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MIAMI GARDENS — The No. 12 Hurricanes, riding high off the momentum from a Week 1 win over rival Florida, made a point not to overlook Florida A&M in their home opener.

Miami succeeded in that, getting out to a quick, multi-touchdown lead and never looking back. The Hurricanes (2-0) rolled to a 56-9 win over the Rattlers (2-1) at Hard Rock Stadium in their home opener on Saturday.

“The only thing that matters to us is if you get a win,” quarterback Cam Ward said. “If you get a win, then by all means, you had a good day. That’s the biggest thing.”

The Hurricanes did not need much time to get going. Linebacker Wesley Bissainthe tipped a third-down pass to himself and caught it as he kept himself in bounds, notching his first career interception. Two plays later, Ward connected with tight end Elijah Arroyo on a 17-yard touchdown pass.

Ward continued his hot start on Miami’s second drive, leading the Hurricanes 99 yards down the field and capping the drive with a 50-yard touchdown pass to a wide-open Xavier Restrepo. Tight end Riley Williams scored a two-point conversion with a trick play.

“Cam’s a special player,” Restrepo said. “We all have built a really good relationship with Cam since the day he’s come in here, and we’re still building.”

Miami continued rolling into the second quarter, as Ward orchestrated another scoring drive. He completed it with a 9-yard touchdown pass to redshirt freshman running back Chris Johnson Jr. for a 9-yard score.

Florida A&M had some positive drives in the first half but could not convert them into touchdowns, settling for a pair of first-half field goals.

The Hurricanes picked up right where they left off in the second half, driving down the field for a seven-play, 75-yard series that ended with a 4-yard touchdown run by Mark Fletcher Jr. — his third score of the season. Miami kept it on the ground for their next drive, with running back Damien Martinez scoring his first touchdown at UM with a 33-yard score early in the third quarter.

Ward added another touchdown to his ledger late in the third quarter, scrambling from the 8-yard line and leaping over the goal line for his first rushing touchdown as a Hurricane.

Miami subbed in its second-string players late in the third quarter, and Jordan Lyle got his first career touchdown to close out the scoring in the Hurricanes’ home opener.

“We handled our business,” Cristobal said, “and lots of areas to get better at.”

Five takeaways 1. Cam Ward continues his hot start

The Hurricanes’ new quarterback, coming off an excellent game against Florida, continued his strong start to his season. Ward, who played the first half and most of the third quarter, finished the game with 20 completions on 26 attempts for 304 yards and three passing touchdowns. He also ran for a score.

Ward became the first Miami quarterback to throw for 600 or more yards in his first two games of a season since Jacory Harris accomplished that feat in 2009, according to AP.

“You can see what he brings to the table,” Cristobal said. “What’s he not done is kind of more the question now.”

2. Run game dominant in limited action

The Hurricanes let Ward sling the ball around the field often, limiting the running backs’ chances to rack up yards.

Miami’s two primary running backs, Martinez and Fletcher, had 15 combined carries for 132 yards. Both scored touchdowns. Their limited carries was not because they were ineffective: They averaged 8.8 yards per attempt.

“It’s never a pre-set determination,” Cristobal said about the balance between the running and passing games. “Our coordinators, they put together good game plans, and when those guys get on a roll, you let them go.”

Lyle, Ajay Allen, Chris Johnson Jr. and Chris Wheatley-Humphrey also got carries, and Miami’s running backs ended the game with 199 rushing yards.

3. Restrepo continues shining

Restrepo, an All-ACC selection last year, continued his strong partnership with Ward. The veteran wide receiver had four catches for 104 yards, including a 50-yard touchdown reception.

Restrepo’s performance was his eighth career 100-yard game and his fifth straight game with 99 receiving yards or more, dating back to last season.

Restrepo also notched a career accomplishment, moving into 10th place on the Hurricanes’ all-time receiving yards leaderboard. He passed Andre Johnson and Allen Hurns on UM’s all-time list.

“It means a lot,” Restrepo said, “but honestly the only thing that matters right now is that we went 1-0 this week. And again, I’m just super excited to take the field with my guys every single week.”

4. Tyler Baron leads pass rush

Tyler Baron, playing his second game with the Hurricanes after transferring from Tennessee, was a dominant force on Miami’s defensive line.

The veteran defensive end notched three sacks in the Hurricanes’ win on Saturday, giving him four for the season. He had 3.5 tackles for loss, as well.

“He’s built like an Avatar,” Cristobal said. “He’s just explosive and one of the most natural feels for the game of anyone I’ve seen. He understands leverage, angles. He’s really smart, He’s locked in. He’s in tune with what’s going on. He’s always trying to figure out how to get better. He works hard. He’s tough. He checks all the boxes, and now he’s full-throttle.”

5. Young players get their snaps

Miami rotated many of their new and young players into Saturday’s game, and they made an impact.

Markel Bell, a junior college arrival, started at left tackle for Jalen Rivers. Freshman five-star defensive lineman Justin Scott got his first career sack, and fellow five-star freshman Armondo Blount got his first career snaps.

St. Thomas Aquinas High alum Jordan Lyle scored his first career touchdown after making his college debut last week, and kicker Abram Murray made his debut with the extra point. Murray also kicked his first career field goal.

Freshmen linebackers Bobby Pruitt and Adarius Hayes both made their first career interceptions.

