Darnold, Vikings face Bears, looking to extend win streak to 4 games

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Darnold, Vikings face Bears, looking to extend win streak to 4 games

2024-11-22 03:59 Last Updated At：04:00

Minnesota (8-2) at Chicago (4-6)

Sunday, 1 p.m. EST, FOX

BetMGM NFL odds: Vikings by 4 1/2.

Against the spread: Vikings 7-3; Bears 5-4-1

Series record: Vikings lead 66-58-2

Last meeting: Bears beat Vikings 12-10 in Minneapolis on Nov. 27, 2023.

Last week: Vikings won 23-13 at Tennessee; Bears lost 20-19 to Green Bay.

Vikings offense: overall (15), rush (19), pass (13), scoring (10).

Vikings defense: overall (10), rush (1), pass (28), scoring (4).

Bears offense: overall (29), rush (22), pass (30), scoring (22).

Bears defense: overall (14), rush (23), pass (9), scoring (7).

Turnover differential: Vikings plus-4; Bears plus-9.

RT Brian O’Neill. The seventh-year veteran has allowed only one sack this season, according to Pro Football Focus analysis, and has not been responsible for any QB pressures over the past three games.

QB Caleb Williams. The No. 1 overall draft pick looked more comfortable against Green Bay in the first game with Thomas Brown as offensive coordinator after Shane Waldron was fired. Coming off three rough games in a row, Williams completed 23 of 31 passes for 231 yards. He also ran for a career-high 70 yards.

Bears offensive line vs. Vikings pass rush. The Vikings had five sacks against the Titans, none of which came on a blitz. Edge rushers Andrew Van Ginkel, Jonathan Greenard and Patrick Jones have combined for 22 sacks, putting the Vikings on pace to have three players with double-digit sack totals in one season for the first time since 1989. The Vikings as a team are tied for third in the NFL with 35 sacks, and Williams has been sacked a league-leading 41 times.

Vikings TE Josh Oliver, one of the team’s best run blockers, sprained his ankle against the Titans, leaving his status for this week uncertain. ... The Bears could be without RB D’Andre Swift (groin), who missed practice Wednesday. ... LG Teven Jenkins (ankle) did not play against Green Bay after leaving a Week 10 loss to New England. ... LG Ryan Bates (concussion) left last week's game. ... S Elijah Hicks (ankle) was hurt against Green Bay.

Minnesota won five in a row and six of seven against Chicago before losing at home on a Monday night in Week 12 last season. Cairo Santos kicked four field goals, including a 30-yarder in the closing seconds, and the Bears intercepted Joshua Dobbs four times.

The Vikings have won three straight and trail first-place Detroit by a game in the NFC North. ... This is the first of two meetings in a four-week span. The teams also have a Monday night matchup on Dec. 16 at Minnesota. ... The Vikings are 24-2 under coach Kevin O’Connell in games with a plus or even turnover margin. … Vikings WR Justin Jefferson last week set the NFL record for most receiving yards (6,811) over a player’s first five seasons, passing Torry Holt (6,784) with still seven games to go. … Vikings QB Sam Darnold already has career highs in wins (eight) and TD passes (19) and is on pace for career bests in passer rating (100.0), yards per game (238.7) and completion rate (67.9 percent). … Van Ginkel and Jones have set career highs in sacks. … The Vikings are first in the NFL in interceptions (16), with already five more than their 2023 season total. Eight different players have at least one interception. ... The Bears have dropped four in a row, losing last week when Karl Brooks blocked Santos' 46-yarder as time expired. ... Chicago is 5-17 in one-possession games under coach Matt Eberflus, who is 14-30 in 2 1/2 seasons. ... The Bears had 391 yards against Green Bay and dominated time of possession 36:21-23:39 after struggling in recent weeks. ... Chicago’s defense leads the NFL in red zone touchdown efficiency at 40.6%, allowing 13 TDs on 32 trips inside the 20. ... The Bears have gone three straight games without committing a turnover. ... Swift leads the NFL with three touchdown runs of 35-plus yards, including a 39-yarder against Green Bay. ... LB Tremaine Edmunds (26 years, 206 days old) is set to become the youngest player in NFL history to appear in 100 games. ... Santos has seven field goals of 50 yards or more, tying his franchise record set last season.

Jefferson has put up big numbers against Chicago, with 585 yards and two touchdowns in six games. He missed the two meetings last season because of a strained hamstring.

AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/NFL

A draft deal on climate money for developing world is silent on how much as UN summit nears end

2024-11-22 03:57 Last Updated At：04:00

BAKU, Azerbaijan (AP) — Countries of the world took turns rejecting a new but vague draft text released early Thursday which attempts to form the spine of any deal reached at United Nations climate talks on money for developing countries to transition to clean energy and adapt to climate change.

The draft left out a crucial sticking point: how much wealthy nations will pay poor countries. A key option for the lowest amount donors are willing to pay was just a placeholder “X.” Part of that is because rich nations have yet to make an offer in negotiations.

