Francine, the sixth named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, was expected to become a hurricane shortly, the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami said Monday night. The storm was already being felt in Mexico, where drenching rains closed schools as the storm gathered strength in the Gulf.

Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry urged residents “not to panic, but be prepared” and heed evacuation warnings. Forecasters said Francine’s landfall in south Louisiana was expected Wednesday afternoon as a Category 2 hurricane with winds of 96 to 110 mph (155-175 kph).

“We do not want people to wait to the last minute to get on the road and then run out of fuel,” Landry said. “We put a lot of information throughout the summer, throughout hurricane season, so that people can be prepared. The more prepared we are, the easier it is for us.”

Francine is taking aim at a Louisiana coastline that has yet to fully recover since hurricanes Laura and Delta decimated Lake Charles in the region in 2020, followed a year later by Hurricane Ida. Over the weekend, a 22-story building in Lake Charles that had become a symbol of storm destruction was imploded after sitting vacant for nearly four years, its windows shattered and covered in shredded tarps.

Francine’s storm surge on the Louisiana coast could reach as much as 10 feet (3 meters) from Cameron to Port Fourchon and into Vermilion Bay, forecasters said.

“It’s a potential for significantly dangerous, life-threatening inundation,” said Michael Brennan, director of the hurricane center, adding it could also send “dangerous, damaging winds quite far inland.”

He said landfall was likely somewhere between Sabine Pass — on the Texas-Louisiana line — and Morgan City, Louisiana, about 220 miles (350 kilometers) to the east.

Louisiana officials urged residents to immediately prepare while “conditions still allow” for it, Mike Steele, spokesperson for the Governor’s Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness, told The Associated Press. He warned Francine could rapidly intensify.

“We always talk about how anytime something gets into the Gulf, things can change quickly, and this is a perfect example of that,” Steele said.

Residents of Baton Rouge, Louisiana’s capital, began forming long lines as people filled gas tanks and stocked up on groceries. Others filled sandbags at city-operated locations to protect homes from possible flooding.

“It’s crucial that all of us take this storm very seriously and begin our preparations immediately,” Baton Rouge Mayor-President Sharon Weston Broome said, urging residents to stock up on three days of food, water and essentials.

A mandatory evacuation was ordered for seven remote coastal communities by the Cameron Parish Office of Homeland Security & Emergency Preparedness. They include Holly Beach, a laid-back stretch dubbed Louisiana’s “Cajun Riviera,” where many homes sit on stilts. The storm-battered town has been a low-cost paradise for oil industry workers, families and retirees, rebuilt multiple times after past hurricanes.

In Grand Isle, Louisiana’s last inhabited barrier island, Mayor David Camardelle recommended residents evacuate and ordered a mandatory evacuation for those in recreational vehicles. Hurricane Ida decimated the city three years ago, destroying 700 homes.

Officials warn that flooding, along with high winds and power outages, is likely in the area beginning Tuesday afternoon through Thursday.

In New Orleans, Mayor LaToya Cantrell urged residents to prepare to shelter in place. “Now is the time to finalize your storm plans and prepare, not only for your families but looking out for your neighbors,” she said.

City officials said they were expecting up to 6 inches (15 centimeters) inches of rain, gusty winds and “isolated tornado activity” with the most intense weather likely to reach New Orleans on Wednesday and Thursday.

The hurricane center said Francine was last about 145 miles (235 kilometers) south-southeast of the mouth of the Rio Grande, and about 425 miles (690 kilometers) south-southwest of Cameron, with top sustained winds of about 65 miles per hour (100 kilometers per hour). It was moving north-northwest at 7 mph (11 kph).

As rain fell Monday in northern Mexico, more than a dozen neighborhoods in Matamoros — across the border from Brownsville, Texas — flooded, forcing schools to close Monday and Tuesday. Marco Antonio Hernandez Acosta, manager of the Matamoros Water and Drainage Board, said they were waiting for Mexico’s federal government to provide pumps to drain affected areas.

