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While working as a flight attendant, T.J. Newman got the idea for her first thriller after asking pilots to describe the scary thoughts that kept them awake at night.

Her first book, “Falling,” which famously was partially written on cocktail napkins while working long-haul flights, is the story of a pilot faced with an impossible choice from terrorists: Either crash the jet or the pilot’s family will be murdered.

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Her third thriller, “Worst Case Scenario,” which is out this month, was inspired by a pilot who told her his biggest fear was a commercial jet crashing into a nuclear power plant.

“It planted the seed,” Newman says from her Phoenix home as she packed for the red-eye flight that would launch her 17-day book tour. “I kind of tucked that away as a note to self: Circle back to that later.

“When I was thinking about what I wanted to write my third book about, I remember that interaction,” she says. “I started just Googling, doing some preliminary research just to see if there was anything there, if there was any validity to his fears.

“And it did not take long for me to realize there was a lot of validity to his fears,” Newman says. “The research terrified me, and it became very quickly apparent that what became the premise of the book is completely plausible.”

In “Worst Case Scenario,” a jumbo jet crashes into a nuclear plant near the small town of Waketa, Minnesota. It’s bad – all of nearly 300 people on board die on impact – but the reactors aren’t breeched so initially the plant seems to have survived the worst of it.

Then cracks and leaks are spotted in the pool where spent fuel rods are stored, and suddenly the entire Mississippi Valley faces a nuclear threat that could render it unlivable for generations to come.

With her second book, “Drowning: The Rescue of Flight 1421,” Newman struggled to figure out the circumstances under which a flight might land on open water, ultimately sink with passengers and crew still alive, and then be rescued.

“It wasn’t as difficult this time,” she says. “There are a lot of vulnerabilities in a nuclear power plant that I just wasn’t aware of, and it really shocked me.”

In an interview edited for length and clarity, Newman talked about why she worried about taking the action out of the plane and onto land in this book, how adapting her debut “Falling” as a screenplay helped her write “Worst Case Scenario,” and why she sometimes cries as she’s writing her books.

Q: Are there any nuclear reactors near you in Arizona?

A: Yeah, the largest power plant in the whole country is less than an hour from my front door. Which is real reassuring when I realized, as I was doing all this research, it’s practically in my backyard. They’re in all our backyards. I think there are 94 in the country and if something happens at one of them I don’t think the average person would know what they’re supposed to do.

Q: I always assumed they’re so encased in concrete and steel that it would all be kept inside. You show something else here.

A: That’s exactly what I thought, too. I thought, ‘Well, come on, we all have studied the prior accidents like Chernobyl and Fukushima. We know that the containment is 10-foot-wide concrete walls. But what I did not know, and I don’t think most people know, is that some of the most dangerous materials are stored outside of containment in really not fortified structures.

Q: Your first two books take place almost entirely inside planes. Here, the plane crashes and it’s done. What was it like moving onto land this time?

A: It was intimidating, to tell you the truth, for two reasons. One, my first two books take place either entirely on a plane or over the course of one flight. This, it’s no spoiler to say, by the end of the fifth page the plane has crashed and the rest of the time we’re in this small town. As a writer, it was daunting. Like, can I do this? If I expand it out bigger than just one set of passengers and one crew, can I still do this?

And two, it was nerve-wracking because I wondered if the readers would go along for the ride or am I just, you know, known as the flight attendant who writes aviation thrillers. What if I step outside of that? Will the readers want to go with me?

So far the reaction has been overwhelmingly positive, and it seems like the readers are along for the ride. It was interesting, too. When I started writing this small town, I realized it feels like a crew and still feels like the passengers on the plane, in that they’re an isolated community themselves. They’re under-resourced, out-manned. Help isn’t coming. It was up to them to solve the problems.

Q: Was there a moment in the writing where you thought, OK, this is going to work?

A: Do other writers have that confidence in the writing process? That sounds pretty foreign to me. I feel like that point didn’t come until the book was printed. The first couple of readers came back and said, ‘Hey, this is a book!’ Like, that’s when I think I accepted, ‘All right, maybe this is working.’

Q: Are there things you learned writing your first two books that helped you here?

A: I feel like every day I sit down to write a new story is reinventing myself. And the education from the first book to the second book to the third book has been nothing short of total. I’m adapting the screenplay for ‘Falling’ and that process really, really changed, in a positive way, my novel writing. That education of taking a story that I thought I knew backwards, that took me nearly 40 drafts to get to the final product.

I thought I knew every way that you could tell that story, and to realize that there’s so much more there, and the task of taking a 300-page book and compressing it into a 100-page script? It forces you to have this relentless editor on your shoulder that’s just honing the focus constantly. And it changed the way I wrote ‘Worst Case Scenario.’ It is lean. I trimmed as much fat as I possibly could off of that and I think that is a result of adapting ‘Falling.’

Q: I want to ask you about building characters, because in addition to the action, you’ve created people who we care about here.

A: I’m thrilled to hear you did care what happened with the characters. That’s always the challenge with writing stories like I write. They’re action thrillers, but explosions and car chases and plane crashes, that’s not going to sustain a reader for 300 pages. It has to be about something more. It has to be about heart, it has to be about the people.

I find that I typically start with plot before character. I start with what is happening in this story, and once I know what’s going to happen I can sort of reverse engineer. Who would be the person you would want in that position? Or who would be the worst person to have in that position?

Q: In your genre, you have to kill off some people. Is that purely a writing thing for you or do you feel bad killing off people that you’ve gotten to know over the drafts of writing?

A: I wish you knew how many boxes of Kleenex I go through when I write, especially with this one. This one put me through the wringer. This was emotionally the hardest book for me to write. And, no spoilers, but I’m not always happy with how things end up for characters. It breaks my heart. I grieve, I mourn them.

But what does the story need? It’s not about what I want or it’s not even about what the reader wants. It’s what the story needs, and that is what determines who makes it or not.

Q: What’s the status of the first two books in development in Hollywood?

A: ‘Falling’ is with Universal Pictures, ‘Drowning’ is with with Warner Brothers. Like we said, I’m doing the adaptation for ‘Falling, which is just wild and such a rare privilege for an author to be able to adapt their own work. ‘Drowning,’ the update there is Paul Greengrass is directing ‘Drowning.’ He did ‘Captain Phillips,’ ‘United 93,’ ‘Bourne Supremacy.’

Steve Kloves, who is most know for ‘Harry Potter’ (is adapting). Which, having a man who took one of the most globally cherished franchises of all-time and adapted those books into a set of movies that are loved worldwide, I feel like my book couldn’t be in better hands.

Q: You’re going to fly a lot on this book tour. As a former flight attendant, do you have a preferred place to sit on a plane?

A: The hardest thing is to not want to get up and work. It’s still weird to me. When the cart goes by, I feel like I should be up, prepping in the back and running orders. I’m like, ‘Should I do a trash run?’ It’s weird to me still to be just sitting and being served a drink instead of serving them.

But you know, I’m a window-seat girl. I’ll always take the window. I like the view and like to daydream and come up with good stories.

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“The Perfect Couple” on Netflix is the television equivalent of a beach read. That’s not derogatory. The six-episode series may be trash, but it’s high-toned trash, which provides all kinds of terrific pleasures when done well. As a prestige corker, it exists in an adjacent thematic neighborhood to HBO’s “Big Little Lies” with many of the same selling points: A murder mystery, an upscale coastal setting, Nicole Kidman.