Freshman safety Zaquan Patterson and freshman defensive lineman Cole McConathy also made their first appearances on Miami’s defense. Wide receivers JoJo Trader and Ny Carr and offensive linemen Frankie Tinilau and Nino Francavilla made their UM debuts, as well. Carr and Trader each made their first career catches.

“There’s nothing like repetition,” Cristobal said. “Nothing. There’s nothing that you can do in practice, there’s nothing you can do in a meeting room or a walk-through that can ever replace the value of that. The value of those reps are tremendous.”

MIAMI (AP) — Otto López was a triple shy of the cycle, Connor Norby homered and drove in three runs, and the Miami Marlins snapped NL East-leading Philadelphia’s six-game winning streak with a 9-5 victory over the Phillies on Saturday.

Jonah Bride also homered, while Xavier Edwards and Nick Fortes had two hits each for the Marlins, who had 14 hits a day after losing 16-2 to the Phillies.

“(Friday) was not great. Today was a lot better,” Marlins manager Skip Schumaker said. “To face one of the better pitchers in the league and one of the better teams in the league was impressive especially with all the moving parts in the clubhouse, meeting new guys.”

The Marlins were busy Saturday, adding four new players to the roster. Infielder Javier Sanoja made his major league debut with a pinch hit appearance in the seventh. The 22-year-old Sanoja hit a grounder to shortstop Trea Turner, who threw errantly attempting to cut down a runner at the plate that led to two runs. Sanoja was credited with a fielder’s choice RBI.

“I wanted to go out there and be aggressive,” Sanoja said through a translator. “Unfortunately, I didn’t get my first hit but I was able to get the RBI.”

John McMillon (2-1) pitched 1 1/3 innings of scoreless relief for the win.

Phillies starter Aaron Nola (12-7) was lifted after he allowed five runs and nine hits over 4 2/3 innings, walking two and striking out five. It was his shortest start since allowing eight runs and 11 hits in 3 1/3 innings against Boston on June 13.

“I think just command of the baseball. He just missed the glove a lot — a lot more than he normally does — and he paid for it,” Phillies manager Rob Thomson said.

Miami worked long counts against Nola throughout his start. He finished with 101 pitches.

“He’s an amazing pitcher and today the plan was let him pitch,” López said. “His command is amazing so we wanted to stretch out the pitches.”

Bride homered to lead off the fifth and put Miami ahead 5-3 and Jesús Sánchez added an RBI single in the sixth.

The Marlins padded their lead with a three-run seventh against former starter Taijuan Walker. López hit a solo homer over the center field wall before Griffin Conine and Fortes scored on Turner’s throwing error.

Philadelphia’s Kyle Schwarber hit a tying sacrifice fly in the third inning for his 93rd RBI of the season.

Norby hit a two-run homer in the first to put Miami ahead 2-1.

Marlins starter Darren McCaughan allowed three runs and six hits in 4 2/3 innings. The right-hander struck out four.

TRAINER’S ROOM

Phillies: Thomson said catcher J.T. Realmuto has some swelling but will remain with the club as he recovers from a left knee contusion sustained Friday. The Phillies selected the contract of catcher Aramis Garcia from Triple-A Lehigh Valley and designated RHP Nick Nelson for assignment.

Marlins: Placed RHP Max Meyer (right shoulder bursitis) and RHP Calvin Faucher (right shoulder impingement) on the 15-day injured list and OF Derek Hill (right shoulder impingement) on the 10-day injured list. … LHP Andrew Nardi (left elbow muscle) was transferred to the 60-day injured list.

UP NEXT

RHP Seth Johnson will make his major league debut when he starts the series finale for the Phillies on Sunday. The Marlins have not announced a starter but Schumaker said RHP Edward Cabrera could get the nod when he cleared all tests after he withdrew from his scheduled start Friday because of migraine-like symptoms.

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

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This is hard to admit after only one week of the college football season.

Especially coming from a lifelong college football fan who grew up in this state when we had only one professional sports team.

Back in those days, college football was our pro sports. There was no NBA, no NHL, no Major League Baseball. No Magic. No Lightning. No Rays.

The only pro team we had in Florida was the Miami Dolphins back in the day before the NFL was the king of all sports in this country; back before it became a socio-cultural juggernaut that gave us Janet Jackson’s wardrobe malfunction, Taylor Swift’s love affair with Travis Kelce and Colin Kaepernick kneeling for the national anthem.

In those days, the Sunshine State — before it became a melting pot of transplants from the professional sports hotbeds in the northeast — was painted in collegiate shades of orange and blue, garnet and gold or orange and green.

Many of us longtime native Floridians grew up as college football fans, rooting for Florida or Florida State — and to a much lesser extent — Miami. As for UCF, its football team didn’t even exist when I was kid.

The reason I’m telling you all of this is to let you know that for the first time in forever, I find myself more jacked up about our state NFL teams, the Jaguars, Bucs and Dolphins, than I am our state college teams.

Maybe it’s because the lunatic fringe of Gator Nation was already frothing at the mouth to have their coach Billy Napier fired after only one game (last week’s season-opening blowout loss to Miami). Or maybe it’s because Florida State is 0-2 and the Seminoles’ preseason hopes of a conference title and a national championship are all but gone.

As for UCF, we don’t know yet if the Knights are good enough to make some noise in the Big 12; just as we don’t know if Miami is really a legit national championship contender or just a team that beat up on the lackluster Gators in the opener.

But, sadly, there are deeper reasons for my growing fandom toward the NFL and my waning loyalty toward college football.

