The Gophers football program will not retain special teams coordinator Bob Ligashesky for the 2026 season, a source told the Pioneer Press on Tuesday.

This is the second dismissal of a Gophers assistant since the end of the regular season. Defensive line coach Dennis Dottin-Carter also was let go and replaced by rush ends coach C.J. Robbins and Bobby April III, the Stanford defensive coordinator and outside linebackers coach, who is expected to come to the U as rush ends coach.

In his second season at Minnesota, Ligashesky’s units had a couple of bright spots — punter Tom Weston and returner Koi Perich — but lagged in multiple categories. Minnesota was 110th in field goal percentage (66.7%); 104th in punt return average (6.0 yards); 102nd in opponent punt returns (10.6); and 107th in opponent kickoff returns (22.8).

The Gophers were in control of the Rate Bowl on Friday with a 14-6 lead in the fourth quarter before New Mexico returner Damon Bankston returned a kickoff 100 yards for a touchdown to help set up overtime. Minnesota won 20-17 in the extra session in Phoenix.

Last year, transfer kicker Brady Denaburg was 14 for 21 on field goals, including 2 of 7 from 40 yards or longer.

Weston, a transfer from Division II Ouachita Baptist, was all-Big Ten last year, with 65 punts for a 42.5-yard average that registered 72nd in the nation.

Perich’s six kickoff returns of more than 25 yards, including a 93-yarder in the 38-35 Northwestern loss on Nov. 22, helped put the U at 33rd in the nation in average return (22.8 yards).

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To see Caleb Heil wearing blue and stopping pucks as his team works toward a championship just feels right to Minnesota hockey fans of a certain age. As much as anything, the 19-year-old goalie who backstopped two of Team USA’s first three wins at the World Juniors this week was born into the trade.

United States goalie Caleb Heil looks on during the third period of an IIHF World Junior Hockey Championship game against Germany, Friday, Dec. 26, 2025, in St. Paul, Minn. (AP Photo/Matt Krohn)

Fans of a certain age can recall the powerhouse Bloomington Jefferson teams of the early 1990s that won three consecutive Minnesota state championships and sent more than a dozen players on to college hockey. Wearing a different shade of blue and stopping pucks for the Jaguars was Jeff Heil, Caleb’s father.

“When I was younger, he would always pull out the Jefferson state tournament picture books that my grandma made for him,” Caleb recalled on Tuesday, as Team USA enjoyed an off day before their New Years’ Eve showdown with Sweden. “I’d look through those and watch the old tapes. It was pretty fun.”

In addition to his work in red, white and blue, the younger Heil is playing in Madison for the USHL’s Capitols this winter. And he is currently sharing a locker room with Maple Grove’s Will Zellers, who has been the surprise offensive star for the Americans so far. It’s something they plan to do next season as well, with Zellers currently in his freshman year at North Dakota and Heil committed to join the Fighting Hawks next season.

“We trust him. He’s an unbelievable goalie,” said Zellers, reflecting on the team’s 6-5 win over Slovakia, where Team USA found itself trailing 2-0 after the first period. “Those are two pretty good shots that they had there, so making sure he’s good and making sure he’s not getting too low. We had 40 minutes of hockey left to play.”

Growing up in the Chaska-Chanhassen youth hockey system, Heil left home after bantams to play AAA hockey in South Dakota, then moved up to the USHL, first in Sioux Falls and now in his second season with Madison.

During one of his stints with USA Hockey, playing in the Hlinka-Gretzky Cup in Europe, Heil’s goalie coach was former North Dakota star Karl Goering, who helped steer his future toward Grand Forks and the palatial Ralph Engelstad Arena, which is considered college hockey’s gold standard for facilities.

“I think it just kind of felt right. Growing up, I had coaches that played at UND, and they would take us on tours of the Ralph,” Heil recalled. “I just thought it was the coolest thing ever. So I kind of knew that’s always where I wanted to go.”

For the Americans in his two starts, Heil has proven to be unflappable, not only when they trailed Slovakia by a pair in the second period, but also when a comfortable 3-0 lead over Germany in the tournament opener quickly became a 3-2 nail-biter before Team USA pulled away.

Unlike most goalies who have a reputation for their quirks, Heil’s teammates say his normalcy and calm sets him apart.

“I’ve known him for a long time, and he’s really chill,” said Team USA defenseman Adam Kleber, who is also a Chaska-Chan product, now playing at Minnesota Duluth. “He’s super calm under pressure. That’s probably the biggest thing. But he’s not really quirky in any way. He’s pretty normal.”

Like the prototypical modern goalie, Heil’s 6-foot-2 frame and his reflexes set him apart. And the chance to play for Team USA has him not only focused on a third consecutive gold medal, but thinking about some of the current NHL stars who filled the American crease at the World Juniors just a few years ago.

“I watched Spencer Knight, Dustin Wolf and some of the more recent guys too,” Heil said. “It’s obviously an honor to be in this position and to get that role.”

With Zellers off to a red hot start for Team USA and averaging nearly a point per game as a freshman at North Dakota, there is already buzz that he could bolt college hockey early. Rest assured, Zellers said, he and Heil enjoy being teammates for the stars and stripes at World Juniors, and they will be teammates in green and white a year from now.

