One person died and five were hospitalized after a multi-vehicle crash near NW 103rd Street and Seventh Avenue in Northwest Miami-Dade, officials say.
Miami Herald File
One person was killed and eight others were injured after a multi-vehicle crash in Northwest Miami-Dade on Friday morning, officials say.
Just after 9 a.m., the Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office responded to Northwest 103rd Street and Seventh Avenue after reports of a crash.
Deputies found multiple cars and people injured. Miami-Dade Fire Rescue pronounced a man dead at the scene. Authorities did not release the name of the victim.
Eight people were assessed by MDFR with five of them being taken to the hospital. Three people refused to be hospitalized, MDFR said.
Details on what led to crash were not immediately available. MDSO traffic homicide detectives are investigating.
Milena Malaver covers crime and breaking news for the Miami Herald. She was born and raised in Miami-Dade and is a graduate of Florida International University. She joined the Herald shortly after graduating.
Brad Arnold, lead singer and founding member of the alternative rock band 3 Doors Down, has died after a lengthy cancer diagnosis. He was 47.Related video above: Remembering those we lost in 2026His death was announced in an Instagram post from the band’s account. “With his beloved wife Jennifer and his family by his side, he passed away peacefully, surrounded by loved ones, in his sleep after his courageous battle with cancer,” the post read.Arnold was diagnosed with stage 4 metastatic lung cancer in May of last year, which was also announced via the band’s Instagram account.”Brad helped redefine mainstream rock music, blending post-grunge accessibility with emotionally direct songwriting and lyrical themes that resonated with everyday listeners,” the post read.Arnold and the band saw peak popularity in the early 2000s, following their breakout hit single “Kryptonite,” from their debut album “The Better Life.””Those closest to him will remember not only his talent, but his warmth, humility, faith, and deep love for his family and friends,” the post read.
Brad Arnold, lead singer and founding member of the alternative rock band 3 Doors Down, has died after a lengthy cancer diagnosis. He was 47.
Related video above: Remembering those we lost in 2026
“With his beloved wife Jennifer and his family by his side, he passed away peacefully, surrounded by loved ones, in his sleep after his courageous battle with cancer,” the post read.
Arnold was diagnosed with stage 4 metastatic lung cancer in May of last year, which was also announced via the band’s Instagram account.
NBC
Brad Arnold of musical guest 3 Doors Down performs on “The Tonight Show w/ Jay Leno” on Oct. 27, 2000.
Slaven Vlasic
Singer Brad Arnold of 3 Doors Down performs at the 2023 FOX & Friends’ Summer Concert Series on May 26, 2023, in New York City.
“Brad helped redefine mainstream rock music, blending post-grunge accessibility with emotionally direct songwriting and lyrical themes that resonated with everyday listeners,” the post read.
Arnold and the band saw peak popularity in the early 2000s, following their breakout hit single “Kryptonite,” from their debut album “The Better Life.”
“Those closest to him will remember not only his talent, but his warmth, humility, faith, and deep love for his family and friends,” the post read.
Scott Legato
Brad Arnold of 3 Doors Down performs at Little Caesars Arena on Nov. 20, 2024, in Detroit, Michigan.
George Walker photographed with his wife, Elizabeth, around 2021. The beloved high school teacher and accomplished runner, who died this week at 64, showed extraordinary grace and dedication till the end.
Courtesy of the Walker family
As an accomplished distance runner who figured he logged some 120,000 miles in his lifetime, George Walker’s biggest claim to fame was shocking the competition with an underdog win at the 1986 Charlotte Observer Marathon. As a beloved teacher at Independence High School in Charlotte for more than 27 years, he mastered the gift of gab in the classroom, where he made lasting impressions on legions of students.
Walker loved both running and teaching with all his heart, and that’s why his wife, Elizabeth, said “there couldn’t be a worse disease” — amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (also known ALS, or Lou Gehrig’s disease), which over time robbed him of his ability to move and speak — “for someone like George to have.”
George Walker died Friday at Atrium Health Hospice & Palliative Care Union in Monroe after a roughly two-year battle, surrounded by family. He was 64.
He had, of course, been thinking about this day for a long time.
George Walker was diagnosed with ALS in May 2024, but had been experiencing symptoms for several months before that. Courtesy of the Walker family
In an interview with The Charlotte Observer in his bedroom on Nov. 10, Walker was able to manage just a handful of words at a time between labored breaths, in a weakened, raspy voice. But he gave a clear-eyed answer regarding his imminent passing: “I’ve accepted it. We talk about it openly. It’s not taboo. It’s 100% terminal, so it’s not like cancer, where you can fight.” He added that he had “no regrets” about the life he lived. “I don’t think there’s one person on this earth who hates me.”
And in the end, he was ready — as Elizabeth puts it, “for the next great adventure.”
In fact, George was very likely as prepared as he could have possibly been.
An auspicious (and sneaky) marathon debut
A native of the Charlotte area by way of Charleston, S.C., George Walker’s running career started on the track team at Albemarle Road Junior High and blossomed at the high school where he’d eventually return to teach: Independence, for which he starred both in cross-country and track.
He chose to remain in North Carolina for college, majoring in history at UNC Wilmington while also making history, as the first cross-country runner to earn an athletic scholarship from the university.
There was no slowing down for him after graduation.
While trying to find work as a teacher, Walker saved money by living with his parents in Matthews and pieced together income by chasing prize money in races all over the country that offered them, as long as he could get there cheaply.
But it was here in Charlotte where he claimed his biggest payday.
At age 24, Walker entered the 1986 Charlotte Observer Marathon — his first 26.2-mile race — on a bit of a whim, without even giving his personal running coach a heads-up. “I was gonna pretend,” he joked, wryly, “that I got in the wrong race by accident.” (The event also featured a 10K race.)
His bib number, 3381, actually suggested he wasn’t on anyone’s radar; in competitive running, numbers in the single or low-double digits typically are reserved for the bibs worn by professional, elite or at the very least sub-elite runners.
Walker got out in front of most of them early, though. And although the final miles nearly broke him, he was able to surge into a lead he maintained till he crossed the finish line in 2 hours, 22 minutes and 5 seconds. At the time, it set the mark for fastest marathon ever run by a North Carolinian on a North Carolina course.
In a televised post-race interview, WBTV legend Bob Lacey asked Walker, “What kept you going the last few miles?” The winner replied: “I knew if I quit, I … would be forgotten. If I held on and won, it would be something I would remember forever.”
He went home with $4,000, which would help pay for two-thirds of the new car he bought later that year.
George Walker of Mint Hill, photographed in November while watching a YouTube video featuring a recap of his victory at the 1986 Charlotte Observer Marathon. Walker, 64, died from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) this week. Melissa Melvin-Rodriguez mrodriguez@charlotteobserver.com
‘The most impassioned teacher I ever had’
Later that year, Walker landed the job at his high school alma mater, where he would go on to develop a sterling reputation, both as a beloved goofball of an 11th-grade history teacher — famous for, among other things, teaching his students to say “King George the Third” with a British accent — and as the coach of the Patriots’ cross-country team.
Independence also helped him find the love of his life in Elizabeth, a fellow teacher, whom he married in 2004.
Elizabeth Walker told the Observer her husband was “Independence’s biggest fan and biggest advocate,” someone who would show up at school board meetings if he was needed to stand up for his kids or his fellow faculty members. Among the many videos sent to Walker over the summer by former students who’d gotten wind of his terminal illness, one featured a woman who gushed: “He was by far the most impassioned teacher that I ever had growing up.”
