It seems highly unlikely that J.J. McCarthy is going to start at quarterback when the Vikings play the Los Angeles Chargers on Thursday night at SoFi Stadium. The quick turnaround doesn’t exactly lend itself to him being ready.

After recently returning to practice as he works his way back from a high ankle sprain, McCarthy himself admitted he still isn’t 100 percent. He was a limited participant last week, and in under normal circumstances might have been a full participant this week. But there probably isn’t proper preparation time for the Vikings to feel comfortable throwing him out there.

So long as Carson Wentz can get his body turned over in time, he will in all likelihood be leading the Vikings in primetime. As soon as McCarthy is 100 percent, however, there needs to be an immediate change under center — and not necessarily because McCarthy gives the Vikings the best chance to win.

That distinction might still belong to Wentz, despite the fact his starts have resembled a trip to Valleyfair.

No, it has to be McCarthy, for better or for worse, because the Vikings must find out if he is who they think he is. They chose not to sign Sam Darnold this spring, or Aaron Rodgers this summer, because they believed McCarthy would hit the ground running this fall.

Even if the decision is looking more and more like a miscalculation, the sample size for McCarthy hasn’t been nearly big enough to make any sweeping declarations about the trajectory of his career. He deserves much more than a couple of starts to determine whether he’s worthy of being the face of the franchise.

The process of McCarthy gaining valuable experience can happen sooner rather than later with the Vikings no longer looking the part of a Super Bowl contender.

Although McCarthy occasionally looked overwhelmed in the season-opening win at Chicago, and a week later in a 22-6 loss to the Atlanta Falcons, his extended absence has proven issues holding the Vikings back go far beyond having a young signal caller at the helm.

The roster simply isn’t as good as everybody thought it would be, and while there’s a chance Darnold or Rodgers could’ve masked the problems in real time, Wentz hasn’t been capable of doing that.

There might have been a legitimate quarterback controversy had Wentz been lights-out while filling in. Instead, he has looked more like a journeyman backup, which has been his role for the past several years of his career.

In wins over Cincinnati and Cleveland, and losses to Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, Wentz has at times looked like a veteran in control, and at others like a guy who wasn’t in the team’s plans until September.

Those ups and downs make life easier for head coach Kevin O’Connell moving forward. It shouldn’t be a hard decision to go back to McCarthy whenever he’s ready to return. Not anymore.

There was an argument to be made, even last month, that winning should take precedence over McCarthy’s development. That logic no longer applies after the Vikings have shown themselves to be flawed in other areas.

Who cares if McCarthy might actually lower the floor in the present? The rest of this season should be rooted in figuring out if McCarthy can raise the ceiling in the future.

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NEVIS, Minn. — A trick-or-treating enthusiast from Nevis, Minn., said a bulk candy delivery worth over $5,000 and weighing about 100 pounds disappeared off his front steps.

For about five years, Mike Wade said he has ordered enough candy to give out “five handfuls” to each child on Halloween in this community located in Hubbard County in northern Minnesota.

On the big night, Wade said he keeps buckets and buckets of candy on hand to give to the “madhouse” of kids who descend on his house. He said if kids’ pumpkin bags are too small to carry their candy allotment, he’ll put the pumpkins in a plastic bag with the goods.

“The whole lawn and driveway and everything will be full of kids,” Wade said. “Even the high schoolers come.”

Wade, who is a veteran, said he has PTSD and struggles in crowds, so he takes medication to prepare for trick-or-treating.

“I want kids to enjoy Halloween the way that I enjoyed it when I was a kid,” Wade said.

Shannon Frazier runs a day care in Nevis and said she brings the kids she watches to Wade’s house for a “pre-Halloween” to practice trick-or-treating.

“We look forward to doing it every year,” Frazier said.

To prepare, Wade starts bulk ordering candy from retailers such as Amazon and Walmart weeks in advance.

He said his massive, missing Amazon order was supposed to arrive sometime before Oct. 11, but he had to take several day-long trips away from home.

Mike Wade shows a receipt from part of one of his Halloween candy orders showing a wide variety of sweets from Tootsie Pops to Lifesavers to Twix. (Alex Haddon / Parks Rapid Enterprise / Forum News Service)

“I thought, ‘You know, I should have gotten my candy today because they said it was coming,’” he said. “It wasn’t there and I didn’t think anything of it.”

That weekend he said he noticed an email from Amazon stating his candy had been delivered, with a picture of the boxes on his doorstep attached.