The storm was expected to move in north-northeast motion through Monday evening and then accelerate to the northeast beginning Tuesday before nearing the upper Texas and Louisiana coastlines Wednesday.

Stengle contributed to this report from Dallas and Alfredo Peña from Ciudad Victoria, Mexico.

Get more Colorado news by signing up for our daily Your Morning Dozen email newsletter.

Here are all the biggest announcements from Apple’s “Glowtime” event.

Apple Intelligence

Apple’s core artificial intelligence offerings are being packaged and billed as Apple Intelligence — first revealed at the company’s developers conference in June.

These features include the ability to search for images in your library by describing them, creating custom emojis, summarizing emails and prioritizing notifications. Apple Intelligence will also upgrade Apple’s virtual assistant Siri to get it to better understand requests and give it some awareness of on-screen actions taking place on the phone, hopefully making it more useful.

What sets Apple apart from what’s being offered by rivals Samsung and Google? It is trying to preserve its longtime commitment to privacy by tailoring its AI so that most of its functions are processed on the device itself instead of at remote data centers. When a task requires a connection to a data center, Apple promises it will be done in a tightly controlled way that ensures no personal data is stored remotely.

Most of Apple’s AI functions will roll out as part of a free software update to iOS 18, the operating system that will power the iPhone 16 rolling out from October through December. U.S. English will be the featured language at launch but an update enabling other languages will come out next year, according to Apple.

iPhone 16 and the camera button

The iPhone 16 Pro and Pro Max will offer slightly bigger displays and feature variants of the powerful A18 chip, which gives Apple the computing power its devices need to run AI functions.

The iPhone 16 “has been designed for Apple Intelligence from the ground up,” CEO Tim Cook said during Monday’s event.

On the other end of the spectrum, the biggest physical change to the iPhone 16 lineup comes in the form of a dedicated camera-control button. The button responds to clicks and gestures, allowing users to quickly snap pictures, preview a shot or start video recording.

The button also allows owners to use something called Visual Intelligence, which will tell the iPhone 16 to automatically search on things you take photos of.

The phones will start shipping Sept. 20. The iPhone 16 will retail for $799, with the Plus model going for $899. The iPhone 16 Pro will cost $999, while the Pro Max will sell for $1,199.

Apple Watch upgrades

The Apple Watch Series 10 features a larger, and brighter, wide-angle OLED display that will allow users to better view the watch at an angle. But Apple focused much of its presentation on the device’s ability to detect signs of sleep apnea.

The new device is also being offered in a titanium finish for the first time, joining a longtime trend in the watch industry of offering a tougher, more lightweight, and perceived higher-quality, alternative to traditional materials.

The Series 10 watch starts at $399 and will be available on Sept. 20.

Airpods lean toward being a listening device

The new AirPods 4 series will come with an upgraded chip for better audio quality, and will feature more active noise cancellation.

If you frequently lose your ear buds, the new AirPods will also play a sound when you locate them through the Find My app.

In a medically focused update to the AirPods Pro 2, Apple said it will upgrade the devices so they can act as an over-the-counter hearing aid. A free software update will provide the upgrade and also include options to help protect hearing and the ability to administer a clinical-grade hearing test.

The AirPod 4 model costs $129, while the version with active noise cancelling will cost $179. They both ship on Sept. 20.

Get more business news by signing up for our Economy Now newsletter.

The deputy was looking for a stolen vehicle in the 1400 block of East Main Street at around 5:50 p.m. and found the vehicle with two people inside, Montrose city officials said in a news release.

The driver tried to flee the scene as the deputy approached and collided with the patrol vehicle. The deputy shot at the vehicle in response, injuring one man.

City officials did not specify whether the person injured in the shooting was the driver or passenger and could not be reached for comment Monday.

The deputy was placed on administrative leave and the 7th Judicial District Critical Incident Investigation Team is investigating the shooting.

This is a developing story and may be updated.

Sign up to get crime news sent straight to your inbox each day.

Nicholas Orlin and Shawn Murphy jointly sued the city and up to five unknown police officers in January 2022, seeking damages for eye and facial injuries they sustained in those incidents while protesting against police brutality on May 30, 2020. Those payments were approved as part of the Denver City Council’s consent agenda on Monday afternoon.

