Koi Perich has thrown his hat into the NCAA transfer portal and there’s no way to spin this as a positive for the University of Minnesota’s football program.

Or college football.

Even if he wasn’t the Gophers’ best safety this season — that was Kerry Brown — and coach P.J. Fleck can use the money the U was paying Perich on more than one transfer who can help next season, the fact is, the best in-state prospect to buy into P.J. Fleck’s row-the-boat paradigm has taken a long look and decided he’s more interested in the big-time NIL paradigm.

Whether it’s more money, more national exposure or a more likely path to the NFL — debatable — Perich has decided it won’t happen at Minnesota.

As a college football fan, one has to wonder if watching most of your school’s best players go look for the bigger, better thing after every season is palatable. And as a Gophers’ fan, one has to accept that this just doesn’t bode well for the program’s viability as, for all intents and purposes, a small-market professional football franchise.

One could look at what Indiana has done the past two seasons and see a crack under the fence just big enough for those without a ticket to crawl through. We know that, for now, it’s possible for an also-ran Power Four program to genuinely contend for a national championship. But Minnesota appears to be moving the other way at an inopportune time.

The Gophers went 8-5 after beating New Mexico in the Rate Bowl in Phoenix. The Lobos were one of two bowl teams they beat this season, and Minnesota was 0-3 against the best Big Ten teams they played — Ohio State, Iowa and Oregon — and was outscored 123-19.

With talented young quarterback Drake Lindsey under center and what they believed would be a prolific running game — it wasn’t — the Gophers had their eyes on another move up the conference ladder. Instead, it was a typically OK season.

Minnesota Gophers head coach P.J. Fleck leads his team onto the field at the start of an NCAA football game against the Nebraska Cornhuskers at Huntington Bank Stadium in Minneapolis on Friday, Oct. 17, 2025. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)

It’s probably not lost on longtime Gophers fans that Indiana started the season as the only other OG Big Ten school with a Rose Bowl drought (1968) nearly as long as Minnesota’s (1962). And the Hoosiers just humiliated Alabama in Pasadena on New Year’s Day to advance to the College Football Playoff semifinals.

This space has been used, fairly recently, to praise the job that Fleck has done in his nine seasons in Dinkytown. A large reason for that is the way he cleaned up an ugly culture fomented by former coach Jerry Kill that later exploded into ugly, and very public, behavior under replacement Tracy Claeys.

What was once a national embarrassment for the Gophers has changed for the better under Fleck. Against most odds, his dedication to teaching his players how to meditate and where to place the salad fork has, in fact, resulted in a program that Minnesota can be proud of off and, largely, on the field.

When, for instance, they were short of the six wins required to earn a berth in one of 41 bowl games in 2023, they became eligible because they had the best graduation rate of available teams. That matters, or used to, anyway.

Further, Fleck’s teams are 7-0 in bowl games, including a victory over a then-Top 10 Auburn team in the 2019 Outback Bowl that pushed them to a program-record 11 wins and No. 10 in the final Associated Press poll. The Gophers also have been sending more players to the NFL, a recruiting point that could help build the talent coffers.

Landing Perich, a four-star recruit from Esko who turned down 2025 national champion Ohio State to stay home, was another positive step. Losing him, as seems inevitable, is two steps back, because whatever the safety and kick returner’s goals are, he’s convinced they will be easier to meet elsewhere.

Even Darius Taylor, a talented but oft-injured tailback, who will no doubt be the Gophers’ starter next season, waited until the last moment — at least publicly — to renew his vows with Minnesota.

Fleck did something smart when this season ended, when he publicly revealed that he was allowing Lindsey to help him target receivers in the next recruiting class. In the absence of the big, big money, giving a promising QB like Lindsey that kind of ownership is the next best thing to the bigger, better thing.

But isn’t it exhausting? Not just for Fleck, or athletics director Mark Coyle, but everyone with an emotional stake in the Gophers’ success.

Fleck has been conspicuously tied to just about every coaching opening that appears to be a step up from Minnesota. If any of that was real, and those offers come again, he might want to finally take one with more money in the slush fund.

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By MEG KINNARD and MICHELLE L. PRICE, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — After months of growing military pressure on Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, President Donald Trump ordered a brazen operation into the South American country to capture its leader and whisk him to the United States where his administration planned to put him on trial.

