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Legendary Browns RB Jim Brown dies at 87

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Any debate about the greatest player in NFL history is incomplete if Jim Brown’s name isn’t included.

Brown, whose name is still synonymous with greatness at the running back position more than 50 years after his final NFL game, died Thursday at his home in Los Angeles, his wife told the Associated Press and the Cleveland Browns confirmed. He was 87.

Brown had a nearly immaculate NFL career. He played nine seasons for the Cleveland Browns and led the league in rushing eight times. He was a Pro Bowler all nine seasons and a first-team All-Pro eight times. Before he abruptly retired in 1966, he had the most rushing yards and touchdowns in NFL history. He was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1971.

Brown’s legacy included civil rights advancement

Brown was more than a football player. He was a civil rights activist, putting together the famous “Ali Summit” of 1967 that included Muhammad Ali, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Bill Russell. The New York Times said, “the moment itself would be remembered as the first — and last — time that so many African-American athletes at that level came together to support a controversial cause.”

Brown founded the Black Economic Union in the 1960s as a way to assist businesses owned by African-Americans. Brown also founded the Amer-I-Can Foundation in the 1980s in an attempt to stop gang violence in Southern California. He often spoke out about a wide range of social issues, including educational reform, and continued to speak out after he turned 80 years old. Brown was critical of Black athletes like Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods for not doing more to enact social change.

“They are the beneficiaries of our struggle,” Brown said about modern Black athletes in a 2002 interview with Sports Illustrated. “But they don’t recognize that because they’re inundated with agents, managers, lawyers and [team] owners who don’t want them to do anything but play ball and hopefully keep themselves out of trouble and just be physical freaks of nature with no [awareness] of decision-making power.”

Brown was involved in politics into his 80s. He campaigned for Barack Obama, but later expressed disappointment with Obama’s time in office. Brown offered public support to Donald Trump after his presidential election in 2016, saying Trump “really talks about helping Black people.”

“When he went through what he went through to become President, he got my admiration,” Brown told CNN. “No one gave him a chance.”

Like many things about Brown, his political views were complicated. Brown, who was a key figure in the civil rights movement in the 1960s, was outspoken against Colin Kaepernick and others kneeling during the national anthem to bring attention to social injustice.

“He’s always had this strain of conservatism in his politics that Black people do not achieve advancement through the politics of protest, but through the politics of earning as much money as possible, and trying to get out of the capitalist system whatever they can for the purposes of building economic self-sufficiency,” author Dave Zirin, who wrote a biography about Brown in 2018, told NPR. “And protest is an impediment to that in the mind of Jim Brown. And those have always been his politics.”

Movie star career

Brown was an actor, too. His sudden retirement was over a movie.

In 1966, Brown was filming “The Dirty Dozen” in London, and there were production delays due to bad weather. When Browns owner Art Modell threatened to suspend Brown if he showed up late to training camp, Brown informed Modell he was retiring at age 30.

In Brown’s final NFL season, he rushed for 1,544 yards and 17 touchdowns, leading the league in both categories. Yet he was content to walk away in his prime. Brown appeared in 55 movies or television shows as an actor, according to his IMDB page.

The most notable moment of Brown’s acting career might have come in the 1969 movie “100 Rifles,” when he and Raquel Welch had what is cited as the first interracial love scene in a mainstream movie.

Brown and issues of violence against women

Brown also made headlines for problems away from the field. He had a series of legal issues, most of which involved allegations of violence against women. According to the Los Angeles Times, Brown was accused in five cases of violence against women, including one in which he was accused of throwing a woman off a second-floor balcony. Those charges were dropped when the woman refused to name Brown as her assailant.

Brown was not convicted in any of those cases until he was sentenced to a six-month sentence in jail for smashing his wife’s windshield in 1999.

Superior athlete from lacrosse to football

Brown started his rise to fame as a standout athlete at Syracuse. Not only was he an All-American running back, he starred in basketball, lacrosse and track as well. He averaged 13.1 points in two seasons with Syracuse’s basketball team. He was so good at lacrosse, he’s in the National Lacrosse Hall of Fame and some argue he’s one of the greatest lacrosse players ever.

