Category: Worldwide

Calling out the best box of mac and cheese on grocery store shelves is no easy task. So many of us grew up with one brand or another, greatly informing our taste buds in the present day. This is a dish that’s highly dependent on sense memory. Perhaps the most dependent.

Because of that, under normal circumstances, we might just leave you to stick to your tried and true brands. But since the pandemic has created an unprecedented boom time for mac and cheese, we figured you might be experimenting a little further afield. So we decided to rank the boxes that are most commonly found on grocery store shelves.

So what makes a “good” cheesy mac? If we remove nostalgia, we’d have to say a solid noodle, a lack of a cardboard taste, and a creamy cheesy sauce that’s suitably sharp. The good news is this: that combo is relatively easy to find. We’re talking about pasta and cheese — a deeply satisfying experience, even straight out of the box with no frills. Just ask Cliff Booth…

The weird thing with macaroni and cheese these days is that there’s just so much of the stuff. It’s become a bit like food mad-libs — with a mix of words like “organic,” gluten-free,” “vegan,” “white cheddar,” “sharp cheddar,” “low sodium,” and “shells” getting mixed and remixed endlessly. Annie’s alone has seven Deluxe Rich and Creamy boxes, 29 standard powdered cheese sauce boxes, and an additional ten microwaveable versions.

They sell 46 different varieties of macaroni and cheese right now. Seriously.

Don’t worry, we’re not ranking 46 boxes of Annie’s mac and cheese today. Instead, we’re ranking 12 boxes from brands you can generally find coast-to-coast. As for parameters, we’re going on flavor alone. Because of that, the deluxe versions tend to dominate our list (though my editor has made it very clear that the powdered cheese fans out there roll deep). And while you’ll see a lot of standards near the top, a fairly new entry almost stole the #1 slot.

12. Banza Chickpea Pasta Mac & Cheese

Average Price: $3.99

The Mac ‘N Cheese:

Banza famously makes gluten-free boxed pasta, largely from chickpea flour. It’s a no-brainer that they’d enter the mac and cheese game with their pasta.

Bottom Line:

The powdered sauce isn’t the problem with this box. The chickpea pasta has a very narrow toothsome-ness. If this stuff is overcooked, even slightly, it’ll crumble. No one wants crumbly pasta in cheese sauce. That being said, you are getting more protein and fiber with this version.

11. 365 Organic Macaroni & Cheese

Average Price: $0.79

The Mac ‘N Cheese:

This is Whole Foods proprietary brand. There’s no reinventing the wheel with this box. It’s standard stuff and actually a good price for a Whole Foods product.

Bottom Line:

“Standard” is the keyword. There’s literally nothing to write home about this box of mac and cheese. The pasta keeps that cardboard taste. The powdered cheese sauce needs salt, which is never a good sign when there’s already 550mg of sodium in each box.

10. Kraft Macaroni & Cheese

Average Price: $0.98

The Mac ‘N Cheese:

This is the box of mac and cheese that changed the way generations of Americans ate. It was affordable, delivered nutrients on the cheap, and generally put smiles on hungry faces.

Bottom Line:

History aside, this box now feels like it’s from another era and just so mass-produced. It’s really hard to get past the cardboard essence that lives in the noodles, even when cooked (it’s better with the organic version!). The powdered cheese sauce is fine but, again, you’ll often find yourself shaking a little more salt and pepper over your bowl.

9. Trader Joe’s Macaroni & Cheese

Average Price: $10.48 (3-pack)

The Mac ‘N Cheese:

Trader Joe’s signature brand is “okay” mac and cheese. It’s your standard elbow macaroni with a neon orange cheese powder. That’s it.

Bottom Line:

We dare you to tell the difference between this and Kraft in a blind taste test. The noodles have the exact same cardboard nature and the cheese sauce is middling at best.

8. 365 Organic Deluxe Cheddar Shells & Cheese

Average Price: $3.99

The Mac ‘N Cheese:

Whole Foods Deluxe mac and cheese does amp up the flavors and value. There’s a decent velvet texture to the cheese sauce and you feel like you’re getting a better product for your dollar with this version.

Bottom Line:

We’re still dealing with mac and cheese that needs a lot of work. A little salt goes a long way. Overall, this feels like mac and cheese you’re supposed to bake with by adding in… we don’t know… broccoli or ham or even hot dogs … something.

