In search of added depth in the secondary, the Vikings agreed to terms with cornerback James Pierre in the opening hour of the legal tampering period, a savvy move that successfully filled a need.

A source confirmed the deal to the Pioneer Press.

It’s reportedly a 2-year, $8.5 million contract for Pierre with $3.7 million fully guaranteed. He has spent most of his career with the Pittsburgh Steelers sans a brief stint with the Washington Commanders.

As he steps into his new surroundings with the Vikings, it helps that Pierre has some familiarity with the scheme. He crossed over with defensive coordinator Brian Flores and new defensive backs coach Gerald Alexander during his time with the Steelers.

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The Gophers football program has completed a trifecta on commitments from Moorhead prospects in the 2027 recruiting class.

Moorhead quarterback Jett Feeney pledged to the U on Monday, following two high school teammates to Minnesota. Running back Taye Reich committed on Feb. 24, and receiver David Mack joined last Tuesday.

It’s unheard of for the Gophers to seek and gain commitments from three players at the same high school, especially from within Minnesota. The U also infrequently adds in-state QBs.

“After a great meeting with (Coach P.J. Fleck), I am excited to say I’m staying HOME,” Feeney wrote on X. “All glory to God for this opportunity and the support of my family, teammates and coaches!”

Listed at 6-foot-1 and 190 pounds, Feeney has a three-star rating from 247Sports after he completed 75% of his passes (171 for 229) for 2,221 yards and 27 touchdowns against just two interceptions as a junior last season. He also added five rushing TDs as the Spuds advanced to the Class 6A state championship game.

Feeney set a Prep Bowl record with 373 passing yards and amassed four total TDs (two rushing, two passing) in the 42-35 loss to Edina on Nov. 21. He had other scholarship offers from Wyoming, North Dakota State, South Dakota State and Montana State.

The Gophers were in on Feeney early in the recruiting process; he also attended camps and had interest from Wisconsin, Iowa, Iowa State, Northwestern and Kansas State. Feeney’s father, Kevin, played QB at North Dakota State from 1995-98 and now is the head coach at Moorhead High.

Feeney’s older brother, Trey, played quarterback at Moorhead before graduating in 2021. He then went at North Dakota before transferring to Division III St. John’s. At 6-3, Trey was the Johnnies’ starter last season, completing 73% of his passes (281 for 386) for 3,352 yards, 40 TDs and seven INTs.

Feeney’s grandfather Bob was a hall of fame high school football coach in North Dakota. He won two state championships at Bismarck High (1984-85) and totaled 243 career games. Kevin played for his dad at Bismarck before going to NDSU.

With Jett Feeney, the Gophers are up to six members of next year’s recruiting class. He is the second quarterback to join the U’s class for next season. Furian Inferrera of San Marcos, Calif., was the first pledge in June.

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The WNBA sent a collective bargaining agreement proposal to the union a day after the league received one from the players, a person familiar with the negotiations told The Associated Press on Sunday.

The person spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the negotiations.

FILE – New York Liberty forward Breanna Stewart drives to the basket past Minnesota Lynx forward Bridget Carleton (6) during the first half of Game 4 of a WNBA basketball final playoff series, Friday, Oct. 18, 2024, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Abbie Parr, File)

The league’s response to a union proposal from Friday comes a few days before a Tuesday deadline set by the league, which said it would need at least a handshake agreement with the union to start the season on time. The Lynx are scheduled to play their first game on May 10 against the Atlanta Dream at Target Center.

It’s unknown what changes the league and union made in their latest proposal. Revenue sharing is the key sticking point between the sides.

The union’s previous proposal from a week ago had asked for an average of 26% of the gross revenue — revenue before expenses — over the course of the CBA. That would include only 25% in the first year of the new deal. The league has said that number was unrealistic.

The WNBA’s last few proposals have offered more than 70% of net revenue, with that number going up as the league continues to grow.

Caitlin Clark said at USA Basketball training camp on Saturday that the two sides should stop sending proposals and instead meet face-to-face until a deal gets done.

“I don’t understand why we don’t just get in a room and iron it out and shake hands,” she said. “That’s how business is. You look each other in the eye, you shake hands, you respect both sides. For me, that’s what I would love to see.”