Adapted from the 2018 novel by Elin Hilderbrand, the plot kicks off at a Nantucket wedding hosted by the groom’s wealthy parents, played by Kidman and Liev Schreiber. Everything is elegant and photo-ready at the Winbury family’s waterfront estate. Then a dead body turns up in the water. The nuptials are postponed and the police bring in each person, one by one — guests, employees, members of the family — for questioning. How inconvenient for the Winburys, who are all about their gleaming facade, no matter how fake. This is a family that occasionally asks their nearest and dearest to sign NDAs, so their obsession with appearances and obfuscation complicates the investigation.

Kidman is at the top of her game here as a regal, glorious snob who is unflappable, but wound so tight she just might snap. She’s a famous writer of murder mysteries (ironic!) and she’s the one who makes this lifestyle possible. Her husband comes from family money that has since evaporated, so it’s her sizable income that’s paying the bills. (It’s unclear if anyone else in the family actually works.) The pressure to keep up appearances isn’t just about social class, but about maintaining their carefully crafted personas — the perfect couple of the title — that has been so lucrative for her as an author. Schreiber, with his perpetual stubble and sun-kissed complexion, embodies a guy who is both sexy and unbothered. Perpetually on vacation, he’s content to smoke pot all day and be everyone’s object of desire.

They have three sons — too dull to name or describe — and the dysfunctions of the family become the central drama. Dakota Fanning plays a mean girl who is deeply unhappy beneath it all — of course she is, she’s married to a dud waiting to cash in on his Winbury trust fund. Meghann Fahy is the maid of honor, and her performance is not unlike her turn on “The White Lotus” — sunny but hiding many secrets. That’s no insult to Fahy, she’s extremely good, but here’s hoping she doesn’t get typecast, she seems too talented for that. Eve Hewson plays the bride, who isn’t embraced by the family so much as tolerated and she brings a reluctant energy to the proceedings. Is this really all it’s cracked up to be? She’s down-to-earth and has modest origins that are a world away from this “stratospherically high rent district,” as the enclave of second (or third or fourth) homes is described in the novel.

The show has streamlined and tweaked the book, which means many of Hilderbrand’s droll observations about wealth have been excised (one of the Winbury’s cars, as seen through the eyes of the bride’s mother, “looks exactly like what people drive in across savannas of Africa on the Travel Channel”).

Changes are part and parcel of adaptation, and expected. But Netflix is treating the identity of the drowned person as a spoiler initially — first we must meet all the players at the rehearsal dinner on the beach before we find out which one turns up dead — whereas the book lays out this information from the start. The mystery of who has been killed, which we learn soon enough anyway, is so much less interesting than the how and why and whodunit of it all. I say all this to suggest that perhaps we (and by we, I mean producers and media executives) have put too much stock in the power of spoilers when, really, good storytelling is enough.

“The Perfect Couple” needn’t have worried. Entertainingly absorbing and beautiful to look at, the show (created by Jenna Lamia and directed by Susanne Bier) has “general audience” written all over it and is a great example of what the genre can be when it’s handled with skill and wit. It’s more or less an Agatha Christie manor house mystery given an American sensibility, and the resolution, which is just one of the many ways the Netflix series diverges from the book, is a massive improvement from the source material.

There is no primarily point-of-view character but Hewson’s bride might be the most vital; she’s underwritten (that’s an issue with most of the lineup here), but her growing suspicion of the family she plans to marry into prevents the show from becoming yet another exercise in wealthaganda. Her distrust is the necessary splash of cold water on the show’s aspirational trappings — she’s an outsider who sees how empty this all is, and has no problem voicing her concerns. She’s not just another hanger-on hoping to benefit from their largess and it’s the essential perspective usually missing in these kinds of shows.

“The Perfect Couple” — 3.5 stars (out of 4)

Where to watch: Netflix

Nina Metz is a Tribune critic.

Today is Friday, Sept. 6, the 250th day of 2024. There are 116 days left in the year.

Today in history:

On Sept. 6, 1997, a public funeral was held for Princess Diana at Westminster Abbey in London, six days after her death in a car crash in Paris.

Also on this date:

In 1901, President William McKinley was shot and mortally wounded by anarchist Leon Czolgosz (CHAWL’-gawsh) at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York. (McKinley died eight days later and was succeeded by his vice president, Theodore Roosevelt.)

In 1949, Howard Unruh, a resident of Camden, New Jersey, shot and killed 13 of his neighbors. (Unruh, who was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, was incarcerated for 60 years until his death in 2009.)

In 1972, the Summer Olympics resumed in Munich, West Germany, a day after the deadly hostage crisis that left eleven Israelis, five Arab abductors and a West German police officer dead.

In 1975, 18-year-old tennis star Martina Navratilova of Czechoslovakia, in New York for the U.S. Open, requested political asylum in the United States.

In 1995, Baltimore Oriole Cal Ripken Jr. played in his 2,131st consecutive game, breaking Lou Gehrig’s 56 year-old MLB record; Ripken’s streak would ultimately reach a still-record 2,632 games.

In 2006, President George W. Bush acknowledged for the first time that the CIA was running secret prisons overseas and said “tough” interrogation techniques had forced terrorist leaders to reveal plots to attack the United States and its allies.

In 2018, the Supreme Court of India decriminalized consensual sex between adults, legalizing homosexuality in the country.

In 2022, Liz Truss began her tenure as U.K. prime minister; she would resign just 49 days later.

Today’s Birthdays:

• Comedian JoAnne Worley is 87.
• Cartoonist Sergio Aragonés is 87.
• Country singer-songwriter David Allan Coe is 85.
• Rock singer-musician Roger Waters (Pink Floyd) is 81.
• Comedian-actor Jane Curtin is 77.
• Actor-comedian Jeff Foxworthy is 66.
• Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is 62.
• Television journalist Elizabeth Vargas is 62.
• Country singer-songwriter Mark Chesnutt is 61.
• Actor Rosie Perez is 60.
• R&B singer Macy Gray is 57.
• Actor Idris Elba is 52.
• Actor Justina Machado is 52.
• Actor Anika Noni Rose is 52.
• Actor Naomie Harris is 48.
• Rapper Foxy Brown is 46.
• Actor/singer Deborah Joy Winans is 41.
• Actor-comedian Lauren Lapkus is 39.
• Actor Asher Angel is 22.

Youngstown flooring store going out of business ‘with a heavy heart.’ Here’s how soon  Mahoning Matters

MIAMI (AP) — Bryson Stott homered into the right-field upper deck, Kody Clemens drove in two runs and the NL East-leading Philadelphia Phillies beat the Miami Marlins 5-2 on Thursday night to extend their winning streak to five.

In the first game of a four-game series, the Phillies (84-56) opened an eight-game NL East lead with 22 games left.

Ranger Suárez (12-6) scattered three hits over five scoreless innings, leaving after 82 pitches. The left-hander walked two and struck out four and overcame a poor outing in his previous start, when he allowed four runs and five hits in four innings against Atlanta.

“That is why I work the four days before I take the mound again,” Suárez said. “I forget the bad outings and create something new to be better the next time.”

Phillies manager Rob Thomson said Suárez was on a 90-pitch limit and he didn’t want him to start the sixth to face one batter.

“I felt he was good right there,” Thomson said. “Probably go to 95 or 100 next time out. He did his job.”

Bryce Harper went 0 for 3 with a walk, a day after he was hit on the left elbow by a pitch at Toronto and left in the third inning.

Matt Strahm pitched a perfect ninth for his third save.

The game drew just 9,355, a day after a season-low 6,156 for a walk-off win over Washington.

Miami dropped to 10-40 in games against left-handed starters.

“He’s tough to figure out because he doesn’t fall into any patterns,” Marlins manager Skip Schumaker said of Suárez. “The velo doesn’t matter if you throw it where you want it, and he was throwing every pitch where he wanted tonight. So there was a lot of weak contact unfortunately. Just couldn’t get anything going.”