I admit, I long for the 1980s and ’90s when our college teams were the best of the best; when Steve Spurrier’s Gators were redefining the SEC; when FSU, under the legendary Bobby Bowden, was a perennial national title contender; when Miami, with all of its trash-talking swagger, was the most dominant, despised team in the sport.

Those golden years seem like a distant memory now.

Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa is accessible and affable, making him easier to root for than players in today’s college game. (Wilfredo Lee/AP)

I can honestly say I’m more excited about the Jaguars-Dolphins NFL season-opener this week than I was about the Gators-Hurricanes college football season-opener last week. I believe the Jaguars and Dolphins (and the Bucs as well) will all win their divisions and have a chance at making the Super Bowl. It would be a stretch to think any of the college teams in our state are capable of winning a championship.

The storylines, too, are more intriguing for our state NFL teams, starting with the three likable quarterbacks, Tua Tagovailoa (Dolphins), Trevor Lawrence (Jaguars) and Baker Mayfield (Bucs), who all signed lucrative extensions during the offseason and now must show that they are worth the nine-figure contracts.

Furthermore, as fans, we actually get to know the players in the NFL, where the league mandates that locker rooms are open and coaches are accessible multiple times a week. As a result, fans and media build a connection with their team, their players and their coaches.

Chris Perkins, who covers the Dolphins for the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, was telling me the story earlier this week of reporters gathering around Tua’s locker and gabbing with the Dolphins QB about whether he will let his son Ace play football, his alma mater Alabama in the post-Nick Saban era, high school players now being able to earn NIL money and a number of other topics.

“We’ve had great conversations with Tua,” Perkins said.

In contrast, in today’s college football, coaches are given so much power and autonomy (see Deion Sanders) that many of them rarely make themselves accessible and they severely restrict access to players. Consequently, the fans and media don’t really get a chance to know (or love) the players on the team.

And I hate to sound like the old get-off-my-lawn fogey, but college football has become more transient than a politician’s promise. Transfer quarterbacks such as Miami’s Cam Ward, UCF’s KJ Jefferson and FSU’s DJ Uiagalelei will be at their schools for nine months and then they’ll be gone like a soap bubble in the wind to parts unknown. They are simply rent-a-QBs; not part of the family and the fraternity of the program itself.

In all honesty, it makes me melancholy and nostalgic to admit that I have become more interested in our state NFL teams than our state college teams. It makes me sad that I look forward to Sunday afternoons more than Saturday afternoons.

I long for the old days when college football was everything in my home state. I miss the intensity of the rivalries, the larger-than-life personalities, and the thrill of knowing that, more often than not, the road to the national championship went through the Sunshine State.

Our state has changed politically, demographically and philosophically over the last 40 years, and, likewise, our sports culture has changed dramatically as well.

I’ll always cherish the memories of those surreal Saturdays at the Swamp, Doak Campbell Stadium or the old Orange Bowl watching the Gators, Seminoles or Hurricanes battle it out for gridiron glory.

But the river of time flows on.

It’s the first week of the NFL season.

Let’s go, Jags, Bucs and Dolphins!

Email me at mbianchi@orlandosentinel.com. Hit me up on X (formerly Twitter) @BianchiWrites and listen to my Open Mike radio show every weekday from 6 to 9:30 a.m. on FM 96.9, AM 740 and 969TheGame.com/listen

MIAMI GARDENS — In addition to Rueben Bain Jr. and Damari Brown, whose absence from UM’s game against Florida A&M was announced earlier in the week, Miami had several other players out for Saturday’s home opener vs. Florida A&M.

Starting left tackle Jalen Rivers did not participate in pregame warmups after playing last week. Markel Bell started in his place.

Miami was also without freshmen defensive backs Ryan Mack and Isaiah Thomas, as well as transfer safety Isaiah Taylor, whose left arm was in a sling.

Recruits aplenty at home opener

The Hurricanes encouraged fans to pack Hard Rock Stadium on Saturday, and the message went out to recruits, as well.

Miami is hosting numerous high-profile recruits, including several members of its 2025 class for the game against Florida A&M.

Cornerback Jaboree Antoine and cornerback Chris Ewald Jr. announced their plans to attend the game, and several other commits — including running back Girard Pringle Jr., safety Hylton Stubbs and defensive back Bryce Fitzgerald — are expected to attend, according to 247Sports.

Another major target, LSU five-star cornerback commit DJ Pickett (who was in attendance for UM’s win over Florida last week), is expected to attend, according to 247Sports.

Other prominent uncommitted prospects were in attendance, too. Chaminade-Madonna 2026 five-star running back Derrek Cooper, four-star 2026 cornerback Ayden Pouncey, four-star 2026 wide receiver Jabari Brady, 2026 three-star offensive lineman Ryan Miret were among those who announced their plans to attend the game.

Miami’s 2025 class is currently ranked 12th in 247Sports’ composite rankings, and its 2026 class (which has three members) is ranked 10th.

I Will Be Visiting The Crib This Weekend For Home Opener Game

Shorthanded at wide receiver for Sunday’s season opener, the Miami Dolphins elevated Robbie Chosen from the practice squad to the game-day roster Saturday.

They also bypassed calling up a cornerback from the practice squad with their top player at the position, Jalen Ramsey, questionable with a hamstring injury. The decision not to elevate a cornerback could potentially bode well for Ramsey’s status against the Jacksonville Jaguars in Sunday’s 1 p.m. kickoff at Hard Rock Stadium.

