By JAKE OFFENHARTZ

NEW YORK (AP) — On a recent afternoon, Mahmoud Khalil sat in his Manhattan apartment, cradling his 10-week-old son as he thought back to the pre-dawn hours spent pacing a frigid immigration jail in Louisiana, awaiting news of the child’s birth in New York.

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For a moment, the outspoken Palestinian activist found himself uncharacteristically speechless.

“I cannot describe the pain of that night,” Khalil said finally, gazing down as the baby, Deen, cooed in his arms. “This is something I will never forgive.”

Now, weeks after regaining his freedom, Khalil is seeking restitution. On Thursday, his lawyers filed a claim for $20 million in damages against the Trump administration, alleging Khalil was falsely imprisoned, maliciously prosecuted and smeared as an antisemite as the government sought to deport him over his prominent role in campus protests.

The filing — a precursor to a lawsuit under the Federal Tort Claims Act — names the Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the State Department.

It comes as the deportation case against Khalil, a 30-year-old recent graduate student at Columbia University, continues to wind its way through the immigration court system.

The goal, Khalil said, is to send a message that he won’t be intimidated into silence.

“They are abusing their power because they think they are untouchable,” Khalil said. “Unless they feel there is some sort of accountability, it will continue to go unchecked.”

Khalil plans to share any settlement money with others targeted in Trump’s “failed” effort to suppress pro-Palestinian speech. In lieu of a settlement, he said he would also accept an official apology and changes to the administration’s deportation policies.

In an emailed statement, Tricia McLaughlin, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security, called Khalil’s claim “absurd,” accusing him of “hateful behavior and rhetoric” that threatened Jewish students.

A State Department spokesperson said its actions toward Khalil were fully supported by the law. Inquiries to the White House and ICE were not immediately returned.

Harsh conditions and an ‘absurd’ allegation

The filing accuses President Donald Trump and other officials of mounting a haphazard and illegal campaign to “terrorize him and his family,” beginning with Khalil’s March 8 arrest.

On that night, he said he was returning home from dinner with his wife, Noor Abdalla, when he was “effectively kidnapped” by plainclothes federal agents, who refused to provide a warrant and appeared surprised to learn he was a legal U.S. permanent resident.

He was then whisked overnight to an immigration jail in Jena, Louisiana, a remote location that was “deliberately concealed” from his family and attorneys, according to the filing.

Inside, Khalil said he was denied his ulcer medication, forced to sleep under harsh fluorescent lights and fed “nearly inedible” food, causing him to lose 15 pounds (7 kilograms). “I cannot remember a night when I didn’t go to sleep hungry,” Khalil recalled.

Meanwhile, the Trump administration publicly celebrated the arrest, promising to deport him and others whose protests against Israel it dubbed “pro-terrorist, anti-Semitic, anti-American activity.”

Khalil, who has condemned antisemitism before and since his arrest, was not accused of a crime and has not been linked to Hamas or any other terror group. “At some point, it becomes like reality TV,” Khalil said of the allegations. “It’s very absurd.”

Deported for beliefs

A few weeks into his incarceration, Khalil was awoken by a fellow detainee, who pointed excitedly to his face on a jailhouse TV screen. A new memo signed by Secretary of State Marco Rubio acknowledged Khalil hadn’t broken the law, but argued he should be deported for beliefs that could undermine U.S. foreign policy interests.

“My beliefs are not wanting my tax money or tuition going toward investments in weapons manufacturers for a genocide,” Khalil said. “It’s as simple as that.”

By then, Khalil had become something of a celebrity in the 1,200-person lock-up. When not dealing with his own case, he hosted “office hours” for fellow immigrant detainees, leaning on his past experience working at a British embassy in Beirut to help others organize paperwork and find translators for their cases.

“I’m pretty good at bureaucracy,” Khalil said.

At night, they played Russian and Mexican card games, as Khalil listened to “one story after another from people who didn’t understand what’s happening to them.”

“This was one of the most heartbreaking moments,” he said. “People on the inside don’t know if they have any rights.”

Lost time

On June 20, after 104 days in custody, Khalil was ordered released by a federal judge, who found the government’s efforts to remove him on foreign policy grounds were likely unconstitutional.

He now faces new allegations of misrepresenting personal details on his green card application. In a motion filed late Wednesday, attorneys for Khalil described those charges as baseless and retaliatory, urging a judge to dismiss them.

The weeks since his release, Khalil said, have brought moments of bliss and intense personal anguish.

Fearing harassment or possible arrest, he leaves the house less frequently, avoiding large crowds or late-night walks. But he lit up as he remembered watching Deen taking his first swim earlier in the week. “It was not very pleasant for him,” Khalil said, smiling.

