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Browns trade QB Kenny Pickett to the Raiders for a fifth round pick
CLEVELAND, Ohio — The Browns aren’t keeping four quarterbacks afterall.
They planned to, unless someone made them an offer they couldn’t refuse. When the Raiders offered them a fifth-round pick in 2026 for No. 2 quarterback Kenny Pickett on Monday evening, they jumped at the chance, a league source told cleveland.com. The Browns announced the trade themselves around 8:45 p.m.
It leaves the Browns with Joe Flacco as their starter, and rookies Dillon Gabriel, their third-round pick, and Shedeur Sanders, their fifth-round pick, as their backups. Both rookies played well enough at times in preseason to make Pickett expendable, especially Gabriel during Saturday’s dress rehearsal game, the 19-17 victory over the Rams.
The Browns might also add another more experienced backup such as Tyler Huntley, who’s contract they terminated on Sunday.
The Raiders developed a pressing need for a backup to quarterback to Geno Smith on Saturday night when their No. 2, Aidan O’Connell, fractured his wrist in their 20-10 loss to the Cardinals. He’s expected to be out at least eight weeks.
“He’s hurt and it is going to be a while,” Raiders coach Pete Carroll said. “It’s a huge blow for us.”
Rookie Cam Miller replaced O’Connell, but the Raiders wanted a more experienced backup.
The fifth-round pick the Browns got from the Raiders recoups the fifth-rounder they gave up in March to acquire Pickett, the No. 20 overall pick of the Steelers in 2022 out of Pitt, in the trade with the Eagles. They also gave up quarterback Dorian Thompson-Robinson in that swap.
Pickett came in as a favorite to the win the starting job as the Browns bridge quarterback, but suffered a hamstring injury on Day 4 of camp, and lost his chance for the Week 1 start. He missed team drills over the next 10 days, which paved the way for Flacco to win the job. He returned to some 11-on-11s on Tuesday, but wasn’t healthy enough to play in dress rehearsal game against the Rams.
The Browns expected Pickett to be back in team drills this week and available for backup duty Week 1 against the Bengals.
While Pickett and Gabriel were both sidelined with hamstring injuries, Sanders made an excellent start in the preseason opener against the Panthers, throwing two elite-level touchdown passes to first-year receiver Kaden Davis. He went 14 of 23 for 138 yards, with the two TDs and no interceptions for a stellar 106.8 rating. He put three touchdowns on the board in his nine drive and gave Browns fans hope that they may have found their quarterback of the future.
But Sanders suffered a strained oblique muscle in the first joint practice against the Eagles on Aug. 13, and was forced to sit out those two sessions and the second preseason game there on Aug. 16. With Pickett still ailing and Flacco resting, Gabriel started that game and played very well in some respects, but also turned the ball over twice, once on a 75-yard pick-six that wasn’t entirely his fault, and once on a botched exchange between him and running back Pierre Strong Jr. On the interception, tight end Blake Whiteheart ran his route too deep on a levels concept, winding up too close to receiver Diontae Johnson near the left sideline. Whiteheart also pulled back his hands, enabling the Eagles rookie safety Andrew to swoop in and pick it off.
Gabriel readily admitted he should’ve thrown the ball away, but showed other good things during that game, including mobility, arm strength and command of the offense.
Gabriel also replaced Flacco in the second quarter of Sunday’s 19-17 victory over the Rams, putting points on the board on both of his drives, a field goal and a 3-yard touchdown pass to rookie receiver Gage Larvadain. The TD capped an 11-play, 86 yard two-minute drive, on which Gabriel went 9-for-11 for 86 yards and notched six first downs. It was that textbook drive, featuring passes of 11, 11, 12 and 16 yards, that helped the Browns feel comfortable trading Pickett.
Sanders, shaking off the oblique strain, replaced Gabriel at the start of the second half, and struggled throughout his five drives, getting sacked five times and managing only one first down. Sanders went 3 of 6 for 14 yards, with no points on the board en route to a 56.2 rating. He was yanked just before a two-minute drive with 2:03 remaining, and showed his frustration in a big way on the sidelines. He asked Kevin Stefanski for a chance to go back in, but Stefanski shook his head, and gave Huntley the nod instead. The move paid off as Huntley led the Browns on a 6-play, 46-yard drive that ended in a 37-yard gamewinning field goal by backup kicker Andre Szmyt as time expired.
It marks the third time Pickett has been traded in his four-year career. He was first dealt to the Eagles during the 2023 season when the Steelers made it clear they were going with Russell Wilson as their starter for 2024. The Steelers received a 2024 third-round pick (No. 98) and two 2025 seventh-round picks for Pickett and a 2024 fourth-round pick (No. 120). The Eagles then shipped Pickett to Cleveland in March for the Browns fifth-round pick and their own former fifth-rounder in Thompson-Robinson.
