Riding a 5-1 start, the Nebraska Cornhuskers have entered the Associated Press Top 25 for the first time this season, coming in at No. 25 after a 34-31 win at Maryland on Saturday.

That upswing, however, isn’t the hottest topic in Lincoln as the Cornhuskers prepare for Friday night’s game against the Gophers (4-2, 2-1 Big Ten) at 7 p.m. Saturday at Huntington Bank Stadium. In the wake of James Franklin’s dismissal from Penn State on Sunday, Cornhuskers coach Matt Rhule is answering questions about whether he is a candidate for the vacancy in Happy Valley.

There are some strong connections. Rhule played linebacker at Penn State from 1994-97, and he coached under Nittany Lions athletics director Pat Kraft when both were in the same roles at Temple from 2013-16.

“I absolutely love it here,” Rhule said about Nebraska during his Monday news conference. “I want us to continue to take the steps needed for us to turn this thing into a beast and players all across the country want to come here. The best facilities. Elite fans. I’m just looking at the future.”

On his alma mater, Rhule said, “I love that place. I love Pat. I love James Franklin. Sad that that came to an end. I wish him the absolute best. But I’m really happy here and excited to get going this week on Minnesota.”

Rhule isn’t the only sitting Big Ten coach mentioned for the Penn State job. Indiana coach Curt Cignetti is a Pittsburgh native and has the Hoosiers ranked No. 3.

Coaching fraternity

Gophers head coach P.J. Fleck considers Rhule one of the Big Ten coaches with whom he’s closest. Along with UNLV coach Dan Mullen, they attended a Kenny Chesney concert at the Sphere in Las Vegas last summer.

This weekend, Rhule and Fleck plan to bring awareness to breast cancer.

“We could talk about the game,” Fleck said. “We could talk about our quarterbacks. (But we) talked about (breast cancer awareness) in the offseason, knowing we’re going to play each other, and kind of team up on that. I think it says a lot about him and where his heart is always at.”

Petersohn reconsider?

Triton High School athlete Pierce Petersohn, the No. 2 in-state recruit in the 2026 class, picked Penn State over the Gophers in June, but the ouster of Franklin might reopen the door for Minnesota.

During the summer, the Gophers promised Jackson County Central’s Roman Voss, the No. 1 in-state recruit, he would play tight end at the U.

Under Franklin, the Nittany Lions planned to put Petersohn, of Dodge Center, Minn., at tight end, while the U had him penciled in first at linebacker.

McMillan’s commitment level

Due to injuries, Gophers nickel back Jai’Onte’ McMillan was thrust into a bigger cornerback role for the 27-20 win over Purdue on Saturday. He had four tackles in 48 total defensive snaps, including 31 snaps at wide corner.

McMillian, a second-year transfer from Texas Christian, produced a big fourth-down pass break-up in the end zone to stop a Boilermakers’ drive with 2 minutes left in the game.

“I’m just really proud of the selfless teammate that he is,” Fleck said. “We have versatility. That is one position we have depth. … Hopefully in the next few weeks we can get some guys back, but we’ll see on that. I really like where Jai’Onte’ is mentally. He’s really worked very hard at making himself the player that he is and (in) his commitment level to his teammates.”

The Gophers lost cornerback Mike Gerald to a hamstring injury in their 42-3 loss to Ohio State on Oct. 4, and Naiim Parrish also was also sidelined for the Purdue game. John Nestor and Za’Quan Bryan were the U’s starting corners vs. the Boilermakers.

Related Articles

Gophers add to 2026 recruiting class with Wisconsin athlete

Gophers football is winning ugly, but in Wisconsin, it’s just ugly

Koi Perich’s pick-six aids Gophers comeback win over Purdue

Gophers secondary hit hardest on injury report

Gophers football: Growing student section brings ‘juice’ to home games

As a retired admiral and former supreme allied commander of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, I was thrilled when Sweden and Finland joined the alliance. My first thought was about the vast coastline the two Nordic states provided, essentially turning the Baltic Sea into a “NATO lake.”

Russia has a sliver of land on the eastern corner of the sea where Saint Petersburg sits, and another slice with its Kaliningrad territory, located between Lithuania and Poland. But nearly all the Baltic coast is firmly in the hands of the alliance.

This is significant for several reasons. First it is the only interior sea fully within NATO territory: All the other maritime venues for allied forces — the Mediterranean Sea, the Atlantic and Arctic Oceans — are borderlands. Control of the Baltic gives NATO the ability to bottle up the Russian Baltic fleet; vital sea and communications lanes between seven key northern allies; and lots of maritime infrastructure, from huge liquified natural gas terminals and offshore oil and gas facilities, to fiber optic cables on the sea floor.

