Hunter

In 2020, inside the clang-and-clatter of Neshoba Central High’s powerlifting gym, Jarquez Hunter’s coach laid down a dare: squat 645 pounds on three counts.

With a nod and quick coat of chalk, Hunter went to work. Challenges don’t faze him.

At a Mississippi water company three years prior, Hunter’s co-workers coaxed him into a pickup basketball game. Still in his button-down shirt and cowboy boots, the 5-foot-9 Hunter went airborne. And dunked.

In those same boots, the Rams’ rookie running back completed more delicate tests: He patiently broke and nurtured a horse that he eventually rode across Auburn’s campus.

“Stay true to the thing you’re doing,” Hunter said.

On Saturday at SoFi Stadium, Hunter made his NFL debut in a preseason game against the Dallas Cowboys, Lining up behind quarterback Stetson Bennett, he took a handoff on a third-and-six play and mimicked a sprinter stealing a head start — his shoulders low and knees churning. Hunter knifed through the defense and broke for an 11-yard gain.

“That was a great run,” said Rams coach Sean McVay. “He’s knocking guys back and finishing forward where what might be a four-yard run ends up being an eight-yard or seven-yard run.”

That bruising style helped Hunter rush for 3,371 rushing yards and 29 touchdowns in four seasons at Auburn. The Rams selected Hunter in the fourth round of the 2025 NFL draft, adding him to a running back corps that features starter Kyren Williams and second-year pro Blake Corum.

“He’s definitely laser-focused on what you’re saying,” Rams running backs coach Ron Gould said during training camp.

Or, as McVay illustrated it: “He can stare a hole through you.”

Gould dubbed Hunter’s speed as his “super power,” a gift confirmed by a 4.44-second 40-yard dash. But Hunter’s ability to twist defenders out of position mid-chase is his calling card. Proof? He amassed 278 yards in 23 carries last October against Kentucky.

“Since I was in middle school growing up, I did a lot of squatting,” Hunter said. “I do a lot of leg workouts. I run hills and pull sleds. That’s really how I get the power in my legs.”

Rams linebacker Chris “Pooh” Paul Jr., a fellow rookie, played against Hunter three times at Arkansas before Paul transferred to Mississippi. Every matchup against Hunter’s Tigers, Paul said, was the same headache.

Rams running back Jarquez Hunter is tackled by the Dallas Cowboys defense during a preseason game Saturday at SoFi Stadium.

(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

“We knew he ran hard,” the Rams linebacker said. “We knew he was hard to bring down. We knew he had speed. Very good in pass [protection]. … Man, he’s very dangerous.”

But that danger vanishes once the pads come off. They’re replaced by the patience of a country boy.

Hunter, who also stashes party tricks like leaping out of a swimming pool, grew up in the rolling greens of central Mississippi. And back home, Hunter’s most loyal running mate doesn’t wear pads. Danger, a chestnut quarter horse with a white blaze down his face and a deep copper coat, was born the same summer Hunter first wore an Auburn jersey.

The colt was born while Hunter was driving home for a short break before fall camp, its spindly legs still wobbly in the pasture.

The patience to break a horse, the stubbornness to work one until it trusts you, the dawn-to-dusk commitment of tending to something that can’t speak back — Hunter said he swears it all bleeds into his game.

“When you’re out there working with animals, you gotta stay true,” Hunter said, “you gotta go with the training. You still gotta work with them.”

That same discipline shows when Hunter rides his ATV up a steep hill, hauls in catfish by hand, or waits patiently for a buck in the woods — and it’s the same grit he’ll lean on as he pushes for a place in the Rams’ running back rotation.

For now, Hunter will line up again Saturday against the Chargers, with a chance to outpace the 41 yards he logged in 11 carries in his debut.

“Pretty decent,” Hunter said, “but it’s things I got to fix.”

Because for Hunter, the fixes are the fun part of challenges — whether it’s mending a missed block, pumping out another squat or winning the trust of a restless colt.

Staff writer Gary Klein contributed to this report.

Hunter Biden finally made news outside the MAGA mediasphere for something that’s usually the work of Fox News and other deep state disseminators: He verbally bashed the Democratic Party, CNN’s Jake Tapper, former Obama aides and even Hollywood’s devastatingly handsome ambassador George Clooney.

President Biden’s son, whose very name inspires a Pavlovian response among right-wing conspiracy theorists, appears to have pulled a page from the opposition’s playbook when during two recent interviews he leaned into grievance politics, repeatedly hurled expletives and condemned those who “did not remain loyal” to his father.