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Michael Jordan, Mia Hamm attending Bill Belichick’s UNC debut

There couldn’t be more hype around Bill Belichick’s UNC debut on Monday.
Outside of the expectations around the head coach in his first football game since coaching the Patriots for 23 years and winning six Super Bowls as one of the most decorated coaches in the sport’s history, he will be putting on a show in front of elite company at Kenan Memorial Stadium.
Those expected to attend the Tar Heels’ season opener against TCU in Chapel Hill include Michael Jordan, Mia Hamm, Lawrence Taylor, Julius Peppers, Eric Church, Chase Rice, and Blake Snell, according to ESPN.
Jordan, Hamm, Taylor, and Peppers all played collegiately in their respective sports for the Tar Heels.
Country singer Rice also attended UNC while Church, who is an Appalachian State alumnus, is a North Carolina native.
Belichick, 73, is taking over the program his father once coached at after a season in the media following his split with the Patriots.
He will look to turn it around for the university most known for its basketball program. The Tar Heels have won double-digit games just once, in 2015, since 1997. They last won the ACC in 1980.
Last season, the team went 6-7 overall and 3-5 in conference.
Belichick’s girlfriend, 24-year-old Jordon Hudson, is also a highly anticipated guest for the Sunday night game.
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A federal appeals court ruled against Trump’s tariffs. Here’s what could happen next.

President Trump has claimed the authority to bypass Congress and impose sweeping tariffs on foreign products, arguing the import duties are necessary to strengthen the U.S. economy.
Now a federal appeals court has thrown a roadblock in his path.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled Friday that Mr. Trump went too far when he declared national emergencies to justify tariffs on nearly every country on Earth. The ruling largely upheld a May decision by a federal trade court in New York.
But Friday’s 7-4 appeals court decision tossed out a part of that ruling striking down the tariffs immediately, giving his administration time to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. The ruling represents a major setback for Mr. Trump, who has said his trade policies will enrich the U.S. by bringing back manufacturing jobs and contributing billions in new revenue for the federal government.
“This ruling highlights a serious legal threat to one of the president’s most high-profile economic policies,” said Nigel Green, CEO of financial advisory company deVere Group, in an emailed report.
On Friday, Mr. Trump lashed out against the 7-4 ruling in a Truth Social post, calling the appeals court “Highly Partisan” and noting that the tariffs are still in effect.
Six of the seven judges who ruled against the tariffs are appointees of Democratic presidents, while the seventh is an appointee of former President George H.W. Bush. Of the four judges who dissented, two were appointed by former President Obama and two by former President George W. Bush.
Here’s what could happen next as the legal case proceeds.
How did the dispute arise?
Friday’s ruling came as part of a months-long legal challenge over the tariffs brought by Democratic states and small businesses, which are arguing that the president has exceeded his authority in issuing the import duties.
The appeals court’s decision is focused on the tariffs Mr. Trump imposed in April on most trading partners, along with earlier levies on China, Mexico and Canada.
Mr. Trump on April 2 — or Liberation Day, he called it — imposed so-called reciprocal tariffs of up to 50% on countries with which the U.S. runs a trade deficit and 10% baseline tariffs on almost everybody else.
The president later suspended the reciprocal tariffs for 90 days to give countries time to negotiate trade agreements with the U.S. — and reduce their barriers to American exports. Some of them did — including the U.K., Japan and the EU — and agreed to deals with Mr. Trump to avoid even bigger tariffs.
Countries that didn’t comply faced higher tariffs earlier this month. Laos got rocked with a 40% tariff, for instance, and Algeria with a 30% levy. Mr. Trump also kept the baseline tariffs in place.
What is the IEEPA?
Mr. Trump justified the taxes under the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act, or IEEPA, by declaring longstanding U.S. trade deficits “a national emergency.”
In February, he’d invoked the law to impose tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China, saying that illegal immigration and drug trafficking amounted to a national emergency and that the three countries needed to do more to stop it.
The U.S. Constitution gives Congress the power to set taxes, including tariffs. But lawmakers have gradually let presidents assume more power over tariffs — and Mr. Trump has made the most of it.
Does the ruling apply to all tariffs?
No, the court’s ruling doesn’t cover all of Mr. Trump tariffs. For instance, his levies on foreign steel, aluminum and autos were imposed under a different regulation after Commerce Department investigations concluded that those imports were threats to U.S. national security.