Both men have also received payments from the city of Aurora in the same case, according to their attorneys.

An amended version of the complaint identified Aurora police officer Cory Budaj as the person who fired the projectile that injured Orlin and Aurora police sergeant Matthew Brukbacher as the one who fired the projectile at Murphy.

Orlin and Murphy did not know each other but were both near Lincoln Park at the intersection of Colfax Avenue and Lincoln Street that evening, according to the lawsuit.

Orlin was knocked unconscious by an unknown hard projectile after covering a tear gas canister with a traffic cone, according to the suit. A short time later, Murphy was shot in the face with a hard projectile after he kicked away a tear gas canister.

In both instances, officers did not issue warnings before firing, according to the plaintiffs’ attorneys. Both men suffered from vision problems and facial disfigurement after the incidents.

The two settlement agreements with the city of Denver designated $210,000 for Orlin and $255,000 for Murphy.

Orlin already had been granted $100,000 through a settlement with Aurora. Murphy received $175,000 from that city, according to attorney Birk Baumgartner, adding up to total compensation of $310,000 and $430,000 for the two men, respectively.

The men were jointly represented by the Denver firms Baumgartner Law and Beem & Isely. The men have dismissed individual suits against the Aurora officers.

“I wouldn’t call it justice. I would say it is absolutely accountability,” attorney Danielle Beem said of the settlements Monday.

Stay up-to-date with Colorado Politics by signing up for our weekly newsletter, The Spot.

Rookie quarterback Bo Nix? He’s got plenty to correct after throwing for 138 yards on 42 attempts in the Broncos’ 26-20 season-opening loss at Seattle on Sunday.

Payton, though, reiterated the need for everybody else to help the 24-year-old more than they did in Week 1.

“I just watched a play where he climbs the pocket,” Payton said on his Monday conference call. “There were some bloody looks and he’s off schedule, throwing off the wrong foot. But I would say he’s doing what he has to on that play. There’s a dagger that opened up, but we’re not good in protection.”

The play Payton’s likely referencing came midway through the fourth quarter. Nix in preseason practices and games looked very comfortable with the dagger concept — where an outside receiver runs a deep in-cut into a void created by a slot receiver running a clear-out vertical route.

Earlier in the game on the same concept, Nix had a clean pocket and threw the ball on time, but airmailed Courtland Sutton on the in-cut. This time, Sutton came open again but Seattle rushers Leonard Williams and Boye Mafe ripped past guards Quinn Meinerz and Ben Powers, respectively, and buried Nix as he let the ball go.

The ball hit the turf harmlessly.

So Nix missed the first opportunity, and protection cost the second. That’s essentially the story of the afternoon for the Broncos.

Overall, though, Payton wasn’t going to criticize the way Nix played. He had a long list of issues with the Broncos’ offensive outing, but if he was displeased with Nix completing only two passes that traveled more than 10 yards downfield in the air or forcing two throws to Sutton that ended up intercepted, he didn’t say so.

“Certainly, I saw a three-step (drop) and a hitch instead of a five and a hitch on a certain play. We’ll get that cleaned up,” Payton said of Nix. “But overall, when he’s climbing a pocket or he’s on the move extending a play, there are times where the ball’s going to get away from you.”

Payton was not happy with Denver’s pass protection, saying that after he watched the film, “It’s kind of what I thought I saw from field level. It wasn’t good enough.”

Nix was pressured on 36.7% of his 49 dropbacks, according to NFL’s Next Gen Stats. That tied for 11th highest in the league through Sunday’s games.

He took two sacks, scrambled five times for 35 yards and a touchdown and otherwise was on the move frequently.

Payton wasn’t done there.

“Our red-zone offense wasn’t nearly as good as it needed to be and we did have some drops early on,” said the veteran coach, who also thought Javonte Williams and Audric Estime had chances in the run game but didn’t have their eyes in the right spots. “I think when I watch this tape offensively, we need to be better around (Nix) and we will be.”