In a Saturday morning interview on “Fox and Friends Weekend,” Trump laid out the details of the overnight strike, after which he said Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, were flown by helicopter to a U.S. warship.

Maduro was in a ‘fortress,’ Trump says

Trump described Maduro as being “highly guarded” in a presidential palace that was “like a fortress,” although the Venezuelan leader was not able to get to a safe room.

American forces were armed with “massive blowtorches,” which they would have used to cut through steel walls had Maduro locked himself in the room, Trump said.

“It had what they call a safety space, where it’s solid steel all around,” Trump said. “He didn’t get that space closed. He was trying to get into it, but he got bum-rushed right so fast that he didn’t get into that. We were prepared.”

Part of that preparation, Trump said, included practicing maneuvers on a replica building.

“They actually built a house which was identical to the one they went into with all the same, all that steel all over the place,” Trump said.

‘We turned off all the lights’

Trump said that the U.S. operation took place in darkness, although he did not detail how that had happened. He said the U.S. turned off “almost all of the lights in Caracas,” the capital of Venezuela.

“This thing was so organized,” he said. “And they go into a dark space with machine guns facing them all over the place.”

At least seven explosions were heard in Caracas. The attack lasted less than 30 minutes.

Venezuela’s vice president, Delcy Rodríguez, who under that country’s law takes power, said some Venezuelan civilians and members of the military were killed.

Trump says ‘a couple of guys injured’

Trump said a few U.S. members of the operation were injured but he believed no one was killed.

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“A couple of guys were hit, but they came back and they’re supposed to be in pretty good shape,” he said.

The Republican president said the U.S. had lost no aircraft, but that a helicopter was “hit pretty hard.”

“We had to do it because it’s a war,” he added.

The weather was a factor

Trump said U.S. forces held off on conducting the operation for days, waiting for cloud cover to pass because the “weather has to be perfect.”

“We waited four days,” he said. “We were going to do this four days ago, three days ago, two days ago. And then all of a sudden it opened up and we said, go. And I’ll tell you, it’s, it was just amazing.”

Where is Maduro now?

Trump said that Maduro and Flores were flown by helicopter to a U.S. warship and would go on to New York to face charges. The Justice Department released an indictment accusing the pair of having an alleged role in a narco-terrorism conspiracy.

Months of escalating actions

The raid was a dramatic escalation from a series of strikes the U.S. military has carried out on what Trump has said were drug carrying boats in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean since early September. There had been 35 known strikes that killed at least 115 people.

On Dec. 29, Trump said the U.S. struck a facility where boats accused of carrying drugs “load up.” The CIA was behind the drone strike at a docking area believed to have been used by Venezuelan drug cartels. It was the first known direct operation on Venezuelan soil since the U.S. began its strikes in September.

Kinnard reported from Chapin, South Carolina.

By REGINA GARCIA CANO, Associated Press

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Nicolás Maduro, who rose from unionized bus driver to Venezuelan president and oversaw his country’s democratic undoing and economic collapse, was captured Saturday during an attack by U.S. forces on his capital.

President Donald Trump, in an early morning social media post, announced Maduro’s capture. Venezuela’s vice president, Delcy Rodríguez, later announced that the whereabouts of Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, remained unknown. Trump’s attorney general, Pam Bondi, said Maduro and Flores would face charges after an indictment in New York.

Maduro’s fall was the culmination of months of stepped-up U.S. pressure on various fronts.

President Nicolas Maduro joins a rally marking the anniversary of the Battle of Santa Ines, which took place during Venezuela’s 19th-century Federal War, in Caracas, Venezuela, Wednesday, Dec. 10, 2025. (AP Photo/Cristian Hernandez)

He had spent the last months of his presidency fueling speculation over the intentions of the U.S. government to attack and invade Venezuela with the goal of ending the self-proclaimed socialist revolution that his late mentor and predecessor, Hugo Chávez, ushered in 1999. Maduro, like Chávez, cast the United States as Venezuela’s biggest threat, railing against Democratic and Republic administrations for any efforts to restore democratic norms.

