As the first full week of training camp begins, there’s no hint of an answer to the question that most Wild fans have about the coming season and the half-dozen or so seasons to come after that. If star forward Kirill Kaprizov is to sign a contract extension that will keep him in Minnesota after July of next year, neither his agent Paul Theofanous nor Wild general manager Bill Guerin are admitting to having anything cooking right now.
Theofanous reportedly made an unannounced trip to Minnesota last week and had a lengthy conversation with a member of the Wild’s hockey operations department during a training camp scrimmage at TRIA Rink. But if those talks yielded any progress, or any setbacks, neither side is talking about it.
He is healthy and has been a full participant in training camp, and Kaprizov is even back to his familiar habits of staying on the ice after practice for a few extra shots and skating drills, until the Zamboni driver politely asks him to vacate. He did not travel to Winnipeg for the Wild’s preseason opening 3-2 overtime win over the Jets on Sunday, nor will Kaprizov be part of the traveling party that heads to Dallas for a 7 p.m. Tuesday night preseason game versus the Stars.
The Stars will be coming to visit on Thursday night for the Wild’s first home game of the preseason and their first game since the name change at what’s now known as Grand Casino Arena.
In his meeting with reporters on day one of camp, Kaprizov reiterated that he likes playing in Minnesota, likes his team and likes the fans here, calling it his second home (after his native Russia). When asked about the state of his contract talks and why he would reportedly turn down an offer of the richest contract in NHL history, he deferred those topics to Theofanous, and made mention of the fact that Kaprizov remains under contract with the Wild until July 1, 2026.
“We have a lot of time, it’s just 2025,” Kaprizov said. “It’s one more year I have.”
Roster moves announced
On Monday, the Wild reduced their training camp roster to 52 players and signed a goalie for their minor league system.
They signed Chase Wutzke, a butterfly goalie with some size, to a three-year entry-level contract after selecting the 19-year-old in the fifth round of the 2024 NHL Draft. The Wild then assigned Wutzke to the Red Deer (Alberta) Rebels of Canadian major junior leagues, where he has played since 2022.
Major junior is also the destination for forwards Lirim Amidovski, Adam Benak and Carter Klippenstein. Benak, an undersized but skilled rookie, skated more than 16 minutes versus Winnipeg on Sunday.
The Wild released defensemen Rowan Topp and Jordan Tourigny, and sent three players – forward Matthew Sop and Ryan McGuire and goalie William Rousseau – to Iowa Wild training camp.
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MANILA, Philippines (AP) — Thousands of people were evacuated from northern Philippine villages and schools and offices were closed Monday in the archipelago and neighboring Taiwan as one of this year’s strongest typhoons threatened to cause flooding and landslides on its way to southeastern China.
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Super Typhoon Ragasa had sustained winds of 134 mph with gusts of up to 183 mph when it slammed into Panuitan island off Cagayan province on mid-afternoon Monday, Philippine forecasters said.
Tropical cyclones with sustained winds of 115 mph or higher are categorized in the Philippines as a super typhoon, a designation adopted years ago to underscore the urgency tied to such extreme weather disturbances.
Ragasa was heading west and forecast to remain in the South China Sea at least into Wednesday while passing south of Taiwan and Hong Kong before landfall on the Chinese mainland.
The Philippines’ weather agency warned of coastal inundation, saying “there is a high risk of life-threatening storm surge with peak heights exceeding nearly 10 feet within the next 24 hours over the low-lying or exposed coastal localities” of the northern provinces of Cagayan, Batanes, Ilocos Norte and Ilocos Sur.
Power was knocked out on Calayan island and in the entire northern mountain province of Apayao, west of Cagayan, disaster-response officials said. There were no immediate reports of casualties or further damage from Ragasa, which is locally called Nando.
Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. suspended government work and all classes Monday in the capital and 29 provinces in the main northern Luzon region.
More than 8,200 people were evacuated to safety in Cagayan while 1,220 fled to emergency shelters in Apayao, which is prone to flash floods and landslides. Domestic flights were suspended in northern provinces lashed by the typhoon while fishing boats and inter-island ferries were prohibited from leaving ports due to rough seas.