Bolles OK: Payton on Monday added confidence to his Sunday assertion that left tackle Garett Bolles had avoided serious injury to his ankle.

“All the X-rays were negative,” Payton said. “MRIs were negative. Good news there. Obviously, there’s a contusion. That’s what I know, and that’s a positive.”

Jones debut solid: Safety Brandon Jones debuted in game action Sunday after missing all meaningful preseason action with a hamstring injury.

He rotated some with Devon Key, but the free-agent addition from this spring played 46 snaps overall and looked comfortable

“We were pleased with, call it his ‘re-entry’ into a game,” Payton said. “I mentioned during the week that it was a little concerning. The worry is also a recurrence of an injury with someone who maybe hadn’t played as much.

“He’s really smart mentally, and he’ll be able to clean off some of the rust. Overall was pleased.”

Want more Broncos news? Sign up for the Broncos Insider to get all our NFL analysis.

Keeler: Broncos, easily. I mean, yeah, the Buffs are as one-dimensional as a Pauly Shore flick, but we’re too far down the stream to change horses now. The worst-kept secret in BoCo is that Shedeur Sanders — not Pat Shurmur, not Sean Lewis — makes the big calls on offense. The takeaway from Nebraska postgame? There’s no one No. 2 trusts more with the ball in his hands than himself. While that might work for CU in the D-optional, pass-happy Big 12, Bo Nix is in a different league. Literally. Bo needs more help, man. A lot of help. From everywhere. Now.

Renck: For me the answer is simple: the Broncos. Why? They are built to run. They guaranteed $126 million in contracts to right tackle Mike McGlinchey, left guard Ben Powers and right guard Quinn Meinerz to win at the line of scrimmage, to create, as center Luke Wattenberg called it, “a physical identity.” Yet Nix threw the ball 44 times in the opener. Worse, he was the Broncos’ most dynamic runner. Javonte Williams averaged 3.2 yards per carry over the final 10 games last season and posted 2.9 yards a pop vs. Seattle. He was more explosive in training camp. But is he better? Is he a starter? The eye test — even in a blink — says Audric Estime could be the team’s most dynamic back. Coach Sean Payton reiterated Monday he “didn’t do a good enough job” but explained the run issues involve scheme, better technique by linemen and improved vision from running backs.

Keeler: The downside of “going young”? Cutting sure things. Cutting veteran sure things, especially. Samaje Perine has lost a step, but at least those steps are usually chugging forward. Think Young Bo could’ve used the sure-handed Tim Patrick to keep the chains moving? It’s Sean’s show. Sean’s locker room. But Sean’s offenses in recent years have looked a heck of a lot better when they’re using the run to set up the pass, and not vice versa. Stat to note: Since 2020, Sean Payton teams are 18-5, and 4-2 with the Broncos, when picking up 120 rush yards or more, and 11-16 when it’s 119 or fewer. If Estime turns this engine over and holds the fort as a pass protector, that might be your guy.

Renck: CU is abysmal on the ground, with its running backs collecting 75 yards on 25 carries through two games. Stop the madness with Charlie Offerdahl. He can pick up a blitz. OK. Cool. Make him the backup and expand his role on special teams. Dallan Hayden needs more reps. Feed him and see if it puts the offensive line in rhythm. The Broncos’ situation is more alarming because they want to run. The Buffs do not. They say they do. But they don’t. And until they value balance over Sanders’ passing stats, nothing will change.

Keeler: I’ve been stomping for Hayden for two weeks now, to no avail. Meanwhile, Dylan Edwards is averaging 9.5 yards per touch at K-State, where he’s already scored three times in two games for the Fighting EMAWs. The Buffs sure would love that kind of explosion out of the backfield right about now. And young Bo could use it even more.

Want more Broncos news? Sign up for the Broncos Insider to get all our NFL analysis.

On Monday, CU and the Big 12 announced at the Buffaloes’ game against Baylor on Sept. 21 at Folsom Field has been slated for a 6 p.m. MT kickoff. The game will be broadcast nationally on Fox.