Adam Oller (1-2) gave up four runs, five hits and five walks in 5 1/3 innings.

Stott hit an RBI single in the first and hit his 11th homer to double the lead in the sixth. Clemens hit a two-run double against Anthony Veneziano and scored on a wild pitch that capped a four-run sixth.

“You’ve been hearing since you’re a kid that hitting is contagious,” Stott said. “We just wanted to keep the line moving and get on base for the next guy. The more people you have on base the more holes are open. It’s big when you have one of those innings for sure.”

Jesús Sánchez hit an RBI single off Max Lazar in the seventh, and Clemens’ throwing error on Otto Lopez’s eighth-inning grounder to third allowed Jake Burger to score.

Before the game, Phillies manager Rob Thomson said Seth Johnson, a 25-year-old right-hander, will be brought up from Triple-A Lehigh Valley to start Sunday in his major league debut. Johnson was the 40th overall pick by Toronto in the 2019 amateur draft, was traded to Baltimore in 2022 and was acquired by the Phillies on July 30 for left-hander Gregory Soto.

TRAINER’S ROOM

Phillies: 3B Alec Bohm (left hand strain) worked on defensive drills and was scheduled to take swings without pitches. The All Star has been sidelined since Aug. 26.

Marlins: Catcher Nick Fortes landed awkwardly on his left ankle when he legged out an infield single in the seventh. Fortes limped momentarily but remained in the game. … LHP Braxton Garrett (left forearm flexor strain) allowed two hits and struck out five over three scoreless innings in a rehab outing with Class A Jupiter on Thursday.

UP NEXT

Phillies RHP Zack Wheeler (13-6, 2.63) and Marlins RHP Edward Cabrera (3-6, 5.33) will start Friday.

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AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/mlb

By NICOLE WINFIELD and EDNA TARIGAN

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — Pope Francis wrapped up his visit to Indonesia on Friday after celebrating Mass before an overflow crowd of 100,000, a final celebration before heading to Papua New Guinea for the second leg of his 11-day journey through Southeast Asia and Oceania.

The 87-year-old pope had no official events Friday beyond a farewell ceremony and the six-hour flight to Port Moresby, giving him something of a break after a packed three-day program in Jakarta.

The visit culminated with a jubilant Mass on Thursday afternoon before a crowd that filled two sports stadiums and an overflowed into a parking lot.

“Don’t tire of dreaming and of building a civilization of peace,” Francis urged them in an ad-libbed homily. “Be builders of hope. Be builders of peace.”

The Vatican had originally expected the Mass would draw some 60,000 people, and organizers predicted 80,000. But the Vatican spokesman quoted local organizers as saying more than 100,000 had attended.

“i feel very lucky compared to other people who can’t come here or even had the intention to come here,” said Vienna Frances Florensius Basol, who came with her husband and a group of 40 people from Sabah, Malaysia but couldn’t get into the stadium.

“Even though we are outside with other Indonesians, seeing the screen, I think I am lucky enough,” she said from a parking lot, where a giant TV screen was erected for anyone who didn’t have tickets for the service.

While in Indonesia, Francis sought to encourage the country’s 8.9 million Catholics, who make up just 3% of the population of 275 million, while also seeking to boost interfaith ties with the country boasting the world’s largest Muslim population.

In the highlight of the visit, Francis and the grand imam of Jakarta’s Istiqlal Mosque, Southeast Asia’s largest, signed a joint declaration pledging to work to end religiously inspired violence and protect the environment.

In Papua New Guinea, Francis’ agenda is aligned with more of his social justice priorities. The poor, strategically important South Pacific nation is home to more than 10 million people, most of whom are subsistence farmers.

Francis will be travelling to remote Vanimo to check in on some Catholic missionaries from his native Argentina who are trying to spread the Catholic faith to a largely tribal people who also practice pagan and Indigenous traditions.

The country, the South Pacific’s most populous after Australia, has more than 800 Indigenous languages and has been riven by tribal conflicts over land for centuries, with conflicts becoming more and more lethal in recent decades.

History’s first Latin American pope will likely refer to the need to find harmony among tribal groups while visiting, the Vatican said. Another possible theme is the country’s fragile ecosystem, its rich natural resources at risk of exploitation and the threat posed by climate change.

The Papua New Guinean government has blamed extraordinary rainfall for a massive landslide in May that buried a village in Enga province. The government said more than 2,000 people were killed, while the United Nations estimated the death toll at 670.

Francis becomes only the second pope to visit Papua New Guinea, after St. John Paul II touched down in 1984 during one of his lengthy, globetrotting voyages. Then, John Paul paid tribute to the Catholic missionaries who had already been trying for a century to bring the faith to the country.

Papua New Guinea, a Commonwealth nation that was a colony of nearby Australia until independence in 1975, is the second leg of Francis’ four-nation trip. In the longest and farthest voyage of his papacy, Francis will also visit East Timor and Singapore before returning to the Vatican on Sept. 13.

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Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

By ELLEN KNICKMEYER and AAMER MADHANI, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu were sharply at odds Thursday over prospects of reaching a deal for a Gaza cease-fire and hostage release, with Netanyahu saying it was “exactly inaccurate” that a breakthrough was close.

“There’s not a deal in the making,” Netanyahu said in an interview with “Fox and Friends.” His public skepticism comes as U.S. officials said they were working on a revised proposal to address remaining disputes between Israeli and Hamas leaders after the weekend discovery of six dead hostages added urgency to the talks.

National security spokesman John Kirby reiterated Thursday that only disagreements on “implementing details” of a cease-fire proposal need to be hammered out.

“I’ve heard what the prime minister said. I’m not going to get into a back and forth with him in a public setting,” Kirby told reporters. “We still believe, though this is incredibly difficult … if there’s compromise, if there’s leadership, we can still get there.”

President Joe Biden’s team, a lame-duck administration two months before the election, has projected optimism this summer as it works with fellow mediators Egypt and Qatar to try to get Israel and Hamas to agree to a truce in the 11-month war in Gaza. The deal would release more of the hostages taken by Hamas during its Oct. 7 attack on Israel, including Americans, in exchange for Palestinian prisoners — one of the big sticking points.

Hamas has been designated a terrorist organization by the United States, Canada, and European Union.

U.S. officials said in the days before Israeli forces recovered the bodies of six recently slain hostages, including Israeli-American Hersh Goldberg-Polin, that Israeli and Hamas leaders could sign off on a deal as soon as the end of this week.

“I’m optimistic. It’s far from over. Just a couple more issues. I think we’ve got a shot,” Biden told reporters last Friday.

Even before that, Netanyahu was digging in his heels, adding conditions that make sealing any agreement before the U.S. elections difficult. His far-right government publicly prioritized for the first time in July — months into the talks — a demand for Israeli forces to keep their presence in a buffer zone along Gaza’s border with Egypt. Netanyahu says it’s needed to prevent Hamas from smuggling arms into the Palestinian territory.

“To ask Israel to make concessions after this murder is to send a message to Hamas: Murder more hostages, you’ll get more concessions,” Netanyahu said Thursday. “That’s the wrong thing to do, and I think the Israel public overwhelming is united against that.”

Hostage families have accused Netanyahu of blocking a deal and potentially sacrificing their loved ones to hold the border strip, called the Philadelphi corridor. Hundreds of thousands of Israelis have taken to the streets, calling for a deal and saying time is running out to bring home the hostages alive.

Netanyahu has brushed off criticism that his management of the war and cease-fire negotiations has been politically motivated and said he believes only heavy pressure on Hamas will force it into concessions.

The Biden administration has stressed that its ally Israel has supported the negotiations and Hamas has been blocking a deal. This week, however, Biden said “no” when asked if Netanyahu was doing enough in the talks.