Ragasa, the 14th weather disturbance to batter the Philippines this year, comes while authorities and both chambers of Congress investigate a corruption scandal involving alleged kickbacks that resulted in substandard or non-existent flood control projects.
In this photo provided by the Philippine Coast Guard, a rescuer evacuates a child to safer grounds as Super Typhoon Ragasa affects Santa Ana, Cagayan province, northern Philippines, Monday, Sept. 22, 2025. (Philippine Coast Guard via AP)
In this photo provided by the Philippine Coast Guard, a man is rescued from a swollen river as Super Typhoon Ragasa affects Salcedo, Ilocos Sur province, northern Philippines, Monday, Sept. 22, 2025. (Philippine Coast Guard via AP)
In this photo provided by the Philippine Coast Guard, rescuers use a rubber boat to help evacuate residents along a swollen river as Super Typhoon Ragasa affects Salcedo, Ilocos Sur province, northern Philippines, Monday, Sept. 22, 2025. (Philippine Coast Guard via AP)
CORRECTS DATE – People watch as strong waves batter Basco, Batanes province, northern Philippines as Typhoon Ragasa affects the area on Monday, Sept. 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Justine Mark Pillie Fajardo)
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In this photo provided by the Philippine Coast Guard, a rescuer evacuates a child to safer grounds as Super Typhoon Ragasa affects Santa Ana, Cagayan province, northern Philippines, Monday, Sept. 22, 2025. (Philippine Coast Guard via AP)
Taiwan’s southern Taitung and Pingtung counties ordered closures in some coastal and mountainous areas as well as on the outlying Orchid and Green islands. Ragasa also forced the cancellation of afternoon flights to outlying islands and suspended various ferry services, the Central News Agency reported.
In Fujian province, on China’s southeast coast, 50 ferry routes were suspended. Officials in Shenzhen, the southern Chinese tech hub, planned to relocate about 400,000 people, including residents living in low-lying and flood-prone areas. Shenzhen’s airport said it will halt flights, starting Tuesday night.
China’s National Meteorological Center forecast the typhoon would make landfall in the coastal area between Shenzhen city and Xuwen county in Guangdong province on Wednesday.
China’s ruling Communist Party chief in Guangdong, Huang Kunming, urged departments across the region to minimize harm and “fully enter emergency state and war-ready state.”
Ragasa is expected to sweep south of Hong Kong and Macao. While Hong Kong’s airport is expected to remain open, the city’s airport authority said flights would be significantly reduced after 6 p.m. Tuesday and most flight operations would be affected on Wednesday.
Hong Kong’s flag carrier Cathay Pacific Airways said passenger flights scheduled to depart and arrive in the city after 6 p.m. Tuesday will be suspended, with more than 500 flight cancellations expected.
Other Hong Kong-based airlines announced their flights would be disrupted, including budget airline HK Express, which reported a cancellation of over 100 flights between Tuesday and Thursday.
All schools in Hong Kong and Macao will be closed for the next two days. More than the usual number of sandbags have been provided to flood-prone areas in Hong Kong, while Macao police urged people living in low-lying areas to prepare for possible evacuation.
Ragasa is expected to bring torrential rains and heavy winds to China’s mainland coastal areas, starting Tuesday. Multiple cities such as Jiangmen, Yangjiang, Zhongshan and Zhuhai in southern Guangdong province ordered the suspension of schools, offices, factories and means of transportation.
The typhoon could make landfall in Guangdong more than once, China’s weather agency said.
Authorities urged residents to stockpile emergency supplies, reinforce doors and windows, and evacuate underground areas.
Associated Press writers Simina Mistreanu in Taipei, Taiwan, and Kanis Leung in Hong Kong contributed to this report.
ATHENS, Greece (AP) — With a pristine white exterior, the Greece tax authority’s new headquarters looks out of place on a clogged industrial artery outside Athens. A former shopping mall and ice rink, the building has been overhauled into an ultramodern digital center that has led the rescue of the nation’s ailing finance and tax sector.