The matchup against Baylor is homecoming, and it’s also CU’s first Big 12 contest since leaving the conference after the 2010 season. The Buffs spent 13 seasons in the Pac-12 before returning to the Big 12 this year.

Sanders surgery

CU safety Shilo Sanders underwent surgery on Monday morning for an injury sustained in Saturday’s 28-10 loss at Nebraska.

It’s unclear the nature of the injury or how long Sanders would be sidelined, but head coach Deion Sanders said after the game “I know he did something to his forearm that that put him out for the rest of the game.”

Shilo was injured on CU’s sixth defensive play of the game. During the second half, he had his right arm in a sling.

On social media Coach Prime posted photos of Shilo at the hospital on Monday and wrote, “He will be back and ready.”

Want more sports news? Sign up for the Sports Omelette to get all our analysis on Denver’s teams.

Colorado Parks and Wildlife biologists captured the wolf on Aug. 30 and it died on Sept. 3, the agency announced Monday. Biologists had found the wolf, identified as 2309-OR, in poor condition, with several injuries to a hind leg and severely underweight, according to CPW.

“CPW staff believes that it was unlikely the wolf would have survived for very long in the wild,” the agency said in a news release.

State wildlife officials decided in August to capture the Copper Creek pack after the male wolf killed and maimed multiple cattle and sheep in the Middle Park area. The removal of the wolves from the wild was a setback for the voter-mandated effort to reintroduce the apex predator to the state’s landscape, beginning with the release of 10 wolves in the state in December.

Another of the reintroduced wolves died this spring. The state’s known wolf population now stands at 14: eight survivors among the reintroduced adults, plus the four pups from the Copper Creek pack and two adult wolves remaining from a pack established earlier by wolves that migrated from Wyoming.

The decision to recapture the pack came with risk and uncertainty, CPW Director Jeff Davis said in an interview. Wildlife officials did not want to remove the male wolf while the pups and the female wolf relied on his hunting for survival.

“We’re trying to balance the fact that we have so few animals on the landscape, and (we have) our mandate to restore a sustainable population of wolves while avoiding and minimizing impacts to the ranching industry,” he said. “There was an opportunity to remove the animals from the area of conflict, kind of reassess what the next steps are.”

An outside agency will investigate the cause of death of the male wolf and release a report, Davis said. He expected the investigation to take between 45 and 60 days.

The rest of the recaptured Copper Creek pack — a female wolf and four pups, one more than previously known — were captured and will be held in a facility for eventual rerelease.

The pups were underweight but otherwise healthy and taken with their mother to a “large, secure enclosure with limited human interaction,” according to CPW.

Citing a concern for the safety of the wolves, Davis declined to provide more details about the facility — including whether the facility is public or private and whether it is in Colorado.

Rerelease planned later in fall

The agency plans to release the remaining pack together between mid-November and December, once the pups have reached adult size, Davis said. Biologists will collar the pups before release, he said.

The pack will be released within the same broad area where the wolves were set loose in December, Davis said. The zone stretches north to south between Kremmling and Aspen, and east to west between Loveland Pass and Rifle.

CPW officials will speak with local elected officials and landowners in possible release areas before it occurs, according to the agency.

Davis and other CPW officials began discussing the possibility of removing and relocating the Copper Creek pack in early August, he said. The agency announced its decision to capture the pack five days after the operation was underway.

CPW began attempts to capture the pack on Aug. 22. Its biologists captured the wolves using leg-hold traps over the next two weeks, in this order:

• Aug. 24: adult female, 2312-OR
• Aug. 30: adult male, 2309-OR
• Tuesday: male pup, 2401
• Wednesday: male pups, 2403 and 2405
• Thursday: female pup, 2402

Wildlife officials continued to work in the area until Sunday to ensure all pups were captured.

“After three more days of operations, CPW felt confident there were no additional pups on the landscape,” according to the agency’s news release.

CPW veterinarians do not believe the leg-hold trap caused the injury to the now-deceased male wolf’s leg, Davis said.