Russian leader Vladimir Putin intends to contest the Baltic, make no mistake. His Baltic Sea fleet is the oldest Russian naval flotilla, dating back to the early 1700s when it was established under Czar Peter the Great. It is headquartered in the Kaliningrad (which made sense when the three Baltic States — Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania — were part of Russia and later the Soviet Union). Today, it hosts a few surface combatants (destroyers and frigates), a handful of diesel submarines of questionable effectiveness, and a dozen missile-armed patrol craft. Hardly a significant naval force.

However, the Russian Navy often brings in powerful vessels from the Arctic-based Northern Fleet to stage joint exercises. But even with such reinforcements, the conventional Russian naval forces are vastly outgunned — and NATO air forces could likely destroy the Kaliningrad base in the initial hours of a live conflict.

So given that the Russian navy is seriously outclassed by NATO maritime forces, what might Putin do to gain leverage in the Baltic Sea?

As he has in other places around the periphery of the Russian Federation — when he is either outmatched or wants to maintain a level of plausible deniability — Putin will turn to hybrid warfare. This is the potent mix of unconventional combat tactics, techniques and procedures he used to invade Georgia in 2008 and Ukraine in 2014; to meddle with recent elections in Moldova; and to put pressure on the Baltic states.

On land, hybrid warfare can consist of a witch’s brew of unmarked combatants in fatigues or even civilian clothes (the so-called little green men); propaganda campaigns and manipulation of social media to sow seeds of dissent and internal confusion; the planting of explosives including car bombs and industrial sabotage; assassinations of civilian and military leaders; and unmarked drones to harass civilian air traffic.

Now Putin is turning to hybrid warfare at sea.

This has taken several forms not just in the Baltic but also in the Black Sea, to threaten Ukraine. It involves adapting the land versions of hybrid war to the salt-water environment and adding new twists. Of note, Russia has been using civilian merchant ships to collect intelligence (a sort of modern version of the UK’s Q-Ships in World War I); to harass legitimate cargo and tanker traffic; to damage and destroy vital undersea internet and other communication cables; to stage drones for launch against civilian targets ashore; and to hold at risk the sea lanes of communication.

Putin’s forces are no doubt developing plans for even more aggressive activities involving supposedly civilian ships. Such vessels could embark Russian Marines (probably in unmarked uniforms) who could assault civilian shipping; carry disguised surface-to-surface missiles that could hit NATO targets ashore; release drone swarms from deep cargo holds; conduct electronic jamming; and disable aids to navigation such as buoys, channel lights, and radio communications between merchant ships, tugs and pilots.

Earlier this year, Norwegian police seized (and then released) a Russian-crewed vessel suspected of sabotage. It was a start, but temporarily holding ships will hardly deter Russia. Rather, NATO should stand up a maritime task force with capabilities, personnel and warships designed to counter hybrid warfare in the Baltic. The alliance’s new Operation Baltic Sentry, a standing force including frigates, patrol aircraft, drones and other assets largely for protecting seabed infrastructure, is a good beginning, but not enough.

Russia’s gray-zone activities complement the operations of its “shadow fleet” of tankers, which illegally transport hydrocarbons (largely to Asia) to avoid the severe sanctions placed on Moscow. Recently, Finnish special forces seized a Russian shadow tanker and investigated whether it had been involved in cutting undersea cables. Such cases are hard to prove in court, however, given the opaque nature of the Russian merchant fleet.

NATO needs to redouble its maritime patrols by including allies from outside the Baltic — French, Italian, Spanish, American and Canadian naval and coast guard forces — for surveillance and seizure roles. The alliance should also increase its training with an eye toward degrading or destroying the Kaliningrad facilities should direct hostilities break out.

But the most urgent goal is meeting the hybrid threat with commensurate and proportional forces, mostly directed against the shadow fleet. This means identifying ships engaged in possible illegal operations, shadowing them relentlessly within NATO waters, and using maritime special forces (U.S. Navy SEALS, British Special Boat Service, and their equivalents) on clandestine missions to “tag” such vessels with trackers.

NATO should gather ironclad evidence of malevolent actions by Russian ships claiming civilian status; impound them for thorough searches; prosecute crew members proven to be involved in hostile activity; and even destroy ships where the evidence of illegal action is clear. That would send Putin a message about the price of undertaking hybrid warfare.

As always in dealing with Moscow, the key is simple: Respond with judicious but serious levels of force. We need to show Putin that the cloak of hybrid maritime warfare will not hide his illegal and hostile maritime forces in the heart of Europe.