He was by far the most tireless, as well, when it came to both his vocation and his fitness.
Walker went 18 years — from October 1995 until June 2013, when he retired — without missing a day of school. It dwarfed his longest running streak — one eclipsing 1,000 straight days — though that was still a massively impressive feat in its own right.
The more invested he became in his students, he told the Observer, the less-important running became to him over the course of his career.
“Running is selfish, but teaching is selfless,” he wrote in a speech delivered by Elizabeth on his behalf in August, when Independence dedicated the school’s track in his name. “As a runner, your focus is on trying to develop and improve yourself. … As a teacher, your focus is on trying to make everyone in front of you the best they can be.”
Two years after retiring, Walker returned to Independence as a regular substitute teacher.
“I had told everyone it was to earn some extra money,” he wrote in his speech. “But the truth was, I missed the students. I missed being in the classroom.”
Independence High School dedicated its track to George Walker over the summer. Courtesy of the Walker family
Deciding to move gracefully toward death
Sometime in the middle of 2023, George Walker started getting a tingling sensation in his feet. His running went downhill fast, lacing up for what would be the last run of his life on Labor Day in 2023.
He continued walking, often six or seven miles per day, and could still bang out bunches of push-ups on command. But diminished dexterity in his fingers came next, and his endurance decreased to where — by the following spring — he was mostly just going out to walk the dogs a short distance.
Doctors diagnosed Walker with ALS on May 4, 2024.
“When I first found out, I read 5% make it 20 years,” he recalled. “So I said, ‘OK, that’ll be me.’” He changed his outlook, however, upon learning it would mean eventually being on a feeding tube. “I said, ‘That’s not living, as far as I’m concerned.’”
Instead, he decided to move gracefully toward death by spending time reflecting on his past, appreciating what he could appreciate despite his circumstances in the present, and planning for the future.
That meant leafing through copious newspaper clippings that celebrate him in some way or another, smiling over them, and sharing iPhone photos of his favorites with anyone he thought might be interested.
That meant snuggling with his devoted toy poodle; binge-watching TV shows on Netflix; sending gift cards to about 200 friends, including some he hadn’t seen in decades, “just to tell ’em ‘thanks,’” he said; and, after losing most of his ability to chew and swallow, putting Hershey’s Kisses into his mouth and letting the sweet chocolate just melt there.
But most importantly, that meant making sure Elizabeth would enjoy golden years that were truly golden.
Although George hadn’t left the bedroom since May, he kept busy by phone, email and text in his final months, with a laser-focus on generally getting the couple’s finances in order for Elizabeth and, more specifically, managing renovations of a paid-off townhouse that was previously a rental property.
She’ll move into it and net the profits from the sale of their house, which also is paid off. She’ll get life insurance money from a policy taken out before he was diagnosed. She’ll want for nothing, according to George’s plan.
“I even told her, ‘If you meet the right person, get married.’ It’d be very selfish to not say that.”
He paused, then broke the somberness hanging in the air with another wry quip: “I also told her, ‘Just don’t pick up a gambling habit.’”
George Walker had no children of his own, but in addition to Elizabeth leaves behind a stepson, Jeffrey Caleb Canipe; a sister, Brenda Walker Lloyd; a collection of in-laws; his toy poodle Leo; a seven-month-old black Lab, Arya (named for “Game of Thrones’” heroine Arya Stark); dozens of cards and appreciation videos from former students; two very fat scrapbooks full of running memories; several bags of miniature chocolates; and a piece of simple advice:
If there’s something you want to do with your life, do it. Don’t put it off. Because you just never know when it will be too late.
A framed photo of George Walker running a road race in Charlotte in 1992, on display in the Walkers’ bedroom. Melissa Melvin-Rodriguez mrodriguez@charlotteobserver.com
This story was originally published January 2, 2026 at 2:43 PM.
Théoden Janes has spent nearly 20 years covering entertainment and pop culture for the Observer. He also thrives on telling emotive long-form stories about extraordinary Charlotteans and — as a veteran of three dozen marathons and two Ironman triathlons — occasionally writes about endurance and other sports. Support my work with a digital subscription
Chainsaw sculptor Clyde Jones stands with some of his cedar creations and hand paintings, (background) around his home in the small Chatham County mill town of Bynum.
Harry Lynch
File photo
BYNUM
Clyde Jones, the self-taught folk artist who carved thousands of eccentric “critters” with his chain saw and found international fame as “the Picasso of driftwood,” has died.
He was 86 or 87, depending on which year he was born, which he confessed being unable to remember.
In declining health for several years, Jones succumbed Wednesday to a variety of age-related illnesses and had entered long-term care, where friends played banjo by his bedside, according to a GoFundMe page set up for expenses.
“I told him I hoped he was at peace in there,” wrote Julie Trotter. “That he had done a lot of good. Made millions of kids happy. Brought folks a lot of joy. Told him that folks everywhere love him and his art.”
Local folk artist, Clyde Jones smiles as he walks among the attendees of the 11th Annual ClydeFEST in 2012. Chuck Liddy File photo
What’s more precious than a young’un?
Jones spent his life in the small Chatham County mill town of Bynum, where his yard off U.S. 15/501 grew to a well-known roadside attraction. With its sign reading “Critter Corner,” it caught the eye of passers-by with its menagerie of wild-eyed animals painted yellow and blue, sporting racquetballs and daisies for eyes.
He rode around town on a purple lawn mower painted with sparkles, often in a baseball cap, usually accompanied by a dog named Speck — now interred in his yard and surrounded by critters. He lived otherwise alone in a house that sported paintings of penguins, dolphins and other sea creatures.
On April 5, 2014, Clyde Jones sat on his custom decorated riding lawnmower as he awaited “customers” to get his water transfer tattoos during the 13th annual ClydeFEST Kids Carnival of Folk Art, which honors him and his work in Bynum. Chuck Liddy File photo
Jones never accepted money for his work, once turning down an offer from ballet star Mikhail Baryshnikov. He had one of his giraffes sent to the governor’s mansion for First Lady Mary Easley in 2005, decorating it with daisies for eyes.
He preferred giving his art away, especially to children or charities that helped them, and he showed his chain-saw skills at hundreds of schools around North Carolina, offering kids a turn with his hammer.
“I’d go out of my way to give ‘em to a young’un,” he told The N&O in 1987. “What’s more precious than a young’un?”
Clyde Jones, a former mill worker turned chainsaw artist, pumps his fists in front of his Bynum home as the second of two wooden giraffes is secured to a trailer, ready for transport to the governor’s mansion on April 29, 2005. The giraffes were to be gifts for the governor’s wife, Mary Easley, a day ahead of ClydeFEST 2005. Ted Richardson File photo
That vision comes from the folk
He rose to fame along with Wilson whirligig artist Vollis Simpson, both of them fixtures of the visionary folk art movement that gained popularity around the 1980s, celebrating untrained, rural artists with a mystical eye.
Throughout his decades of creating, Jones would see his work grace the roof of Crook’s Corner restaurant in Chapel Hill, the Bynum General Store, the Smithsonian, the American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore and the Great Wall of China.