Nor does it include tariffs that Mr. Trump imposed on China in his first term — and President Biden kept — after a government investigation concluded that the Chinese used unfair practices to give their own technology firms an edge over rivals from the U.S. and other Western countries.
The administration had argued that courts had approved then-President Richard Nixon’s emergency use of tariffs in the economic chaos that followed his decision to end a policy that linked the U.S. dollar to the price of gold. The Nixon administration successfully cited its authority under the 1917 Trading With Enemy Act, which preceded and supplied some of the legal language later used in IEEPA.
In May, the U.S. Court of International Trade in New York rejected the argument, ruling that Trump’s Liberation Day tariffs “exceed any authority granted to the President” under the emergency powers law. In reaching its decision, the trade court combined two challenges — one by five businesses and one by 12 U.S. states — into a single case.
On Friday, the federal appeals court wrote in its 7-4 ruling that “it seems unlikely that Congress intended to … grant the President unlimited authority to impose tariffs.”
What happens next?
The president vowed to take the fight to the Supreme Court. “If allowed to stand, this Decision would literally destroy the United States of America,” he wrote on his social media platform on Friday.
A dissent from the judges who disagreed with Friday’s ruling clears a possible legal path for Mr. Trump, concluding that the 1977 law allowing for emergency actions “is not an unconstitutional delegation of legislative authority under the Supreme Court’s decisions,” which have allowed the legislature to grant some tariffing authorities to the president.
The government has argued that if Mr. Trump’s tariffs are struck down, it might have to refund some of the import taxes that it’s collected, delivering a financial blow to the U.S. Treasury. Revenue from tariffs totaled $159 billion by July, more than double what it was at the same point the year before.
Tariffs are paid by U.S. importers, such as American manufacturers or retailers that rely on foreign-made products. While the U.S. companies typically swallow some of the cost, they pass on much of the added expenses to consumers in the form of higher prices.
The Justice Department warned in a legal filing this month that revoking the tariffs could mean “financial ruin” for the U.S.
It could also put Mr. Trump on shaky ground in trying to impose tariffs going forward.
“While existing trade deals may not automatically unravel, the administration could lose a pillar of its negotiating strategy, which may embolden foreign governments to resist future demands, delay implementation of prior commitments or even seek to renegotiate terms,” Ashley Akers, senior counsel at the Holland & Knight law firm and a former Justice Department trial lawyer, said before the appeals court decision.
Does the Trump administration have other options?
Mr. Trump does have alternative laws for imposing import taxes, but they would limit the speed and severity with which he could act.
For instance, in its decision in May, the trade court noted that Mr. Trump retains more limited power to impose tariffs to address trade deficits under another statute, the Trade Act of 1974. But that law restricts tariffs to 15% and to just 150 days on countries with which the U.S. runs big trade deficits.
The administration could also invoke levies under a different legal authority — Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 — as it did with tariffs on foreign steel, aluminum and automobiles. But that requires a Commerce Department investigation and cannot be imposed at the president’s sole discretion.
“Even if the tariffs are struck down, we believe the Trump administration will look for new ways to tax imports or otherwise raise revenue from companies selling into the U.S.,” noted Green of the deVere Group.
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Boy, 11, shot dead after playing doorbell-ringing prank in Houston, police say | Houston

An 11-year-old boy playing a common prank game of ringing doorbells in Houston, Texas, was shot dead on Saturday as he ran away from a house.
Authorities said the boy was struck several times as he and some friends were buzzing doorbells in an Eastside neighborhood.
The Houston police department have not released the identity of the boy or the occupant of the home, but said a middle-aged man has been arrested and several weapons were later recovered from the home.
Police said the boy had been playing “ding-dong ditch”, which involves ringing on the doorbell of a home and running away. A witness saw the boy ring a doorbell and flee the property before he was struck by gunfire.
“A witness stated the male was running from a house, after ringing the doorbell, just prior to suffering a gunshot wound,” police said in a police statement.
Neighbors later told KPCR 2 that a man was seen being led in handcuffs out of a police vehicle and walking him to the home where the shooting happened.
Houston homicide detective Michael Cass told CBS News affiliate KHOU that a witness had recalled someone exiting the house that was pranked and “shooting at the kids running down the street”.
“Unfortunately, sadly enough, one of the boys, who was 11 years old, was shot in the back,” Cass said.
The game has led to deaths before. In 2023, a California man was found guilty of murder for intentionally ramming the car of six teens who buzzed his doorbell, killing three.
In May, a man in Virginia was charged with second-degree murder after he shot and killed a teenager who had filmed a TikTok video playing the doorbell game on the man’s home at 3am, according to local police reports.
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