“We see time and again that Israel agrees to certain terms,” said Shira Efron, a policy adviser at the U.S.-based Israel Policy Forum, which analyzes Israeli-Palestinian relations. “It doesn’t say no, it agrees to certain terms — but then says, ‘Yes, but under those conditions.’”

“These public statements that come out after what seems to be an agreement … basically derail the agreement,” Efron said.

Randa Slim, a senior fellow at the U.S.-based Middle East Institute research center, said she saw the talks as being between the U.S. and Netanyahu, and “in this bilateral negotiation, I see Netanyahu having the upper hand.”

The U.S., Egypt and other Arab nations have raised objections to a lasting Israeli presence in the Philadelphi corridor. Hamas says the Israeli position is in breach of the bridging proposal’s call for Israel to leave densely populated areas of Gaza.

U.S. officials say Israeli officials, including Netanyahu, have been more agreeable to negotiations in private discussions than in their public statements.

A senior U.S. administration official told reporters Wednesday that Israel and Hamas have agreed on 14 of the 18 paragraphs in the bridging proposal, have technical differences about one paragraph and deeper differences about three paragraphs. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the negotiations.

Those three paragraphs in question focus on the exchange of hostages captured by Hamas and the number of Palestinian prisoners who would be released during what is supposed to be at least a six-week cease-fire.

The list of Palestinian prisoners to be released in the initial phase of the deal includes some who are serving life sentences in Israeli prisons. The official said the dispute about the ratio of prisoners to hostages to be swapped has been further complicated by the recent deaths of the six hostages.

For each hostage, there’s a certain number of Palestinian prisoners that were to be released. Now, “you just have fewer hostages as part of the deal in phase one,” the official said.

Netanyahu said they are still discussing the number of prisoners to be released for each hostage, the list of prisoners to be freed and whether they will be allowed to return home or have to leave.

The U.S. and others hope a cease-fire would calm tensions that threaten a wider regional conflict, including fighting between Israel and Hezbollah militants in neighboring Lebanon.

Attacks by Hezbollah and other Iran-backed groups have increased since the Oct. 7 attack, in which some 1,200 people were killed. Hamas fighters also took about 250 people hostage, with roughly 100 remaining in Gaza, a third of whom are believed to be dead.

Israel’s offensive in response has killed more than 40,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its count.

When it comes to a deal, “we’re being pragmatic about it, and we do believe that we have made an immense amount of progress in the last few months in terms of getting the structure of the deal in place,” Kirby said.

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AP writers Zeke Miller and Matthew Lee contributed from Washington.

MIAMI GARDENS — He was an NFL defensive coordinator who knew a simple truth: He didn’t know enough. So, when fired with the rest of Houston’s staff in 2020, Anthony Weaver declined another defensive coordinator’s job, demoted himself and went back to school.

“I went to Baltimore,’’ he said.

That’s as good a place as any to start the story of the Dolphin in the most challenging position this season. You could start in other places on his journey whose next step is Sunday’s opener against Jacksonville.

You could start with his final moments as an NFL player in 2009, when he called it quits after microfracture knee surgery and called his college recruiter, Urban Meyer, who started Weaver’s coaching career with a graduate-intern position at Florida.

You could start on the phone with Romeo Crennel, the long-time NFL coach and one of Weaver’s mentors, who went through a checklist of his protégé’s talents.

“He’s smart, organized, upbeat, relates well to players, is always studying, can command a room and discuss concepts in an easy manner,’’ Crennel said. “I anticipated he was going to go on to big things. You could always see it.”

But let’s start with his going to Baltimore in 2021. To win on a large scale in any business, you need the ability to self-scout your skills — to know thyself, as the old philosopher said.

Even the smartest and most knowledgeable minds get sucked down wrong-way roads. Weaver didn’t want that. So, after one struggling season as Houston’s defensive coordinator — one where all those rich gifts Crennel spoke of were apparent even if the results weren’t — the coach knew he needed some coaching.

“I thought from a scheme standpoint, my knowledge was lacking,’’ he said.

He knew a system — but the involved calculus of a multiple-scheme defense? That’s why he sought a job with his former coach, John Harbaugh.

He knew Baltimore’s advanced concepts as a defensive lineman for four years ending in 2005. “But I’d never actually been in the kitchen to see how the dinner was being cooked,’’ he said.

That’s why Weaver bet on himself to become Baltimore’s defensive line coach in 2021. He watched Harbaugh cook. He saw how that versatile defense worked. He prepared for what was coming.

“I was like, ‘You know what? If I get another chance, I’m not going in with less guns than anyone else,’‘’ he said. “I want to be fully loaded.”

He feels that way now. He’ll need all those lessons, too, considering the built-in challenges with this Dolphins defense. It’s not just a new system. This defense has six new starters in the opener. That’s assuming cornerback Jalen Ramsey (hamstring) is healthy and edge rusher Jaelan Phillips (Achilles) is ready for Sunday.

So, the larger question isn’t just how to replace tackle Christian Wilkins or rehabilitating edge rusher Bradley Chubb (knee). It involves helping 33-year-old safety Jordan Poyer and 38-year-old tackle Calais Campbell to be healthy in January.

It means developing a first-round talent like Chop Robinson and smaller-named veterans like Benito Jones, Brandon Pili and De’Shawn Hand along the defensive line.

Weaver, to be sure, has experience in this. Baltimore’s defensive linemen totaled $18 million in salary last season, meaning they were molded off the scrap heap to help the Ravens to the AFC Championship Game.

Weaver played his role in this. Part of that was pointing the younger players to a veteran like Campbell in 2022 and saying, “Do everything he does.”

Now he arrives to a franchise that crossed philosophies with former defensive coordinator Vic Fangio. Dolphins coach Mike McDaniel said Baltimore’s scheme was perhaps the most difficult to play against, so it’s not by accident he hired Weaver.

Nor was it an accident Weaver said upon taking the job in February that Ramsey would have a versatile role rather than being locked to one side like under Fangio.

Weaver, it seems, sees football the same as McDaniel starting with a similar sunny disposition and service-industry mentality to coaching. It’s seen in his telling of his favorite football game.

It was another season opener, this one his first college game at Notre Dame in 1998 against defending national champion Michigan.

“I’m starting this game, 18 years old,’’ he said. “You can imagine, butterflies in my stomach. The first half, I am lined up like a yard off the ball because I so scared of my coach yelling at me for being offsides. But the second half, I forced a fumble, and we end up winning the game against the national champions and our entire student section rushes the field.”

There was a point to him telling this story back in February when he was named the Dolphins defensive coordinator.

“I just think every game’s going to be like that,’’ he said.

It can’t be, he knows. But he’s enough of an optimist to think any game can bring that. That’s part of what makes him a fit on this staff. The other part is he took a detour to to make sure knows what he didn’t in his first shot as a defensive coordinator.

 

By JILL COLVIN, ADRIANA GOMEZ LICON and JOSH BOAK, Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) — Former President Donald Trump suggested to business leaders Thursday that his plans to increase tariffs on foreign imports would solve seemingly unrelated challenges such as the rising cost of child care in the U.S.

The GOP presidential nominee promised to lead what he called a “national economic renaissance” by increasing tariffs, slashing regulations to boost energy production and drastically cutting government spending as well as corporate taxes for companies that produce in the U.S.

Trump was asked at his appearance before the Economic Club of New York about his plans to drive down child care costs to help more women join the workforce.

“Child care is child care, it’s something you have to have in this country. You have to have it,” he said. Then, he said his plans to tax imports from foreign nations at higher levels would “take care” of such problems.