The Dolphins are already down wide receivers Odell Beckham Jr. (physically-unable-to-perform list) and River Cracraft (injured reserve, shoulder) to start the season. Both will be sidelined at least the first four games of the season.

Additionally, rookie wide receiver Malik Washington was ruled out Friday due to a quadriceps ailment. Chosen joins Tyreek Hill, Jaylen Waddle, Braxton Berrios and Grant DuBose as available wide receivers for Miami on Sunday.

Chosen (6 feet 3, 185 pounds) played in nine games with the Dolphins in 2023, catching four passes for 126 yards and a touchdown in last September’s 70-20 win over the Denver Broncos.

The Broward County product from South Plantation High has also played with the New York Jets, Carolina Panthers and Arizona Cardinals in his eight previous NFL seasons since his college career at Temple.

If Ramsey plays, the Dolphins can maintain their top three cornerback lineup of him, Kendall Fuller and Kader Kohou in the nickel package. If Ramsey does not play against Jacksonville, second-year player Ethan Bonner likely jumps into that rotation and/or undrafted rookie Storm Duck gets into the mix. Miami also has options to deploy three-safety sets with Marcus Maye or Elijah Campbell joining projected starters Jevon Holland and Jordan Poyer on the field.

Miami had the option of elevating either veteran cornerback Nik Needham or undrafted rookie Isaiah Johnson from the practice squad but opted against it.

BOCA RATON — Bryson Daily threw for a surprise touchdown as Army’s running game dominated and the Black Knights iced the game with another trick play to debut in the American Athletic Conference with a 24-7 win over Florida Atlantic on Saturday.

A play after what would have been Daily’s second touchdown pass was dropped in the end zone on a third-and-12 play, holder Matthew Rhodes scored on a 23-yard run around the left end on a fake field goal with 13:57 left in the fourth.

If that 15-play, 96-yard, 10 1/2-minute drive following an interception by Max DiDomenico didn’t salt the game away, DiDomenico’s stop of FAU quarterback Cam Fancher on 4th-and-goal from the 1 with 8:44 to go on the ensuing possession sure did.

Army (2-0, 1-0) used 14 plays to run out the clock and finished with 38-minutes, 39-seconds time of possession.

The Black Knights, who began playing football in 1890, are in a conference for just the second time ever. They played in Conference USA from 1998-2004. They joined the AAC as a football only member, joining rival Navy, which joined in 2015.

Kanye Udoh capped an 82-yard drive on Army’s first possession with an 8-yard run. The next possession Daily found Casey Reynolds wide open behind the defense for a 44-yard score.

The Owls (0-2, 0-1) capitalized on a fumble with Fancher hitting Omari Hayes just before halftime.

Army opened the second half with a field goal before DiDomenico’s pick set up the key drive.

Noah Short, who came in with less than 100 career yards, beat that by halftime before finishing with 160 for the Black Knights. Army finished with 405 on the ground, 117 by Daily on 18 keepers.

Fancher threw for 193 yards for FAU. The Owls rushed for just 42.

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AP college football: https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-25-college-football-poll and https://apnews.com/hub/college-football.

Sign up for the AP’s college football newsletter: https://apnews.com/cfbtop25

Today is Saturday, Sept. 7, the 251st day of 2024. There are 115 days left in the year.

Today in history:

On Sept. 7, 1940, Nazi Germany began an intense bombing campaign of Britain during World War II with an air attack on London; known as The Blitz, the eight-month campaign resulted in more than 40,000 civilian deaths.

Also on this date:

In 1921, the first Miss America Pageant was held in Atlantic City, N.J.

In 1943, a fire at the Gulf Hotel, a rooming house in Houston, claimed 55 lives.

In 1963, the Pro Football Hall of Fame opened in Canton, Ohio and enshrined its first 17 members.

In 1977, the Panama Canal Treaty, which called for the U.S. to turn over control of the waterway to Panama at the end of 1999, was signed in Washington by U.S. President Jimmy Carter and Panamanian leader Omar Torrijos.

In 1986, Bishop Desmond Tutu was installed as the first Black clergyman to lead the Anglican Church in southern Africa.

In 1996, rapper Tupac Shakur was shot and mortally wounded on the Las Vegas Strip; he died six days later.

In 2005, police and soldiers went house to house in New Orleans to try to coax remaining residents into leaving the city shattered by Hurricane Katrina.

In 2021, El Salvador became the first country in the world to make Bitcoin legal tender.

Today’s Birthdays:

• Jazz musician Sonny Rollins is 94.
• Singer Gloria Gaynor is 81.
• Actor Julie Kavner is 74.
• Rock singer Chrissie Hynde (The Pretenders) is 73.
• Actor Corbin Bernsen is 70.
• Actor Michael Emerson is 70.
• Pianist-singer Michael Feinstein is 68.
• Singer/songwriter Diane Warren is 68.
• Actor J. Smith-Cameron is 67.
• Actor Toby Jones is 58.
• Actor-comedian Leslie Jones (TV: “Saturday Night Live”) is 57.
• Actor Tom Everett Scott is 54.
• Actor Shannon Elizabeth is 51.
• Actor Oliver Hudson is 48.
• Actor Evan Rachel Wood is 37.
• Olympic gold medal swimmer Ariarne Titmus is 24.
• Actor Ian Chen (TV: “Fresh Off the Boat”) is 18.

