After finishing the game for the Vikings on Sunday at U.S. Bank Stadium, rookie left guard Donovan Jackson flew to Los Angeles and underwent successful wrist surgery on Monday.

The announcement from head coach Kevin O’Connell came as a surprise externally because Jackson performed very well for the Vikings in the 48-10 win over the Cincinnati Bengals. It didn’t come as a surprise internally because Jackson actually suffered the injury last week in the 22-6 loss to the Atlanta Falcons.

“It was determined last week that he could play in the football game and not do any further harm,” O’Connell said. “I thought Donovan was fantastic on the field.”

As much as he praised Jackson for the toughness he displayed, O’Connell also made it clear that the Vikings felt it was important that he had wrist surgery so he’d be back to 100 percent sooner rather than later.

“I’m sure he would possibly try to fight through it and worry about everything later,” O’Connell said. “Sometimes we have to do what’s in the best interest of a really talented young player who we have really high aspirations for in the present and in the future.”

This isn’t expected to keep Jackson out long term. In fact, he won’t even be placed on injured reserve, which suggests that the Vikings believe he should be able to return within the next month or so.

As he works his way through the recovery process, Jackson will travel with his teammates across the pond, meaning he will be in attendance when the Vikings play the Pittsburgh Steelers in Dublin and the Cleveland Browns in London.

Though there isn’t a firm timeline as to when he will be back in action, O’Connell mentioned the bye week as a target, meaning Jackson might be ready to roll when the Vikings host the Philadelphia Eagles on Oct. 19.

In the absence of Jackson for at least the next couple of games, the Vikings will turn to veteran left guard Blake Brandel, who has familiarity in that spot, having played there last season.

As soon as Jackson is healthy, he will reassume that role on the starting offensive line.

“He’s off to a great start in his career,” O’Connell said. “Everything we hoped he would be.”

Briefly

After serving his suspension in full, receiver Jordan Addison has officially been reinstated. As a part of the process, the Vikings got a brief roster exemption. They will have to make a corresponding roster move on Wednesday at some point.

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By TOM MURPHY

Five months after ending development of its own obesity treatment, Pfizer is accelerating its push into the rapidly growing field with a nearly $5 billion acquisition.

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The COVID-19 vaccine and treatment maker said Monday that it will pay $47.50 in cash for each share of development-stage drugmaker Metsera. That represents a premium of more than 42% to Metsera’s closing price Friday.

Pfizer also could pay an additional $22.50 per share depending on how Metsera’s product pipeline develops.

Metsera Inc. has no products on the market, but its pipeline includes four programs in clinical development and one in mid-stage testing. Pfizer said the deal will add expertise and potential oral and injectable treatments.

Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla noted in a statement from the drugmaker that there are more than 200 health conditions associated with obesity, which he called “a large and growing space.”

Demand for obesity treatments has soared in recent years, due to unprecedented weight loss provided by regular injections of market leaders Wegovy from Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly and Co.’s Zepbound. The Lilly drug generated $5.7 billion in sales in the first half of the year.

But the drugs can cost patients hundreds of dollars a month, and experts in the field are looking for competition to potentially drive down prices.

Pfizer currently has no obesity treatments on the market but has some in clinical development. Earlier this year, the company said it was ending development of a potential once-daily pill treatment before it started late-stage testing, the biggest and most expensive phase of clinical development.

Pfizer said the boards of both New York-based companies have approved the deal, but Metsera shareholders still need to OK it. The companies expect the acquisition to close in this year’s fourth quarter. It still needs approval from regulators.

Shares of Pfizer Inc. climbed 38 cents to $24.40 before markets opened Monday while Metsera’s stock advanced about 61%.

By MICHAEL KUNZELMAN

WASHINGTON (AP) — A man accused of shining a laser pointer at Marine One with President Donald Trump aboard the helicopter has been arrested on a federal criminal charge, according to a court filing on Monday.

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Jacob Samuel Winkler, 33, of Washington, D.C., is charged with aiming the beam of a laser pointer at an aircraft, a felony punishable by a maximum prison sentence of five years. Online court records don’t list an attorney representing him.