“We’re going to be taking in trillions of dollars, and as much as child care is talked about as being expensive, it’s — relatively speaking — not very expensive, compared to the kind of numbers we’ll be taking in,” he said.

Trump has embraced tariffs as he appeals to working-class voters who oppose free-trade deals and the outsourcing of factories and jobs. But in his speech Thursday and his economic plans as a whole, Trump has made a broader — to some, implausible — promise on tariffs: that they can raise trillions of dollars to fund his agenda without those costs being passed along to consumers in the form of higher prices.

His campaign attacks Democratic nominee Kamala Harris ’ proposals to increase corporate tax rates by saying they would ultimately be borne by workers in the form of fewer jobs and lower incomes. Yet taxes on foreign imports would have a similar effect with businesses and consumers having to absorb those costs in the form of higher prices.

The United States had $3.8 trillion worth of imports last year, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Trump in the past has talked about universal tariffs of at least 10%, if not higher, though he has not spelled out details about how these taxes would be implemented.

Kimberly Clausing, an economist at the University of California, Los Angeles, has repeatedly warned in economic analyses about the likely damage to people’s finances from Trump’s tariffs. She noted that Trump wants tariffs to pay for everything, even though they can’t.

“I believe Trump has already spent this revenue, to pay for his tax cuts (which it doesn’t), or to perhaps end the income tax (which it cannot),” she said in an email. ” “It is unclear how there would be any revenues left over to fund child care.”

Trump was asked to talk about child care

Child care is unaffordable for many Americans and financially precarious for many day care operators and their employees. Democrats in Congress have long argued the child care industry is in crisis and requires a drastic increase in federal aid — and some Republicans have joined them. Trump pointed to his tariff ideas as well as efforts he announced to reduce what he described as “waste and fraud.”

“I want to stay with child care, but those numbers are small relative to the kind of economic numbers that I’m talking about, including growth, but growth also headed up by what the plan is that I just told you about,” he said.

Trump’s running mate JD Vance was also asked about proposals to lower day care costs earlier this week, and he suggested making it easier for families to keep the kids at home with a grandparent or another relative.

“Make it so that, maybe like grandma or grandpa wants to help out a little bit more,” he said. “If that happens, you relieve some of the pressure on all the resources that we are spending on day care.”

Vance also suggested training more people to work in day cares, and said some states required what he called “ridiculous certification that has nothing to do with taking care of kids.”

Trump laid out a series of economic proposals

In his speech, Trump said he would immediately issue “a national emergency declaration” to achieve a massive increase in the domestic energy supply and eliminate 10 current regulations for every new regulation the government adopts. He said Tesla and Space X CEO Elon Musk has agreed to head a commission to perform a financial audit of the federal government that would save trillions of dollars.

“My plan will rapidly defeat inflation, quickly bring down prices and reignite explosive economic growth,” Trump claimed.

Trump has previously floated the idea of chopping the corporate tax rate to 15%, but on Thursday clarified that would be solely for companies that produce in the U.S. The corporate rate had been 35% when he became president in 2017, and he later signed a bill lowering it.

Harris calls for raising the corporate tax rate to 28% from 21%. Her policy proposals this week have been geared toward promoting more entrepreneurship, a bet that making it easier to start new companies will increase middle-class prosperity.

On Thursday, Trump attacked Harris’ proposals on banning price gouging and accused her of embracing Marxism and communism.

“She wants four more years to enforce the radical left agenda that poses a fundamental threat to the prosperity of every American family and America itself,” he said.

He also vowed to end what he called Harris’ “anti-energy crusade,” promising that energy prices would be cut in half, although energy prices are often driven by international fluctuations. He said an emergency declaration would help with rapid approvals for new drilling projects, pipelines, refineries, power plants and reactors, where local opposition is generally fierce.

And he also said he would ask Congress to pass legislation to ban the spending of taxpayer money on people who have entered the country illegally. He specifically said he would bar them from obtaining mortgages in California, targeting a bill passed in that state last week. Throughout his campaign, Trump has railed against the economic impact of the influx of migrants that have entered the country in recent years and their strain on some government services.

The Harris campaign issued a memo accusing Trump of wanting to hurt the middle class, arguing his ideas would expand the national debt and shrink economic growth and job creation.

“He wants our economy to serve billionaires and big corporations,” the campaign said in a statement.

Their dueling economic proposals are likely to be central to the upcoming presidential debate on Tuesday. Harris arrived Thursday in downtown Pittsburgh to devote the next several days to preparing for the debate. She intentionally picked a key part of the battleground state of Pennsylvania to hone her ideas ahead of their showdown.

Trump plans to rely heavily on tariffs

In June, the right-leaning Tax Foundation estimated that Trump’s proposed tariffs would amount to a $524 billion yearly tax hike that would shrink the economy and cost the equivalent of 684,000 jobs. After Trump floated tariffs as high as 20% in August, the Harris campaign seized on an analysis suggesting that figure would raise a typical family’s expenses by almost $4,000 annually.

The money raised by tariffs would not be enough to offset the cost of his various income tax cuts, including a plan to whittle the corporate rate to 15% from 21%. The Penn Wharton Budget Model put the price tag on that at $5.8 trillion over 10 years.

Economists have warned about Trump’s plans to impose tariffs that he says would return manufacturing jobs to the U.S. Some have said such taxes on imports could worsen inflation, though he is vowing to cut down costs. Inflation peaked in 2022 at 9.1% but has since eased to 2.9% as of last month.

“Some might say it’s economic nationalism. I call it common sense. I call it America First,” he said on Thursday.

___

Gomez Licon reported from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and Boak reported from Pittsburgh. Associated Press writers Moriah Balingit and Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux in Washington contributed to this report.

It’s June 2019 shortly after 8 p.m. at the main bus terminal, a homeless gathering spot in downtown Fort Lauderdale at the time known by local police as a high-crime area for drug deals, shootings and violent assaults.

Alexander Paul, a Fort Lauderdale police officer working the evening shift, walks into the men’s restroom to wash his hands and immediately recognizes the guy at the urinal. It’s Melvin Wring III, a suspect with active warrants who cops say goes by the name “Monster” on the street.

The two men cross paths in an encounter that quickly escalates into a police shooting at the crowded bus station, a chain of events that ends up getting the officer fired — then rehired.

The scene, captured on the officer’s body camera, gets ugly fast.

Paul draws his gun, aims at Wring and orders him to get on the floor. Wring turns and sees the 9 mm Sig Sauer pistol pointed at him, then backs away, ignoring Paul’s rapid-fire commands.

“Hey bro, lay on the f—— floor, man!” Paul shouts. “Get on the f—— floor or I’m gonna pop you, bro. Get on the f—— floor.”

Wring, who is unarmed, pushes past Paul and makes a run for it. Paul chases him outside, aims his gun at Wring’s back from just a few feet away and fires. The bullet pierces Wring’s buttocks.

The shooting has been scrutinized by the department’s top brass, Internal Affairs investigators, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, prosecutors and an expert hired by the Broward State Attorney’s Office to review the shooting.

A use-of-force expert, enlisted by prosecutors to review the matter, concluded that Paul’s decision to shoot Wring was unreasonable and inconsistent with generally accepted practices. He noted the fact that several bystanders were nearby when Paul fired his gun. The expert asserted that “no reasonable officer” would shoot at a fleeing suspect with civilians in the line of fire.

But in the end, prosecutors decided against charging Paul, citing a lack of credible witnesses.

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Paul’s actions that day got him fired on Oct. 12, 2023 — four years later. Paul filed a lawsuit two months after his dismissal and was hired back in May on the condition he drop his lawsuit.

Paul is now back at work, while Wring is in jail on a murder charge from an unrelated case.