“I’ll never leave that place, so (Caleb) knows he doesn’t have to work on me,” Zellers said. “I was just telling him I’ll be waiting there when he gets to campus in the summertime.”

And if all goes right, they’ll have matching gold medals to show off.

ST PAUL, MINNESOTA – DECEMBER 29: Caleb Heil #30 of the United States makes a save against Jan Chovan #12 of Slovakia in the third period of a Group A stage game during the IIHF World Junior Hockey Championship at Grand Casino Arena on December 29, 2025 in St Paul, Minnesota. The United States defeated Slovakia 6-5. (Photo by David Berding/Getty Images)
United States goalie Caleb Heil (30), right, celebrates with teammates after an IIHF World Junior Hockey championship game against Slovakia, Monday, Dec. 29, 2025, in St. Paul, Minn. (AP Photo/Abbie Parr)

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By BEN FINLEY and KONSTANTIN TOROPIN, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. military said Tuesday that nearly 25 operatives of the Islamic State group were killed or captured in Syria this month following an ambush that killed two U.S. troops and an American civilian interpreter.

U.S. Central Command, which oversees the Middle East, said in a statement on X that 11 missions were carried out over the past 10 days and followed initial strikes against IS weapons sites and infrastructure on Dec. 19, which hit 70 targets across central Syria.

In the operations since, the U.S. military and other forces from the region, including Syria, killed at least seven IS members, captured others and eliminated four weapons caches, U.S. Central Command said.

The remains of Staff Sgt. Edgar Brian Torres-Tovar, 25, of Des Moines, and Staff Sgt. William Nathaniel Howard, 29, of Marshalltown, the two Iowa National Guard members killed in an attack in the Syrian desert, are moved during a dignified transfer at the Des Moines International Airport in Des Moines, Iowa, Wednesday, Dec. 24, 2025. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)

“We will not relent,” Adm. Brad Cooper, who leads the command, said in the statement. “We are steadfast in commitment to working with regional partners to root out the ISIS threat posed to U.S. and regional security.”

Targets ranged from senior IS members who were being closely monitored by military officials to lower-level foot soldiers, according to a U.S. official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive military operations.

The official said a growing collaboration between the United States and Syria’s relatively new government meant that U.S. forces were able to attack IS in areas of the country where they previously did not operate. Syrian forces were the driving force behind some of the missions against the militant group this year, the official added.

The official compared the growing cooperation to that between the U.S. and Iraq in fighting IS a decade ago and said the goal, like in Iraq, is to ultimately hand over the effort fully to the Syrians.

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The latest operations followed a Dec. 13 ambush that occurred near the ancient city of Palmyra while American and Syrian security officials had gathered for a meeting over lunch. Two members of the Iowa National Guard and a civilian interpreter from Michigan were killed, while three other U.S. troops and members of Syria’s security forces were wounded.

The gunman, who was killed, had joined Syria’s internal security forces as a base security guard and recently had been reassigned because of suspicions he might be affiliated with IS, Syrian officials said.

The initial retaliatory strike on IS targets in Syria, which included fighter jets from Jordan, was a major test for the warming ties between the U.S. and Syria since last year’s ouster of autocratic leader Bashar Assad.

President Donald Trump said Syria’s new president, Ahmad al-Sharaa, was “extremely angry and disturbed by this attack.”

ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast (AP) — The United States and Ivory Coast signed a health deal Tuesday requiring the U.S. to commit $480 million to the West African nation’s health sector as part of “America First” global health funding pacts that mirror the Trump administration’s foreign policy.

The signing in Ivory Coast’s capital of Abidjan covers areas such as HIV, malaria, maternal and child health, and global health security. It is the latest agreement the U.S. has entered with more than a dozen African countries, most of them hit by U.S. aid cuts, including Ivory Coast.

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U.S. aid cuts have crippled health systems across the developing world, including in Africa, where many countries relied on the funding for crucial programs, including those responding to outbreaks of disease.

The new health pact is based on the principle of shared responsibility with Ivory Coast committing to provide up to $292 million by 2030, representing 60% of the overall commitment, according to Ivorian Prime Minister Robert Beugré Mambé.

U.S. Ambassador to Ivory Coast Jessica Davis Ba said the U.S. government is moving “beyond the traditional aid approach toward a model focused on trade, innovation, and shared prosperity.”

“Today, our bilateral cooperation is entering a new phase. We are implementing the America First global health strategy,” the ambassador said.

The Trump administration says the new “America First” global health funding agreements are meant to increase self-sufficiency and eliminate what it says are ideology and waste from international assistance. The deals replace a patchwork of previous health agreements under the now-dismantled United States Agency for International Development.

In Ivory Coast, USAID had invested $115 million to support sectors such as health, education and aid for refugees mostly fleeing violence in neighboring Sahel states.

Analysts say the new approach to global health aligns with President Donald Trump’s pattern of dealing with other nations transactionally, using direct talks with foreign governments to promote his agenda abroad.