Marine One was airborne on Saturday near the White House when a U.S. Secret Service patrol officer spotted Winkler walking on a sidewalk, shirtless and loudly talking to himself, the officer wrote in an affidavit. The officer said he shone a flashlight at Winkler, who apparently retaliated by flashing a red laser beam at the officer’s face.

As Marine One flew over their heads, Winkler looked up and shined the laser pointer at the helicopter, according to the officer. After the officer handcuffed him, Winkler repeatedly talked about apologizing to Trump, the affidavit says.

The court filing doesn’t say if anybody aboard the helicopter noticed the laser. But the officer said Winkler’s conduct could have temporarily blinded or disoriented a pilot, placing Marine One at risk of an airborne collision with other helicopters in the area.

“This behavior endangers Marine One and everyone on board,” U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro said in a statement. “If you engage in this act, you will be identified and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”

Winkler told investigators that he points the laser “at all kinds of things, such as stop signs,” and didn’t know he couldn’t point it at Marine One, the affidavit says. Investigators also found a small knife in his possession, according to the officer.

By GLENN GAMBOA

NEW YORK (AP) — Billionaire philanthropist MacKenzie Scott has donated $70 million to the UNCF, as the nation’s largest private provider of scholarships to minority students works to raise $1 billion to strengthen all 37 of its historically Black colleges and universities.

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The gift is one of Scott’s largest single donations ever and among the first to be publicly disclosed in 2025. Famously private, Scott only discusses her donations through her website and does not confirm them until after the recipients do.

“This extraordinary gift is a powerful vote of confidence in HBCUs and in the work of UNCF,” the nonprofit’s President and CEO Dr. Michael L. Lomax told The Associated Press in a statement. “It provides a once-in-a-generation opportunity for our member institutions to build permanent assets that will support students and campuses for decades to come.”

Lomax said Scott’s donation would be used for UNCF’s pooled endowment, which aims to establish a $370 million fund — $10 million for each UNCF member HBCU. That fund will be invested and designed to pay out about 4% annually, which will then be divided among the HBCUs to help stabilize their budgets. Increasing HBCU endowments is a priority since they trail endowments at non-HBCUs by 70%, according to the UNCF.

The broader $1 billion fundraising effort is an attempt to help HBCUs address the funding disparity they face when compared to other colleges and universities. A 2023 study by philanthropic research group Candid and ABFE, a nonprofit that advocates for investments in Black communities, found that the eight Ivy League schools received $5.5 billion from the 1,000 largest U.S. foundations compared to $45 million for the 99 HBCUs in 2019.

Since Scott, a novelist who received the bulk of her fortune after divorcing Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, signed the Giving Pledge in 2019, promising to donate more than half her wealth, HBCUs have been among her favorite grantees. She previously gave UNCF $10 million in 2020.

Though Scott hasn’t addressed HBCU donations specifically, she wrote in 2020 that her funding decisions were “driven by a deep belief in the value different backgrounds bring to problem-solving on any issue.”

Scott hasn’t made any announcements about her giving since she acknowledged $2 billion in gifts in 2024, bringing her total to $19.2 billion. According to Forbes, Scott’s net worth is currently around $34 billion.

Her unusual donations — which are much larger than most foundations give at one time and carry no restrictions on when they can be used or what they can be used for — financially strengthened the nonprofits that received them, said Phil Buchanan, president of The Center for Effective Philanthropy, which studied Scott’s giving over three years.

“We didn’t see the fears people predicted come to pass,” said Buchanan, who disclosed that The Center for Effective Philanthropy received a one-time $10 million grant from Scott. Though some worried that the large gifts would cause the recipients to increase staffing too much or hurt their fundraising efforts, Buchanan said their study of 2,000 nonprofits saw little evidence of that. “Folks are pretty prudent,” he said. “This shows that if you carefully vet nonprofits, we can trust them to make good use of funds.”

It’s a lesson that UNCF hopes other funders will learn, following Scott’s example.

“We are deeply grateful for MacKenzie Scott’s continued support,” Lomax said. “By entrusting UNCF to decide how best to use these funds, she affirms that HBCUs merit investment at this scale and her generosity will strengthen our member institutions and provide pathways to success for tomorrow’s changemakers.”

Associated Press coverage of philanthropy and nonprofits receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content. For all of AP’s philanthropy coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/philanthropy.