On game days, P.J. Fleck will scribble items down in a yellow-covered notebook for future reference.

Now in the transfer portal, the Gophers head coach is checking boxes on roster needs for the 2026 season — tick, tick, tick.

In a flurry of activity in the portal’s opening five days, the Gophers football program has added a total of nine incoming transfers, including a handful of new players who will likely be called on to contribute immediately next fall.

This roster-building period is still a work in progress, as the Gophers will continue to add to the class before the start of spring semester on Jan. 20.

The U needed a big target at wide receiver to threaten defenses downfield, and win more contested-catch situations, and 6-foot-3 Auburn wideout Perry Thompson appears to fit the bill. He committed Monday night.

Thompson had 22 receptions on 45 targets for 280 yards (12.7 per reception) across two seasons in the SEC. Three grabs were considered contested catches, per Pro Football Focus.

Minnesota has brought in big wideouts from name-brand schools in the past, but they haven’t panned out. Malachi Coleman from Nebraska was the latest example; he went right back into the portal after this past season.

But Thompson, a former four-star prospect in Alabama, will have new position coach Isaac Fruechte to work with in spring practices.

Minnesota’s offensive line needs an upgrade and has a vacancy at right tackle, and a massive one in Bennett Warren from Tennessee committed Sunday night. The 6-foot-7, 320-pound Texas native also received four stars coming out of high school but has only played 116 offensive snaps across two years for the Volunteers.

Tennessee offensive lineman Bennett Warren (68) sets up at the line during the first half of an NCAA college football game against Alabama, Saturday, Oct. 18, 2025, in Tuscaloosa, Ala. (AP Photo/Vasha Hunt)

Warren appears to be a candidate to fill the spot vacated by Dylan Ray, who did not raise the level of the line in his one year after transferring in from Kentucky.

The Gophers’ top four defensive tackles ran out of eligibility in 2025, and they began to address that huge hole with an anchor type to play nose tackle in 320-pounder Naquan Crowder from Marshall. He joined the group Monday.

None of the new Gophers have received as high of PFF grades as Crowder did in 2025. He earned a 75.9 overall grade and a superb 82.7 mark in run defense, but he will have to make the big jump from the Sun Belt Conference.

The U lost starting cornerback Za’Quan Bryan to the portal in December and on Tuesday brought in Aydan West, who made 19 tackles in 12 games as a true freshman at Michigan State last year. He allowed 18 receptions on 27 targets a year ago, per PFF.

At 5-foot-11, West played 343 of 380 total snaps at wide corner last season. He had an average overall grade (61.8), but his best mark came against the Gophers (75.0) in late October.

The Gophers have also back-filled a few other roster requirements via the portal: backup quarterback Michael Merdinger (North Carolina/Liberty), backup running back Jaron Thomas (Purdue), linebacker/edge depth in Andrew Marshall (Eastern Michigan), safety Parker Knutson (Southwest Minnesota State) and Aydan West’s older brother and fellow defensive back Elisha West (also Michigan State).

One of the biggest surprises in that bunch is Knutson, a Sartell, Minn., native who amassed 13 interceptions across two seasons at the Division II school in Marshall. The Gophers beat out the rival Iowa Hawkeyes and others for Knutson’s signature.

Southwest Minnesota State safety Parker Knutson plays against Jamestown in a Division II football game in Jamestown, N.D. on Sept. 13, 2025. The Sartell, Minn., native will transfer to the Gophers for the 2026 season. (Courtesy of SMSU Athletic Communications)

Fleck covets incoming transfers with multiple years of eligibility remaining. That’s true for all nine new players in the class so far. Thomas has four; Warren, Merdinger and the Wests each have three; and Thompson, Crowder, Knutson and Marshall all have two.

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By JEFF AMY, Associated Press

ATLANTA (AP) — Voters in northwest Georgia will go to the polls to select a successor to U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene on March 10.

Gov. Brian Kemp set the election date on Tuesday, a day after Greene resigned from Congress following a tumultuous five years.

The field to succeed Greene in Georgia’s 14th Congressional District is already swelling. As many as 19 Republicans have said they will run or are considering it, including state Sen. Colton Moore of Trenton, District Attorney Clayton Fuller and Paulding County businessman Brian Stover. Reagan Box of Armuchee, who had been running a longshot campaign for the Republican nomination for Senate, switched into the 14th District race in December.

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Shawn Harris, the Democratic nominee who lost the race to Greene in 2024, is seeking the seat, as is Democrat Clarence Blalock of Hiram. Also running is independent Rob Ruszkowski of Rising Fawn.

Candidates will run on the same all-party ballot on March 10. If no one wins a majority, the top two finishers will go to a runoff four weeks later on April 7.

The district stretches from Atlanta’s northwest suburbs through all or part of 10 counties to the Tennessee state line. It’s rated as the most Republican-leaning district in Georgia by the Cook Political Report, and voters there embraced Greene’s hard-right campaign in 2020 when she parachuted into the district after starting a campaign in a more closely contested district closer to Atlanta.

Greene left Capitol Hill as one of the most well-known members of Congress. She remained loyal to Donald Trump after he lost to Democrat Joe Biden, promoting Trump’s falsehoods about a stolen election. When Trump ran again in 2024, she toured the country with him and spoke at his rallies while wearing a red “Make America Great Again” hat.

But Greene began clashing with Trump last year after he and other Republicans pushed back against her running for U.S. Senate or governor. Greene criticized Trump’s foreign policy and his reluctance to release documents involving the Jeffrey Epstein case. The president eventually had enough, saying he would support a primary challenge against her. Greene announced a week later that she would resign.

