PHOENIX — The Gophers will be shorthanded at receiver and cornerback for the Rate Bowl against New Mexico at Chase Field on Friday.

Senior wideout Le’Meke Brockington, who led Minnesota with 46 receptions and 484 yards, has opted out in preparations for the NFL draft in April. He is the only clear Gopher to forgo a chance to play in the bowl game.

A year ago, the Gophers had six players opt out of the Duke’s Mayo Bowl win over Virginia Tech in Charlotte.

This year Minnesota unfolded a clause in players’ revenue sharing contracts with a payment for being on the active roster for the bowl game. That could be helping keep some of the roster intact.

Besides Brockington, Minnesota has had five receivers announce intent to enter the transfer portal over the next month. With the portal opening in less than a week, Jan. 2,  most of them are not with the team in Arizona.

No. 2 and 3 wideouts, Javon Tracy and Jalen Smith, are active, with Bradley Martino, Logan Loya and Donielle Hayes contenders to get more time. Safety Koi Perich is a candidate to play more both ways; the sophomore had three receptions for 55 yards and three rushes for 11 yards this season.

In the secondary, cornerbacks Za’Quan Bryan and Jai’Onte’ McMillan were listed as out on the Gophers’ unavailability report issued two hours before kickoff.

Without Bryan in the Wisconsin game on Nov. 29, safety Aidan Gousby played corner in the 17-7 win over the Badgers. Against the Lobos, Gousby and Mike Gerald are candidates to play opposite John Nestor.

The Gophers had a total of 16 players listed as out: running back A.J. Turner (out for season; knee), defensive tackle Mo Omonode (season; back), linebacker Joey Gerlach (season; knee) and defensive tackle Theorin Randle (foot).

Minnesota is also without third and fourth-string quarterbacks Dylan Wittke and Emmett Morehead. With Jackson Kollock going into the portal, the third string QB is unknown behind starter Drake Lindsey and Max Shikenjanski.

The Gophers were also without offensive lineman Kahlee Tafai and Aluma Nkele; defnesive backs Simon Seidlnand Evan Redding; linebacker Drew Wilson; kicker Sam Henson; defensive tackle Sam Macy.

Minnesota listed safety Garrison Monroe and offensive lineman Daniel Shipp as questionable.

By MICHAEL R. SISAK and LARRY NEUMEISTER, Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) — Two sisters testified at Harvey Weinstein’s most recent criminal trial. Kaja Sokola accused the disgraced movie mogul of sexual assault. Ewa Sokola was called as a witness to boost her claims, but ultimately ended up helping the defense.

Now, Ewa Sokola is suing Kaja for defamation, alleging in a lawsuit filed Tuesday in Manhattan federal court that the psychotherapist and ex-model’s public remarks amount to libel and are damaging Ewa’s reputation and business as a cardiologist in Poland.

Ewa Sokola says that her younger sister has made false statements subjecting her to public hatred, shame, contempt, ridicule, ostracism and disgrace in Wrocław, Poland. She seeks unspecified damages.

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Messages seeking comment were left for Kaja Sokola’s lawyers and spokesperson on Thursday and Friday.

In a split verdict in June, Weinstein was convicted of forcibly performing oral sex on film and television production assistant and producer Miriam Haley and acquitted on a charge involving Kaja Sokola’s allegations of similar conduct. Both women said they were assaulted in 2006.

The judge declared a mistrial on the final charge, alleging Weinstein raped former actor Jessica Mann, after the jury foreperson declined to deliberate further.

Weinstein has not yet been sentenced as a judge weighs a defense request to throw out the verdict after two jurors told Weinstein’s lawyers that other jurors had bullied them into convicting him. Judge Curtis Farber is expected to rule on Jan. 8.

Kaja Sokola has said her sister’s testimony at Weinstein’s state court trial in New York earlier this year undermined her own testimony that he forced oral sex at a Manhattan hotel just before her 20th birthday.

Weinstein had arranged for Kaja Sokola to be an extra for a day in the film “The Nanny Diaries,” and separately agreed to meet her and Ewa. After they chatted, she testified, Weinstein told her he had a script to show her in his hotel room, and she went up with him. There, she said, Weinstein pushed her onto a bed and assaulted her.

