Virginia

Browns open training camp in West Virginia’s scenic mountains, begin climb toward 2023 season

Published

1 year ago

July 23, 2023

Browns open training camp in West Virginia’s scenic mountains, begin climb toward 2023 season

WHITE SULPHUR SPRINGS, W.Va. (AP) — With the lush, green Allegheny Mountains providing a picturesque backdrop, the Cleveland Browns began preparing for an upcoming season they hope doesn’t go down hill.

Looking to avoid outside distractions and perhaps forge better chemistry among players, the team opened training camp Saturday at The Greenbrier Resort, a swanky vacation spot used by other NFL teams in the past.

Home, for the moment, is West Virginia’s country roads.

Browns wide receiver Marquise Goodwin will miss the start of his first training camp with Cleveland due to blood clots in his legs and lungs.

FILE - Cleveland Browns defensive tackle Perrion Winfrey (97) stands on the sideline during an NFL football game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Nov. 27, 2022, in Cleveland. Perrion Winfrey was released by the Cleveland Browns just days before training camp opened after he was involved in several troubling off-field incidents. The team made the move Wednesday, July 19, 2023, after a report surfaced that Winfrey was under investigation for threatening a woman with a gun in downtown Cleveland. (AP Photo/Kirk Irwin, File)

Defensive tackle Perrion Winfrey has been cut by the Cleveland Browns after police opened an investigation into him being involved in a robbery.

FILE - Cleveland Browns quarterback Deshaun Watson answers a question during a press conference after practice at the NFL football team's practice facility Wednesday, June 7, 2023, in Berea, Ohio. This will be a very different training camp for the Cleveland Browns and quarterback Deshaun Watson. (AP Photo/Ron Schwane, File)

This will be a very different training camp for the Cleveland Browns and quarterback Deshaun Watson.

The Cleveland Browns will shelve those classic logo-less orange helmets for three games this season.

“We’re landlocked here,” coach Kevin Stefanski said after the team took a short flight from Ohio and held a one-hour practice under partly sunny skies. “We’re in the middle of nowhere by design, so it forces you to be around your teammates.”

The Browns, who have held camp in Berea, Ohio, since 1992, will spend eight days at the remote location, giving them ample time to ramp up for their Aug. 3 exhibition matchup against the New York Jets in the Hall of Fame game in Canton.

The first few days will be relatively light before the Browns practice in full pads for the first time on July 28.

Before then, this is a chance for Stefanski and his staff to work on anything that was overlooked during spring workouts and for Cleveland’s players to dig deeper into their playbooks while getting to know each other better.

“Just grind,” said wide receiver Amari Cooper. “Just an opportunity to get away and focus on football. Just training camp, you know, just like the old days.”

Well, not quite like the old days.

The Browns have brought many of the comforts of home with them to West Virginia, and whatever they couldn’t haul is being provided by the luxurious resort, which has 710 rooms and was once designated as a “bunker” for the U.S. Congress in case of war.

Following the first relaxed practice, which did include some conditioning sprints at the end, Browns players dined inside an air-conditioned tent on a gourmet buffet spread that included a stir fry station.

This is not your Dad’s NFL.

The Browns will have one off day next week, giving players some down time to relax or try one of the many available activities including golf, paddle boarding and white-water rafting. Or, they could choose to pamper themselves with “The Ultimate Greenbrier Pedicure” for $150.

“I might check some of them out,” top cornerback Denzel Ward said. “But I’ll probably just be playing football and sleeping the rest of the time.”

There is no price tag on camaraderie, and Stefanski is counting on the extended time together — the league gave the Browns and Jets an extra week of training camp — making his team even closer.

“It just made sense to try to get away,” he said. “This is a place that has housed teams before. Having coaches on our staff that have been here that really can speak to this place, and then how first class it is, that was really helpful in us in determining this was the spot that we wanted to come.”

As for the football part of it, the Browns have plenty of work to do.

Coming off a disappointing 7-10 season shaped by quarterback Deshaun Watson’s 11-game suspension, there are raised expectations in Cleveland. First off, Watson has his legal issues behind him and is healthy.