Cleveland took Brown with the sixth pick of the 1957 NFL Draft. He was an immediate star, leading the NFL in rushing yards and rushing touchdowns as a rookie, winning the Associated Press’ Most Outstanding Player award his first year. He won the Most Outstanding Player (renamed the MVP award in 1961) in 1958 too. Brown won MVP his final NFL season as well, in 1965.

Brown was bigger than almost any running back before him, with good speed to match. He was 6-foot-2, 232 pounds, which was almost as big as some of the top offensive linemen of his era, with more power and speed than the defenders who would try to bring him down. He finished his career with 5.2 yards per carry. Among retired players, only Marion Motley’s average of 5.7 yards per carry is better. Brown’s 12,312 rushing yards stood as the NFL record until Walter Payton broke it in 1984. Brown owned NFL record with 126 total touchdowns until 1994, when Jerry Rice scored his 127th touchdown.

Brown still holds some records that might never fall. He has eight rushing titles. No other player in NFL history has more than four. He rushed for 104.3 yards per game, and is the only player in NFL history who averaged more than 100.

NFL records — and football in general, for that matter — are only part of Brown’s legacy. More than 50 years after his sudden retirement, we’ve still never seen a running back quite like him.

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Pope Francis to undergo intestinal surgery and will be hospitalized for several days

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Pope Francis went to the hospital on Wednesday for surgery on his intestine, two years after he had 33 centimeters (13 inches) of his colon removed because of an inflammation and narrowing of the large intestine.

The Vatican said Francis, 86, would be put under general anesthesia and would be hospitalized for several days.

Pope Francis appeared at his weekly general audience on Wednesday, a day after he went to the hospital for a checkup.

The Vatican provided no details about the medical tests Francis underwent on Tuesday at Rome’s Gemelli hospital. Francis, 86, appeared in good form, though, at his audience in St. Peter’s Square, zipping around the square in his popemobile greeting the faithful. He also had two meetings Wednesday morning beforehand, the Vatican said.

Francis spent three days at the Gemelli hospital in late March. Initially, the Vatican said he had gone in for scheduled tests, but the pontiff later revealed he had felt pain in his chest and was rushed to the hospital where bronchitis was diagnosed. He was put on intravenous antibiotics and was released April 1, quipping that he was “still alive.”

The Argentine pope had part of one lung removed when he was a young man. He also suffers from sciatica nerve pain and has been using a wheelchair and walker for more than a year because of strained ligaments in his knee.

Francis has had a packed schedule of late, with multiple audiences each day. The Vatican has recently confirmed a travel-filled August, when the Holy See and Italy are usually on vacation, with a four-day visit to Portugal the first week of August and a similarly long trip to Mongolia starting Aug. 31.

In a sign that the trips were very much on, the Vatican on Tuesday released the planned itinerary for Francis’ visit to Portugal for World Youth Day events from Aug. 2-6. The itinerary confirms a typically busy schedule that includes all the protocol meetings of an official state visit plus multiple events with young people and a day trip to the Marian shrine at Fatima.

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My son was born with bulging eyes and totally blind – but baffled doctors don’t know why

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A mother is appealing for answers over the mysterious condition which left her son with bulging eyes.

Kobi-Jai Morgan, who is registered blind, was born last March with bruising around his eyes and was unable to open them.

He spent six weeks in hospital, where doctors discovered the structure of his eyes had not fully developed but could not figure out why.

Despite appointments with specialists, medics have been left scratching their heads over what is causing his condition.

His mother, Morgan Nottingham, from Ystalyfera in South Wales, is now desperately searching for answers.

The 24-year-old’s labour was induced in last spring at a hospital in Bridgend, where she had a difficult delivery.

Kobi-Jai was then transferred to a neonatal intensive care unit at Singleton Hospital in Swansea and put on ventilation and a feeding tube.

As well as bruising around the eyes, he had a large hole in his heart and a floppy larynx — the tube that helps carry air to the lungs and contains vocal cords.

His unknown condition means his eyes are light-sensitive and he spends a lot of time in discomfort.

As a result, he sometimes scratches his eye and pushes his eyelids towards his eyebrows when they are irritated.

His mother administers four different types of eye drops to Kobi’s eyes every day and he wears specialist transparent glasses made by Cardiff University.

The 15-month-old has been to Great Ormond Street Hospital in London and visited private specialists — but still does not have a diagnosis.

However, tests show that he can see some light and shadows.