Maduro’s political career began 40 years ago. In 1986, he traveled to Cuba to receive a year of ideological instruction, his only formal education after high school. Upon his return, he worked as a bus driver for the Caracas subway system, where he quickly became a union leader. Venezuela’s intelligence agencies in the 1990s identified him as a leftist radical with close ties to the Cuban government.

Maduro eventually left his driver job and joined the political movement that Chávez organized after receiving a presidential pardon in 1994 for leading a failed and bloody military coup years earlier. After Chávez took office, the former youth baseball player rose through the ranks of the ruling party, spending his first six years as a lawmaker before becoming president of the National Assembly. He then served six years as foreign minister and a couple months as vice president.

President Nicolas Maduro addresses supporters during a rally marking the anniversary of the Battle of Santa Ines, which took place during Venezuela’s 19th-century Federal War, in Caracas, Venezuela, Wednesday, Dec. 10, 2025. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos)

Appointed the political heir to Chávez

Chávez used his last address to the nation before his death in 2013 to anoint Maduro as his successor, asking his supporters to vote for the then-foreign affairs minister should he die. The choice stunned supporters and detractors alike. But Chávez’s enormous electoral capital delivered Maduro a razor-thin victory that year, giving him his first six-year term, though he would never enjoy the devotion that voters professed for Chávez.

Maduro married Flores, his partner of nearly two decades, in July 2013, shortly after he became president. He called her the “first combatant,” instead of first lady, and considered her a crucial adviser.

President Nicolas Maduro tosses a carrot next to his wife Cilia Flores during a rally marking the anniversary of the Battle of Santa Ines, which took place during Venezuela’s 19th-century Federal War, in Caracas, Venezuela, Wednesday, Dec. 10, 2025. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos)

Maduro’s entire presidency was marked by a complex social, political and economic crisis that pushed millions into poverty, drove more than 7.7 million Venezuelans to migrate and put thousands of real or perceived government opponents in prison, where many were tortured, some at his direction. Maduro complemented the repressive apparatus by purging institutions of anyone who dared dissent.

Venezuela’s crisis took hold during Maduro’s first year in office. The political opposition, including the now-Nobel Peace Prize winner María Corina Machado, called for street protests in Caracas and other cities. The demonstrations evidenced Maduro’s iron fist as security forces pushed back protests, which ended with 43 deaths and dozens of arrests.

Maduro’s United Socialist Party of Venezuela would go on to lose control of the National Assembly for the first time in 16 years in the 2015 election. Maduro moved to neutralize the opposition-controlled legislature by establishing a pro-government Constituent Assembly in 2017, leading to months of protests violently suppressed by security forces and the military.

FILE – Opposition leader Maria Corina Machado greets supporters during a protest against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro the day before his inauguration for a third term in Caracas, Venezuela, Thursday, Jan. 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix, file)

More than 100 people were killed and thousands were injured in the demonstrations. Hundreds were arrested, causing the International Criminal Court to open an investigation against Maduro and members of his government for crimes against humanity. The investigation was still ongoing in 2025.

In 2018, Maduro survived an assassination attempt when drones rigged with explosives detonated near him as he delivered a speech during a nationally televised military parade.

Bedeviled by economic problems

Maduro was unable to stop the economic free fall. Inflation and severe shortages of food and medicines affected Venezuelans nationwide. Entire families starved and began migrating on foot to neighboring countries. Those who remained lined up for hours to buy rice, beans and other basics. Some fought on the streets over flour.

Ruling party loyalists moved the December 2018 presidential election to May and blocked opposition parties from the ballot. Some opposition politicians were imprisoned; others fled into exile. Maduro ran virtually unopposed and was declared winner, but dozens of countries did not recognize him.

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Months after the election, he drew the fury after social media videos showed him feasting on a steak prepared by a celebrity chef at a restaurant in Turkey while millions in his country were going hungry.

Under Maduro’s watch, Venezuela’s economy shrank 71% between 2012 and 2020, while inflation topped 130,000%. Its oil production, the beating heart of the country, dropped to less than 400,000 barrels a day, a figure once unthinkable.

The first Trump administration imposed economic sanctions against Maduro, his allies and state-owned companies to try to force a government change. The measures included freezing all Venezuelan government assets in the U.S. and prohibiting American citizens and international partners from doing business with Venezuelan government entities, including the state-owned oil company.