In June 2023, Paul gave a sworn statement to investigators saying he was “fearful” for his life that day he came face to face with Wring.

“I did what I had to do because I wanted to go home,” Paul told investigators. “Also as well, the occupants of the bus terminal were also in danger from Monster’s actions. Due to his non-compliance in the bathroom, his history, my knowledge of him beforehand, and the fact that he made furtive movements towards his waistband, that’s why I discharged my firearm.”

Paul declined to comment when contacted by the South Florida Sun Sentinel. The police union that fought for the 32-year-old officer to get his job back did not return calls seeking comment.

Crossing paths

Wring, now 35, has a rap sheet that includes charges of drug possession, robbery and domestic violence, police say.

Paul, hired in 2015, believed Wring posed a safety threat based on Wring’s reputation and “the fact he was known to carry a firearm,” Paul’s Internal Affairs file says. “He learned Mr. Wring had two outstanding warrants for violation of probation and grand theft from a query of the (Broward Sheriff’s Office) warrants page.”

Police confirmed Wring had outstanding warrants for the following: Possession of a controlled substance, grand theft of a motor vehicle, possession of cocaine and cannabis with intent to sell, and possession of fentanyl.

Paul fired his gun after shouting at Wring 17 times to get on the ground.

Paul later explained his actions to investigators with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and his own agency’s Internal Affairs unit.

When asked why he fired his weapon, Paul said: “Well, the most important thing is that I generally feared for my life. This subject, Melvin Wring, aka the Monster, he’s a known gang member.” He added, “Dealing with these factors and his non-compliance and the fact that he was staring at the barrel of my gun didn’t even phase him.”

At one point Wring “was cornered in the back of the stall like an animal and he’s looking (for) a way out by any means necessary,” Paul told investigators.

It made him nervous when Wring reached near his waistband while he was still in the bathroom, Paul said.

Paul was questioned about the events after he grabbed Wring by the arm, near the restroom stalls.

“He was able to swing his arm around and find an avenue to escape,” Paul said.

Paul was asked whether he thought Paul was trying to disarm him.

His response: “I don’t know, and I wasn’t trying to find out. I was just, I was damn near afraid that if he got my gun out of my hand or knocked it out, I’ll be in a situation where he was able to disarm me and pull his firearm out and shoot me instead.”

Paul acknowledged he was aware of people standing behind Wring at the moment he shot him.

He was asked if he was aware bullets can pass through one person and hit another.

“Absolutely. However, I’m dealing with a violent subject known to carry a firearm,” he replied. “I’m not going to wait till he pulls out a firearm, especially with other people around. I needed to do what I had to do to protect myself and other civilians around the area as well.”

After Wring ran out of the restroom, Paul said he saw Wring drop his left hand toward his waistband and pull something out. (It turned out to be money.) Paul was asked whether he knew if a firearm was ever found on Wring.

“According to the documents and evidence, no,” Paul replied. “But to me, that didn’t matter at that point.”

After Paul fired his gun that day, chaos ensued at the bus terminal.

“Oh my God! Oh my God! You didn’t have to f—— do that,” a woman screamed. “You shot him! You shot him! You shot him!”

Onlookers heard the loud pop of gunfire and moved in closer, taunting Paul, asking if he wants to shoot anyone else. Some began to chant, “bad cop, bad cop.”

Sirens blared in the background as backup officers arrived at the county’s central bus terminal, at 101 NW First Ave. One officer flipped Wring on his stomach and cuffed him.

“Hey, he started reaching bro,” Paul told the officer as they tended to Wring, trying to stop the bleeding.

Wring survived.

In this screen grab from body camera footage, Fort Lauderdale Officer Alexander Paul is shown holding a suspect at gunpoint in the bathroom at a bus terminal in downtown Fort Lauderdale in June 2019. (Fort Lauderdale Police Department/Courtesy) ‘He knew I was fast’

Wring gave a sworn statement to an FDLE agent investigating the officer who shot him. Wring testified that he knew he had an outstanding warrant. That’s why he ran.

Wring was asked why the officer shot him.

“I was trying to leave out of the bathroom and started running and he shot me in my back, in my butt,” Wring replied. “He shot me because he knew I was fast and he didn’t want me to get away. I guess that’s why he shot me.”

In June 2020, nearly a year after getting shot by Paul, Wring filed a lawsuit against Fort Lauderdale seeking damages.

The city settled the case in August 2023 for $50,000.

The fallout

After the June 2019 incident, Paul was placed on paid administrative leave for eight days — standard protocol after a police shooting, a city spokeswoman said.

Paul returned to work 11 days after the shooting and remained on active duty for several years, becoming a detective in 2021.

During that time, an Internal Affairs investigation was delayed pending the conclusion of an investigation by the State Attorney’s Office.

In March 2023, the Fort Lauderdale Police Department finally received a close-out memo from the State Attorney’s Office. Prosecutors declined to pursue a case, concluding “the facts and evidence do not support a viable prosecution against Paul.”

“Paul knew Wring as a drug dealer who carried a gun, who had multiple outstanding felony warrants, and who was wanted by the Broward Sheriff’s Office,” according to the prosecutors’ close-out memo, dated Feb. 15, 2023. “When Paul encountered Wring, he gave him numerous lawful commands and Wring refused to comply, pulling away from Paul and swiping at him.

“When Wring swung at Paul and turned his body away, going into his pockets as he ran away from Paul and toward civilians, Paul made a split-second decision to stop Paul. Although we have some video of the incident, we do not have a reliable witness to present testimony at trial. Taking all of the facts, evidence and applicable laws into consideration, this office concludes its investigation and will take no further action due to no likelihood of conviction.”

Seth Stoughton, the use-of-force expert hired by the State Attorney’s Office to review the shooting, had problems with the shooting. In his report, he states that Paul’s decision to shoot Wring was “unreasonable and inconsistent with generally accepted practices.”

In this case, there were a number of bystanders standing outside the bathroom when Paul fired his gun.

“Under the circumstances, a reasonable officer in Officer Paul’s position would have known that there were individuals in the immediate area outside the bathroom and that civilians, either pedestrians or vehicle occupants, were highly likely to be in his line of fire as he followed Mr. Wring out of the bathroom,” Stoughton wrote.

He added: “In short, even if a reasonable officer in Ofc. Paul’s position could have reasonably, if mistakenly, believed that Mr. Wring presented an imminent threat of death or great bodily harm, no reasonable officer would have fired with civilians immediately outside the bathroom in the line of fire.”

Stoughton noted that it took Paul more than three minutes after the shooting to check Wring for weapons.

“Officer Paul’s actions after the shooting are inconsistent with those that a reasonable officer who believed that Mr. Wring had been armed with a firearm would take,” Stoughton wrote.

Even though prosecutors opted not to file charges against Paul, the police department placed him on paid administrative leave on March 7, 2023, this time while the agency’s Internal Affairs investigators reviewed the 2019 shooting. At the conclusion of that investigation, the chief at the time, Patrick Lynn, sent a recommendation to then-City Manager Greg Chavarria that Paul be terminated.

Paul remained on paid leave until Oct. 12, 2023, the day he was fired.

His termination came more than four years after the shooting of Wring. Why wait four years? A city spokeswoman had this response: “The Fort Lauderdale Police Department did not get the independent review from the Broward State Attorney’s Office until four years after the incident.”

A screen grab from body camera footage taken in June 2019 shows a crowd gathering after Fort Lauderdale Officer Alexander Paul shot a suspect in the buttocks at the county’s main bus terminal. (Fort Lauderdale Police Department/Courtesy) The lawsuit

Paul, who is Black, filed a federal lawsuit two months after he was fired, claiming racism. The lawsuit makes the claim that Paul suffers from insomnia and requested a new assignment so he would not be on call in the evenings. His request for a new assignment was ignored because he is Black, the lawsuit claims.