“I’m trying as much as possible to make up for the time with my son and my wife,” he added. “As well thinking about my future and trying to comprehend this new reality.”

Part of that reality, he said, will be continuing his efforts to advocate against Israel’s war in Gaza, which has killed more than 57,000 Palestinians, more than half of them women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. On the day after his arrest, he led a march through Manhattan, draped in a Palestinian flag — and flanked by security.

As he poured Deen’s milk into a bottle, Khalil considered whether he might’ve done anything differently had he known the personal cost of his activism.

“We could’ve communicated better. We could’ve built more bridges with more people,” he said. “But the core thing of opposing a genocide, I don’t think you can do that any differently. This is your moral imperative when you’re watching your people be slaughtered by the minute.”

Search and rescue teams were still combing the mangled banks of the Guadalupe River Tuesday at Patti and Kent Richardson’s mildewing home in Center Point. Vultures and helicopters circled overhead, looking for the same thing the Richardsons had so recently just narrowly avoided: death.

As they were making their morning coffee early on July 5, Kent received a text from his brother asking if they had flooded. Opening his front door to take a look, he immediately heard the roar of the river just across Center Point River Road. He called his brother, who said he’d seen a weather report showing images of people on the roofs of flooded homes in Ingram, another Kerr County town only six miles away.

The couple crossed the road toward the berm on the other side to check things out. They’d never before seen the river that high. Within minutes, it flowed onto the road. By the time they had a chance to put on proper pants and shoes, water was already filling the low-lying areas of their yard. Kent waded through the floodwaters toward the shed where he kept a ladder. By the time he set it up to reach the outside entrance of the attic, floodwaters were rushing onto the property. Patti went up first. Kent grabbed the dog and followed. 

They made it just in time to watch the waters rise more than six feet, surrounding their home. They were marooned.

The Richardsons already knew a lot about flood dangers—too much. They moved to this riverfront property from Port Aransas about five years ago to “escape hurricanes,” as Kent put it. They had thrice evacuated their Port Aransas home, including during Hurricane Harvey in 2017, after receiving clear warnings and evacuation orders. This time, they say, the communication with Kent’s brother was their first and only warning. Overnight, they’d never heard anything about flood watches or warnings via cell phone. 

Kent Richardson found out the flood was coming from his brother. (Candice Bernd)

In some ways, they felt lucky. Their son’s family normally lives with them in an RV on the property but had traveled out of town for the Fourth of July holiday. It was this blessing that was foremost on their minds as they watched the floodwaters rise: “We just kind of sat there, and I said, ‘Kent, I’m so glad my kids aren’t here, my grandkids aren’t here,’” Patti said.

That blessing was put into even sharper relief as the flood receded in the following days. Traveling back and forth from a relative’s house in nearby Comfort, the couple watched as rescue crews began searching the banks outside their house. It wasn’t long before a first responder told Kent that at least six bodies had been found just across the river.

Those flood victims are part of a death toll that reached 120 as of Wednesday—with even more than that still missing—as a result of the July 4 Hill Country flash flooding. In Kerr County alone, the toll includes dozens of children, many from the Christian summer retreat Camp Mystic.

The Richardsons are among the tens of thousands of Kerr County residents at the epicenter of “flash flood alley” in the Texas Hill Country who were caught off-guard in the early hours of the morning as the floodwaters rose during torrential rains—as much as 15 inches fell in some places in only hours. While the National Weather Service (NWS) issued its first flash flood warning for the county at 1:14 am on July 4, it remains unclear how many residents actually received that notice via cell phone or whether local county officials saw it in time to meaningfully mobilize.

The Texas Newsroom has reported that first responders requested Kerr County’s own mass-emergency alert system be triggered early on the morning of July 4, seemingly contradicting an earlier statement given by Kerr County Judge Rob Kelly stating that the area had no alert system. Local dispatchers reportedly delayed volunteer firefighters’ 4:22 a.m. request for a “CodeRED” alert, saying they required preauthorization. 

County officials have continued to deflect questions at press conferences about what actions they took after NWS warnings came out when many were asleep, saying they remain focused on search and rescue operations.

The Richardsons don’t know why they didn’t receive any cell phone alert from the NWS. But they told the Texas Observer they would have “absolutely” benefitted from outdoor sirens, something that had been considered but not implemented by the county. The county had also requested state help paying for an upgraded warning system but been denied, as reported by the Houston Chronicle.

The climate change-fueled torrential downpour that caused the Guadalupe to rise more than 22 feet in three hours—in what is already the state’s deadliest flood since 1921—has now put the county’s lack of sirens into the spotlight. Texas lawmakers had a chance just earlier this year to establish a statewide council to lay out a new disaster response plan including outdoor sirens, but the measure failed.