After the trial, Kaja Sokola criticized her sister’s testimony, saying that though she was called as a prosecution witness, she ended up serving Weinstein’s cause by providing his lawyers with a journal in which she wrote about the men who had sexually assaulted her in her life but did not include Weinstein.

According to the lawsuit, Kaja Sokola repeatedly characterized her sister’s testimony as a personal “betrayal” and falsely accused her of omitting journals in which she described what happened with Weinstein.

The lawsuit also said Kaja Sokola had falsely accused Ewa Sokola of homicide, theft, falsification of medical records, sexual impropriety and immoral conduct, and of colluding with Weinstein’s defense team.

The lawsuit said Kaja Sokola’s false claims have cost Ewa Sokola referrals and led to a reduction in patients and employees for her medical practice while damaging her professional reputation and her standing within the medical community.

The moment will forever live in infamy for every scorned Vikings fan still seeking that elusive Lombardi Trophy.

On Dec. 28, 1975, the Vikings led the Dallas Cowboys in the final minute of a Divisional Round playoff game. That’s when Cowboys quarterback Roger Staubach dropped back to pass and launched a ball to the heavens.

As it plummeted back down to earth, Cowboys receiver Drew Pearson gave what some believe was a subtle shove to the back of Vikings cornerback Nate Wright, providing himself the separation necessary to catch a touchdown pass that proved to be the difference.

Asked about the play afterwards, Staubach said, “I closed my eyes and said a Hail Mary.”

That birthed the term still used today to succinctly describe a desperation heave.

It’s been 50 years since the Hail Mary, and while it’s long been the subject of much debate, yes, the Vikings still think the Cowboys pushed off.

The Pioneer Press tracked down some important figures from the sequence to get their perspective.

As the person at the epicenter of the controversy, Wright, 78, can still relay the particulars of the play with clarity.

“He was running a go route,” Wright said. “I was running with him. I saw the flight of the ball and I was going to try to take it at the highest point. As I began to jump, I found myself on the ground.”

Those words speak for themselves as far as Wright is concerned. He had jumped in the air many times throughout his rise up the ranks. He knows he wouldn’t have immediately ended up on the ground unless somebody helped him get there.

“It happened so fast,” Wright said. “I was in shock.”

As he laid hopelessly on the natural grass at the old Metropolitan Stadium — frankly, it more like natural dirt — he remembers seeing something fly by out of the corner of his eye. He hoped it was the official stepping in to make the right call. It was actually an orange that somebody had thrown from the stands.

“I thought it was a flag,” Wright said. “Obviously, it wasn’t a flag.”

Vikings tight end Stu Voigt, 77, still stands by his original assessment that he gathered from the sideline.

“My stance is the same as everybody else,” Voigt said with a laugh. “That it was a push off.”

He quickly followed up with a fact that supersedes opinion.

“It doesn’t really matter what we think,” Voigt said. “It still goes down as a loss for us.”

In a recent article published by ESPN, Vikings safety Paul Krause, 83, noted divine intervention had nothing to do with the Hail Mary, saying, “They just pushed off and they won the game.” He added that it still makes his blood boil 50 years later, even if some of his former teammates have decided to let bygones be bygones.

“It wears on me,” Krause told ESPN. “It was so wrong. I don’t want to come to peace with it. It took a championship away from us.”

That’s the hardest part for many people to stomach.

On a legendary run through the 1970s that included a few trips to the Super Bowl, the group that the Vikings put together in 1975 might have been the best of the bunch. Not only did Vikings quarterback Fran Tarkenton win MVP, the Purple People Eaters were still very much at the peak of their powers.

If the Vikings beat the Cowboys, maybe would’ve gone on to beat the Los Angeles Rams to advance to the Super Bowl. If the Vikings beat the Rams, maybe they would’ve gone on to be the Pittsburgh Steelers to win the Super Bowl.

That’s why the Hail Mary was so damaging in hindsight.

“It wasn’t a play from heaven for us,” Voigt said. “It was more like a play from hell.”

As he reflected on the Hail Mary almost exactly 50 years later, Vikings cornerback Bobby Bryant, 81, noted that it’s a shame Wright has been defined by that play despite the fact that his career was so much more than that.