“The department has set a precedent of favoritism that has allowed Caucasian detectives the opportunity to laterally transfer these duties with other detectives within the detective bureau when personal circumstances arise,” the lawsuit said.

According to the lawsuit, Paul asserted that his race played a role in being denied an accommodation.

Paul’s lawsuit noted that he was placed on paid administrative leave a month after filing an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission complaint on Feb. 9, 2023. He was terminated eight months later.

In its response to Paul’s lawsuit, Fort Lauderdale filed a document with the court in March 2024 denying the officer’s allegations that his rights had been violated and asserting that all decisions made were based on reasonable factors and were not discriminatory. The city also argued that Paul was fired over the shooting and not qualified to perform the essential functions of the job.

U.S. District Judge Rodney Smith dismissed the lawsuit on May 28 at the request of both parties.

How did he get rehired?

Paul was fired on the recommendation of one chief and hired back on the recommendation of an acting city manager.

Lynn, the chief who made the recommendation that Paul be fired, retired soon afterward.

A few weeks after Paul was fired, Bill Schultz took over as chief on Nov. 6, 2023. But he was not involved in the decision to rehire Paul, a city spokeswoman said.

After reviewing the case, Acting City Manager Susan Grant believed a six-week suspension without pay to be more appropriate than termination.

Under the settlement agreement approved in May, the department hired Paul back under the condition he drop his lawsuit and serve a six-week unpaid suspension. 

As part of the settlement, Fort Lauderdale agreed to pay the officer $10,000 to cover his attorney’s fees.

Fort Lauderdale Officer Alexander Paul, shown in June 2019 confronting a suspect he shot later in the buttocks, was fired in October 2023, only to be rehired months later. (Fort Lauderdale Police Department/Courtesy) Back to work

Before returning to work, Paul was required to serve an unpaid suspension from May 18 through July 1 for careless or reckless use of a firearm and excessive response to resistance. He is also being required to undergo further training.

As part of the deal, Paul also received $62,000 in back wages and credit for sick and vacation time. In addition, his seniority was restored to his original date of hire on Aug. 24, 2015.

Paul was required to undergo training and meet certain conditions before being recertified by FDLE as an officer. He was officially reinstated on Aug. 19.

He was required to undergo several types of training, including a firearms refresher course, use- of-force training and verbal de-escalation training.  

Paul now earns a salary of $102,669 a year.

Jeff Marano, a former union president for several local police agencies, defended Fort Lauderdale’s decision to rehire Paul.

It’s not rare to see an officer fired and later rehired, Marano said.

“If he felt like his life was in danger, I’d say the shooting was justified,” Marano told the Sun Sentinel. “You have to put yourself in the shoes of the officer at the time. Some people’s threat level is different from others. … It’s not all that unusual nowadays for a cop to be hired back. It’s all on a case-by-case basis.”

Suspect in jail

Today, Wring sits in jail on a first-degree murder charge related to a fatal shooting in September 2022 in Fort Lauderdale.

Police say he fired at least two shots at the face and neck of a man coming out of the One Stop Store near the bus terminal on Sept. 10, 2022. He then jumped into the backseat of a waiting car that sped off, police say. The shooting appeared to be unprovoked, according to the arrest report. No mention was made of a possible motive.

Six days later, he was apprehended and taken to jail.

The shooting victim died, prompting prosecutors to upgrade the charges.

Wring now awaits trial on a charge of first-degree murder. He has entered a plea of not guilty.

Susannah Bryan can be reached at sbryan@sunsentinel.com. Follow me on X @Susannah_Bryan

By JONATHAN LANDRUM Jr. and ANDREW DALTON

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Rich Homie Quan, the Atlanta rapper who gained mainstream fame through the trap singles “Type of Way” and “Flex (Ooh, Ooh, Ooh),” has died. He was 33.

Quan, whose legal name is Dequantes Devontay Lamar, died at an Atlanta hospital, the Fulton County Medical Examiner confirmed to The Associated Press. The medical examiner was informed of his death Thursday, said Jimmy Sadler, senior medical examiner investigator. The cause of death was not immediately available, with an autopsy scheduled for Friday.

Quan was one of the biggest names in hip-hop in the mid-2010s. He released a slew of mixtapes before he broke through in 2013 with the infectious “Type of Way.” The song became such a success that several other rappers jumped on the remix, including Jeezy and Meek Mill. He maintained his momentum, appearing on a YG track with Jeezy and releasing the London on da Track-produced song “Lifestyle” through his Rich Gang rap collective that included Young Thug and Birdman.

Quan followed up with “Flex (Ooh, Ooh, Ooh),” a song produced by DJ Spinz and Nitti Beatz. It became his highest charting solo single at No. 26 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. He also featured on Lil Dicky’s viral “$ave Dat Money.”

In 2018, Quan debuted his first and only studio album “Rich as in Spirit,” which mostly went without any features — except for “Think About It,” a single with Rick Ross.

Quavo, Lil Boosie and Playboi Carti are some of the music artists who paid tribute to Quan on social media.

“Rest in Peace my brother Rich Homie Quan,” said singer Jacquees, who also called him a “legend” on X. “I love you for Life.”

Quan spoke with The Associated Press in 2022 about returning to music after an abrupt hiatus. At the time, the rapper said he was going through litigation with independent label T.I.G. (Think It’s a Game Record), but was prepared to make a comeback.

During that time, Quan ended up in a feud with his old collaborator Young Thug — who along with rapper Gunna — were among a group indicted on charges of conspiracy to violate Georgia’s RICO Act and also accused of participation in a criminal street gang.

Quan said there was no beef between him Young Thug and was open to having a conversation with him if the opportunity presented itself. He said he hated to see Young Thug locked up, adding that rappers were being targeted by law enforcement.

“I wouldn’t say unfairly targeted because at the same time, some of these rappers are putting guns in videos and, you know, it’s like social media — it goes back to the social media thing,” he said.

“I think we showing too much, I think they’re showing too much, you know what I mean. Like that’s the difference in my music, I’ma tell a story but I ain’t going to tell you how I did it,” he added. “It’s still Black art, but we’re definitely being targeted. So that’s why I’m mindful of what I say in my music.”

___

Landrum and Dalton reported from Los Angeles. Associated Press writer Gary Gerard Hamilton contributed to this report from New York. ___

This story has been updated to correct Quan’s age to 33 based on information from the medical examiner.

First a few words, before we eat.

It’s a hard time to run a restaurant, all the stories say. Many have closed, many are struggling with expenses or lease increases or to keep staff or customers, or all of the above. Carlos & Pepe’s, La Bonne Crêpe, the Historic Downtowner and Maxwell Room – all institutions – are just some of the recent casualties of the trends.

“Every day, it seems, diners are whiplashed by yet another ‘For Lease’ sign or farewell Facebook post,” Sun Sentinel Entertainment Reporter Phillip Valys wrote in July https://www.sun-sentinel.com/2024/07/16/restaurant-whiplash-why-so-many-south-florida-restaurants-are-closing-all-at-once/. “They take photos of papered-over places or screenshot announcements on their phones and share them online, prompting expressions in comments sections of shocked grief (“heartbroken”; “this one sucks”) and I-told-you-so anger (“This is happening everywhere”).

It not easy to be optimistic in this environment. But we will try.

Our annual issue devoted to all things edible – and drinkable – begins this month with “50 Great Reasons to Eat & Drink in South Florida.” Breakfast, brunch, beer and bread pudding are as much a part of life here as beaches and boats. And there is something delightful for everyone and every appetite on this list, compiled by Lori Capullo Lawrence.

