than previously has been reported (or that we were aware).”

The prosecutor who flagged the Trump mentions in the flight logs said they did so because lawyers “didn’t want any of this to be a surprise down the road.”

His travels on Epstein’s plane spanned the time that would likely be covered in any criminal charges against Epstein’s co-conspirator, Ghislaine Maxwell. Trump was listed as a passenger on at least eight flights between 1993 and 1996, and on at least four of those flights, Maxwell was also there, according to the email.

On one of those eight flights, in 1993, Trump and Epstein were the only two passengers listed in the flight logs. On another flight, the three passengers listed in records are Epstein, Trump, and a redacted individual, who was 20 years old at the time. Two other flights included two women — whose names were redacted in follow-up emails — identified as potential witnesses in a Maxwell case.

Several additional Trump trips on Epstein’s plane had been previously disclosed during Maxwell’s criminal proceedings.

Asked for comment about the email, the White House pointed to a Justice Department statement saying Monday’s release contained “unfounded and false” claims against the president submitted to the FBI shortly before the 2020 election, but they were nevertheless being released for full transparency.

The Justice Department specifically raised questions about the validity of a document mentioning Trump that was styled as a letter from Epstein to Larry Nassar, the sports doctor convicted of sexually abusing Olympic athletes. The department pointed out that it was processed three days after Epstein’s death.

Meanwhile, the latest release also shows that Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s southern Florida club, was served with a subpoena in 2021 for its employment records. The disclosure came as part of an email chain in which lawyers for the Southern District of New York and an attorney in touch with representatives for the Trump Organization discussed the employment status of someone whose name was redacted.

Trump calls the files a distraction

Trump complained that the files were a distraction from the work he and other Republicans are doing for the country.

Speaking during an unrelated event at his Mar-a-Lago home in Palm Beach, Florida, on Monday, the president blamed Democrats and some Republicans for the controversy.

“What this whole thing is with Epstein is a way of trying to deflect from the tremendous success that the Republican Party has,” Trump said.

He also expressed frustration about the famous people shown with Epstein in photos released by the Justice Department — people who he said may not have known him but ended up in the shot anyway.

“You probably have pictures being exposed of other people that innocently met Jeffrey Epstein years ago, many years ago. And they’re, you know, highly respected bankers and lawyers and others,” Trump said.

Other high-profile people are showing up in the files

Well-known people shown in the files include former President Bill Clinton, the late pop star Michael Jackson and singer Diana Ross. The mere inclusion of someone’s name or images in files from the investigation does not imply wrongdoing.

The latest release also includes files that put the U.K.’s former Prince Andrew back in the headlines.

Among those documents is correspondence between Maxwell and someone who signs off with the initial “A.”

The email exchange includes other references that suggest Maxwell’s correspondent may be Andrew. He did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The August 2001 email from someone identified only as “The Invisible Man,” said he is “up here at Balmoral Summer Camp for the Royal Family,” an apparent reference to the Scottish estate where the royal family have traditionally taken their late summer holidays.

“A” writes: “How’s LA? Have you found me some new inappropriate friends?”

The writer says he has left “the RN” and refers to the challenges of looking after “the Girls.” Andrew retired from the Royal Navy in 2001 and has two daughters.

Andrew, one of King Charles III’s younger brothers, was stripped of the right to be called a prince and his other royal titles and honors in October, amid continued publicity about his links to Epstein and concerns about the potential damage to the rest of the royal family. He is now known as Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor.

Andrew has repeatedly denied committing any crimes, including having sex with Virginia Giuffre, who alleged that she was trafficked by Epstein and had sex with Andrew when she was 17.

Biggest information dump yet

Trump tried for months to keep the records sealed before relenting to political pressure, including from some fellow Republicans, though he eventually signed a bill mandating the release of most of the Justice Department’s files on Epstein.

Monday’s release was the biggest dump yet, including nearly 30,000 more pages. The data released by the law’s Friday deadline contained a fraction of that amount, mostly photographs taken during FBI searches of Epstein’s homes.

The new cache includes news clippings, emails and surveillance videos from the New York jail where Epstein was held before taking his own life in 2019, much of which was already in the public domain.

The law called for the files to be released within 30 days, but the Justice Department has instead released them in stages starting Friday. Officials have said they’re going slowly to protect victims, though some women assaulted by Epstein have spoken out publicly to call for greater transparency.

And the administration is facing fierce accusations that it is withholding too much information. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said the tens of thousands of files released still left “more questions than answers.” He pointed to a 2019 FBI email that mentions 10 people under investigation as possible co-conspirators but contains few additional details.

Associated Press writer Darlene Superville in Washington and Danica Kirka in London contributed to this report.

By ANNIE MA, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration said on Tuesday that it will begin garnishing the wages of student loan borrowers who are in default early next year.

The department said it will send notices to approximately 1,000 borrowers the week of January 7, with more notices to come at an increasing scale each month.

Millions of borrowers are considered in default, meaning they are 270 days past due on their payments. The department must give borrowers 30 days notice before their wages can be garnished.

The department said it will begin collection activities, “only after student and parent borrowers have been provided sufficient notice and opportunity to repay their loans.”

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In May, the Trump administration ended the pandemic-era pause on student loan payments, beginning to collect on defaulted debt through withholding tax refunds and other federal payments to borrowers.

The move ended a period of leniency for student loan borrowers. Payments restarted in October of 2023, but the Biden administration extended a grace period of one year. Since March 2020, no federal student loans had been referred for collection, including those in default, until the Trump administration’s changes earlier this year.

The Biden administration tried multiple times to give broad forgiveness to student loans, but those efforts were eventually stopped by courts.

Persis Yu, deputy executive director for the Student Borrower Protection Center, criticized the decision to begin garnishing wages, and said the department had failed to sufficiently help borrowers find affordable payment options.

“At a time when families across the country are struggling with stagnant wages and an affordability crisis, this administration’s decision to garnish wages from defaulted student loan borrowers is cruel, unnecessary, and irresponsible,” Yu said in a statement. “As millions of borrowers sit on the precipice of default, this Administration is using its self-inflicted limited resources to seize borrowers’ wages instead of defending borrowers’ right to affordable payments.”

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