The Salvation Army in Kerrville on July 8 (Candice Bernd)

The Richardsons want to see the same kind of studies and investment in Texas’ Hill Country communities that the state’s coastline receives. “Living on the coast—look at Houston and look at Louisiana—we have hurricanes. People need to be evacuated. … And here’s the same way, these flash floods—this is not new. It’s happened several times,” Patti told the Observer.

The couple has received an outpouring of support from everyday Texans in the Hill Country. Area residents, including those directly impacted, have rapidly organized mutual aid networks that have not only kept the Richardsons supplied with hot meals, water, and other essential items but are also helping them clean up and recover.

“We had so many people here yesterday. It was, like, too many people … all trucks just lined up, and people just working, working, working. It was amazing,” Patti said.

At the Salvation Army office in Kerrville, dozens of volunteers worked to deliver supplies in a steady rotation in and out of the building Tuesday, while others organized kits for delivery. A Salvation Army staffer, speaking on background because she wasn’t authorized to give an interview, told the Observer that more than 450 people had signed in to volunteer since July 4. Many more, she says, have simply shown up without registering.

It was a similar scene at Kerrville’s Cross Kingdom Church, where the exhausted pastor, Justin Carpenter, told the Observer that the city approved the church to become a distribution center on the afternoon of July 5. Almost every church in the area, he says, has become a distribution hub. 

The Richardsons say part of their property is in the designated floodplain but their home was elevated enough to be considered outside it. According to estimates from a statewide floodplain project still under review by the Texas Water Development Board, 1.3 million Texas homes are on flood-prone land A Houston Chronicle analysis of federal flood maps found that some buildings at Camp Mystic and other Kerr County camps where many of the dead were staying are likewise situated on lands officials consider “extremely hazardous.” 

Those state flood maps, which were required to be updated under a law passed post-Hurricane Harvey, remain in draft form and have not all been released. Others add that in most Texas counties, the older Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) flood maps are vastly underestimating risks to Texans by failing to account for increased rainfall patterns as a result of rising global temperatures.

“With climate change, which we don’t talk about in Texas, most of our floodplain maps are obsolete. They’re out of date. The rainfall amounts are not nearly large enough to predict the type of floods we’re going to have. So whatever [Texans] think it is, it’s worse than they think,” said Jim Blackburn, a Rice University professor specializing in environmental law. “I am so tired of hearing people talk about, ‘Oh, it’s a 100-year event.’ … We’re not analyzing it correctly.”

The Hill Country flooding is already among the deadliest floods in Texas history. (Candice Bernd)

The state typically treats floodplain maps “as environmental red tape” instead of as important planning documents that need to be followed, Blackburn said, allowing for continued overdevelopment in the state’s most climate-sensitive areas. 

Overdevelopment of the Guadalupe River watershed is something Patti told the Observer she’s also worried about. The Richardsons’ house is still one of the only residential properties along Center Point River Road, but she said there’s been a lot of construction in the area since they moved in. “You have a river that saturates the land, and then you have people start building concrete, concrete, concrete, concrete…”

Central Texas already has densely packed soils that are a big part of why the area is dubbed “flash flood alley.” The region’s hills and porous karst limestone formations act like a sieve for rainfall, channeling runoff into the area’s creeks and rivers more rapidly than occurs in other parts of the state. Continued development is turning that sieve into a perfect funnel. But a project that Texas A&M had been running to help rural counties gather more flood data and try to predict flooding ran out of money; a related effort by Rice University has only enough funding to help two counties. 

To make matters worse, President Donald Trump now hopes to axe the federal agency responsible for flood mapping and for federal flood relief programs, saying he intends to phase out FEMA completely after hurricane season ends in November. That would put the responsibility for mapping back onto the state—something Blackburn said he thinks the state doesn’t have adequate resources to do alone. Other federal agencies crucial to mapping and prediction of future flooding are also under the knife: The National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration and the National Weather Service have taken substantial hits from the Trump administration’s so-called “Department of Government Efficiency” cuts.

Still, it’s unclear whether more accurate maps could have done much to prevent the tragedy at Camp Mystic and elsewhere along the banks of the Guadalupe. The camp was well outside of Kerrville’s city limits, and county officials lack the jurisdiction to implement zoning rules to limit or bar development in the 100-year flood plain. Older structures are typically grandfathered in from federal flood rules enacted in the 1970s that normally would bar development inside the more hazardous river floodways, though those rules may prevent them from being rebuilt, Blackburn said.