James Stavridis is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist, a retired US Navy admiral, former supreme allied commander of NATO, and vice chairman of global affairs at the Carlyle Group.

More than $1.4 million was raised this year between the Twin Cities Medtronic Marathon’s 56 charity partners, with final tallies expected in the next several months, according to organizer and nonprofit Twin Cities in Motion.

More than 30,000 people registered for the 2025 run which took place Oct. 3 weekend for its 44th year. The annual race is from downtown Minneapolis to the State Capitol grounds in St. Paul. A total of 7,025 participants completed the marathon and 9,607 others completed the 10-mile run.

Prior to the pandemic, the nonprofit tended to average just under a million dollars raised between 40 to 45 charity partners every year, said Dean Orton, Twin Cities in Motion president. With its initiative Raise the Community Pace, officials hope to reach 100 charity partners and $2.62 million raised annually by 2028.

“Of course, we run marathons, so we love the number 26.2. So we thought, well, why not have 2.62 million as our goal?” Orton said.

Some of the charities include Cancer Legal Care, which provides free legal care and education to those dealing with cancer;  Children’s Minnesota, a pediatric health system; and World Vision, a Christian humanitarian group that works to provide clean water to communities. A list of the charities can be found at tcmevents.org/charityteams.

The initiative was launched at the end of 2024. Data has shown that charities are struggling to find platforms for fundraising and donor bases are shrinking, and the nonprofit knew it could help, Orton said.

“The numbers are still coming in,” Orton said. “So next year, we want to get a little further, and then by 2028 we want to really be there. So it’s a multi-year goal, and we want to kind of just keep getting better each year. And then by 2028, we will see all our hard work paying off, and we’ll have a new norm.”

Marathons and long-distance events have a record of inspiring funding and “pacing with purpose,” Orton said, meaning many runners support a charity. About 3% of runners in the marathon “pace with purpose.” The nonprofit’s goal is to better motivate and market its partners to bring that average to 10% by 2028, Orton said.

“We know we’ve got a proven way, and we know we can do better,” he said “And it’s needed more than ever when you look at kind of what the uncertainty is for funding out there based on the research of our nonprofits. And the more we can help them and give them the kind of support, it helps every sector of our community.”

This year’s Twin Cities Marathon weekend included runners from more than 24 countries and all 50 states, according to Orton.

Early registration for the 2026 marathon weekend is now open. To learn more, go to tinyurl.com/42bk6yn9.

Related Articles

‘God put us there,’ St. Paul officer says after she, 3 other cops gave CPR to runner who collapsed

How and what to watch at Twin Cities Marathon

By GARY ROBERTSON, Associated Press

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — North Carolina Republican legislative leaders announced plans Monday to vote next week on redrawing the state’s U.S. House district map, with a likely aim to secure another GOP seat within already right-leaning boundaries.

The move comes amid an emerging mid-decade battle nationally between Republicans and Democrats seeking advantage in the way U.S. House districts are drawn in several states for the 2026 session.

North Carolina Republicans already created a map in 2023 that resulted in GOP candidates winning 10 of the state’s 14 U.S. House seats in 2024. That division compared to the 7-7 seat split between Democrats and the GOP under the map used in 2022.

Related Articles

Her husband was deported to Mexico. Unwilling to remain apart, she left the US to join him.

1.4M lawfully present immigrants could lose subsidized health coverage

Government shutdown could be the longest ever, Speaker Johnson warns

In the fire zones, an immigrant workforce warily carries out cleanups

Some Indigenous Peoples Day events strike conciliatory tone amid Trump’s focus on Columbus

Now only one of the state’s House districts – the 1st District currently represented by Democratic Rep. Don Davis – is considered a swing district and could be targeted by the GOP for an 11th seat. Davis won a second term last year by less than 2 percentage points, so shifting slightly portions of the district covering nearly 20 northeastern counties could help a Republican candidate in a strong GOP year.

A news release from the state’s Republican legislators said their planned action “follows President Donald Trump’s call urging legislatures across the country to take action to nullify Democrat redistricting efforts.”

Trump kickstarted the redistricting battle this summer by calling upon Republican-led Texas to reshape its U.S. House districts so that the GOP could win more seats in next year’s elections.

As Texas redrew its districts to give Republicans a shot at winning five more seats, Democrats in California reciprocated by passing their own redistricting plan aimed at helping Democrats win five additional seats. Then lawmakers in Republican-led Missouri approved revised U.S. House districts intended to help Republicans win an additional seat.

The new Texas map faces a legal challenge. The California map still needs voter approval in a Nov. 4 election to take effect. And the Missouri map faces both court challenges and an initiative petition campaign seeking to force a statewide referendum on it.