He kept them rough-edged and crude — natural, he would say. Sometimes his creatures stood more than 10 feet high, polka-dotted and they seemed to laugh to themselves over a silent joke.
“The critters which Clyde Jones constructed transcended time and connected us to the stories of our childhood wanderings about the big world outside our bedroom and backyard,” said Will Hinton, a Louisburg artist and professor. “A grinning smile of joy was always my response to seeing his gifts of hand and heart. This ain’t something you learn in art school. This vision comes from the folk.”
Chain saw sculptor Clyde Jones wanders by some of his taller chainsaw creations in his backyard. Jones says he prefers cedar to make his sculptures. Harry Lynch File photo
Josh Shaffer is a general assignment reporter on the watch for “talkers,” which are stories you might discuss around a water cooler. He has worked for The News & Observer since 2004 and writes a column about unusual people and places.
The death toll from flash floods and landslides on Indonesia’s Sumatra island rose to 164 on Friday, with 79 people missing, authorities said.Rescuers were hampered by damaged bridges and roads and a lack of heavy equipment.The death toll in North Sumatra province rose to 116, while 25 people died in Aceh. Rescuers also retrieved 23 bodies in West Sumatra, National Disaster Mitigation Agency’s Chief Suharyanto said.A tropical cyclone is expected to continue hitting the Southeast Asian nation for days, Indonesia’s Meteorology, Climatology, and Geophysical Agency reported.THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.Rescuers were hampered by damaged bridges and roads and a lack of heavy equipment Friday after flash floods and landslides on Indonesia’s Sumatra island left 82 people dead and dozens missing.A tropical cyclone is expected to continue hitting the Southeast Asian nation for days, said Indonesia’s Meteorology, Climatology, and Geophysical Agency.Monsoon rains caused rivers to burst their banks in North Sumatra province Tuesday. The deluge tore through mountainside villages, swept away people and submerged more than 3,200 houses and buildings, the National Disaster Management Agency said. About 3,000 displaced families fled to government shelters.Elsewhere in the island’s provinces of Aceh and West Sumatra, thousands of houses were flooded, many up to their roofs, the agency said.The death toll in North Sumatra province rose to 55 as rescue teams struggled to reach affected areas in 12 cities and districts of North Sumatra province, said the National Disaster Mitigation Agency’s spokesperson, Abdul Muhari. He revised the number of people still missing in the province to 41 from the initial report of 88 following a coordination meeting with local authorities Friday.Mudslides that covered much of the area, power blackouts and a lack of telecommunications were hampering the search efforts, said Ferry Wulantukan, spokesperson for North Sumatra regional police.In West Sumatra province, flash floods that struck 15 cities and districts left at least 21 people dead, Muhari said, citing data reported by West Sumatra’s vice governor. The number of people still missing was unclear.West Sumatra’s disaster mitigation agency reported that the flooding submerged more than 17,000 homes, forcing about 23,000 residents to flee to temporary shelters. Rice fields, livestock and public facilities were also destroyed, and bridges and roads cut off by floods and landslides isolated residents.In Aceh province, authorities struggled to bring excavators and other heavy equipment over washed-out roads after torrential rains sent mud and rocks crashing onto the hilly hamlets. At least six people have died and 11 were missing in three villages in Central Aceh district.The extreme weather was driven by Tropical Cyclone Senyar, which formed in the Strait of Malacca, said Achadi Subarkah Raharjo at Indonesia’s Meteorology, Climatology, and Geophysical Agency.He warned that unstable atmospheric conditions mean extreme weather could persist as long as the cyclone system remains active.“We have extended its extreme weather warning due to strong water vapor supply and shifting atmospheric dynamics,” Raharjo said.Senyar intensified rainfall, strong winds, and high waves in Aceh, North Sumatra, West Sumatra, Riau and nearby areas before dissipating. Its prolonged downpours left steep, saturated terrains highly vulnerable to disasters, he said.Seasonal rains frequently cause flooding and landslides in Indonesia, an archipelago of 17,000 islands where millions of people live in mountainous areas or near fertile flood plains.____Karmini reported from Jakarta, Indonesia.
PADANG, Indonesia —
The death toll from flash floods and landslides on Indonesia’s Sumatra island rose to 164 on Friday, with 79 people missing, authorities said.
Rescuers were hampered by damaged bridges and roads and a lack of heavy equipment.
The death toll in North Sumatra province rose to 116, while 25 people died in Aceh. Rescuers also retrieved 23 bodies in West Sumatra, National Disaster Mitigation Agency’s Chief Suharyanto said.
A tropical cyclone is expected to continue hitting the Southeast Asian nation for days, Indonesia’s Meteorology, Climatology, and Geophysical Agency reported.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.
Rescuers were hampered by damaged bridges and roads and a lack of heavy equipment Friday after flash floods and landslides on Indonesia’s Sumatra island left 82 people dead and dozens missing.
A tropical cyclone is expected to continue hitting the Southeast Asian nation for days, said Indonesia’s Meteorology, Climatology, and Geophysical Agency.
Monsoon rains caused rivers to burst their banks in North Sumatra province Tuesday. The deluge tore through mountainside villages, swept away people and submerged more than 3,200 houses and buildings, the National Disaster Management Agency said. About 3,000 displaced families fled to government shelters.
Elsewhere in the island’s provinces of Aceh and West Sumatra, thousands of houses were flooded, many up to their roofs, the agency said.
The death toll in North Sumatra province rose to 55 as rescue teams struggled to reach affected areas in 12 cities and districts of North Sumatra province, said the National Disaster Mitigation Agency’s spokesperson, Abdul Muhari. He revised the number of people still missing in the province to 41 from the initial report of 88 following a coordination meeting with local authorities Friday.
Mudslides that covered much of the area, power blackouts and a lack of telecommunications were hampering the search efforts, said Ferry Wulantukan, spokesperson for North Sumatra regional police.
In West Sumatra province, flash floods that struck 15 cities and districts left at least 21 people dead, Muhari said, citing data reported by West Sumatra’s vice governor. The number of people still missing was unclear.
West Sumatra’s disaster mitigation agency reported that the flooding submerged more than 17,000 homes, forcing about 23,000 residents to flee to temporary shelters. Rice fields, livestock and public facilities were also destroyed, and bridges and roads cut off by floods and landslides isolated residents.
In Aceh province, authorities struggled to bring excavators and other heavy equipment over washed-out roads after torrential rains sent mud and rocks crashing onto the hilly hamlets. At least six people have died and 11 were missing in three villages in Central Aceh district.
The extreme weather was driven by Tropical Cyclone Senyar, which formed in the Strait of Malacca, said Achadi Subarkah Raharjo at Indonesia’s Meteorology, Climatology, and Geophysical Agency.
He warned that unstable atmospheric conditions mean extreme weather could persist as long as the cyclone system remains active.
“We have extended its extreme weather warning due to strong water vapor supply and shifting atmospheric dynamics,” Raharjo said.
Senyar intensified rainfall, strong winds, and high waves in Aceh, North Sumatra, West Sumatra, Riau and nearby areas before dissipating. Its prolonged downpours left steep, saturated terrains highly vulnerable to disasters, he said.
Seasonal rains frequently cause flooding and landslides in Indonesia, an archipelago of 17,000 islands where millions of people live in mountainous areas or near fertile flood plains.
Some people spent Labor Day weekend soaking up the last of summer’s rays. Others took to social media to speculate President Donald Trump was at death’s door, or worse.