Union vice president Breanna Stewart agreed with Clark’s idea.

“I think that would be great for us all to sit in a room until we really get it done,” the New York Liberty star said. “If that means sitting in there for hours and hours at a time, let’s do it. That’s for the better of the player. While a situation like that has never happened before, there’s a first time for everything.”

Stewart isn’t going back to Puerto Rico with the U.S. team to play in the FIBA World Cup qualifier tournament next week. She said she’s going home to New York and would be available for in-person negotiations.

“We want the deal to be done. We want to have the season,” Stewart said. “We just need to find the right numbers that reflect it.”

If a labor deal is agreed to by Tuesday, it probably would be signed by the end of the month. Under that timeline, the expansion draft for new franchises in Portland and Toronto would be held sometime between April 1-6, according to a timetable obtained by the AP.

Free agent qualifying offers, including franchise player tags, would be sent out April 7-8. Teams would then have three days to negotiate with the more than 80% of players who are free agents. The signing period would take place from April 12-18.

Training camps would open the next day and the season would be able to start on May 8.

“I think it’ll be tight. Hopefully we do come to a resolution sooner rather than later,” Stewart said. “But even if we do, it’s like these other things that need to happen need a moment. You shouldn’t have to rush the expansion draft or free agency.”

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By JONATHAN J. COOPER

LAS VEGAS — When his parents were about his age, they bought their first home. But for 27-year-old Brian Torres Suazo, that milestone feels like a distant dream, despite a secure job with union wages and down payment assistance.

Torres Suazo expects to continue sharing an apartment with roommates for the foreseeable future, kept on the sidelines of homeownership by stubbornly high costs, even in cities once known for their affordability, such as his native Las Vegas.

He’s not alone. In a restless electorate frustrated by high prices, the cost of housing stands out. Democrats are pushing to channel this anger into support for their quest to chip away at Republicans’ unified control of Washington, maintaining their focus on economic concerns even when war with Iran dominates the news.

Their path cuts through Nevada, a perennial swing state won by Republican Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential election and now home to closely contested U.S. House races.

“I would be paying more — a lot more — in mortgage than I am for rent right now,” said Torres Suazo, a food runner on the Las Vegas Strip. Sometimes he feels like politicians aren’t listening to people like him. “It’d be nice if more people that knew what it’s like to work for a living could be in those rooms to make decisions,” he added.

Home sites are seen under construction Monday, Feb. 2, 2026, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/John Locher)

Housing affordability isn’t just a coastal concern

In all directions from the Strip, tract homes with sharp-angled roofs and earthy paint schemes sprout from the desert by the dozen. Streets to nowhere snake through the dirt, ready for future homes. Wooden signs dot roadsides advertising homes from the $300,000s for a townhome to over $1 million for big houses in the most desirable suburban neighborhoods.

Housing costs have long been a potent political issue in pricey metropolitan areas like New York and San Francisco, but now the issue is popping up virtually everywhere.

During the coronavirus pandemic, white-collar workers newly empowered to work remotely cashed out their equity in high-priced cities and bid up prices across Sun Belt cities like Las Vegas, Phoenix, Dallas, and Charlotte, North Carolina. At the same time, near-zero interest rates drove a wave of refinancing that gave existing homeowners mortgage payments that now seem impossibly low.

From 2025: Median home sale prices reach $380,000 in the Twin Cities

Almost 40 million people visited Las Vegas last year, and gamblers wagered $14 billion at Clark County casinos, according to the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority. The steady flow of people and cash attracts dreamers and strivers with the promise of a good job and an affordable home.

The population of Clark County, which includes Las Vegas, grew 17% to 2.4 million between 2014 and 2024. The country as a whole grew 6% over that period.

“If you ask locals who grew up here, some of them feel that housing is out of reach for them,” said Las Vegas real estate agent Tony Clifford. “You talk to somebody from out of state – Northwest, West, California – we’re still so cheap compared to them.”

Home prices and mortgage rates have ticked down from historic highs in much of the country, and real estate agents say Las Vegas is now considered a buyer’s market. Houses are staying on the market longer, and more sellers are accepting discounted offers or offering concessions, such as covering closing costs. But monthly mortgage payments are still much higher than they were before the pandemic.