The housing affordability crisis also impacts the issue: Homes in the floodplains are rapidly becoming a more viable option not only for those flocking to the state from more expensive parts of the country but among the state’s own growing population. The Hill Country has grown in population by more than 9 percent since 2020.

Even if it’s ultimately impossible to keep people out of the state’s most dangerous flood zones, accurate climate data remains crucial to informing Texans of the true risks of living there—as well as to warning them of imminent threats. The Richardsons said they’d rather rebuild here than pick up and leave the life they’d made altogether.

“I think we’re gonna stay here. At the coast [in Port Aransas], we always had a to-go bag. We had a plan. We had an evacuation route—something we knew to do. And we always evacuated,” Patti says. After last weekend, she said, the couple plans to start following the same protocol here. “We are going to have a to-go bag, you know, if it even rains a little bit, we’re going.”

The post ‘I Think We’re Gonna Stay’: Texans Hang On in Tragedy-Stricken Hill Country appeared first on The Texas Observer.

By WAFAA SHURAFA, SARAH EL DEEB, MELANIE LIDMAN and SAM MCNEIL

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — European officials struck a new deal with Israel to allow desperately needed food and fuel into Gaza, the European Union’s foreign policy chief said Thursday as Israeli airstrike killed 10 children and five adults waiting for care outside a medical clinic.

The announcement came as prospects for a ceasefire agreement in the near term appeared to be fading as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu prepared to leave Washington after meetings with President Donald Trump. Still, U.S. officials held out hope that restarting high-level negotiations — mediated by Egypt and Qatar and including White House envoy Steve Witkoff — could bring progress.

“We’re closer than we’ve been in quite a while and we’re hopeful, but we also recognize there’s still some challenges in the way,” U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters during a stop in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Deal to increase aid

Thursday’s agreement could result in “more crossings open, aid and food trucks entering Gaza, repair of vital infrastructure and protection of aid workers,” said Kaja Kallas, the 27-member EU’s top diplomat.

“We count on Israel to implement every measure agreed,” she said in a post on social media.

Aid groups say Israeli military restrictions and recurring violence have made it difficult to deliver assistance in Gaza even after Israel eased its 2 1/2 month total blockade in May. Experts have warned that the territory is at risk of famine, 21 months into the Israel-Hamas war.

Kallas said the deal would reactivate aid corridors from Jordan and Egypt and reopen community bakeries and kitchens across Gaza. She said measures would be taken to prevent Hamas from diverting aid. Hamas has been designated as a terrorist organization by the United States, Canada and the European Union.

Israel has long accused Hamas of stealing aid and selling it to finance combat activities. The United Nations says there is no evidence for widespread diversion.

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar acknowledged the deal while attending a conference in Vienna, saying it came “following our dialogue with the EU.” He said the deal includes “more trucks, more crossings and more routes for the humanitarian efforts.”

Neither Saar not Kallas said whetehr the aid would go through the U.N.-run system or an alternative, U.S.- and Israeli-backed mechanism that has been marred by violence and controversy.

Israeli strikes kill at least 36

Israeli strikes pounded the Gaza Strip overnight, killing at least 36 Palestinians, including 15 people waiting outside a medical clinic, local hospitals and aid workers said Thursday. The Israeli military said one soldier was killed in Gaza.

Gaza’s Nasser Hospital reported a total of 21 deaths in airstrikes in the southern town of Khan Younis and the nearby coastal area of Muwasi. It said three children and their mother, as well as two other women, were among the dead.

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The 15 killed early Thursday outside the clinic in the central city of Deir al-Balah were waiting for nutritional supplements, according to Project Hope, an aid group that runs the humanitarian facility. Along with the 10 childrenm two women were also among those killed.

“No child waiting for food and medicine should face the risk of being bombed,” said Dr. Mithqal Abutaha, the group’s project manager, who was at another clinic at the time. “People had to come seeking health and support, instead they faced death.”

Following the strike, families gathered in the morgue of Al-Aqsa Hospital to pray over the bodies of those killed, laid across the floor.

Omar Meshmesh held the body of his 3-year-old niece Aya Meshmesh. “What did she ever do? Did she throw a rocket at them or throw something at them? … she’s an innocent child,” he said.

Israel’s military said it struck near the clinic while targeting a combatant it said had entered Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. It said it was investigating.

Another Israeli soldier killed

Israeli troops have been working in Khan Younis to dismantle more than 130 Hamas infrastructure sites over the past week, including a 500-meter (yard) tunnel, missile launch sites, and weapons storage facilities, the military said.