7. Kraft Deluxe

Average Price: $6.48 (3-pack)

The Mac ‘N Cheese:

Kraft Deluxe is a big step up from a standard box of Kraft Mac and Cheese. The noodles are hefty and able to carry a heftier sauce with them. This is also splittable (technically, one 14-oz. box is meant to serve four people). However you split it, this feels like a full meal in a bowl.

Bottom Line:

This only really ranks this low because the noodles can’t seem to escape the cardboard taste. The cheese sauce is a step up though — with a much deeper sense of smoothness and savoriness.

6. Cracker Barrel Oven Baked Macaroni & Cheese Dinner

Average Price: $9.71 (3-pack)

The Mac ‘N Cheese:

Cracker Barrel has a wide selection of mac and cheese dinners. They’re generally big enough to serve as a side during dinner and they’re designed to be baked. You need to fire up the oven to finish this one off and it really makes a difference.

Bottom Line:

This is better than it has any business being. It’s savory, cheesy, and doesn’t need a shake of salt to round out the seasoning of the sauce.

5. Annie’s Macaroni and Cheese

Average Price: $1.00

The Mac ‘N Cheese:

Annie’s has corned the market on bespoke, seemingly high-end mac and cheese. While this isn’t intrinsically any different than Kraft or Trader Joe’s above, it does have an edge thanks to the taste.

Bottom Line:

Annie’s edges out based on the pasta alone. There’s still a cardboard essence but it’s almost gone and gets covered up nicely by a cheesy sauce that doesn’t need another hit of salt to be well-rounded.

4. Velveeta Shells and Cheese

Average Price: $14.01 (3-pack)

The Mac ‘N Cheese:

Getting back to the cheese sauce packets, Velveeta Shells and Cheese hits a very specific mark in both texture and flavor with an intense Velveeta cheese sauce and hefty pasta shells that help deliver all that gooey cheese.

Bottom Line:

This is a solid pasta and cheese experience that needs no fussing. You can boil up the pasta, toss it in the sauce, and serve. It’s just fine the way it is, on its own or on the side. It also works wonders with a nice hot sauce drizzled over the top.

3. Cheetos Mac ‘N Cheese

Average Price: $11.00 (3-pack)

The Mac ‘N Cheese:

This new-ish line from Cheetos asked, “what if we dusted your mac and cheese with Flamin’ Hot Cheetos dust?” The mac ‘n cheese are spirals, cheesy, and truly reminiscent of Cheetos in every bite.

Bottom Line:

I was super dismissive of this bowl of mac and cheese. The color is an unholy bright red and it sort of smelled like wet Cheetos at first whiff. Then I tasted it. It really delivers with a creamy, cheesy sauce that has a legitimate heat and didn’t overpower.

I thought I was going to eat a few bites as a tester but ended up eating the whole bowl.

2. Amy’s Macaroni & Cheese

Average Price: $3.99

The Mac ‘N Cheese:

Amy’s might be the easiest to make on the list. Crank up an oven, drop in the tray, bake, enjoy. Of course, you can also cook these off in the microwave, but then you’ll lose out on crisping up the edges, giving this mac and cheese a textural edge.

Bottom Line:

You don’t have to make a sauce and you get baked mac and cheese. That’s a big plus for this box. Plus, the seasoning is dialed. Look, you’re not going to trick anyone into thinking you made mac and cheese from scratch with this, but it’s perfectly good for what it is. It’s also a good single serving size.

1. Annie’s Creamy Deluxe Macaroni Dinner

Average Price: $3.99

The Mac ‘N Cheese:

This mac and cheese utilizes cheesy sauce packets and shells for delivery. The cheese packets mean you don’t have to fuss with milk and butter to find that perfect creamy spot. It’s well-seasoned, while still being very cheesy — both of which are wins.

Bottom Line:

While this is a winner on its own and easy to jazz up. Straight out of the box, it won’t have you reaching for the salt and pepper.

Over the weekend, The Crown returned for its fourth season, which was much-awaited for two reasons. One, it’s The Crown. Two, this season of Netflix’s much-loved show about the Royal Family is all about the Margaret Thatcher/Princess Diana years, which represents some of their juiciest — and most tragic — history. (Although the season ends in 1990, seven years before Di’s death.) One figure who doesn’t come off greatly is Charles, Prince of Wales, played by Josh O’Connor. And while the real-life person has yet to comment on the show, his friends sure did, and then some.

According to The Daily Mail, a number of “Palace insiders” have come forth — anonymously, as it were — to slam the show for purported inaccuracies and fictions.