On X, the hashtags #trumpisdead and #whereistrump trended. Millions of people made or watched videos on TikTok speculating Trump had died or suffered a stroke or other serious medical emergency.
The president is not dead. Trump spoke live at the White House on Sept. 2. Even as rumors of his death went viral, he had been photographed by news outlets and his Truth Social posts racked up thousands of interactions.
“How did you find out over the weekend that you were dead?” Fox News reporter Peter Doocy asked Trump, who stood before reporters in the Oval Office on Sept. 2. “Did you see that?”
Trump said he hadn’t heard claims alleging his death.
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“I didn’t see that. I have heard. It’s sort of crazy, but last week I did numerous news conferences. All successful, they went very well. Like this is going very well,” Trump said. “And then I didn’t do any for two days and they said ‘There must be something wrong with him.’”
Trump has a real, albeit non life-threatening, health condition. But the false notion that Trump was dead or dying gained traction through a combination of factors: a Vice President JD Vance quote that was mischaracterized on social media; political left-leaning influencers’ scrutiny of Trump’s low-key holiday weekend with no public scheduled events; and exaggerations of the president’s known health history alongside images showing some of his health condition’s symptoms.
A partial comment from Vance was taken out of context
The rumors started swirling following an Aug. 28 USA Today interview with Vance.
USA Today White House correspondent Francesca Chambers asked Vance whether he is “ready to assume the role of commander in chief,” noting that Trump is the oldest president to have been sworn in.
Vance answered, “I feel very confident the president of the United States is in good shape, is going to serve out the remainder of his term and do great things for the American people. And if, God forbid, there’s a terrible tragedy, I can’t think of better on-the-job training than what I’ve gotten over the last 200 days.”
Even though Vance said multiple times that Trump is in good health, social media users jumped on his comments about being ready to assume the presidency as evidence that something was awry.
The phrase “Trump is dead” appeared at least 5,616 times from Aug. 28 to Sept. 2 across X, Reddit, YouTube and Bluesky, according to data from Rolli IQ, a social media monitoring tool. X users based in other countries, including Brazil and Australia, also posted the phrase, Rolli IQ data showed.
The X posts containing the phrase generated the most engagement, with more than 2 million likes and 122,000 shares in total.
News of Vance’s quote was widely shared on X, with millions of views and otherinteractions. The next day, an Aug. 29 X post viewed 13.8 million times went further, saying, “Trump is dead. He died on Wednesday.” It provided no evidence. Google searches for the phrase “is Trump dead” started increasing the same day, peaking at 3 a.m. ET on Aug. 30.
Social media used Trump’s schedule and health history as fodder for speculation
Online posts pointed to Trump’s schedule as further evidence that something must be wrong. Following a three-hour televised Cabinet meeting on Aug. 26, Trump had no public events for six days. The lack of facetime for a president who is often on camera fueled claims that Trump’s health was in decline.
On Aug. 29, Laura Rozen, a Washington, D.C.-based diplomatic correspondent for news website AL-Monitor, posted on X, “Trump has no public events scheduled all weekend. Don’t believe he was seen today either.” That post gained 33.9 million views. An X account called “Did Donald Trump Die Today?” existed before the Labor Day weekend rumor; it’s been posting “no” answers to its namesake question since December 2024. But when the account reposted Rozen’s observation with the caption, “Yeah he likely died LOL,” it garnered 14.3 million views.
But some on social media persisted. They pointed to photos of Trump’s swollen ankles and bruised hands, and a July letter from his doctor diagnosing Trump with chronic venous insufficiency, a common condition that can cause leg swelling. It is not typically life-threatening.
“Here’s how I know the president has had a stroke and the White House is lying about it,” one user who identified himself as a physical therapist said in a Sept. 1 TikTok with more than 3 million views that has since been taken down. The user analyzed Trump’s April medical report, saying his medications are evidence that “Trump has had a stroke, or maybe even a heart attack in the past.”
Jeffrey Blevins, a University of Cincinnati professor who teaches media law and ethics, said Vance’s comment may have been innocuous, but in combination with the bruises, questions about Trump’s health and lack of public events, it “gives spark to these (kinds) of ideas.”
On Truth Social, Trump posted Aug. 31 that he has “never felt better” in his life.
Trump is not the first world leader to be the subject of rumors of his alleged death. Cliff Lampe, University of Michigan School of Information professor, said that in the 1940s, rumors of former Soviet Union Premier Joseph Stalin’s death circulated. Stalin died in 1953.
Former Cuban leader Fidel Castro and former Iranian leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini also “had rumors of death before they had actually died,” he said. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un also was a subject of death hoaxes. Russian President Vladimir Putin has beenrumoreddead on several occasions.
“In all of these cases, rumors are fueled where the leader purposely constrains access to a free press, or is otherwise secretive. It’s also more likely where the leader has enemies who want to destabilize their legitimacy,” Lampe said.
In June, Trump himself reshared a post on Truth Social that baselessly claimed former President Joe Biden had been executed in 2020.
Before that, people also speculated Biden was dying or dead after he dropped out of the 2024 presidential race. At the time, conservative social media users circulated the rumor.
“The difference is that theory was really fringe, while the current one is more in the mainstream of questioning Trump’s health,” Blevins said.
Liberal influencers stirred suspicions about Trump’s health
Liberal social media influencers who specialize in political news fed into the Labor Day weekend craze. They made videos that amassed millions of views questioning Trump’s health, demanding answers from the White House.
Some influencers clarified that Trump was not dead, calling that a conspiracy theory and pointing to reporters’ photos of Trump leaving the White House to play golf at his Virginia golf course.
President Donald Trump walks at the Trump National Golf Club in Sterling, Va., Aug. 30, 2025. (AP)
“But folks, there’s no conspiracy about whether or not Trump is alive. He’s alive. Stop spreading that,” influencer Aaron Parnas said in a Sept. 1 TikTok. “These are literally from White House pool reporters today. But that does not change the fact that questions still remain about the president’s health and we should still keep asking them.”
Other influencers scrutinized photos of Trump, saying he looked “frail and weak.”
“Very, very sickly looking as well. Something is going on there,” said Ben Meiselas, a lawyer and podcast host for liberal news website MeidasTouch in an Aug. 31 TikTok. “It appears to be, and again this is just an opinion, I’m not a doctor, some serious either cardiovascular, kidney or liver issue based on medical professionals I’ve spoken to.”
One influencer speculated based on a video the White House posted Sept. 1 on X, titled “11 Lessons.”
“The White House just posted what appears to be an in memoriam reel for Donald Trump,” influencer V Spehar said in a TikTok with 3 million views. “As you know, we haven’t seen Trump on video since his cabinet appearance. And there has been speculation that perhaps the president suffered a stroke.”
The White House’s video showed clips of Trump at all stages of his life as inspirational music played behind audio of Trump.
“Never let anyone tell you that something is impossible,” Trump said at the end. “In America, the impossible is what we all do best.”
People share conspiracy theories in response to an unfulfilled psychological need, Lampe said. When people circulated rumors about Biden’s health, he said, they likely exaggerated the extent of his cognitive decline because “it offers an ‘escape’ from a leader they don’t like.”
“For people who may not like the current administration, the overall theory is probably a release valve,” he said.
PolitiFact Senior Audience Engagement Producer Ellen Hine and Staff Writer Maria Briceño contributed to this report.