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It is teeming with inspectors who chase down tax cheats with the help of drones, big data and live surveillance feeds from as far as Greece’s island ports and remote farming villages.
Analysts at the Independent Authority for Public Revenue monitor millions of transactions in real time and order stings on businesses flagged by algorithms for a high potential of illegal activity. The high tech was on full display during a recent visit as The Associated Press was granted rare access to the authority’s headquarters.
Greece’s tax system — once a byword for inefficiency — has been rewired by technology.
Now, the country that spent nearly a decade as Europe’s financial outcast, drowning in debt, has become one of its best budget performers, with bonds restored to investment grade by all major ratings agencies.
“We worked systematically over the years, with dedication,” Giorgos Pitsilis, governor of the revenue authority, told the AP. “We started from a situation of no data to a situation with big data.”
From crisis to credit upgrades
Greece was one of just six EU member states that recorded a budget surplus in 2024, after running deficits for decades. Momentum carried into this year, with government revenues shooting past targets through August.
Moody’s upgraded Greece’s bonds to investment grade in March, praising its large-scale push to digitize the tax system. Jason Graffam, senior vice president at ratings agency Morningstar DBRS, noted that Greece’s long-term borrowing costs now sit slightly above Spain’s — and below Italy’s and France’s.
“The Greece of today is indeed very different from a decade ago,” Graffam said. “There has clearly been durable change to the country’s economic model and its fiscal regime.”
During the crisis years, international creditors imposed punishing austerity measures in exchange for three massive bailout packages. Greece’s population felt the pain deeply — wages were slashed, companies shut down and the economy bled jobs.
Sustained pressure from lenders forced successive governments to modernize one of Europe’s weakest tax systems.
Out went paper files and fax machines. In came cashless, paperless systems powered by algorithms that scour card payments, tax filings, payroll data, customs declarations and bank records – and flag anomalies for inspectors to pursue.
‘Saturday Night Fever’
Repurposed smartphones carried by inspectors in the field stream video and audio back to headquarters. There are panic buttons to use when someone feels threatened.
Back at headquarters, screens map ongoing site inspections and drone surveillance feeds from multiple sites: from restaurants and ports to hidden grain silos and fruit delivery trucks — even live readings from ships’ fuel tanks.
Tax and customs officials described how the data translates into raids. They spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity because of the confidentiality of their work and citing reasons of personal safety.
During a recent nightclub sweep dubbed “Saturday Night Fever,” they matched individual table orders against receipts to uncover undeclared sales, mostly of alcoholic drinks.
“We knew the tables were full, but the receipts didn’t match,” one official said, adding that after inspectors showed up, the nightclub’s reported revenues doubled within days.
Fraud can be detected by cross-referencing mobile phone activity with reported sales as recorded by cash registers and card-payment terminals that by law must be connected to the tax authority.
“If we detect signals from 20 phones inside a store, but see almost no receipts, that’s a cue to dispatch a team immediately,” another inspector explained.
Still, opposition parties argue that more efficient tax collection does not offset policies that worsen inequality: The national sales tax rate was hiked during the crisis to 24% — higher than most EU countries.
The powerful Greek Communist Party described recent budget figures as a “blood-stained surplus” that is eating further into the spending power of wage earners.
But the revenue is a sorely needed boost for the government, which is facing public anger over a corruption scandal and the cost-of-living crisis.
Tax compliance may also — slowly and grudgingly – build trust in public institutions, revenue agency officials say.
“It’s a powerful argument … being tax responsible is beneficial,” said Pitsilis, who has been governor since the tax agency became an independent authority in 2017. “We earn more, and that gives space for tax reform.”