HOLLYWOOD – Junior kicker Noah Sidan drilled a 28-yard field goal as time ran out to give host Chaminade-Madonna a heart-thumping, 48-45 victory over rival American Heritage before a raucous crowd on Friday night.

Sidan, who missed a game-winning field goal in regulation along with an extra-point kick in the Lions’ 35-34 overtime loss to Blanche Ely last week, gave Chaminade its first win of the season.

“(The misses a week ago) didn’t affect my mental state at all,” said Sidan, who had winning field goals against Miami Norland and Miami Central last season. “I knew I had it. I’m confident in these situations…it’s an amazing feeling.

“I feel like any big game can come down to me,” Sidan added. “I am no stranger to this. I knew it was going to happen. It looked really big. It was right in front of me.”

Chaminade-Madonna senior quarterback Preston Wright, who started in the Class 1S state championship games in 2022 and 2023 for Ocala Trinity Catholic, and left briefly for Cardinal Gibbons before transferring to the Lions (1-2) this summer, threw for 428 yards and three touchdowns in his first start for the three-time defending state champions.

“Jasen (Lopez) ran a heckuva route that we hit on a couple of times tonight,” Wright said. “We did what we needed to…. we left some points on the table. We’ll fix some small things and be ready to go next week.

Jasen Lopez (7) of Chaminade-Madonna catches a pass covered by Jordan Louis (13) of American Heritage and gets out of bounds with seconds remaining in the fourth quarter to set up a winning field goal. Friday, Sept. 6, 2024 (Jim Rassol/Contributor).

“We have been through some situations, especially me,” said Wright, who was filling in for sophomore Tyler Chance, who started the first two games of the season, but spent the night on crutches and in a knee brace after getting injured in the Ely loss. “I have teammates around me and coaches that put you in good positions to win and you can go out and succeed and that’s what we did tonight.”

American Heritage, the nation’s No. 14-ranked team, battled back throughout the contest, tying the game at 45-45 with 49 seconds remaining on a 16-yard TD scamper by junior quarterback Dia Bell. The Texas commit threw for two TDs and ran for another while piling up more than 350 all-purpose yards.

Chaminade-Madonna marched right down the field as Wright hit Lopez on a 31-yard pass to the American Heritage 2-yard line. Lopez, who finished the game with 9 catches for 268 yards, was able to get out of bounds to set up Sidan’s winning kick.

“This is a big win for us and our program,” Lopez said. “Coming off our two losses, both one-possession losses, we stayed together until the end.”

Lopez said after he hauled in the late pass, he was seeking the sideline.

“Of course,” Lopez said. “Either way, if I didn’t get out of bounds, we would have burned a timeout. This was a really big win. We just got bumped down in the rankings to No. 42 and many people were doubting us. We work hard every day, and we just came out and executed.”

Malachi Toney (1) of American Heritage dives for a touchdown against Chaminade-Madonna during the first half. Friday, Sept. 6, 2024 (Jim Rassol/Contributor).

Chaminade-Madonna seized a 24-21 halftime lead as Wright threw for 253 yards and a touchdown.

Chaminade-Madonna coach Dameon Jones said his team had been in dogfights the past two weeks. The Lions dropped its season opener 34-27 to third-ranked St. John Bosco (California).  The last time Chaminade-Madonna started the year with two straight losses had been in 2013 when they dropped their first six games and ended the year 2-7.

“We got a young ball club that is still learning how to win,” said Jones, who graduated 21 seniors from last year’s state champion. “I tell them every year; we get oiled up around game five or six. We got a lot of stuff we got to clean up and do better. To pull this one out is fantastic.”

The Lions took the game’s opening kickoff and drove 80 yards in 11 plays capped by a 1-yard run by junior Derrek Cooper. Senior running back Jaquari Lewis made it 14-0 on a 20-yard run with 28.8 seconds left in the first quarter.

American Heritage drew within 14-7 on a 19-yard scoring run by junior Malachi Toney.

American Heritage quarterback Dia Bell (3) fumbles against Chaminade-Madonna during the first half. Friday, Sept. 6, 2024 (Jim Rassol/Contributor).

Chaminade-Madonna extended the lead to 21-7 on a 59-yard bomb by Wright to senior wide receiver Kyle Washington with 6:46 left in the first half. The Patriots came right back and trimmed the lead to 21-14 on a 34-yard scoring toss from Bell to senior Jamar Denson with 3:49 to go in the second quarter.

The Lions stretched the advantage to 24-14 on a 30-yard field goal with 2:41 left in the first half by Sidan before the Patriots pulled to within 24-21 on a 36-yard TD pass from Bell to Toney.

The game see-sawed back and forth in the second half.

American Heritage (1-2) picked up a 41-yard field goal by Gavin Harvey to tie the game at 24-24 in the third period. Chaminade made it 31-24 on a 56-yard TD pass from Wright to Denairius Gray with 2:09 left in the quarter. American Heritage senior Byron Louis scored on a 1-yard run with 45 seconds to go in the third, however, the Patriots missed the extra-point attempt, leaving it 31-30.

Chaminade-Madonna built on its lead midway through the fourth at 38-30 on a 14-yard TD pass from Wright to Koby Howard. The Patriots answered on a 28-yard run by junior Brandon Bennett and a 2-point conversion pass from Bell to Col Jean-Noel.

“We just work through it,” Jones added. “Whether we are 0-2, 0-3 or 0-4, we just got to work through it. (Preston) did a helluva job. He can get better, and I still want more.”