In 1997, Gene & Georgetti unveiled an expansion with two second-floor dining rooms that grew seating at the legendary Chicago steakhouse by 110. Owner Tony Durpetti paid big bucks for fire doors that separated the newly constructed building from the original that was erected in 1872.
Durpetti would occasionally complain about the expenditure: “That’s $90,000 I’m never going to see again,” he’d tell his daughter, Michelle.
The spend was worth it. In 2019, a kitchen fire raged through the restaurant, shooting up flames to the second floor. Michelle Durpetti recalls the conversation she had with the fire chief at the scene. He said they were lucky — the fire doors protected the 147-year-old building and kept the damage limited to the new space. The daughter waited until her father arrived to tell him.
“I was like, ‘Let me talk about that $90,000 you thought you were never going to see again,’” Michelle Durpetti says. “And he’s like — literally — and this was my father, this was what he said all the time when something is, say, incredulous. He looked at me, he goes: ‘No shit.’ And that was him.”
Gene & Georgetti Tony Durpetti poses in a second-floor dining room in 2014.Timothy Hiatt/Eater Chicago
For 35 years Anthony “Tony” Aldo Durpetti had been an ambassador for Chicago’s hospitality industry, maintaining Gene & Georgetti’s iconic status after purchasing the River North restaurant from his father-in-law, Gene Michelotti (who died in 1989). Michelotti and Alfredo Federighi — nicknamed “Georgetti” — founded the restaurant in 1941. Durpetti and his wife, Marion, navigated Chicago’s turbulent restaurant scene with an eye on preserving Michelotti’s legacy.
Durpetti died on Thursday, September 26, at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago from complications due to pulmonary fibrosis and Parkinson’s disease. He was 80.
Durpetti’s customers included locals, politicians, and celebrities including Lucille Ball, Bob Hope, Mariah Carey, and Lionel Richie. Michelle remembers an evening drinking whiskey with Russell Crowe in 2000, right after Gladiator was released. Crowe was there for a gig with his band, 30 Odd Foot of Grunts. There are no photos — Durpetti believed in leaving celebrities alone and thought pictures might make them uncomfortable.
Michelle Durpetti dances with her father on her wedding day.Gene & Georgetti
Michelle says that over the last few days, the family has received messages of support from all over the country. Before the steakhouse, her father founded a national radio advertising firm that took him all over the country — New York, Philadelphia, Cleveland, San Francisco, the Carolinas, and beyond. Born on February 1, 1944, he also served as a sergeant in the U.S. Army.
The Durpettis have plenty of family in Italy and plan on livestreaming funeral services on Thursday, October 3, from Assumption of Catholic Church, located just across the street from the restaurant. Gene & Georgetti will be closed for lunch for a private reception and reopen for dinner at 5 p.m. Dad, who enjoyed Beefeater gin martinis, wouldn’t want to miss out on a lucrative dinner service, Michelle says.
Working in advertising, Tony Durpetti embraced a flair for gimmicks. Michelle says her father would routinely overbook the restaurant, forcing customers to wait at the bar in waves even though they booked reservations. Online reservation systems didn’t yet exist, but a crowded bar area made Gene & Georgetti a hot spot. As Chicago’s oldest steakhouse, Durpetti took on the challenge of keeping the space relevant as more restaurants and steakhouses opened and provided more competition.
A younger Tony Durpetti.Gene & Georgetti
“If someone waited for like an hour for a reservation, he joked, ‘Don’t worry, I’ll get you before breakfast,’” Michelle says, though she assures customers that the restaurant ditched this practice long ago.
In 1994, Tony helped assemble a group of steakhouses across the country, forming an alliance called the Independent Retail Cattleman’s Association. The group would seek listings in airline magazines, grabbing the attention of business-savvy fliers who needed places to empty their business accounts. This was no ranking; they split the cost of the ads and would mix up placements every so often to avoid jealousy between restaurant owners. But the exposure worked, and the business drummed up by the “association” helped Durpetti pay off the loan for expansion within six months. That acumen helped make Gene & Georgetti one of the most successful steakhouses in the country, a fixture on Restaurant Business Online’s Top 100 Independents — a list of the independent restaurants that profit the most.
Tony Durpetti’s philosophy was one of “mindful evolution.” During the pandemic, he briefly moved to Florida where the weather was easier for a senior citizen to manage. He would call in to check on the restaurant. His daughter and her husband, Collin Pierson, had quietly transitioned into running operations years ago. Michelle would joke with her father that she wouldn’t “jazz it up” too much, but the restaurant needed to evolve, and they would add more pasta dishes, leaning more into their Tuscan heritage. As his father-in-law was unable to fly due to his health, Pierson would drive him back and forth; the last trip from Florida to Chicago came in January 2024.
Collin Pierson with Tony, Marion, and Michele Durpetti.Gene & Georgetti
Pierson manages the restaurant and recalls his father-in-law’s generosity. Years ago, while he and Michelle were in Barcelona, thieves stole nearly $30,000 in photography equipment, which would have doomed Pierson’s photography business if it weren’t for his future father-in-law’s immediate gesture to pay for replacement gear.
Tony and Marion Durpetti posed outside their River North steakhouse.Gene & Georgetti
Marion and Tony Durpetti on their wedding day.Gene & Georgetti
Chicago’s restaurant world is in mourning.
“He personified class and lived a daily life of hospitality. Watching him, showed us what this business should be. He set the bar for our generation,” wrote the owners of Piccolo Sogno, one of Durpetti’s favorite restaurants, on Instagram.
Piccolo owner and chef Tony Priolo knew Durpetti for more than 25 years. He says when he first opened, Durpetti would walk around Gene & Georgetti’s dining room telling every table to visit Piccolo Sogno: “I would call him for advice and he was up always and there for me,” Priolo says. “He was an icon to our industry, he will be greatly missed.”
Sam Toia, president and chief executive officer of the Illinois Restaurant Association, calls Durpetti a friend and icon and that “his advocacy of the restaurant industry was surpassed only by the genuine love and warmth he showered on his family, his team, and the countless guests he welcomed to Gene and Georgetti’s.”
Durpetti was conscious of giving opportunities to women, using the phrase “glass ceiling” in conversations with his daughter. While he was the restaurant’s public face, Michelle’s and his wife Marion’s impacts could be felt throughout. “My grandmother (Ida Passaglia) was the first bookkeeper,” Michelle says. “This was a restaurant that was always run by women — it just looked like it was run by men.”
Michelle Durpetti says that during the height of COVID, there were times when the steakhouse could have ceased operations. The establishment was evicted by its landlord in suburban Rosemont. Her father, who battled Parkinson’s for 15 years, would occasionally visit, boosting the morale of the restaurant. Michelle says her father didn’t realize but it was his meticulous financial planning through the years that enabled the steakhouse to survive the crisis the pandemic presented.
As she recalls her father’s legacy, Michelle remembers being 18 and challenging her father at the restaurant. She didn’t care for his overbooking policy. He promptly fired her, telling her that she could only return after she accrued enough experience to bring something positive to the table. The ordeal wasn’t scarring; it gave Michelle Durpetti perspective, and in the end, Tony Durpetti trusted his daughter and son-in-law the same way Gene Michelotti trusted him to uphold the restaurant’s legacy.