“This is drama and entertainment for commercial ends being made with no regard to the actual people involved who are having their lives hijacked and exploited,” one insider told the Mail. “In this case, it’s dragging up things that happened during very difficult times 25 or 30 years ago without a thought for anyone’s feelings. That isn’t right or fair, particularly when so many of the things being depicted don’t represent the truth.”

Another insider was steamed about the way they portrayed Charles and Diana, the latter played by Emma Corrin. “The new series paints the Prince and Duchess in a very unflattering light but at least at the start of reality shows like The Only Way Is Essex they admit that some scenes have been invented for entertainment,” the person said. “There is no sense of telling carefully nuanced stories – it’s all very two-dimensional. This is trolling with a Hollywood budget. The public shouldn’t be fooled into thinking this is an accurate portrayal of what really happened.”

Yet another roped in Charles and Diana’s son, Prince Harry, as well as Duchess Meghan Markle, who famously semi-cut ties with the family, moved to Los Angeles, and cut a huge deal with Netflix, who owns The Crown. “There are raised eyebrows about Harry taking millions from the company that’s behind all this,” they said. “After all where do much of Netflix’s profits come from? The Crown.”

Other Season 4 critics weren’t shy about putting their name on their disses. Royal biographer Sally Beddell Smith trashed the show as “a work of fiction and the level of invention has been growing. While the earlier seasons were period pieces, series four is recent history, so it seems more cruel in its false depictions.”

She added:

‘Because The Crown is such a lavish and expensive production, and so much attention has been paid to visual details about historical events, viewers are tricked into believing that what they are seeing actually happened. There should be a disclaimer at the start of each programme saying, ‘This is a work of fiction and any resemblance to those living or dead is purely coincidental.’ ‘

Smith went so far as to accuse the show’s writer Peter Morgan as being “almost Trumpian with his alternative facts.” Then she really twisted the knife: “This is a Downton Abbey version of the Royal Family.”

Others worried how surviving members of the family would take it. Former Welsh Secretary and Vale of Glamorgan and Conservative MP Alun Cairns said, “There is no doubt that whilst millions will enjoy watching The Crown, we need to be mindful that the programmes raise painful events that will have an impact on members of the Royal Family and others who were children or innocent bystanders.”

The Mail even highlights some of the inaccuracies. For one thing, the show suggests — erroneously, as it happens — that Charles continued his tabloid-fixture affair with now-wife Camilla Parker Bowles throughout his marriage to Diana. But there’s more:

In what is felt to be a particularly wounding fabrication, Charles’s beloved great-uncle, Earl Mountbatten is shown, shortly before his death at the hands of the IRA, telling the Prince that the family are disappointed at his relationship with Camilla and to find a wife. In the drama, Charles calls him a traitor. There is no evidence the exchange happened.

In another insidious fictional scene, Prince Philip issues a threat to Diana in 1990 after she suggests leaving Charles. Sources said this appeared to be a clumsy reference to baseless conspiracy theories that he was somehow involved in the car crash in Paris that killed the Princess in August 1997.

Mind you, the piece finds no one standing up for its portrayal of former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, played by Gillian Anderson.

The fourth season of The Crown can now be streamed on Netflix.

(Via The Daily Mail)

On Monday, a new development emerged in Taylor Swift’s ongoing battle to get the rights to her first six albums’ back. A report surfaced that Scooter Braun had sold her masters to a company for $300 million, the same price for which he bought Big Machine Records last year. But now Swift is saying that Braun asked her to sign a strict NDA to “silence” her, hoping that that would dissuade her from retrieving her past work.

In a lengthy message posted to social media, Swift claims that didn’t sign the NDA, saying her team was never even able to get a price quote for the masters:

“Scooter’s team wanted me to sign an ironclad NDA stating I would never say another word about Scooter Braun unless it was positive, before we could even look at the financial records of BMLG (which is always the first step in a purchase of this nature). So, I would have to sign a document that would silence me forever before I could even have a chance to bid on my own work. My legal team said this is absolutely NOT normal, and they’ve never seen an NDA like this presented unless it was to silence an assault accuser by paying them off. He would never even quote my team a price. These master recordings were not for sale to me.

A few weeks ago my team received a letter from a private equity company called Shamrock Holdings, letting us know that they had bought 100% of my music, videos, and album art from Scooter Braun. This was the second time my music had been sold without my knowledge. The letter told me that they wanted to reach out before the sale to let me know, but that Scooter Braun had required that they make no contact with me or my team, or the deal would be off.”