“So, I called the number and I said, ‘It says my candy’s been delivered, but I didn’t get the candy,’” Wade said. “They said, ‘Yeah, it was delivered. Because it was so much we had to send it in a special van.’”

He said the Amazon representative said the candy must have been stolen after it was delivered. Wade said he was frustrated. Amazon representatives said they couldn’t cover the cost of the delivery, he said. He reported the possible theft to UPS, who opened an investigation, but couldn’t cover the cost, he said.

Wade didn’t file a police report. Finally, his credit card company told him it would be able to refund the money, he said.

Mike Wade has about eight boxes of bulk candy stashed in his laundry room, but said he needs to order more before Halloween. (Alex Haddon / Park Rapids Enterprise / Forum News Service)

“Now, I have to wait for them to get the money into my account,” Wade said. “But I went ahead and ordered another shipment of candy already.”

On Tuesday, Oct. 16, Wade had about eight boxes filled with bags of candy stashed in his laundry room, with more on the way. He said he was pretty sure he’d be able to stock up enough mini Snickers, Butterfingers and Milky Way bars before Halloween.

Wade said it “boggled his mind” that someone would take his candy delivery.

“Everybody knows around here that I get that candy every year,” he said. “That candy is for the kids. They’re not stealing from me. They’re stealing from the kids.”

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Student cheating was widespread at a Cass County private school that closed this year, according to a defamation lawsuit that the Minnesota Court of Appeals revived on Monday.

​In the lawsuit, a former student at Foothills Christian Academy in Backus admitted she used teachers’ credentials to log in and change grades in an online grading system. However, the student said Principal Blair Ecker tried to focus the blame on her while ignoring a yearslong pattern of academic dishonesty.

The plaintiff alleged that during a meeting of 17 students and staff that she did not attend, Ecker made false and defamatory statements about her, describing her as having a “poor IQ,” needing special-education services and implying she was expelled from the school.

A former school board member and athletic director said in a court affidavit that cheating was a longstanding problem at Foothills, with “students having passwords to see all of the online test answers,” according to Monday’s appeals court order.

The order said that a teacher’s aide discovered in April 2022 that several high school students were using a former teacher’s account to change their grades. Soon after that, the plaintiff student withdrew from the school, and the principal met with some of the remaining accused students to discuss the scheme.

A district court judge found that Ecker made statements during that meeting that he knew were false and which could have harmed the plaintiff’s reputation among her peers. But the judge ruled in the school and principal’s favor, closing the case after finding that Ecker’s statements were protected by qualified privilege.

The former student appealed the decision, arguing that the principal’s statements were not made in good faith, and an appeals court panel reversed the decision, sending it back to the district court.

Foothills Christian Academy closed this year, citing low enrollment and staff vacancies, after operating for nine years, reported the Pine and Lakes Echo Journal.

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By MARK KENNEDY, Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) — The union representing thousands of Broadway actors reached a tentative new labor agreement over the weekend with commercial producers, leaving just the musicians’ union still negotiating.

Actors’ Equity Association — which represents over 51,000 members, including singers, actors, dancers and stage managers — announced a new three-year agreement on such issues as health care, scheduling and physical therapy. The tentative agreement next goes to members for ratification.

“We’re pleased to have a reached a tentative agreement on terms both parties are comfortable with,” said Jason Laks, president of The Broadway League, which represents producers. “Our focus has been negotiating in good faith at the bargaining table to reach a fair contract and we thank our mediators for their diligent work bringing us together.”

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The League and American Federation of Musicians Local 802 — which represents 1,200 musicians — haven’t reached a deal yet. They have voted in favor of a strike authorization as they bargain.

Members of both unions have been working under expired contracts. The musicians’ contract expired on Aug. 31, and the Equity contract expired Sept. 28.

The tentative breakthrough between the producers and Actors’ Equity Association came as a relief since a strike could have crippled Broadway just as it seems to have recovered from the pandemic shutdown.

Now the focus is on the musicians. Al Vincent Jr., Actors’ Equity’s executive director and lead negotiator, said in a statement that “we are putting our full support behind AFM Local 802 as they work with the League to reach a deal that averts a strike.”

In a statement, the Musicians’ union said, “We look forward to returning to the table to reach a deal that will allow us to avoid a strike. Until that happens, we will continue our strike preparations in earnest, and we thank Actors’ Equity for their continued support and solidarity.

The most recent major strike on Broadway was in late 2007, when a 19-day walkout dimmed the lights on more than two dozen shows and cost producers and the city millions of dollars in lost revenue.