“Most people loved my dad,” Michelle Durpetti says. “If you didn’t like my dad, it was probably on you and not on him — and I don’t even say that because he was my dad. People just gravitated to him.”
A visitation will be held on Thursday, October 3, at Belmont Funeral Home. A Mass will be held at Assumption Catholic Church.
Ranger Tom Lorig, 78, was working at Bryce Canyon’s annual Astronomy Festival on June 7 when he fell and died.
Screengrab from National Park Service Facebook page.
A park ranger working at an astronomy festival at Bryce Canyon National Park in Utah died after falling and hitting his head on a large rock, according to officials.
Ranger Tom Lorig, 78, was working at Bryce Canyon’s annual Astronomy Festival around 11:30 p.m. on June 7 when he tripped and fell as he was directing a visitor to a shuttle bus, according to a news release from the National Park Service.
Lorig hit his head on a large rock, leaving him unresponsive, the park service said. The visitor quickly notified another ranger, and first responders worked on Lorig but were unable to revive him.
“Tom Lorig served Bryce Canyon, the National Park Service, and the public as an interpretive park ranger, forging connections between the world and these special places that he loved,” park superintendent Jim Ireland said in the news release.
Lorig was a registered nurse for 40 years in the Seattle area, the NPS said. He was also a permanent, seasonal and volunteer park ranger for 10 years.
He started out working at Carlsbad Caverns National Park in June of 1968. He went on to serve at 14 national park sites including Badlands, Bryce Canyon, Carlsbad Caverns, El Malpais, Florissant Fossil Beds, Glen Canyon, Klondike Gold Rush, Mount Rainier, New River Gorge, Olympic, Saguaro, Yosemite, Zion and Dinosaur National Monument.
“As our community processes and grieves this terrible loss, we extend our deepest condolences to all of Ranger Lorig’s family and friends,” Ireland said.
Jennifer Rodriguez is a McClatchy National Real-Time reporter covering the Central and Midwest regions. She joined McClatchy in 2023 after covering local news in Youngstown, Ohio, for over six years. Jennifer has made several achievements in her journalism career, including receiving the Robert R. Hare Award in English, the Emerging Leader Justice and Equality Award, the Regional Edward R. Murrow Award and the Distinguished Hispanic Ohioan Award.
The Florida Department of Health has issued an emergency license restriction for a plastic surgeon accused of failing to call 911 right away when his wife had a seizure during an operation.
Hush Naidoo Jade Photography via Unsplash
An investigation into a plastic surgeon in Florida revealed he performed unwanted procedures on patients and delayed calling 911 during an operation that ended in his wife’s death, a report said.
The Florida Department of Health issued an emergency restriction of Dr. Ben Brown’s medical license on May 2, a little more than five months after his wife, Hillary Brown, died.
The 30-page report available through the Department of Health details how Ben Brown’s Gulf Breeze-based practice called Restore Plastic Surgery became “dirty and poorly maintained,” according to one medical assistant.
Brown’s family said in a statement they couldn’t comment on certain details because of the ongoing investigation.
“However, this public order was issued without Dr. Brown having any opportunity to dispute the allegations against him through any hearing process,” the family said in the statement shared with McClatchy News. “These accusations are inaccurate and misleading, and Dr. Brown looks forward to the opportunity to defend himself and present the actual facts through a hearing process in the future. Dr. Brown continues to live an endless nightmare without his wife Hillary by his side, and these inaccurate allegations only further deepen his immense pain.
The state report includes testimony that Brown gave unwanted Brazilian butt lifts to at least two women, who said they were left disfigured and in continued pain.
When one of the patients confronted him about the unauthorized procedure, he told her he gave her a BBL because he thought she would “love it,” officials said.
In another instance, during an August 2021 consultation, a woman said she declined a BBL after the doctor suggested it. Then he gave her one anyway, officials said.
She experienced complications from the procedures, and when she went back for a follow-up scar revision surgery, the experience was “pure torture,” according to her account in the report.
She continued going to Brown for cosmetic procedures, and in February 2023, she went in for a laser treatment, records show.
But neither Brown nor his physician assistant performed the procedure, officials said.
Brown’s wife, who was not a licensed healthcare provider, did it, according to Florida licensing records.
Investigators said Hillary Brown took on an array of responsibilities at her husband’s practice, including laser treatments, injections, removing patients’ stitches, suturing, and mixing her own anesthetic solution the day of the surgery that turned deadly.
On Nov. 21, 2023, Ben Brown was going to do an operation on his wife involving a scar revision, arm liposuction, lip injections and “ear adjustment procedures,” state officials said.
That morning, Hillary Brown mixed her own tumescent solution, an anesthesia that’s injected locally into the areas of operation, investigators said.
She took a handful of pills, received more medication from a medical assistant and was prepped for surgery, officials said.
Ben Brown began the procedures, injecting the solution until he ran out and asked staff to bring him lidocaine, which he injected into his wife undiluted, investigators said.
Witnesses said she sutured her own wounds, then her husband began work on her face, again injecting undiluted lidocaine, according to the report.
During that time, Hillary Brown said she saw “orange” and her vision was getting blurry, which is a sign of lidocaine toxicity, health officials said. Then she started having a seizure.
Ben Brown is accused of waiting 10 to 20 minutes before calling 911 and telling staff to wait to call as they scrambled looking for the equipment he needed. He tried to figure out what medication she took before he eventually told his staff to call 911 as he began performing CPR, witnesses said.
Hillary Brown was taken to a hospital “in cardiac arrest with an elevated lactic acid level and suspected lidocaine toxicity,” health officials noted.
She died a week later.
Brown is now accused of malpractice and of showing “extreme deficiency in responding to a medical emergency.”
The report cites several issues, from unwanted procedures to poor sanitation practices, but “most egregiously, Dr. Brown’s treatment of (his wife) was careless and haphazard,” officials said.
Under his new license restriction, Brown may only perform surgeries in a particular hospital setting, which does not include his clinic, and under the supervision of a doctor.
Restore Plastic Surgery appears to be permanently closed, according to an online search.
Gulf Breeze is a suburb of Pensacola in the Florida Panhandle.
The Florida Department of Health has issued an emergency license restriction for a plastic surgeon accused of failing to call 911 right away when his wife had a seizure during an operation.
Hush Naidoo Jade Photography via Unsplash
An investigation into a plastic surgeon in Florida revealed he performed unwanted procedures on patients and delayed calling 911 during an operation that ended in his wife’s death, a report said.
The Florida Department of Health issued an emergency restriction of Dr. Ben Brown’s medical license on May 2, a little more than five months after his wife, Hillary Brown, died.
The 30-page report available through the Department of Health details how Ben Brown’s Gulf Breeze-based practice called Restore Plastic Surgery became “dirty and poorly maintained,” according to one medical assistant.
Brown’s family said in a statement they couldn’t comment on certain details because of the ongoing investigation.
“However, this public order was issued without Dr. Brown having any opportunity to dispute the allegations against him through any hearing process,” the family said in the statement shared with McClatchy News. “These accusations are inaccurate and misleading, and Dr. Brown looks forward to the opportunity to defend himself and present the actual facts through a hearing process in the future. Dr. Brown continues to live an endless nightmare without his wife Hillary by his side, and these inaccurate allegations only further deepen his immense pain.
The state report includes testimony that Brown gave unwanted Brazilian butt lifts to at least two women, who said they were left disfigured and in continued pain.
When one of the patients confronted him about the unauthorized procedure, he told her he gave her a BBL because he thought she would “love it,” officials said.
In another instance, during an August 2021 consultation, a woman said she declined a BBL after the doctor suggested it. Then he gave her one anyway, officials said.
She experienced complications from the procedures, and when she went back for a follow-up scar revision surgery, the experience was “pure torture,” according to her account in the report.
She continued going to Brown for cosmetic procedures, and in February 2023, she went in for a laser treatment, records show.
But neither Brown nor his physician assistant performed the procedure, officials said.
Brown’s wife, who was not a licensed healthcare provider, did it, according to Florida licensing records.
Investigators said Hillary Brown took on an array of responsibilities at her husband’s practice, including laser treatments, injections, removing patients’ stitches, suturing, and mixing her own anesthetic solution the day of the surgery that turned deadly.
On Nov. 21, 2023, Ben Brown was going to do an operation on his wife involving a scar revision, arm liposuction, lip injections and “ear adjustment procedures,” state officials said.
That morning, Hillary Brown mixed her own tumescent solution, an anesthesia that’s injected locally into the areas of operation, investigators said.
She took a handful of pills, received more medication from a medical assistant and was prepped for surgery, officials said.
Ben Brown began the procedures, injecting the solution until he ran out and asked staff to bring him lidocaine, which he injected into his wife undiluted, investigators said.
Witnesses said she sutured her own wounds, then her husband began work on her face, again injecting undiluted lidocaine, according to the report.
During that time, Hillary Brown said she saw “orange” and her vision was getting blurry, which is a sign of lidocaine toxicity, health officials said. Then she started having a seizure.
Ben Brown is accused of waiting 10 to 20 minutes before calling 911 and telling staff to wait to call as they scrambled looking for the equipment he needed. He tried to figure out what medication she took before he eventually told his staff to call 911 as he began performing CPR, witnesses said.
Hillary Brown was taken to a hospital “in cardiac arrest with an elevated lactic acid level and suspected lidocaine toxicity,” health officials noted.
She died a week later.
Brown is now accused of malpractice and of showing “extreme deficiency in responding to a medical emergency.”
The report cites several issues, from unwanted procedures to poor sanitation practices, but “most egregiously, Dr. Brown’s treatment of (his wife) was careless and haphazard,” officials said.
Under his new license restriction, Brown may only perform surgeries in a particular hospital setting, which does not include his clinic, and under the supervision of a doctor.
Restore Plastic Surgery appears to be permanently closed, according to an online search.
Gulf Breeze is a suburb of Pensacola in the Florida Panhandle.
A Texas man died after police say they responded to an exposure call and ultimately tased the man.
Screengrab from Houston Police Department’s video on Facebook
A Texas man died after police say they responded to an exposure call and ultimately tased him.
Just after 7 a.m. April 28, police responded to a southeast Houston neighborhood after they were called about a naked man running around in the street, Houston Police Assistant Chief Wyatt Martin said at a news conference streamed on Facebook.
People in the area reported they could hear the man screaming. When officers arrived, they found the man inside a back enclosed porch of a home in the neighborhood.
Martin said police confronted the man and ordered him to come out, but he was uncooperative. The officers backed off and called for backup because the man was in an “agitated state”, Martin said.
When fire crews and backup units arrived, police tried to take the man into custody, Martin said.
“He fought with the officers and was eventually tased,” Martin said.
The man, whose identity has not been released, was placed into handcuffs, and about a minute later he became unresponsive, police said.
Paramedics were already on the scene and treated the man but were not able to revive him, police said. He was taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
“We use tasers as a less lethal weapon quite often, most of the time people have no adverse effects. This gentleman, we do know for certain was on a narcotic, and that very likely, given what he was on, could have contributed,” Martin said.
Martin said the man was tased at least one time after wrestling with officers. He said a full investigation into the man’s death will be done.
A cause of death has not yet been determined.
Jennifer Rodriguez is a McClatchy National Real-Time reporter covering the Central and Midwest regions. She joined McClatchy in 2023 after covering local news in Youngstown, Ohio, for over six years. Jennifer has made several achievements in her journalism career, including receiving the Robert R. Hare Award in English, the Emerging Leader Justice and Equality Award, the Regional Edward R. Murrow Award and the Distinguished Hispanic Ohioan Award.
I heard the news, and my face fell, but then my face brightened again at the mere thought of him yelling MANDO!! repeatedly, warmly, boisterously. A dear old friend of Mando’s greeting his old friend Mando, and a dear old friend of ours greeting all of us.
Maybe you miss his voice already, in which case I encourage you to just sit with this and luxuriate in his warm, boisterous, too-loud-but-that’s-why-we-love-him voice for a while. Ahhhh! Mando! They all hate you, Mando! Only you, Mando! Welcome back, Mando! Sorry for the remote rendezvous, Mando! His name, in the quite popular Star Wars Disney+ series The Mandalorian, is Greef Karga, but of course that’s not his name. His name, in any context and on any planet, is Carl Weathers, and we are forever delighted to hear his voice, to see our warm and boisterous old friend who greets us too loudly and claps us on the back so hard it hurts. Carl Weathers died on Thursday. He was 76. He is immortal for any one of roughly a dozen roles across a dozen beloved pop-cultural universes, and maybe Greef Karga makes your personal list of Most Beloved Carl Weathers Roles and maybe Greef Karga doesn’t, because that’s the towering stature of the beloved actor and old friend we’re dealing with here.
Carl Weathers was born in New Orleans, played defensive end for San Diego State (where he helped win the 1969 Pasadena Bowl and also got his master’s in theater arts), played eight games at linebacker for the Raiders (no stats but presumably fantastic vibes), and moved on to the Canadian Football League (where he once recovered a fumble as a member of the BC Lions). Then he became heavyweight champion of the world.
With apologies to that time in 1975 when he almost beat J.J. into oblivion on Good Times, the wider world first met Carl Weathers as Apollo Creed, ultra-charismatic semi-villain of the original 1976 Rocky, an astoundingly dapper champ (he had a 46-0 record with 46 KOs!) angrily boasting about how “none of ’em got a prayer of whippin’ me,” which nobody did, in that one anyway. What follows, over the first four Rocky movies—including Rocky II in 1979 (Creed loses, Rocky wins); Rocky III in 1982 (Creed trains, Rocky wins); and Rocky IV in 1985 (Creed dies, Rocky avenges)—is one of the great franchise-spanning character arcs in American cinema, from the mountain the hero has to climb to the wise mentor that spurs the hero to climb the next mountain. And it all peaks with the super-macho and absurdly joyous Rocky + Creed training montage in the third movie, which remains the purest Dudes Rock moment in global cultural history.
Apollo Creed is an all-timer, noble beyond measure in both victory and defeat, and the sheer embodiment of tender-badass American greatness, his hallowed last name alone fueling the greatest boxing franchise of our time. “See, we’re born with a killer instinct that you can’t just turn off and on like some radio,” Creed tells Rocky in Rocky IV, inspiring several generations of rapt moviegoers to run through walls. “’Cause we the warriors. And without some challenge—without some damn war to fight—then the warrior may as well be dead, Stallion.”
And then, with absurdly genial aplomb, Weathers found so many other damn wars to fight. In 1987, for example, he bursts onto (and off of) the screen in the original Predator, hooking up with Arnold Schwarzenegger for literally the single most macho handshake in recorded human history.