Did Jones expect a high-scoring affair?

“I expected a dogfight, not a shootout.”

Malachi Toney (1) of American Heritage catches a touchdown past Camaro Hall (9) of Chaminade-Madonna during the first half. Friday, Sept. 6, 2024 (Jim Rassol/Contributor).

PALM BEACH GARDENS — Cardinal Newman junior quarterback Jyron Hughley and senior running back Jaylin Brown both accounted for two touchdowns as the Crusaders defeated host Benjamin 34-20 to capture the District 12-1A championship on Friday night.

Cardinal Newman has won five consecutive meetings between the teams.

The Crusaders (3-0) jumped out to a 14-7 lead at the end of the first quarter and had a 27-13 advantage at halftime.

Senior Xanai Scott recorded two interceptions to lead the Crusaders defense.

Despite the victory, Cardinal Newman coach Jack Daniels noted his team made several mistakes on both sides of the ball.

“Tonight was not a good reflection of how good our team can be,” Daniels said. “Benjamin played their butts off. We were so sloppy in so many areas. We took a step backwards this week. We need to get some things changed. We got a lot of work to do.”

Benjamin played without senior starting quarterback Jayden Vega, who is recovering from a concussion. Senior tight end Preston Douglas was also held out due to an injury.

“We had some opportunities tonight that we let slip away,” Benjamin coach Eric Kresser said. “I am definitely proud of their effort. They left it all out on the field.”

Benjamin (0-3) started the game with a turnover on downs deep in their own territory.  On fourth-and-6 at their own 24-yard line, the Bucs failed to convert after a 6-yard loss.

Cardinal Newman took advantage on their opening series on offense. On third-and-10, Hughley rolled out to his right and fired an 18-yard touchdown pass to senior Max Redmon to make it 7-0 with 9:08 left in the first quarter.

Benjamin junior quarterback Charlie Smith orchestrated a scoring drive to tie the game. Smith connected with junior Adam Balogoun-Ali for a 21-yard gain to the Crusaders 5-yard line. On third-and-goal, Smith rushed up the middle for a 5-yard touchdown with 2:15 left in the first.

Cardinal Newman answered back on the ensuing drive. Hughley bounced out to the right and pitched the ball to senior running back Jaylin Brown for a 23-yard touchdown run to make it 14-6 with 1:06 left in the first.

Cardinal Newman had a turnover on downs after an incompletion on fourth-and-10 at their own 49.

Benjamin capitalized on their next series on offense as junior running back Phoenix Donghia rushed for a 4-yard touchdown to cut the deficit to 14-13 with 4:59 left in the first half.

Cardinal Newman junior Zamarii Sanders had a kickoff return for a touchdown to extend the lead to 21-13.

The Crusaders started their next drive at the Bucs 35 after a short punt. On fourth-and-1, Hughley raced past the defense for a 26-yard touchdown to push the lead to 27-13 with 1:51 left in the first half.

Cardinal Newman scored on their opening drive of the second half. Brown rushed for a 1-yard touchdown to make it 34-13 with 9:38 left in the third quarter.

Benjamin responded on the ensuing drive. Smith connected with Balogoun-Ali for a scoring pass to make it 34-20.

Cardinal Newman will play their home opener against Pahokee next week.

“Our offense looks pretty good,” Hughley said. “We still have some areas to clean up. We have to stay focused, humble and keep grinding.”

MIAMI (AP) — Trea Turner was a triple shy of the cycle, Kyle Schwarber hit his 33rd homer and Bryce Harper had three hits to help the Philadelphia Phillies overpower the Miami Marlins 16-2 on Friday night.

Johan Rojas added three doubles, and Kody Clemens also had three hits for the NL East-leading Phillies — at 85-56, eight games ahead of second-place Atlanta in the division.

Philadelphia had season highs for runs and hits, with 22.

Zack Wheeler (14-6) threw six innings of one-run ball. The right-hander allowed two hits and struck out seven. He retired the first 10 before Connor Norby singled in the fourth.

The Phillies scored seven runs over the first two innings against Marlins emergency starter Austin Kitchen (0-1). Harper, Bryson Stott and J.T. Realmuto hit RBI singles in a three-run first, and Turner had a two-run homer in a four-run second.

Realmuto singled twice and had two RBIs before leaving in the fourth because of a left knee contusion. He fouled a pitch off his knee in the second and limped away from the box before concluding the at-bat with a single.

Otto López hit a run-scoring double in the fourth to put Miami on the board.

Philadelphia increased its advantage to double figures with three runs in the fifth and four in the sixth. Rojas had his second double to drive in two runs in the fifth, then Schwarber made it 14-1 with a 434-foot drive to right-center in the sixth.

Kitchen allowed seven runs and nine hits over two innings. Edward Cabrera, the original starter for Miami, was a late scratch because of migraine-like symptoms.

Marlins outfielder David Hensley pitched the last two innings and allowed two runs in the ninth.

Before the game, retired Marlins outfielder Jeff Conine threw the ceremonial first pitch to son Griffin, whom Miami promoted from Triple-A on Aug. 26 and started in right-field Friday.

TRAINER’S ROOM

Phillies: Placed 3B Alec Bohm (left hand strain) on the 10-day injured list and recalled infielder Buddy Kennedy from Triple-A Lehigh Valley. Bohm hurt his hand while taking a swing in the Phillies’ game against Atlanta on Aug. 29.