Returning another Republican to Congress would bolster a narrow GOP minority that was further depleted by the death Monday night of Republican Doug LaMalfa, a seven-term U.S. representative from California who suffered a medical emergency. His death and Greene’s resignation narrowed the party’s control of the House to 218 seats to Democrats’ 213.

Candidates will qualify for three days next week, but if they intend to serve out more than the remainder of Greene’s term, they will have to qualify again for the general election during March 2 through March 6, in the week before the special election. Voters will return to the polls for party primaries for the November general election on May 19.

Clean sidewalks. More afterschool programs. A much-anticipated rent freeze. For months, City Limits has been talking with New Yorkers about what they want the new mayor to prioritize. Here’s what we heard.

Some of the New Yorkers who spoke to City Limits about their hopes for the newest mayor. (Adi Talwar/City Limits)

Clean sidewalks. More afterschool programs. A much-anticipated rent freeze.

For months, City Limits has been talking with New Yorkers about what they want the new mayor to prioritize. In a city of more than 8 million people, the wishlist is long.

“Be aggressive about making New York City as climate resilient and climate change mitigating a city as possible,” Manhattan resident Elenna Dunham told us. Stephanie Woodbine, a domestic violence survivor and advocate, said she wants the city to better support mothers leaving abusive relationships—a leading cause of homelessness in the city. “If the moms are not okay, the kids won’t be okay,” she said.

On Jan. 1, Zohran Mamdani was sworn in to lead the five boroughs for the next four years. Time will tell if he’ll deliver on his campaign’s ambitious promises—a rent freeze for regulated apartments and free bus service among them.

But what the new mayor has made clear early on: he’s interested in hearing directly from his constituents about their issues, and what they want from City Hall. Before his inauguration, Mamdani met one-on-one with more than a hundred New Yorkers during a 12-hour “listening” session in Queens. And this week, he announced plans to hold a series of “rental ripoff” hearings in every borough, where residents—specifically renters—are being asked to share their housing woes with the new administration.

“I want New Yorkers who have long been ignored by their landlords to finally be heard by our city government,” Mamdani said.

In the vein of helping more New Yorkers be heard, City Limits presents below some of the residents—among them tenants, NYCHA residents, seniors, and people who’ve experienced homelessness—who shared their mayoral wishlists and their hopes for the city over the next four years.

To reach the reporter behind this story, contact Adi@citylimits.org. To reach the editor, contact Jeanmarie@citylimits.org

Want to republish this story? Find City Limits’ reprint policy here.

The post What New Yorkers Told Us They Want Mayor Mamdani To Do appeared first on City Limits.

By TIM REYNOLDS

The biggest rivalry going into the bobsled competition at the Milan Cortina Olympics is pretty much not in dispute.

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On one side, there is Germany. And on the other side, there is everybody else.

The sport made its Olympic debut in 1924 and Germany didn’t win its first gold medals until 1952. But the country, including the days of both East Germany and West Germany, has dominated like no other, with 22 gold medals since 1952 and rest of the world combining for 21 golds in that span.

How does it work?

There are four types of bobsled races: two-man, four-man, two-woman and monobob, which has just one female pilot in the sled and nobody else. All sleds have one driver, and the person in the back of the sled is considered the brakeman; his or her role is exactly as it sounds, to pull the brakes once the sled has crossed the finish line. Races start with everyone running either alongside or behind the sled, down a ramp before they jump into the sled. For aerodynamic reasons, everyone’s head should stay down during a race (except the driver, of course). Speeds can reach 90 mph.

FILE – Second placed Johannes Lochner of Germany celebrates after the men’s two-man bobsleigh World Cup race in Igls, near Innsbruck, Austria, Saturday, Nov. 20, 2021. (AP Photo/Matthias Schrader, FILE)

Who to watch

Germans tend to dominate sliding, and four-time Olympic gold medalist Francesco Friedrich is generally considered the best bobsledder of all time. He will face intense competition from German teammate Johannes Lochner on the men’s side, where American pilot Frank Del Duca will try to crash the medal party. For the women, U.S. star Kaysha Love is the reigning world monobob champion, while veterans Kaillie Humphries Armbruster (three gold medals) and Elana Meyers Taylor (five medals) are never to be counted out. Germany’s women are very strong as well.

Venues and dates

Competition in bobsled is from Feb. 15-22, all at the Cortina Sliding Center on the remodeled Eugenio Monti track.

FILE – First placed Kaillie Humphries of United States celebrates during award ceremony of the of the Women’s Monobob World Cup race in Sigulda, Latvia, Saturday, Feb. 18, 2023. (AP Photo/Oksana Dzadan, FILE)

Memorable moments

For USA Bobsled, the quintessential Olympic moment likely remains the four-man bobsled gold medal by Steven Holcomb in the famed “Night Train” sled at the 2010 Vancouver Games, when he and his team ended a 62-year drought for the Americans in the sport’s biggest race. There also is the unforgettable, made-for-the-movies tale of the Jamaican bobsled team at the 1988 Olympics in Calgary when they bucked overwhelming odds and competed in the two- and four-man events. Jamaica still has a bobsled team as well, and plenty of other smaller nations — even those that never see snow — have embraced the sport more and more since.

FILE – Germany’s Francesco Friedrich talks during an interview with the Associated Press ahead of a three-day skeleton and bobsled World Cup stage and Olympic test event in Cortina D’Ampezzo, Italy, Thursday, Nov. 20, 2025. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini, FILE)

Fun facts

 

Friedrich will try to become the first pilot with more than four gold medals; he’s currently tied with another German great, Andre Lange, for the most in Olympic history. If a team crashes, it remains in the competition provided that the sled actually crosses the finish line. Unlike skaters, who have blades on their feet, bobsleds don’t have anything sharp on the bottom of the sleds. They glide on runners, which are steel tubes.

AP Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics