P.J. Fleck’s personality includes a sarcastic streak, so it was worth checking if the Gophers football coach was genuine with one comment he made last week.

“I’m giving you all a little secret,” he prefaced during his KFAN radio show Sept. 2. “There is a cut-up (video) that we have that is basically: ‘If Coach Fleck ever dies, play this at his funeral.’ ”

That, in fact, wasn’t an attempt at gallows humor.

The 44-year-old Fleck isn’t planning on going anywhere anytime soon, but when he does eventually leave this Earth, he wants an edited string of hustle plays made by Minnesota (and Western Michigan) players to be played on a loop at his celebration of life.

Minnesota Gophers head coach P. J. Fleck leaving the field after a NCAA football game against the Northwestern State Demons at Huntington Bank Stadium in Minneapolis on Saturday, Sept. 6, 2025. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)

On that topic, he did mix in a grim joke.

“As everyone goes through the walk line — there might be six people there — if you are looking at the screen, you are watching ‘how’ clips of extra effort because that is what gets me really excited in football,” Fleck added on the radio.

One hustle play in each of the Gophers’ first two games will be added to the reel. More will be required when the Gophers (2-0) play California (2-0) on Saturday night in Berkeley, Calif.

In the season opener against Buffalo, it was tailback Darius Taylor tracking down Buffalo linebacker Mitchell Gonser after his interception to save a Bulls’ touchdown.

In Week 2 against Northwestern (La.) State, it was linebacker Mason Carrier blitzing into a Demons screen pass to running back Myion Hicks. Hicks caught the pass near the sideline and had blockers in front to turn it into an explosive play, but Carrier turned on a dime and chased down Hicks for a relatively short 9-yard gain.

“That is us,” Fleck told the Pioneer Press. “That one goes in the funeral tape.

“We pour our life into this; this is my life,” Fleck later explained. “I want the players to watch themselves. I don’t want them to think about me in a casket. I don’t want them thinking about that and being sad. Watch some ball.”

Offensive coordinator Greg Harbaugh said hustle plays are the “No. 1 thing that we look at” after every single play. Then it’s scheme, execution and technique.

“I have loved when you put on the tape from last week and even the week before against Buffalo, the level of strain and physicality and how we have attacked each play offensively has been something that I’m very proud of,” Harbaugh said. “I want to continue to see that this week.”

Defensive coordinator Danny Collins said what happens in games is “just proof” of what is emphasized in practice.

Late in the first quarter last week, U linebacker Maverick Baranowski stripped running back Zay Davis of the football and fellow linebacker Matt Kingsbury scooped it and scored from 25 yards out.

Baranowski did a very same thing a seven-on-seven passing drill in spring practices.

“It doesn’t just happen on game day,” Collins said. “You have got to train those things. And when it does happen, you have to highlight them, because it shows the proof that it’s working.”

After no takeaways against Buffalo, the Gophers had four against Northwestern State. Turnovers might be pivotal come Saturday, when the Gophers are a slim 2.5-point favorite over the Bears.

“Those ‘how’ clips are what you want to be on,” Baranowski said. “It’s cool making a big play, but at the end of the day when you are recognized for how hard you play, that means a lot.”

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On the latest episode, host Kadisha Davis speaks to Charisma White of the Safety Net Activists about her work in homelessness advocacy and her past experiences looking for housing with a Section 8 voucher.

A rally outside City Hall in 2023 calling for an end to family homelessness. (Gerardo Romo / NYC Council Media Unit)

Charisma White grew up around activists and advocates. Her mother was an artist who attended Medgar Evers College and was deeply involved in community advocacy in Brooklyn, work that gave White the opportunity to meet prominent civil rights activists like Betty Shabazz and Coretta Scott King.

“I was always involved in protesting,” White said this week on the latest episode of the “Hear Our Voices” podcast, which shares stories, resources and information about family homelessness in New York City (the podcast is produced by the Family Homelessness Coalition, whose members include Citizens’ Committee for Children, a City Limits funder).

But it wasn’t until her own experiences with homelessness that she “fully stepped into the role” of activist herself, she said.

“I wanted to find out…where are the resources?” White told podcast host Kadisha Davis. “Where does the money and funding that comes down from the government to go into the resources, how is it getting there? Where is it going? What stops does it make along the way? Does it actually get to the community?”

White has worked as an advocate with Urban Pathways, the New York City Continuum of Consumer Care and the Safety Net Activists, an organizing group that’s part of the Urban Justice Center’s Safety Net Project. “The number one thing is we have to stick together as a people, right? If we don’t stick together, we won’t make it anywhere,” she said of that work.

You can listen to the conversation below—the first in a two-part interview—in which White also describes her experiences as Section 8 tenant, and the frustration of trying to find an apartment with rental voucher in New York City.

“For five years with my voucher in hand, I could not find housing, and I didn’t really think it was the issue of the voucher,” she told Davis. “It was more of the issue of agencies’ non-communication with each other, landlords and realtors discriminating against the voucher.”

To reach the editor, contact Jeanmarie@citylimits.org

The post Hear Our Voices Podcast: ‘If We Don’t Stick Together, We Won’t Make It’ appeared first on City Limits.

The mayor of Venice on Thursday condemned a reported attack over the weekend on an American Orthodox Jewish couple by assailants who shouted “Free Palestine” as a “serious and unacceptable act.”

Italian news agency AGI said three assailants, believed to be of North African origin, were apprehended.

Venice is home to what is widely considered the oldest Jewish Ghetto in Europe. The lagoon city “is and must continue to be an open, welcoming, and safe city, where mutual respect is the foundation of civil coexistence,” Mayor Luigi Brugnaro said in a statement Thursday.

He praised law enforcement agencies for having quickly intervened to identify those responsible, with the help of video surveillance cameras.

The Jewish Community of Venice said in a statement that the attack was just the latest antisemitic act it has registered. It condemned it as a “cowardly and despicable act,” and warned that it called into question Venice’s tradition as a welcoming city.

By MICHAEL R. SISAK and LARRY NEUMEISTER, Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) — The wife of former U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez is being sentenced for her conviction for selling her husband’s influence for bribes of cash and gold bars.

Nadine Menendez, 58, could get as little as a year in prison or multiple years behind bars after she was convicted of colluding with her husband, the former Democratic chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, in a variety of corrupt schemes, some involving assisting the Egyptian government.

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Soon after the hearing began Thursday, Judge Sidney H. Stein said he planned to sentence her to a prison term “substantially below” the federal sentencing guideline range of roughly 20 years. The Probation Department had recommended an eight-year prison term.

Prosecutors say she played a large and crucial role in her husband’s crimes, serving as an intermediary between the senator and three New Jersey businessmen who literally lined his coat pockets with tens of thousands of dollars in cash in return for favors he could deliver with his political clout.

Prosecutors have requested that she spend at least seven years in prison.

Her lawyers have sought leniency, saying she shouldn’t spend more than a year in prison after a life of good deeds and recent health problems.

During a 2022 FBI raid on the couple’s New Jersey home, investigators found $480,000 in cash, gold bars worth an estimated $150,000 and a luxury convertible in the garage.

Bob Menendez, 71, is serving an 11-year sentence after his conviction last year on charges of taking bribes, extortion, and acting as an agent of the Egyptian government.

Prosecutors said that, among his other corrupt acts, the senator met with Egyptian intelligence officials and speeded that country’s access to U.S. military aid as part of a complex effort to help his bribe-paying associates, one of whom had business dealings with the Egyptian government.

Nadine Menendez was tried separately because she was diagnosed with breast cancer shortly before she was to go to trial. She was convicted in April.