Who else could’ve possibly embodied the titular supercop role in the delightfully cheeseball 1988 action movie called Action Jackson? (“Mr. Jackson is so vicious we don’t even let him have a gun.”) Who else do you get to lead your two-season early-’90s TV cop drama literally called Street Justice? (All TV intros should feature all the characters smiling, or at least they should when Carl Weathers is one of the smilers.) Who else do you get to lend gravitas and credibility to the later mid-’90s seasons of the TV cop drama they actually had the balls to call In the Heat of the Night? And then. And then! Who else do you get to sell this?
Who else could’ve seen hapless ol’ Happy Gilmore as golf-pro material? Who else do you get to sell that pastel sweater-hat combo, that ludicrously too-long prosthetic hand, that alligator eye in the jar he still carries with him everywhere because Carl Weathers doesn’t even lose the fights he loses? Who else fits the character name “Chubbs Peterson”? Carl’s turn to pure screwball bliss in the 1996 Adam Sandler no-bullshit classic Happy Gilmore was long overdue and warmly received, giving our dear friend yet another iconic death scene and a second life in comedy. He’d go on to play a fictionialized version of himself and a less effective mentor in Arrested Development (where he always managed to get a stew going) and voice the battle-hardened Combat Carl in the Toy Story universe, where he occasionally gets to say things like, “Combat Carl’s seen things. Horrible things.” Because who else do you get to voice a character called Combat Carl?
A true great man. Great dad. Great actor. Great athlete. So much fun to be around always. Smart as hell. Loyal as hell. Funny as hell. Loved his sons more than anything. What a guy!! Everyone loved him. My wife and I had the best times with him every time we saw him. Love to… pic.twitter.com/Gi2lPWFTgt
And so, when Carl Weathers yells, Ahhhh! Mando!, the response from literally everyone watching is grateful, boisterous, warm: Ahhhh! Carl! Only you, Carl! They all love you, Carl! He got to host Saturday Night Live, too, in 1988, where he touted his role as Apollo Creed (“Only in a movie could a white man beat a Black man who was bigger, stronger, faster, and a better fighter”) and then sang a goofy little song called “What About a Rainbow” in a perfectly imperfect falsetto. Just a cheerful and beloved warrior who’d found another challenge to meet, another damn war to fight and win. He was the People’s Champion. He died undefeated.
… Monday. Under current state law, marijuana establishments must pay a community … the costs imposed by the marijuana establishment. “Reasonably related” means there … offset the operation of a marijuana establishment. Those costs could include …
There was so much bad that happened and that he did over the second and even third acts of his basketball life with Bob Knight that they made you forget all that he did at Indiana University when he was young, and was as great a coach of college basketball as there ever was. John Wooden won more and Mike Krzyzewski would win more after Wooden. Both were loved a lot more. But at his best, when he was winning three national titles at Indiana and then an Olympic gold medal, when one of his championship teams was undefeated, no one ever coached a more beautiful game of basketball than Bob Knight did.
Knight is gone now, at 83. And in death, there is no attempt, certainly not here, to clean up his record, scrub brush away his temper, or chairs being thrown across a court or the worst moment of all for him, the worst of a lot of bad public moments, when he lost his temper in the gym one day and put his hand on the throat of one of his players. He was a big and loud and complicated and controversial figure in his sport, in all of American sports, really.
But if you only remember the times when his face became a clenched fist, when he himself became a clenched fist, if you only remember all the times when he sabotaged himself even before he got older, you are missing a lot today about a big life in sports and, again, not just in his sport.
“There really was so much more good to him than bad,” Mike Woodson was saying last night after we all got the news of Knight’s passing. “I know some people don’t want to hear that. But it’s true.”
Woody paused and said, “All I can do is explain what he meant to me. And he meant a lot from the time I played for him. I saw him at his highest points and his lowest points. I saw him laugh and I saw him cry and whether people want to believe this or want to listen to me about this, I know he was a good man.”
I knew Knight a long time, and well. I did see him at his best in Indiana, and then all the times later when his excesses, and his inability to control his temper and his own mouth, kept obscuring his record as a coach, in a career that never should have left Bloomington, Ind. I often sat in his office at Indiana, and ate pizza with him at his favorite hangouts there. I sat and watched his team practice and saw all the coaches, high school and college, from across the country who would just show up in his gym to watch him to do that, just coach a single practice.
And I was at home one night having dinner with my wife and he called and started yelling at me because I had criticized him for telling Connie Chung in a television interview that if a women was being raped, well, let him tell it the way he told Connie Chung:
“I think that if rape is inevitable, relax and enjoy it…That’s just an old term that you’re going to use. The plane’s going down, so you have no control over it. I’m not talking about the act of rape. Don’t misinterpret me. But what I’m talking about is something happens to you, so you have to handle it — now.”
He said I had misinterpreted what he said. I told him that I had understood him perfectly. Finally he hung up, and we went years without speaking, until he started working for ESPN after his retirement from coach and he was paired on television with my dear, late friend John Saunders.
He was a 24-year-old head coach at Army when Bill Parcells was an assistant coach on the football team there, and that began a good and deep and lasting friendship between the two men that lasted until Knight died on Wednesday. I remember a day at the old Daily News building on 42nd St. when I was sitting in the sports department and the phone rang and it was Knight. At the time Parcells was in his rookie season coaching the Giants, and all I really knew about him was that I thought he was going to get fired when the season was over, if not sooner.
“Have you gotten to know this guy?” Knight said.
I told him that all I really knew was in Parcell’s press conferences, during the week and after practice.
“Well, you ought to go over there to Jersey and get to know him, because you’re going to be making a big mistake if you don’t,” Knight said.
I said, “Why is that?”
And Knight said, “Because he’s great, that’s why.”
There was nothing for Knight in that phone call other than friendship. He was that kind of friend. But not unconditionally. He was a longtime friend of my friend Dick Schaap. But then, much later, he was tremendously rude when Dick’s son Jeremy, conducted an interview with Knight on ESPN after he had been fired at Indiana. Knight told Jeremy that night that he had a long way to go to be as good as his dad. But Jeremy stayed right with him, refused to be bullied when Knight had once again turned into a bully.
As far as I know, Dick Schaap, who died the next year, never spoke to Knight again. Knight and I did stop talking after the Chung interview. But there came a night four or five years ago, near Christmas, when the phone rang and it was Knight. He told me that he had been sitting with his second wife, Karen, and going over some old clips, and some were things I’d written about him when he was young.
“My wife asked me why we’d stopped talking, and I didn’t have a good reason for that,” Knight said. “And she said, ‘Why don’t you call him?’ So I did.”
We talked for a long time that night. And suddenly it was like all those late nights in Bloomington out of the past, before he couldn’t get out of his way, or refused to even try. Again: I’m not trying to defend the bad parts today. Just remembering there was more to the story with Bob Knight, a story as complicated as he was, but one that won’t be forgotten, the way he won’t be.
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.png "Ranger Tom Lorig, 78, was working at Bryce Canyon’s annual Astronomy Festival on June 7 when he fell and died.")
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.jpg "The Florida Department of Health has issued an emergency license restriction for a plastic surgeon accused of failing to call 911 right away when his wife had a seizure during an operation.")
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.png "A Texas man died after police say they responded to an exposure call and ultimately tased the man.")