An underperforming defense has been overhauled with several additions to the line along with fiery coordinator Jim Schwartz. Watson’s got a speedy new target to throw to in wide receiver Elijah Moore, and Cleveland’s roster is dotted with other stars like edge rusher Myles Garrett and running back Nick Chubb.

The excuses have expired. Entering his sixth season, Ward said this is the best Browns team he’s played with.

“I definitely believe so,” he said. “But you can have a lot of talent but you just got to bring it together and bring all those pieces together. So that’s what we’re doing and focusing on to make it happen.”

NOTES: Cooper said he’s full go after undergoing off-season surgery on a core muscle. … Browns 69-year-old owner Jimmy Haslam ran some sprints on the field following practice. … WR Marquise Goodwin, who has been sidelined by blood clots in his lungs and legs, watched the workout. Stefanski said it’s still possible Goodwin can play this season. “It’s an unknown,” he said. “It’s very scary, so right away you worry about Marquise and just his health, period. So all of it remains to be seen from a health standpoint and when he’s ready to go, and in the meantime we’re just supporting him and he’s listening to doctors.”

___

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Virginia

Fire erupts on campus of former Virginia Intermont College: ‘A tragedy for our city’

Published

1 hour ago

December 20, 2024

Press Room

Fire erupts on campus of former Virginia Intermont College: ‘A tragedy for our city’

A large fire consumed multiple buildings Friday morning on the former Virginia Intermont College campus in what one city official called “a tragedy for our city.”

Videos shared on social media and captured by local news outlets show the massive blaze engulfing structures at the historic college campus. Located in Bristol in western Virginia along the Tennessee border, Virginia Intermont College closed in 2014.

Neal Osborne, a city councilman in Bristol, shared video of the blaze on Facebook, which he said had become “a full inferno” of the college’s main hall by 1:15 a.m.

“There’s no way around it – this is very bad and this is a tragedy for our city, this is a tragedy for our neighborhood, this is a tragedy for everyone who attended Virginia Intermont College,” Osborne said in the post. “This is heartbreaking to see this.”

USA TODAY left a phone message Friday morning with the Bristol Fire Department seeking an update on the fire.

City councilman: Property owners ‘will have to answer’ for why fire erupted

The fire could be seen in videos burning the main building on campus, as well as adjacent structures. News crews with WJHL-TV reported observing the building collapse after 2 a.m.

Bristol police and firefighters were at the scene, and Osborne said in his video that firefighters from surrounding localities and departments also responded to provide additional aid.

Osborne said he and other city officials had for years pushed the owners of the private property to care for the aging infrastructure, but that those concerns “fell on deaf ears every single time.”

“They will have to answer for this in my mind,” Osborne said. “They will have to answer for why this property was not secured, why they did not take proactive steps to prevent this from happening.”

What is the Virginia Intermont College?

Constructed within view of the Blue Ridge Mountain range, Virginia Intermont College was founded in the late 1800s as an institute for women to get a higher education. It later become coeducational before it was finally shuttered in May 20, 2014 due to financial failure and the loss of its accreditation, the Roanoke Times reported.

Friday morning’s blaze is not the first time a fire has broken out on the closed campus.

Following a previous fire in November, Bristol Fire Chief Mike Armstrong told WJHL that the site was “dangerous” and said his crews prioritized fighting fires without stepping foot inside the aging buildings.

“The floors are rotten, the windows are broken out, the roofs are rotten. And it’s just not safe to be in there with all the debris, the broken glass,” Armstrong said. “I can tell you within the last 12 months, we’ve had multiple fires up here.”

Bristol Vice-Mayor Jake Holmes told WJHL that the site had fallen into disrepair and had become “a hazard.”

Eric Lagatta covers breaking and trending news for USA TODAY. Reach him at elagatta@gannett.com

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Virginia man charged with planning 'mass casualty' attack at NYC Israeli consulate

Published

9 hours ago

December 20, 2024

Press Room

Virginia man charged with planning 'mass casualty' attack at NYC Israeli consulate

An Egyptian man living in Virginia who was slated to be deported has been charged with planning an attack on the Israeli consulate in New York City.

Abdullah Azz al-Din Taha Muhammad Hassan allegedly provided bomb-making instructions and plans on how to attack the Manhattan consulate to an undercover FBI source, according to court documents. He was arrested Tuesday, the FBI told Fox News Digital.