Along with the statement, Swift also included her response to Shamrock Holdings’ letter. The singer said she plans to move forward with re-recording her first six albums because she doesn’t want Braun to continue to profit off her work.

You can read Swift’s full statement above.

Not only was Barack Obama the leader of the free world for eight years, but he’s also a talented playlist curator. Every so often, the country’s 44th commander-in-chief flexes his musical knowledge by dropping a playlist of his current favorite songs. Back in August, he shared his 2020 Summer Playlist which boasted tracks by Billie Eilish, Megan Thee Stallion, Mac Miller, and J. Cole. But now, hes taking a trip down memory lane by sharing a list of his favorite songs from his presidency.

Obama shared the list in anticipation of his upcoming presidential memoir A Promised Land. “Music has always played an important role in my life — and that was especially true during my presidency,” he wrote alongside the playlist. “In honor of my book hitting shelves tomorrow, I put together this playlist featuring some memorable songs from my administration.”

The list bears some recognizable names. Beyonce has two thrown in the mix — her cover of Etta James’ “At Last,” from the soundtrack to the 2008 film Cadillac Records, as well “Halo.” Other artists that were in Obama’s rotation include Eminem, Jay-Z, Fleetwood Mac, Stevie Wonder, and more.

You can listen to Obama’s full playlist above.

Some of the artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Once upon a time streamers like Netflix and Hulu touted themselves as a cheaper and more viewer-friendly alternative to cable television. You didn’t pay an arm and a leg, and you could the benefit of watching what you wanted. How things have changed. Though Hulu, like Netflix, has successfully blossomed into a destination place for original movies, the Streaming Wars — which finds the online battlefield clogged with services, each vying for your dollar — are in full swing, and old war horses like Netflix and Hulu are no longer the only games in town. And now they’re not even cheap.

As per Deadline, Hulu announced that, starting December 18 of this year, their popular live subscription package — which is basically like having cable, but cheaper — is going to become slightly more expensive. Their monthly subscription will be going up 18%, which may not sound lot like a lot but is an extra 10 bucks a month, from $54.99 to $64.99. That’s not quite like having some lavish and pricey cable package, but it’s not far. And it brings Hulu in line with YouTubeTV, which runs the same amount per month.

Mind you, this only affects the 4.1 million subscribed to Hulu’s Live TV package and not the 32.5 million paying customers of their on-demand service, who will continue paying a relative pittance. Still, people online were pissed, with a number of people saying that Hulu had, at long last, just become cable.

That pay hike, again, will go into effect starting on December 18.

(Via Deadline)

Last week brought word that beloved Jeopardy! host Alex Trebek had died after a battle with Stage IV pancreatic cancer at the age of 80. Immediately, people began offering their remembrances of the legendary game show host, from those that knew him best from the show to fans who simply wanted to relive some of their favorite Trebek moments.

Trebek’s final episodes will air as scheduled through December, with Jeopardy!‘s executive producer offering a heartfelt message on the first show that aired following his death. There’s plenty of speculation regarding who may step into the host role on Jeopardy! in Trebek’s place, with Ken Jennings as the presumptive choice while others have expressed hope for someone like Levar Burton, but whoever it is will have massive shoes to fill — and will need to try and carve out their own tone for the show because no one can do it exactly as Trebek did.

On Monday night, prior to the Vikings game against the Bears, Adam Thielen decided to wear some custom cleats made by Mache to offer his own tribute to Trebek, with the host’s visage on one cleat and a Jeopardy board saying “We Miss You Alex” on the other.

It shows how impactful Trebek was on so many for all different walks of life that Thielen would want to pay his respects in this way. From the sports world to academia to everyday folks at home on their couch, he managed to make everyone feel at home watching the show.

Eight months into the coronavirus pandemic and it feels like disinformation and denial have spread as quickly as the virus itself. Unfortunately, disinformation and denial during a pandemic is deadly. Literally. People who refuse to accept the reality we’re living in, who go about daily life as if nothing unusual were happening, who won’t wear a mask or keep their distance from people, are preventing communities from being able to keep the pandemic under control—with very real consequences.