The leg had puncture wounds high on the inside of the back right leg, which a leg-hold trap could not inflict on an adult wolf, Davis said. That leg was atrophied and the hair on the paw had grown long, indicating that the foot had not been used regularly for a long time, Davis said. Veterinarians administered antibiotics to the captured wolf to treat infection from the wound.

State deviated from its own plan

CPW’s wolf management plan states that relocating wolves to halt depredations “has little technical merit,” since the wolves could return to their previous territory or simply start killing livestock in their new area.

Davis acknowledged that the relocation decision strayed from the plan, but he said it was a necessary choice when trying to balance the mandate to restore wolves and also “take a little bit of steam or temperature out of the ranching community by removing the conflict.”

The majority of the 24 cattle and sheep killed and maimed by wolves since reintroduction were attacked by the paired wolves that formed the Copper Creek pack, CPW officials previously said.

“This isn’t necessarily exactly what our plan says, but this is a little bit of a perfect storm event, so it requires some flexibility and unique solutions going forward,” Davis said.

The four pups had not been involved with the livestock but were approaching the age when they would begin hunting with the adults, Davis said. It’s unclear whether the female wolf has killed or injured any cattle or sheep, he said.

Had the male wolf survived, he would have been held in captivity permanently, CPW officials said at news conference Monday afternoon.

While it is difficult to digest the death of the male wolf, the relocation was the best option for CPW at the time, said Rob Edward, co-founder of the Rocky Mountain Wolf Project, which supported reintroduction. Now that the pack has been relocated, CPW can pivot to focusing more on preventing depredation by coordinating earlier with ranches that have a wolf presence nearby.

CPW also can make sure ranchers have easy access to nonlethal deterrents, he said.

“Now we can turn our attention to why CPW had to relocate these wolves — and what they can do better as they implement the will of the voters,” Edward said.

Despite the death of two of the 10 animals released in December, CPW officials remain optimistic that the reintroduction program will succeed.

“I’m not concerned about the overall success of the program,” Eric Odell, CPW’s wolf conservation program manager, said during the news conference.

Get more Colorado news by signing up for our Mile High Roundup email newsletter.

NEW YORK (AP) — James Earl Jones, who overcame racial prejudice and a severe stutter to become a celebrated icon of stage and screen — eventually lending his deep, commanding voice to CNN, “The Lion King” and Darth Vader — has died. He was 93.

His agent, Barry McPherson, confirmed Jones died Monday morning at home in New York’s Hudson Valley region. The cause was not immediately clear.

The pioneering Jones, who was one of the first African American actors in a continuing role on a daytime drama and worked deep into his 80s, won two Emmys, a Golden Globe, two Tony Awards, a Grammy, the National Medal of Arts, the Kennedy Center Honors and was given an honorary Oscar and a special Tony for lifetime achievement. In 2022, a Broadway theater was renamed in his honor.

He cut an elegant figure late in life, with a wry sense of humor and a ferocious work habit. In 2015, he arrived at rehearsals for a Broadway run of “The Gin Game” having already memorized the play and with notebooks filled with comments from the creative team. He said he was always in service of the work.

“The need to storytell has always been with us,” he told The Associated Press then. “I think it first happened around campfires when the man came home and told his family he got the bear, the bear didn’t get him.”

Jones created such memorable film roles as the reclusive writer coaxed back into the spotlight in “Field of Dreams,” the boxer Jack Johnson in the stage and screen hit “The Great White Hope,” the writer Alex Haley in “Roots: The Next Generation” and a South African minister in “Cry, the Beloved Country.”

He was also a sought-after voice actor, expressing the villainy of Darth Vader (“No, I am your father,” commonly misremembered as “Luke, I am your father”), as well as the benign dignity of King Mufasa in Disney’s animated “The Lion King” and announcing “This is CNN” during station breaks. He won a 1977 Grammy for his performance on the “Great American Documents” audiobook.

“If you were an actor or aspired to be an actor, if you pounded the payment in these streets looks for jobs, one of the standards we always had was to be a James Earl Jones,” Samuel L. Jackson once said.