In Las Vegas, resale home prices rose 53% between December 2019 and the same month last year, according to the Case-Shiller index. The index tracks homes that have previously sold, excluding new construction, which makes up more than a quarter of the Las Vegas market.

In Las Vegas, the median home sale price rose 65% between the first quarter of 2020 and the same period last year, reaching $393,000, according to Federal Reserve data. It ticked down to $379,000 during the fourth quarter last year.

Nationally, 30-year mortgage rates followed a similar trend, bottoming out at 2.65% nationally in 2021 before peaking in 2023 at nearly 8%. They’ve settled around 6% this quarter.

Still, even with rates and prices stabilizing, they remain higher than they were before the pandemic. The median resale house at the prevailing interest rates with 20% down would cost $2,300 per month in December 2025, double the figure from December 2019.

Home sites are seen under construction Monday, Feb. 2, 2026, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/John Locher)

Big investors are buying up houses

Large investors own about 11% of single-family home rentals in Las Vegas, according to the Hamilton Project at the Brookings Institution, compared with about 3% nationally.

They’re increasingly becoming bipartisan targets as they buy and rent out single-family homes, though economists generally discount the benefits of constraining them. Trump and Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford, the leading Democratic candidate for governor, are both among a growing cadre of officials calling for limits on corporate homeownership.

“People live in homes, not corporations,” Trump said in a social media post in January, calling for Congress to ban large institutional investors from buying houses. He’s also pressured the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates and proposed extending mortgage terms to 50 years, privatizing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and allowing homebuyers to tap retirement or Education Savings Accounts for a down payment.

Ford’s housing plan, released last month, also calls for banning algorithmic pricing of rents, tackling regulatory barriers that block or slow new construction and seeking to unlock federal land for homebuilding. The federal government owns 84% of the land in Nevada.

Nevada’s Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo, who is one of the most vulnerable incumbent state leaders in the country, has tried to address the problem, announcing last month that his administration has approved $64 million to boost a dozen housing development projects, mostly in the Las Vegas and Reno areas, along with assistance for homebuyers.

The midterms may hinge on affordability

Democrats are making affordability the central plank of their pitch to voters in November, arguing that Trump has failed in his campaign promise to bring prices back down despite Republican control of Congress. They believe anxiety over the cost of living has been a major factor in their victories in a series of off-year elections, including the races for governor of New Jersey and Virginia as well as special elections down the ballot.

Many Americans say Trump is focusing on the wrong priorities, according to multiple surveys, including a January AP-NORC poll, and they largely think Trump is neglecting the issue of costs at home.

Trump was reelected in large part because of economic concerns, but recent polling shows that the bulk of Americans aren’t seeing benefits from his policies yet, and most don’t think he’s paying enough attention to the issue.

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A large share of registered voters see the economy as one of the top issues facing the country, and a recent New York Times poll found that about half of registered voters say Trump’s policies have made life for most Americans “less affordable.”

The issue will remain salient in November even as the Iran war raises interest in foreign policy, said Democratic strategist Paul Begala, one of the architects of Bill Clinton’s 1992 strategy that emphasized domestic economic concerns during a time of global upheaval from the first Gulf War and the fall of the Soviet Union.

“Trump’s refusal to raise the minimum wage, and his willingness to raise the cost of health care, electricity, hamburger, and now gas, is a two-edged sword that will cut down a large number of congressional Republicans,” Begala said.

Housing is a thorny political issue. Rooted homeowners like high prices that inflate their net worth, at least on paper, a reality that Trump has nodded to repeatedly this year, assuring homeowners he wants to keep their values high.

But those prices become handcuffs if they want to move on but are priced out of the bigger homes or better neighborhoods they’re eying.

Michele Niemeyer feels trapped in the condo she bought for more than $500,000 just off the Strip. The homeowners association fee just went up to $686 a month, straining her budget, and the value of her unit has plummeted. But the neighborhoods that were in her budget when she bought the condo are now out of reach.

“I want to move,” Niemeyer said. “I just don’t know where.”