An ER nurse in South Dakota shared her experience treating COVID patients—some of whom refuse to believe they have COVID—and it’s really shocking. One might think that the virus would become real to people if they were directly affected by it, but apparently that’s just not true for some. As Jodi Doering wrote on Twitter:

“I have a night off from the hospital. As I’m on my couch with my dog I can’t help but think of the Covid patients the last few days. The ones that stick out are those who still don’t believe the virus is real. The ones who scream at you for a magic medicine and that Joe Biden is going to ruin the USA. All while gasping for breath on 100% Vapotherm. They tell you there must be another reason they are sick. They call you names and ask why you have to wear all that ‘stuff’ because they don’t have COViD because it’s not real. Yes. This really happens. And I can’t stop thinking about it. These people really think this isn’t going to happen to them. And then they stop yelling at you when they get intubated. It’s like a fucking horror movie that never ends. There’s no credits that roll. You just go back and do it all over again.”

Doering’s Twitter post went viral, and CNN’s New Day invited her to come on the show. Her interview is stunning and sad, as she explains how patients who should be spending their final hours talking with their loved ones spend them ranting about how the virus is all a hoax.

“I think the hardest thing to watch,” she said, “is that people are still looking for something else and they want a magic answer and they don’t want to believe COVID is real. And the reason I tweeted what I did was it wasn’t one particular patient, it’s just a culmination of so many people. And their last dying words are ‘This can’t be happening. It’s not real.” And when they should be spending time Facetiming their families, they’re filled with anger and hatred, and it just made me really sad the other night. I just can’t believe that those are going to be their last thoughts and words.”

Doering explained that nurses can handle people lashing out at them in anger (bless you, nurses) but when they ask patients if they want to Facetime their families when they are clearly not likely to recover and they refuse, it’s just sad.

“I think people look for anything,” she said, when asked what people think is wrong with them if they don’t believe it’s COVID. “People want it to be influenza, they want it to be pneumonia…we’ve even had people say ‘Well I think it might be lung cancer.’ I mean, something so far fetched, and the reality is, since day one when COVID started in this area in March, you’ve kind of been able to say if it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, it’s a duck…even after positive results come back, some people don’t believe it.”

Doering made it clear that not all patients are living—and dying—in such denial. But the deniers are memorable. “It’s just a movie where the credits never roll,” she said. “You just do it all over again. And it’s hard and sad because every hospital, every nurse, every doctor in this state is seeing the same things. These people get sick in the same way, you treat them the same way, they die in the same way, and then you do it over again.”

The medical community has learned a lot about how to treat the virus, and Doering says they are managing their patient load fairly well. But the numbers keep climbing. South Dakota has a 50% positivity rate, which is astronomical. (The CDC guidance on school reopenings recommended that schools should only consider opening when positivity rates are below 3%, for a frame of reference.)

The virus is real, the pandemic is real, the illnesses and hospitalizations are real, and the deaths are real. We’ve got to figure out a way to pull deniers back to reality for everyone’s sake, including their own.

Songbird, the pandemic thriller produced by Michael Bay, is barreling onto home theaters sooner than expected. The film, which was inspired by last spring’s COVID-19 lockdowns, will be available on PVOD on December 11. From there, it will head to whichever streaming platform snatches up the rights to the movie that many called “too soon” when Bay first announced news of its existence. Via The Hollywood Reporter:

The movie, notably the first to shoot in Los Angeles during the pandemic, takes place two years in the future, in which COVID-23 now wreaks havoc on the world by attacking the brain. Infected Americans are forced into quarantine camps called Q-Zones, while some fight back against these brutal restrictions. Amid this backdrop is the budding love story between a motorbike courier named Nico (K.J. Apa) who has rare immunity, and Sara (Sofia Carson), a young artist who is believed to be infected.

Directed by Adam Mason, Songbird also stars Craig Robinson, Bradley Whitford, Peter Stormare, Alexandra Daddario, and Demi Moore. While it’s no shock that the film completely skipped releasing in theaters, it’s release date will be an experiment, alright. Currently, the United States is experiencing a rapid rise in COVID-19 cases that already have health experts and public officials cautioning against traveling during the holidays. Not to mention, schools across the country are switching to all-virtual classes as talk of another lockdown hangs in the air. Then again, new shows and movies are at a premium as more people are stuck indoors, so maybe a pandemic thriller won’t be such a bitter pill to swallow if it saves folks from another night of reruns.

(Via The Hollywood Reporter)

Just ahead of Lil Uzi Vert’s short-lived retirement, the rapper began teasing his long-awaited record Eternal Atake. The LP finally arrived in March after a surprise-drop and received a number of accolades. Along with debuting at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart, the record was nominated for an AMA award. While most musicians would be over the moon about the nomination, Uzi isn’t holding his breath for a win.