So the host Azerbaijan presidency managed to unite a fractured world on climate change, but only in their distaste for the plan. Negotiators at the talks — known as COP29 — in Baku are trying to close the gap between the $1.3 trillion the developing world says is needed in climate finance and the few hundred billion that negotiators say richer nations have been prepared to give.

Independent experts say that at least $1 trillion is needed in finance to help transition away from planet-warming fossil fuels and toward clean energy like solar and wind, better adapt to the effects of climate change and pay for losses and damages caused by extreme weather.

Colombia's environment minister Susana Mohamed said without a figure offered by developed nations, “we are negotiating on nothing.”

Panama's Juan Carlos Monterrey Gomez said the “lack of commitment transparency feels like a slap in the face to the most vulnerable."

"It is just utter disrespect to those countries that are bearing the brunt of this crisis,” he said. “Developed countries must stop playing games with our life and put a serious quantified financial proposal on the table.”

Gomez listed places where negotiators worked on the issue: South Africa, Germany, the Philippines, Egypt, Austria, Switzerland, Dubai, Colombia and a few times here in Baku, asking “For God’s sakes, what’s the next stop? Mars? Do we need to go to outer space to get a quantitative number from our developed countries to be able to start negotiating here?”

Esa Ainuu, from the small Pacific island of Niue also blasted the lack of a number in the draft deal.

“For us in the Pacific, this is critical for us,” Ainuu said. “We can’t escape to the desert. We can’t escape somewhere else. This is reality for us. If finance is not bringing any positive, (then) why’re we coming to COP?”

Mohamed Adow, director of the think tank Power Shift Africa, also expressed disappointment at the lack of a figure. “We need a cheque but all we have right now is a blank piece of paper,” he said.

Iskander Erzini Vernoit, director of Moroccan climate think-tank Imal Initiative for Climate and Development, said he was “at a loss for words at how disappointed we are at this stage to have come this far without serious numbers on the table and serious engagement from the developed countries.”

Even United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said, “I don’t think you can go on and on and on without clarifying the key aspects of the negotiation.”

Lead negotiator Yalchin Rafiyev emphasized how balanced the plan was, but all sides kept saying it was anything but balanced and pointed time was running out.

“We would like to correct the balance. It is completely tilted,” Pakistan delegate Romina Khurshid Alam said.

The European Union’s climate envoy Wopke Hoekstra called the draft “imbalanced, unworkable, and not acceptable.”

And Xia Yingxian, a member of China delegation, also said the current draft text contains many “unsatisfied and unacceptable” parts.

In a statement, the COP29 Presidency stressed that the drafts “are not final.”

“The COP29 Presidency’s door is always open, and we welcome any bridging proposals that the parties wish to present,” the Presidency said in a statement. It added that possible numbers for a finance goal will be in the next draft on Friday.

COP29 President Mukhtar Babayev convened the Qurultay — a traditional Azerbaijani meeting — where negotiators spoke to hear all sides and hammer out a compromise. He said that “after hearing all views, we will outline a way forward regarding future iterations.”

Other areas that are being negotiated include commitments to slash planet-warming fossil fuels and how to adapt to climate change. But they’ve seen little movement.

European nations and the United States criticized the package of proposals for not being strong enough in reiterating last year’s call for a transition away from fossil fuels.

“The current text offers no progress” on efforts to cut the world’s emissions of heat-trapping gases, said Germany delegation chief Jennifer Morgan. “This cannot and must not be our response to the suffering of millions of people around the world. We must do better.”

U.S. climate envoy John Podesta said he was surprised that “there is nothing that carries forward the ... outcomes that we agreed on last year in Dubai.” The United States, the world’s biggest historic emitter of greenhouse gases, has played little role in the talks as it braces for another presidency under Donald Trump.

But members of the Beyond Oil and Gas Alliance such as Colombia, Ireland and Denmark, who are pushing for an end of fossil fuels, said the lack of wording on transitioning away from fossil fuels is not a deal killer for them.

Days earlier, the 20 largest economies met in Brazil and didn't mention the call for transitioning away from fossil fuels. Guterres, who was at that meeting, said official language is one thing, but reality is another.

“There will be no way” the world can limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius "if there is not a phase out of fossil fuels,” Guterres said at a Thursday news conference.

Also on Thursday, the EU, Mexico, Norway and several other countries announced they would release plans to rapidly cut emissions over the next decade to meet the landmark Paris agreement’s goal of restraining global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial times, although they did not detail how those cuts would happen.

Under the agreement, countries need to detail their voluntary plans for reducing greenhouse gas emissions by early next year.

“There is a real risk of falling short,” said Tore Sandvik, Norway’s minister of climate and environment. “We must reinforce the message that the Paris agreement is functioning as intended.”

Associated Press journalists Ahmed Hatem and Olivia Zhang contributed to this report.

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