Out of options, Maduro began implementing a series of economic measures in 2021 that eventually ended Venezuela’s hyperinflation cycle. He paired the economic changes with concessions to the U.S.-backed political opposition with which it restarted negotiations for what many had hoped would be a free and democratic presidential election in 2024.

Maduro used the negotiations to gain concessions from the U.S. government, including the pardon and prison release of one of his closest allies and the sanctions license that allowed oil giant Chevron to restart pumping and exporting Venezuelan oil. The license became his government’s financial lifeline.

Losing support in many places

Negotiations led by Norwegian diplomats did not solve key political differences between the ruling party and the opposition.

In 2023, the government banned Machado, Maduro’s strongest opponent, from running for office. In early 2024, it intensified its repressive efforts, detaining opposition leaders and human rights defenders. The government also forced key members of Machado’s campaign to seek asylum at a diplomatic compound in Caracas, where they remained for more than a year to avoid arrest.

Hours after polls closed in the 2024 election, the National Electoral Council declared Maduro the winner. But unlike previous elections, it did not provide detailed vote counts. The opposition, however, collected and published tally sheets from more than 80% of electronic voting machines used in the election. The records showed Edmundo González defeated Maduro by a more than 2-to-1 margin.

Protests erupted. Some demonstrators toppled statues of Chávez. The government again responded with full force and detained more than 2,000 people World leaders rejected the official results, but the National Assembly sworn in Maduro for a third term in January 2025.

Trump’s return to the White House that same month proved to be a sobering moment for Maduro. Trump quickly pushed Maduro to accept regular deportation flights for the first time in years. By the summer, Trump had built up a military force in the Caribbean that put Venezuela’s government on high alert and started taking steps to address what it called narco-terrorism.

For Maduro, that was the beginning of the end.

By JOSH FUNK

Embattled Wisconsin Judge Hannah Dugan, who was convicted of obstruction last month for helping an immigrant evade federal officers, has sent her resignation letter to the governor.

The letter was sent Saturday. Republicans had been making plans to impeach her ever since her Dec. 19 conviction. A spokesperson for Gov. Tony Evers said his office received Dugan’s letter, and he would work to fill the vacancy without delay.

Dugan wrote that over the past decade she handled thousands of cases with “a commitment to treat all persons with dignity and respect, to act justly, deliberately and consistently, and to maintain a courtroom with the decorum and safety the public deserves.”

But she said the case against her is too big of a distraction.

“As you know, I am the subject of unprecedented federal legal proceedings, which are far from concluded but which present immense and complex challenges that threaten the independence of our judiciary. I am pursuing this fight for myself and for our independent judiciary,” Dugan said in her letter.

Last April, federal prosecutors accused Dugan of distracting federal officers trying to arrest a Mexican immigrant outside her courtroom and leading the man out through a private door. A federal jury convicted her of felony obstruction.

The case against Dugan was highlighted by President Donald Trump as he pressed ahead with his sweeping immigration crackdown. Democrats insisted the administration was trying to make an example of Dugan to blunt judicial opposition to the operation.

Republican Wisconsin Assembly Speaker Robin Vos praised Dugan’s decision.

“I’m glad Dugan did the right thing by resigning and followed the clear direction from the Wisconsin Constitution,” Vos said.

Democrat Ann Jacobs, who is chair of the Wisconsin Elections Commission board, said she agreed with Dugan that Milwaukee should have a permanent judge in place while this fight plays out.

“Despite her situation, she is ever the champion of justice, wanting to remove the judiciary from a political battle over her fate. I’m sure this is terribly hard for her but she is true to her faith and her principles,” Jacobs said in a post on X.

On April 18, immigration officers went to the Milwaukee County courthouse after learning 31-year-old Eduardo Flores-Ruiz had reentered the country illegally and was scheduled to appear before Dugan for a hearing in a state battery case.

Dugan confronted agents outside her courtroom and directed them to the office of her boss, Milwaukee County Chief Judge Carl Ashley, because she told them their administrative warrant wasn’t sufficient grounds to arrest Flores-Ruiz.

After the agents left, she led Flores-Ruiz and his attorney out a private jury door. Agents spotted Flores-Ruiz in the corridor, followed him outside and arrested him after a foot chase. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security announced in November he had been deported.

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