Hunter Biden’s first round of interviews since the 2024 election started out tame enough when last week on a new podcast hosted by Jaime Harrison, former chairman of the Democratic National Committee, he said that Democrats lost to Donald Trump because they abandoned his father. There was no “grand conspiracy” to hide his father’s health issues, he said. “We lost the last election because we did not remain loyal to the leader of the party. That’s my position. We had the advantage of incumbency, we had the advantage of an incredibly successful administration, and the Democratic Party literally melted down.”

Fair enough. Then it was on to Clooney, one of the first high-profile figures on the left to call for Biden to step aside from his reelection campaign after a disastrous debate performance. Hunter Biden disparagingly referred to the actor as “a brand” and told Harrison, “Do you think in Middle America, that voter in Green Bay, Wis., gives a s— what George Clooney thinks about who she should vote for?”

Then came the knockout punch. In a separate, three-hour-plus interview released Monday with YouTuber Andrew Callaghan, he said of the star: “George Clooney is not a f— actor. He is a f—, I don’t know what he is. He’s a brand. … F— him and everybody around him.”

George Clooney was among Kennedy Center honorees welcomed by President Biden at the White House on Dec. 4, 2022.

(Manuel Balce Ceneta / Associated Press)

Hunter Biden also had some words for senior Biden aide Anita Dunn. “The Anita Dunns of the world, who’s made $40 [million], $50 million off the Democratic Party, they’re all going to insert their judgment over a man who has figured out, unlike anybody else, how to get elected to the United States Senate over seven times, how to pass more legislation than any president in history, how to have a better midterm election than anyone in history and how to garner more votes than any president that has ever run.” Former Obama aide and political analyst David Axelrod was also on the list. He said Axelrod “had one success in his political life, and that was Barack Obama, and that was because of Barack Obama.”

And if the above sentiments were attributed to the current president’s sons, who’ve characterized the Democratic Party as Nazis and referred to those who were protesting immigration sweeps by the patently offensive term “mongoloids”? Meh, it’s just another Monday. But Hunter Biden, like most public-facing Democrats, is held to a different standard. When they go low, we go high. Remember that sage advice that worked for Democrats back in the late aughts and early 2010s but now sounds like advice pulled from a 1950s guide to etiquette? The younger Biden not only deviated from that lefty code but also mirrored his tormentors, then unleashed his ire onto his own party.

Hunter Biden‘s own reckless actions over the years made him grist for all manner of right-wing helmed investigations. Then there are the stupid conspiracies, whether it’s the missing laptop or that mysterious bag of cocaine found in the White House. Hard to keep track, but the younger Biden went there during his recent interview. “I have been clean and sober since June of 2019. I have not touched a drop of alcohol or a drug, and I’m incredibly proud of that,” he told Callaghan. “And why would I bring cocaine into the White House and stick it into a cubby outside of the Situation Room in the West Wing?”

But he also attributed at least one recent alleged conspiracy to those outside the right-wing cabal or, more specifically, to Jake Tapper. The CNN anchor co-wrote “Original Sin,” a provocative book that claimed President Biden’s confidants worked to conceal his declining health from the public.

Hunter Biden argued that it was nonsense and that the “ability to keep a secret in Washington is zero.”
“What sells, Jaime?” he asked Harrison. “What sells is the idea of a conspiracy.” And the public spectacle of flaming your enemy’s enemy.

There was perhaps no better reaction than that of Dobson, who appeared stunned after coming from seemingly nowhere with 100m remaining to beat world-class competition.

Olympic and world silver medallist Hudson-Smith crossed the line second in 44.27, ahead of South Africa’s Zakithi Nene, who has run the fastest time in the world this year with 43.76.

“I don’t know what happened,” Dobson told BBC Sport.

“I got to the last 100m and I felt great. I was catching everyone. I thought to myself, ‘If I just dig really deep then I can get them’ – and I did!”

Having already clinched victory in the women’s high jump with her second-time clearance at 1.96m, Lake thrived under the gaze of the entire crowd and went close to breaking her British record with three solid attempts at 2m.

While Kerr could not deliver the record-breaking finale he hoped to, he will take lessons from his loss to Koech and has time on his side with two months until his world title defence in Tokyo.

“I should be winning those so I am frustrated,” said Kerr.

“I really wanted to show up and win for this crowd but all I can promise to them now is in a few months’ time I will be battling for a gold medal for this country. I’ll bring it home and then everyone can see what we were working towards today.”

Former 200m world champion Asher-Smith overhauled Hunt as she crossed the line in 22.25 seconds, with the ever-improving Hunt, 23, clocking 22.31.

But Olympic 100m champion Alfred proved a class above, recording the joint-ninth fastest 200m of all time as she stormed to victory in 21.71.

Ireland’s Rhasidat Adeleke was fourth in 22.52, with Daryll Neita sixth in 22.69.

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