UP NEXT

Phillies RHP Aaron Nola (12-6, 3.29) was set to start Saturday against RHP Darren McCaughan (0-0, 8.24).

___

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

 

Friday
Chaminade-Madonna 48, American Heritage 45
St. Thomas Aquinas 42, Miami Columbus 6
Dr. Joaquin Garcia 29, Hollywood Hills 20
Dillard 44, Northeast 0
Plantation 25, West Broward 21
Atlantic 43, North Miami Beach 7
Jupiter 17, Palm Beach Gardens 0
Palm Beach Central 40, Spanish River 21
Pahokee 28, Seminole Ridge 3
King’s Academy 35, Gulliver Prep 15
Santaluces 28, Boynton Beach 6
Boca Raton 35, St. Andrew’s 22
Martin County 17, Dwyer 7
Forest Hill 28, Lake Worth 0
Cardinal Newman 34, Benjamin 20
American Heritage-Delray 21, Astronaut 10
Park Vista 14, Wellington 11
South Broward 40, Cooper City 15
Baylor (Tennessee) 49, Coconut Creek 21
Blanche Ely 54, Stranahan 20
Boyd Anderson 28, Fort Lauderdale 15
Miramar 28, McArthur 0
Coral Glades 35, Coral Springs 7
Fort Pierce Central 35, Nova 8

Thursday
Everglades Prep Academy 36, Avant Garde Academy 6
Pembroke Pines Charter 55, North Broward Prep 34
Oxbridge Academy 20, Somerset Academy Key 14
Piper 35, South Plantation 0
Jupiter Christian 26, Glades Day 14
St. Edward’s 30, Pine Crest 7

By PHILIP MARCELO

NEW YORK (AP) — A Pakistani man was arrested in Canada this week and accused of plotting a mass shooting at a Jewish center in Brooklyn on the one-year anniversary of the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas that sparked the latest conflict in the Middle East, federal authorities announced Friday.

U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said Muhammad Shahzeb Khan had attempted to travel from Canada, where he lives, to New York City with the “stated goal of slaughtering, in the name of ISIS, as many Jewish people as possible.”

The 20 year-old, who is also known as Shahzeb Jadoon, was apprehended Sept. 4 and charged with attempting to provide material support and resources to the terror group, which stands for the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham.

“Jewish communities — like all communities in this country — should not have to fear that they will be targeted by a hate-fueled terrorist attack,” Garland said in a statement.

It was unclear if Khan has a lawyer, where in Canada he was being held and when he may be brought to the U.S. to face the charges. There was no listing for the case in the online federal court system.

Edward Kim, a spokesperson for the Manhattan federal prosecutor’s office, which is handling the case, deferred to Canadian authorities, who didn’t immediately respond to emails seeking comment.

U.S. authorities said Khan began sharing ISIS propaganda videos and expressing his support for the terror group in social media posts and communications with others on an encrypted messaging app last November.

In conversations with two undercover law enforcement officers, he said he was trying start a “real offline cell” of ISIS in order to carry out attacks against “Israeli Jewish chabads” in America. Khan said he and another ISIS supporter based in the U.S. needed to obtain AR-style assault rifles, ammunition and other materials, according to the Justice Department.

Khan also provided details about how he would cross the border from Canada and said he was considering conducting the attacks on either the Oct. 7 anniversary or on Oct. 11, which is the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur, authorities said.

On Aug. 20, he told the undercover officers that he had settled on targeting New York because of its sizeable Jewish population and sent a photograph of the specific area inside a Jewish center where he planned to carry out the attack, according to the Justice Department.

His online messages described the Brooklyn site, which is not named in court documents, as “the ultra orthodox hasidic jews world headquarters,” according to authorities

A spokesperson for the Chabad-Lubavitch, an influential Hasidic Jewish movement headquartered Brooklyn’s Crown Heights section, didn’t immediately comment Friday.

Khan began making his way to the U.S. using three separate vehicles that included other drivers and passengers before he was stopped around Ormstown, a town in the province of Quebec that is about 12 miles (19 kilometers) from the international border, federal authorities said.

A budget battle, sparked by the Broward Sheriff’s Office’s demands for millions of dollars more to operate, is entering its 11th hour of discussions as county leaders seek a resolution while voicing frustration.

The latest move came late Thursday when the Broward County Commission gave preliminary approval to a sheriff’s budget increase of about $49 million for this upcoming fiscal year. But Broward Sheriff Gregory Tony told county commissioners that the $49 million was inadequate — and that his agency needed another $70 million “just to keep the lights on.”

On Thursday, he appealed again for the county to figure out how to find more money while acknowledging there was a “political bloodbath” between the sides.

“There is a tremendous gap in what we need overall to continue the day-to-day operations of this organization,” Tony told them. Offering only that amount for a budget increase “neglects the entire organizational responsibilities.”

County Administrator Monica Cepero said she would begin private talks with Tony to figure out how to accommodate his request. It also will stave off the possibility of the Sheriff’s Office going to the state’s Board of Administration — which includes the governor — with an appeal to make the county pay more.

With all county dollars already budgeted, county commissioners agreed that the county’s pot of reserves was the only place left to touch. “The only place we would have (to reallocate) would come from reserves,” Cepero said.

No dollar amount was specified, but this year’s countywide budget includes an increase of $5 million in the reserve account for cash and emergencies, for a total of $118 million.

Reserves in all categories countywide is $240.4 million, up by $32 million from last year.