Some of his other films include “Dr. Strangelove,” “The Greatest” (with Muhammad Ali), “Conan the Barbarian,” “Three Fugitives” and playing an admiral in three Tom Clancy blockbuster adaptations — “The Hunt for Red October,” “Patriot Games” and “Clear and Present Danger.” In a rare romantic comedy, “Claudine,” Jones had an onscreen love affair with Diahann Carroll.

Jones made his Broadway debut in 1958’s “Sunrise At Campobello” and would win his two Tony Awards for “The Great White Hope” (1969) and “Fences” (1987). He also was nominated for “On Golden Pond” (2005) and “Gore Vidal’s The Best Man” (2012). He was celebrated for his command of Shakespeare and Athol Fugard alike. More recent Broadway appearances include “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof,” “Driving Miss Daisy,” “The Iceman Cometh,” and “You Can’t Take It With You.”

As a rising stage and television actor, he appeared in “As the World Turns” in 1965, one of the first Black actors to have such role on daytime TV. He performed with the New York Shakespeare Festival Theater in “Othello,” “Macbeth” and “King Lear” and in off-Broadway plays.

Jones was born by the light of an oil lamp in a shack in Arkabutla, Mississippi, on Jan. 17, 1931. His father, Robert Earl Jones, had deserted his wife before the baby’s arrival to pursue life as a boxer and, later, an actor.

When Jones was 6, his mother took him to her parents’ farm near Manistee, Michigan. His grandparents adopted the boy and raised him.

“A world ended for me, the safe world of childhood,” Jones wrote in his autobiography, “Voices and Silences.” “The move from Mississippi to Michigan was supposed to be a glorious event. For me it was a heartbreak, and not long after, I began to stutter.”

Too embarrassed to speak, he remained virtually mute for years, communicating with teachers and fellow students with handwritten notes. A sympathetic high school teacher, Donald Crouch, learned that the boy wrote poetry, and demanded that Jones read one of his poems aloud in class. He did so faultlessly.

Teacher and student worked together to restore the boy’s normal speech. “I could not get enough of speaking, debating, orating — acting,” he recalled in his book.

At the University of Michigan, he failed a pre-med exam and switched to drama, also playing four seasons of basketball. He served in the Army from 1953 to 1955.

In New York, he moved in with his father and enrolled with the American Theater Wing program for young actors. Father and son waxed floors to support themselves while looking for acting jobs.

True stardom came suddenly in 1970 with “The Great White Hope.” Howard Sackler’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Broadway play depicted the struggles of Jack Johnson, the first Black heavyweight boxing champion, amid the racism of early 20th-century America. In 1972, Jones repeated his role in the movie version and was nominated for an Academy Award as best actor.

Jones’ two wives were also actors. He married Julienne Marie Hendricks in 1967. After their divorce, he married Cecilia Hart, best known for her role as Stacey Erickson in the CBS police drama “Paris,” in 1982. (She died in 2016.) They had a son, Flynn Earl, born in 1983.

In 2022, the Cort Theatre on Broadway was renamed after Jones, with a ceremony that included Norm Lewis singing “Go the Distance,” Brian Stokes Mitchell singing “Make Them Hear You” and words from Mayor Eric Adams, Samuel L. Jackson and LaTanya Richardson Jackson.

“You can’t think of an artist that has served America more,” director Kenny Leon told the AP. “It’s like it seems like a small act, but it’s a huge action. It’s something we can look up and see that’s tangible.”

Citing his stutter as one of the reasons he wasn’t a political activist, Jones nonetheless hoped his art could change minds.

“I realized early on, from people like Athol Fugard, that you cannot change anybody’s mind, no matter what you do,” he told the AP. “As a preacher, as a scholar, you cannot change their mind. But you can change the way they feel.”

___

Mark Kennedy is at http://twitter.com/KennedyTwits

If you’re on mobile, tap here to see the rankings.

Class 5A

Class 4A

Class 3A

Note: All stats taken from Maxpreps.com.

Want more sports news? Sign up for the Sports Omelette to get all our analysis on Denver’s teams.