Fruit vendor Makis Panaretos uses a POS terminal for a customer who pays with his cellphone at an open-air fruit and vegetable market in Athens, Greece, Friday, Sept. 5, 2025. (AP Photo/Thanassis Stavrakis)
People shop at an open-air fruit and vegetable market in Athens, Greece, Friday, Sept. 5, 2025. (AP Photo/Thanassis Stavrakis)
The building of the Independent Authority for Public Revenue headquarters (AADE) in Athens, Greece, Tuesday, Sept. 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris)
Giorgos Pitsilis, governor of the Independent Authority for Public Revenue (AADE) speaks to the Associated Press in Athens, Greece, Tuesday, Sept. 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris)
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Fruit vendor Makis Panaretos uses a POS terminal for a customer who pays with his cellphone at an open-air fruit and vegetable market in Athens, Greece, Friday, Sept. 5, 2025. (AP Photo/Thanassis Stavrakis)
Change is visible on the streets too. At a stall north of Athens, Makis Panaretos sells watermelons, tomatoes, cucumbers and oranges. About 70% of his sales are now electronic — all transactions are instantly referred to the tax authority.
“Customers use their cards, phones and watches to pay,” he said. “I don’t mind it, even though it slows things down when there’s a line.”
By November, all businesses will be required to accept IRIS, a Greek instant payment system similar to Venmo in the United States, eliminating bank and payment provider fees currently incurred by vendors like Panaretos.
Deeper AI integration
Greece’s progress is an example how a crisis can accelerate reforms, observers say.
“Greece has shown how digitalization and institutional independence can translate into real fiscal gains,” said Alexandros Kentikelenis, a political economy professor at Bocconi University in Milan.
Further integration of artificial intelligence into the tax authority’s systems through 2026 is likely to accelerate this process, according to tax officials.
“The push to modernize tax administration continues, which supports our expectation that tax revenue growth will remain robust over the medium term,” Moody’s wrote in its report accompanying its ratings upgrade in March.
Finance Minister Kyriakos Pierrakakis, a Harvard- and MIT-trained technocrat, says the shift is irreversible. A supporter of the digital euro, he has tied tax reform to broader plans to digitize the economy.
“Countries change when they change course,” he said at a news conference this month. “And that change means we won’t be left behind or ever return to the past.”
CHISINAU, Moldova (AP) — Moldovan authorities said they carried out 250 raids and detained dozens on Monday as part of an investigation into an alleged Russia-backed plan to incite “mass riots” and destabilize the country around a critical parliamentary election.
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The raids targeted more than 100 people and took place in multiple localities across the country, police said. Seventy-four people were detained for up to 72 hours, said Victor Furtuna, Moldova’s chief prosecutor from the Office for Combating Organized Crime and Special Cases.
Moldovans will vote to choose a new 101-seat legislature on Sunday, in an election many view as a choice between Moldova’s continued path toward European Union membership or closer ties with Russia.
Moldova’s police said that the unrest plot was “coordinated from the Russian Federation, through criminal elements.”
Furtuna said that most of the suspects “systematically traveled” to Serbia, where they received training and that they were aged between 19 and 45 years old.
The head of Moldova’s police, Viorel Cernauteanu, said that some of the suspects didn’t know the real purpose of their trips, which were presented as pilgrimages, and only later became involved in “training for disorder and destabilization.”
He added that the investigation was “not aimed at political entities, despite interpretations. Rather, it was aimed at documenting the criminal intent and organization of these individuals who traveled to Serbia for training.”
Moldova’s pro-Western President Maia Sandu said in a statement after the raids on Monday that the Kremlin is spending “hundreds of millions of euros” to try to sway the election.
“People are intoxicated daily with lies,” she said. “Hundreds of individuals are paid to provoke disorder, violence, and spread fear. … I appeal to all citizens: we must not allow our country to be handed over to foreign interests.”
She added that the Kremlin “has accomplices here in Moldova,” describing them as people “willing to sell out their country for money.”
Moldovan authorities have long accused Russia of conducting a hybrid war — meddling in elections, disinformation campaigns, illicitly funding pro-Russian parties — to try to derail the country’s path toward European Union membership.
Moscow has repeatedly denied meddling in Moldova.
In the wake of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Moldova applied to join the EU and was granted candidate status that year. Brussels agreed to open accession negotiations last year. Moldova’s westward shift further irked Moscow and tensions between the two nations skyrocketed.