Hassan is charged with distribution of information relating to explosives, destructive devices and weapons of mass destruction in furtherance of the commission of a federal crime.

TOP US ALLY, SDF COMMANDER IN SYRIA WARNS OF ISIS RETURN IF TURKISH AIRSTRIKES DON’T STOP

On the opposite side of a pro-Palestinian protest area, a group of pro-Israel demonstrators gathered, holding Israeli flags in front of the Consulate General of Israel in New York City. (Fatih Aktas/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

“The FBI’s New York Office wants to reassure our Jewish community here in New York that our office — along with our law enforcement partners — remains vigilant in our efforts to identify, investigate and disrupt potential threats to our community, using every tool at our disposal to do so. As always, we urge all community members to report suspicious activity to law enforcement and call 911 in cases of imminent violence or threats to life,” the FBI said in a statement.

“We will continue working to ensure our communities remain safe places for all, and we thank the public for their continued trust and partnership.”

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Hassan caught the FBI’s attention after the Fairfax County Police Department informed federal authorities that a tipster alerted police about his social media posts on X. The tipster said the account engaged in “radical and terrorist-leaning behavior.”

In several posts, Hassan praised the Islamic State terror group and other radical figures, federal prosecutors said. In August, he began messaging with an FBI confidential source whom he believed he recruited to conduct a “mass casualty attack,” authorities said.

Demonstrators attend a pro-Palestine rally

Demonstrators attend an “emergency rally for Gaza” outside the Israeli Consulate in New York City, Oct. 9, 2023. (Jennifer Mitchell for Fox News Digital)

Over several weeks, Hassan directed the informant on how to make a bomb, acquire weapons and how to make a “martyrdom video,” authorities said. In November, he allegedly selected the Consulate General of Israel as the target of the attack, saying it would be easier to commit an attack using small arms and be “martyred” by the police.

He believed New York would be “a gold mine of targets” for an attack, prosecutors said. As the pair planned the attack, Hassan also allegedly told him to book flights to countries without extradition agreements with the United States. During the attack, Hassan said the source could either murder people at the consulate with an assault rifle or detonate an explosive vest while standing in a group of targets, court documents state.

ISRAEL’S UN AMBASSADOR INSISTS NATION IS ‘NOT GETTING INVOLVED’ IN SYRIAN REGIME CHANGE

Hassan also asked for the source to livestream the attack so he could watch it in real time, authorities said.

In a statement, Jonathan Harounoff, the international spokesperson for Israel’s Permanent Mission to the United Nations, said the Jewish state “will not cower to terror.”

“We will not be silent in the face of hate and violence,” he said. “We will not stop in our pursuit of justice and peace. We will continue in our fight to return all 100 of our hostages still being held in Hamas terror tunnels in Gaza.”

Sara Netanyahu and Ofir Akunis, consul general of Israel, attend Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech at the 79th session of the General Assembly at U.N. Headquarters. (Lev Radin/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images)

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Ofir Akunis, Israel’s consul general in New York, expressed gratitude to authorities for thwarting the alleged attack.

“This attempted attack by terror organizations is an attack on the sovereign soil of the State of Israel in its entirety,” he wrote on X. “It’s proof that terror knows no boundaries and that we must fight it everywhere and every time. The threat it poses to the western world and its values must be fought together by all western democracies alike. Together we will prevail.”

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Virginia

Live Updates: #3 Oklahoma State vs #6 Virginia Tech – FloWrestling

Published

17 hours ago

December 19, 2024

Press Room

Live Updates: #3 Oklahoma State vs #6 Virginia Tech – FloWrestling

Two top 10 teams will be in historic Gallagher-Iba Arena as the #6 Hokies try to slow down the red hot #3 Cowboys in Stillwater, Oklahoma.

Both teams are undefeated as Oklahoma State is currently 5-0 while Virginia Tech is 3-0. The two programs also wrestled at the Cliff Keen Las Vegas Invitational earlier this month. The Cowboys ran away with the team trophy in Vegas, placing first by a margin of 77 points, while Virginia Tech placed fourth.

Tonight’s matchup is shaping up to be one of the most competitive duals of the first semester. We’ll keep you informed with live updates of the contest as they happen in real time!