The county administration and the sheriff have until Sept. 17 for a deal, the date the commission is scheduled for the final vote on its budget. The fiscal year begins Oct. 1.

In June, Tony first requested a budget that would have surpassed $1 billion; Tony’s proposed 335-page budget on the sheriff’s website showed a proposed budget total of $1.53 billion.

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Tony had asked for a budget increase of about $253.6 million.

But the Broward Sheriff’s Office is slated to receive a fraction of that — an increase of about $49.3 million — which would put the agency’s budget total at more than $730 million, including for salary increases.

The designated allocation for the Sheriff’s Office already makes up more than half of the county’s discretionary budget for its departments.

But Tony said his agency needs more funds, saying there was “suffering” of his employees who need higher wages, and jail facilities that need to be upgraded.

He told county leaders the compromise needs to come from them.

“What project can you put off for another year?” Tony told commissioners at a budget hearing Thursday evening.

“You can’t prioritize?” Commissioner Steve Geller said. “So it’s $120 million or bust?”

County leaders said they have other countywide issues to fund besides his department, ranging from libraries, affordable housing, regional parks to homeless services, and more.

“Everyone needs to compromise,” Commissioner Mark Bogen appealed to him. “The only way a deal gets done is if there’s compromise. … No one is going to get 100%.”

“We have all these other pressures from all these other organizations.”

Said Commissioner Michael Udine: “I don’t know where you expect us to get these dollars.”

“I’m not going to raise taxes,” committed Commissioner Lamar Fisher. He asked, “Would you raise taxes or would you cut services?”

“I don’t do your job,” Tony told him, instead suggesting the county choose to cut or delay other projects.

Tony said he wouldn’t budge from not compromising “security and people’s lives” when it could be a matter of “helicopters falling out of the sky.”

That was in reference to a 2023 tragedy when a Broward Sheriff Fire Rescue helicopter crashed into an apartment building in Pompano Beach, killing one fire official who was in the helicopter, and a woman in the building.

County officials said they have been frustrated with the sheriff’s spending, pointing to one case where they thought they had agreed to a single purchase when it morphed into something else.

For example, one allocation of $15 million to replace a helicopter that was in a fatal crash was used instead on deposits on four aircraft “without even knowing where the money would come from,” Fisher said.

“We cannot afford to be behind on a piece of equipment that is hovering over two million people,” Tony said in response.

The county has recently been critical of the Sheriff’s Office’s spending. A recent county audit showed cost overruns for a new $73.7 million sheriff’s training center, including “excessive branding” that included Tony’s name being placed on walls and equipment.

On Thursday, county commissioners cast the first of two votes to keep the tax rate the same although the operating cost went up and the debt went down. In the end, the overall rate that property owners use to compute their taxes stayed the same as previous years: $5.66, which means property owners will pay $5.66 for every $1,000 in assessed property. The total proposed budget is $8.8 billion. Two county commissioners voted against the budget proposal.

Lisa J. Huriash can be reached at lhuriash@sunsentinel.com. Follow on X, formerly Twitter, @LisaHuriash

By MICHAEL LIEDTKE

A federal judge on Friday gave the U.S. Justice Department until the end of the year to outline how Google should be punished for illegally monopolizing the internet search market and then prepare to present its case for imposing the penalties next spring.

The loose-ended timeline sketched out by U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta came during the first court hearing since he branded Google as a ruthless monopolist in a landmark ruling issued last month.

Mehta’s decision triggered the need for another phase of the legal process to determine how Google should be penalized for years of misconduct and forced to make other changes to prevent potential future abuses by the dominant search engine that’s the foundation of its internet empire.

Attorneys for the Justice Department and Google were unable to reach a consensus on how the time frame for the penalty phase should unfold in the weeks leading up to Friday’s hearing in Washington D.C., prompting Mehta to steer them down the road that he hopes will result in a decision on the punishment before Labor Day next year.

To make that happen, Mehta indicated he would like the trial in the penalty phase to happen next spring. The judge said March and April look like the best months on his court calendar.

If Mehta’s timeline pans out, a ruling on Google’s antitrust penalties would come nearly five years after the Justice Department filed the lawsuit that led to a 10-week antitrust trial last autumn. That’s similar to the timeline Microsoft experienced in the late 1990s when regulators targeted them for its misconduct in the personal computer market.

The Justice Department hasn’t yet given any inkling on how severely Google should be punished. The most likely targets are the long-running deals that Google has lined up with Apple, Samsung, and other tech companies to make its search engine the default option on smartphones and web browsers.

In return for the guaranteed search traffic, Google has been paying its partners more than $25 billion annually — with most of that money going to Apple for the prized position on the iPhone.

In a more drastic scenario, the Justice Department could seek to force Google to surrender parts of its business, including the Chrome web browser and Android software that powers most of the world’s smartphones because both of those also lock in search traffic.

In Friday’s hearing, Justice Department lawyers said they need ample time to come up with a comprehensive proposal that will also consider how Google has started to deploy artificial intelligence in its search results and how that technology could upend the market.

Google’s lawyers told the judge they hope the Justice Department proposes a realistic list of penalties that address the issues in the judge’s ruling rather than submit extreme measures that amount to “political grandstanding.”

Mehta gave the two sides until Sept. 13 to file a proposed timeline that includes the Justice Department disclosing its proposed punishment before 2025.

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.

SEE ALSO: Sign up for our free Book Pages newsletter about bestsellers, authors and more

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.