Uzi’s Eternal Atake is nominated for Favorite Rap/Hip-Hop Album at the upcoming AMAs, which takes place November 22. But because Uzi also shares the category with Lil Baby’s My Turn and Roddy Ricch’s Please Excuse Me For Being Antisocial, he isn’t confident that he’ll be taking home the trophy. Replying to a fan’s question about his reaction the nomination, Uzi succinctly replied: “My thoughts Oh yea I’m not winning that.”

Despite the long wait for Eternal Atake, it didn’t take Uzi long before he released yet another project — this time with Future. Last week, Uzi joined forces with Future for the 16-track effort Pluto X Baby Pluto. The duo had been teasing the project for several months and by the time it was officially released, Uzi had already set his sights on something else. A day following Pluto X Baby Pluto, Uzi teased that he has yet another project coming with Future.

Lil Uzi Vert is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Seventeen-year-old Michael Marshall had never been to a protest before, but on June 10, his mother dropped him off at Bayside Marketplace in Miami, Florida to join Black Lives Matter in their call for justice.

“It was important to me as a young Black man to go out there and stand with my people,” he told The Miami Herald. “It was important to represent something way bigger than me.”

The protests turned violent when demonstrators began vandalizing statues of Juan Ponce de León and Christopher Columbus. This resulted in the Miami Police Department deploying a response platoon against the demonstrators.

This caused a melee in which the 6-foot-4, nearly 300-pound Marshall whacked officer Raymon Washington in the head with his skateboard.

Boy, 17, faces charge after video shows him hit officer with skate board

www.youtube.com

Soon after Marshall struck the officer he had deep feelings of remorse. “When I was going home, I looked around and realized this took a hard curve and it wasn’t for me,” he said. Marshall, a standout Northwestern High football player, had never been in any trouble before or had any encounters with the police.

As Black man, Washington understood the protestors’ rage.

“The uproar — I understood it because I’m Black myself,” Washington said. “I still get stopped in my neighborhood in my car by the police. I get it. There is change that needs to happen but tearing up the city is not one way.”

Washington didn’t immediately realize he had been struck, but after things calmed down in downtown Miami, he vomited and was sent home. “I took a shower, ordered a pizza and slept for three days,” Washington said. “I woke up to my brother kicking in my front door. They thought I was dead.”

Washington was concussed by the blow. This added to the lingering effects of multiple concussions he received as an athlete in his youth.

After video of the teenager striking the officer spread online, Marshall turned himself in to authorities and was charged with aggravated battery of a law enforcement officer.

Julian Stroleny, the teenager’s lawyer, got to work on a plea deal that would spare Marshall a mark on his clean record and impede his promising football career.

“I had seen the pictures distributed by the media, I had seen the video, but the young man before me was kind, timid, humble, and incredibly remorseful,” Stroleny said. “He had no priors, excellent grades, and was a star athlete. Not even a detention at school.”

As part of the deal, he proposed a meeting between Washington and Marshall to reconcile.

However, Washington was hesitant.

“I was like, ‘No.’ I didn’t really have a good understanding of the juvenile justice system,” Washington said. “I’m used to dealing with adults — do the crime, do the time type of thing.”

But after Washington learned about Marshall’s athletic aspirations he agreed to meet with the teenager.

The two, along with members of Marshall’s family met in a State Attorney’s conference room where Washington read Marshall’s three-page letter of apology. The letter brought him to tears.

“I was that kid — a high school athlete, wanted to go to college. Had offers on the table. I was like, I don’t want to screw this kid up. If I can change one life, and that’s it, then that’s it,” Washington said. “I should have been dead three times this year. For some reason, God was like, you’re here for a reason.”

Marshall was devastated after learning the officer’s history with concussions.

The police officer then did something extraordinary. He gave the teenager his cellphone number and arranged for him to receive tutoring and offered him rides to and from football practice.

The two are now in regular communication through text messages and Washington has become a mentor to the teen.

Recently, Washington visited the teenager’s home and was in the stands for Northwestern’s game against its rival, Central High.

“We won. I played great,” Marshall said. “I played amazing. He was so proud of me.”

“The divide between police and the communities they service isn’t good for anybody,” Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle said. “This is a shining example of how we can overcome the tense relationships that exist. It’s a beautiful story.”

Marshall’s attorney has reached a plea deal with the state that includes Washington’s blessing. If he completes his probation and volunteer hours at the Miami Police Department, his record will be expunged at the age of 19.

Marshall is a senior looking to graduate this June. He has already received a few scholarships offers and hopes to play for a Division 1 team.