Ms Nottingham said: ‘We’ve come to terms with the fact that he might not have his vision for life. But we get looks as it is.

‘He has bulgy eyes and the bottom of his eyes scrape across his cheek. He doesn’t realise while he’s little but it’s really sad, bless him.’

Kobi-Jai can now tell his mother when his eyes are bothering him.

She added: ‘He cannot carry on with his eyes like that. There has to be someone out there that knows something.

‘This is completely new to us. When he starts going to school — you know what kids are like. He has children coming up to him already and saying: “Oh mammy he looks scary”. I want answers.’

Ms Nottingham called for more research and resources that could help Kobi-Jai.

She said: ‘At the moment we have found no blind support centres, schools or sensory classes locally. The closest specialist school is in Birmingham.

‘We want to bring more awareness and help and support other parents going through the same thing. We’re all learning.’

A fundraiser set up to support Kobi’s medical care has raised over £12,500.

Family friends have organised a 12-hour charity walk, five-a-side football tournament and bike ride in a bid to raise more funds to help with his care.

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US actor Danny Masterson found guilty on two rape counts

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Los Angeles Times via Getty Images Masterson arrives at the Los Angeles court to learn his fate with his wife, Bijou Phillips

A jury in Los Angeles has found US actor Danny Masterson guilty on two out of three counts of rape.

The star of That ’70s Show, a TV series, faces up to 30 years in prison. He was led from court in handcuffs.

Three women, all former members of the Church of Scientology, accused the actor of sexual assault at his Hollywood home from 2001-03.

Prosecutors argued Masterson had relied on his status as a prominent Scientologist to avoid accountability.

The jury of seven women and five men was unable to reach a verdict on a third count after a week of deliberations, ending up deadlocked at 8-4.

One of his victims, who was raped in 2003, said in a statement quoted by the Associated Press: “I am experiencing a complex array of emotions – relief, exhaustion, strength, sadness – knowing that my abuser, Danny Masterson, will face accountability for his criminal behavior.”

Masterson’s wife, actress and model Bijou Phillips, wept as he was led away, CBS News reports. Other family and friends sat stone-faced.

Another jury in an earlier trial was unable to reach a verdict in December 2022.

Prosecutors chose to retry Masterson and this time the judge allowed attorneys to present new evidence that had been barred from the first trial.

Though the actor was not charged with drugging his victims, the jury heard testimony that the women had been dosed before he raped them.

Masterson was first accused of rape in 2017 during the height of the #MeToo movement. He responded by saying that he had not been charged or convicted of a crime, and that in the climate at the time “it seems as if you are presumed guilty the moment you are accused”.

Charges came after a three-year investigation by the Los Angeles Police Department. Prosecutors did not file charges in two other cases because of insufficient evidence and the statute of limitations expiring.

Throughout the trial, prosecutors argued that the Church of Scientology had helped cover up the assaults – an allegation the organisation has categorically denied.

At the time of the assaults, Masterson and all three of his accusers were Scientologists. Several of the women said it took them years to come forward because Church of Scientology officials discouraged them from reporting the rape to police.

Instead, they were forced to rely on the Church’s “internal justice system”, prosecutors said.

Scientology officials told one survivor she would be kicked out of the Church unless she signed a non-disclosure agreement and accepted a payment of $400,000 (£320,000), according to prosecutors.

Judge Charlaine Olmedo allowed both sides to discuss the dogma and practices of Scientology.

But Deputy District Attorney Ariel Anson told jurors during the trial: “The Church taught his victims, ‘Rape isn’t rape, you caused this, and above all, you are never allowed to go to law enforcement.'”

Throughout the trial, the defence tried to undermine the credibility of the “Jane Does” by focusing on inconsistencies in their testimony and their supposed drive to get “revenge” against their former Church.

During closing arguments, Masterson’s defence lawyer said of the survivors: “If you are looking for motives why people are not being truthful… there are motives all over the place.”

Although the Church of Scientology was not a defendant in the case, before closing arguments began, a lawyer with ties to the Church emailed the district attorney’s office to complain about the way the Church was portrayed during the retrial.

The defence also argued that the prosecution had relied heavily on testimony about drugging because there was an absence of evidence of any force or violence.

Masterson’s lawyers tried, unsuccessfully, to have a mistrial declared.

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