“If the idea of discovering the best of the best boggles your mind,” Lori writes, “check out our list of superlatives we’ve compiled to make your life easier — and your belly happy.”

CourtesyFrom the September Food, Wine & Spirit Issue

We also sidle up to the wine bar with seven people from diverse backgrounds, career choices and community involvement who all agree on one thing: What they’re drinking. We’ll meet the meat purveyors at Sunshine Provisions, which started less than 10 years ago in the back of a burger joint in Deerfield Beach and now has plans to go national.

Kitchens are going high-tech, and we’ll check out some state-of-the-art appliances that are making cooking a breeze in the heart of the home, too. We’ll drive – strike that, walk – to some new food and beverage hotspots out of nowhere redefining the center of Boca Raton.

We’ll also go out to dinner in the Turks and Caicos, a relatively short plane ride from South Florida. Once known mostly for cracked conch and pigeon peas, the islands a little more than an hour from Miami are becoming a culinary destination of their own.

The critics at the Michelin Guide may not be rating restaurants in the Turks and Caicos yet. But they’d probably see some stars.

Mark GauertFrom the September issue of City & Shore magazine

We’ll look into how to invest in wine (without going sideways), round up monthlong dining-out savings events in Palm Beach and the Treasure Coast, Broward and Miami-Dade counties, go shopping for tasteful gadgets and products for epicurean indulgences and sit down for a meal with master artist William Glackens’ family at NSU Museum of Art Fort Lauderdale.

All this – and more – in the September Food, Wine & Spirit Issue of City & Shore magazine, coming this weekend in popular print, online and digital formats, https://www.qgdigitalpublishing.com/publication/?i=829512

 

Cam McCormick was at a crossroads in his football career — a career that has had numerous turning points, setbacks and important moments.

After seven seasons at Oregon — four of which were shortened or wiped out completely due to injuries — McCormick was in the transfer portal, preparing to leave the Ducks. He had heard from several teams, including LSU and Missouri, his mother, Debra, said. But he also heard from an old coach, a father figure: Mario Cristobal. McCormick’s former coach wanted the tight end to join him at Miami.

“I said, ‘Look, do you really want to go somewhere that you have to prove yourself all over again, start at the bottom?'” Debra McCormick said. “‘Or do you want to go to a program where people know you and respect you and you’ve already proven yourself? Where do you want to be?’

“I said, ‘If it were me, I’d want to be with family.’ ”

McCormick took Cristobal up on his offer and became a Miami Hurricane. He played the 2023 season, earning the most playing time of any of UM’s tight ends. Faced with another choice — end his career or take the ACC-granted, unprecedented ninth year of eligibility. After considering his options, McCormick decided to return for one more season. 

“(Cristobal) was just telling me that he would love to have me a part of this team,” McCormick said. “Ultimately, he said the decision’s mine to make, but we would love to have you a part of this team. Obviously, he knows the role that I can play on this team and in the offense, and he just reiterated that with me and where I would stand and how I could help this team.

“Really, I wanted to finish my career with coach Cristobal and I wanted to end it how I wanted to end it. This is how I wanted to end it.”

McCormick, now a 26-year-old whose nine-year career has spanned three presidential administrations, began his final season against the Gators on Saturday, and he caught Miami’s first touchdown of the season: a 9-yard reception from fellow PAC-12 transfer Cam Ward.

“I don’t think anybody expected that,” Cristobal said. “That was the winning ticket in Las Vegas for somebody that Cam was going to score the first touchdown for the Miami Hurricanes this year.”

The play was not particularly complicated. McCormick blocks for a moment, then crosses over the middle. Ward, facing pressure from a Gators pass rush, floated the ball to McCormick at the 6-yard line. McCormick sprinted to the goal line, and UF safety Jordan Castell tackled him low. McCormick lost his footing but fell forward into the end zone.

“I think that the moment was kind of surreal,” McCormick said. “It was an awesome feeling to score the first touchdown of the season in The Swamp. There was a lot of talk about the game, and I’ve never played at Florida or in The Swamp before, so I wasn’t really sure what to expect. Obviously, I’ve been in some hostile environments before, but that one was like everyone says it was — a great atmosphere, a great game. And the moment, it was awesome. The feeling of scoring, since that was my first touchdown as a Miami Hurricane, that’s one for the books.”

McCormick had the attention of the college football world on Saturday, with ESPN’s “College Gameday” airing a feature on McCormick’s unprecedented situation before the day’s slate of games began. The story documented his battle with injuries, which is difficult to keep straight: a knee injury in 2016, rhabdomyolysis before the 2017 season, a torn ankle ligament and broken fibula in 2018, another ankle surgery to fix complications from the previous ankle injury in 2019, more complications and another ankle surgery in 2020 and a torn Achilles tendon in 2021.

Cristobal was with McCormick and his family every step of the way.

“During all of those surgeries he’s had, he was always at the hospital, right there with Cameron when he woke up,” Debra McCormick said. “He’s a good man. He’s a loyal person, and he has our loyalty in return because of the person he is.”

Fortunately, McCormick stayed healthy through the 2022 campaign with Oregon and 2023 with Miami, and he hopes to stay that way through his final college season.

“He’s 100 percent healthy, like better than ever,” Cristobal said. “But to get here, he’s been through a lot. A completely unselfish, hard-working, real-deal human being who shows up every day and brings it. At his age, you don’t get hit over and topple over backwards. I was a little worried about him. But the guy’s awesome, and I’m glad he started off the season that way.”

With all that in mind, when McCormick crossed the goal line later in the afternoon, his family, watching with friends at the Miami sports bar Grails, beamed with pride.

“Everybody went crazy when he scored the touchdown,” Debra McCormick said. “It was absolutely amazing. It came as a complete and total surprise. We went into the game having no expectations, right? And when he scored, at first I was like, ‘Wait, was that Cameron?’ And then I was like, ‘That’s my son! That’s my son!’ ”

McCormick’s touchdown even made a tightly wound Cristobal grin.

“I don’t smile often, but it brings a smile to your face,” Cristobal said. “Imagine your own son going through all that stuff like he did. But to go through it and complain as opposed to go through it and do what he does: bring it every single day and make people around them better. That guy’s going to be successful in everything he does in life. I think he’ll be a great NFL player, as well. He’s just got this super bright future and is a great mentor.”

But not everyone thinks McCormick’s story is such a feel-good tale. People deride him on social media for the length of his career, and McCormick and his family see it. Even the “College Gameday” feature included him visiting a senior living facility.

“These are human beings,” Debra McCormick said. “People don’t see them as that, but they are human beings, and they have families. They have grandmas, they have grandpas, they have aunts, uncles, moms, dads, sisters, brothers reading this stuff.”

Debra McCormick says she takes the negative comments harder than her son. The veteran tight end, who has earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism with an emphasis in advertising and a master’s degree in advertising and brand responsibility, lets them roll off his back. And maybe now that more college football fans have heard his story and seen what he had to fight through to get back on the field, the narrative around his career can switch from jokes about getting a job to congratulations for achieving a dream many would have given up on.

“Honestly, it just kind of goes in one ear and out the other,” McCormick said. “I kind of really don’t pay it no mind anymore. A lot of people are saying the same, recycled jokes. Like I’ve heard that before. You’re not the first person to say that. Get something new.

“But really, at the end of the day, they can say what they want. Who’s really winning over here?”

Tight end Cam McCormick (84) of the Miami Hurricanes scores a touchdown against Jordan Castell (14) of the Florida Gators during the first half at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium on Aug. 31, 2024 in Gainesville. (James Gilbert/Getty Images)

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