“I felt really bad for him, because he was such a good player,” Bryant said. “To have a play like that go against him was really unfortunate. He was as good as they come. He just did his job and did it very well.”

Asked if he still thinks about the Hail Mary, Bryant couldn’t help but laugh.

“No, I haven’t thought about it since the last time we talked,” Bryant said. “I don’t think about it at all. I doubt Nate thinks about it, either. This life is way too short for us to be dwelling on stuff like that.”

Wright now lives in a retirement community on the outskirts of Tucson, Ariz. He’s taken a liking to collecting antiques in his spare time and made it very clear that he doesn’t think about the Hail Mary.

“I’ve moved on from it,” Wright said. “You learn to block stuff out as a cornerback so that’s kind of been the way I’ve handled it.”

He paused for a few seconds before acknowledging irony of that statement while on the phone talking about the play he’s been intentional about leaving in the past.

“It still lingers on,” Wright said. “That’s what I’m remembered as. I’m the guy in the Hail Mary that ended up on the ground. That’s the way it goes.”

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By WYATTE GRANTHAM-PHILIPS and PAUL WISEMAN, Associated Press

Since returning to the White House in January, President Donald Trump has overturned decades of U.S. trade policy — building a wall of tariffs around what used to be a wide open economy.

His double-digit taxes on imports from almost every country have disrupted global commerce and strained the budgets of consumers and businesses worldwide. They have also raised tens of billions of dollars for the U.S. Treasury.

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Trump has argued that his steep new import taxes are necessary to bring back wealth that was “stolen” from the U.S. He says they will narrow America’s decades-old trade deficit and bring manufacturing back to the country. But upending the global supply chain has proven costly for households facing rising prices. And the erratic way the president rolled out his tariffs — announcing them, then suspending or altering them before conjuring up new ones — made 2025 one of the most turbulent economic years in recent memory.

Here’s a look at the impact of Trump’s tariffs over the last year, in four charts.

Effective US tariff rate

A key number for the overall impact of tariffs on U.S. consumers and businesses is the “effective” tariff rate — which, unlike headline figures imposed by Trump for specific trade actions, provides an average based on the actual imports coming into the country.

In 2025, per data from the Yale Budget Lab, the effective U.S. tariff rate peaked in April. But it’s still far higher than the average seen at the start of the year. Before finalizing shifts in consumption, November’s effective tariff rate was nearly 17% — seven times greater than January’s average and the highest seen since 1935.

Tariff revenue vs America’s trade deficit

Among selling points to justify his tariffs, Trump has repeatedly said they would reduce America’s longstanding trade deficit and bring revenue into the Treasury.

Trump’s higher tariffs are certainly raising money. They’ve raked in more than $236 billion this year through November — much more than in years past. But they still account for just a fraction of the federal government’s total revenue. And they haven’t raised nearly enough to justify the president’s claim that tariff revenue could replace federal income taxes — or allow for windfall dividend checks for Americans.

The U.S. trade deficit, meanwhile, has fallen significantly since the start of the year. The trade gap peaked to a monthly record of $136.4 billion in March, as consumers and businesses hurried to import foreign products before Trump could impose his tariffs on them. The trade gap narrowed to $52.8 billion in September, the latest month for which data is available. But the year-to-date deficit was still running 17% ahead of January-September 2024.

Import shifts with America’s biggest trading partners

Trump’s 2025 tariffs hit nearly every country in the world — including America’s biggest trading partners. But his policies have had the biggest impact on U.S. trade with China, once the biggest source of American imports and now No. 3 behind Canada and Mexico. U.S. tariffs on Chinese imports now come to 47.5%, according to calculations by Chad Bown of the Peterson Institute for International Economics.

The value of goods coming into the U.S. from China fell nearly 25% during the first three-quarters of the year. Imports from Canada also dropped. But the value of products from Mexico, Vietnam and Taiwan grew year-to-date.

Market swings

For investors, the most volatile moments on the stock market this year arrived amid some of the most volatile moments for Trump’s tariffs.

The S&P 500, an index for the biggest public companies in the U.S., saw its biggest daily and weekly swings in April — and largest monthly losses and gains in March and June, respectively.

Need a recap of how Trump’s trade actions unfolded in 2025? See a timeline here.