Also Thursday, the military said an Israeli soldier was killed in Khan Younis the day before, after fighters burst out of an underground tunnel and tried to abduct him. The soldier was shot and killed, while troops in the area shot the fighters, hitting several of them, the military said.

Eighteen soldiers have been killed in the past three weeks, one of the deadliest periods for the Israeli army in months, putting additional public pressure on Netanyahu to end the war.

West Bank violence

Two Palestinian attackers killed a 22-year-old Israeli man at an Israeli supermarket in a settlement in the Israeli-occupied West Bank on Thursday afternoon, according to Israel’s Magen David Adom emergency services.

Israeli police said two people in a stolen vehicle attacked a security guard at the supermarket. Paramedics said people on site shot and killed the two attackers. Police did not release information about the attackers, but the Israeli military said forces are setting up roadblocks around the Palestinian town of Halhul, around 10 kilometers (6 miles) from the supermarket.

Earlier Thursday, a 55-year-old Palestinian man was killed in the West Bank, the Palestinian Health Ministry. The Israeli military said the man was shot after stabbing a soldier in the village of Rumana. The soldier suffered moderate wounds.

The war in Gaza has sparked a surge of violence in the West Bank, with the Israeli military targeting fighters in large-scale operations that have killed hundreds of Palestinians and displaced tens of thousands.

That has coincided with a rise in settler violence and Palestinian attacks on Israelis. Palestinian fighters from the West Bank have also attacked and killed Israelis in Israel and the West Bank.

The war began after Hamas attacked Israel in 2023, killing around 1,200 people and taking 251 others hostage. Most have been released in earlier ceasefires. Israel responded with an offensive that has killed more than 57,000 Palestinians, more than half of them women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.

The ministry, which is under Gaza’s Hamas-run government, doesn’t differentiate between civilians and combatants. The U.N. and other international organizations see its figures as the most reliable statistics on war casualties.

‘We’re going to build them better’

Israel started demolitions Thursday of buildings in the central city of Bat Yam hit in what was the deadliest Iranian missile strike during the 12-day Israel-Iran war. Nine people were killed, including five members of a Ukrainian refugee family.

Bat Yam Mayor Tzvika Brot said the strike left 2,000 people homeless, many now living at hotels.

“We’re going to demolish 20 buildings, but we’re going to build them better, stronger,” he said.

Iran launched 550 missiles and more than 1,000 drones towards Israel, killing 28 people, and injuring more than 3,000. Iran’s government said this week that at least 1,060 Iranians were killed in the war.

McNeil reported from Brussels, El Deeb from Beirut and Lidman reported from Tel Aviv, Israel.

As the new “Superman” movie debuts on Friday, July 11, Mt. Clemens native Dean Cain is looking back on his time as the Man of Steel.

Meet David Corenswet, cinema’s new Superman

People still approach Cain to this day and say, “Hey, Superman!” For Cain — who played football for Princeton University, where he earned his undergraduate degree in history — that never gets old.

“I’ll always embrace that. It was the beginning of my career. It’s the thing I’m certainly most known for. I don’t have a problem with that whatsoever,” said Cain, 58, of Malibu. “There’s a lot worse things I’ve been called, and I’m sure I’ll be called them again. If someone’s calling me Superman, I’ll accept it.” He added, tongue-in-cheek: “As long as they don’t expect me to fly; they have to understand that I’m an actor.”

‘Superman’ review: James Gunn gets DCU off to rocky, overstuffed start

Cain played Superman — the creation of Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, who debuted in 1938’s “Action Comics” No. 1, published by DC Comics — and his alter-ego Clark Kent in 1993-97’s “Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman,” alongside Teri Hatcher (“Desperate Housewives”) as fellow reporter/love interest Lois Lane.

In “Lois & Clark,” the titular characters eventually get married in a story coinciding with them getting married in the comic book. The series ended on a cliffhanger, where they find a baby boy in Clark’s old bassinet, along with a note stating he belonged to them. Before this storyline could be explored, the series was canceled. Executive producer Brad Buckner stated in interviews that the baby was Kryptonian royalty placed in Superman’s care for his own protection. Cain wouldn’t mind revisiting this storyline centering around the baby but told fans not to get their hopes up.

“I don’t have any plans to reprise the character. I’d love to see Lois and Clark — our Lois and Clark, that is Teri’s Lois and my Superman — what they’re really doing nearly 30 years after people have last seen us. I’d like to do it the way ‘Cobra Kai’ has done it. Boy, I’ve really enjoyed ‘Cobra Kai.’ That’s the same feel I want for ‘Lois & Clark.’ They’re parents now and there’s all kinds of different things that will happen with their characters. I’ve loved that idea forever. I’ve actually started writing it, but I’ve been pulled away from it all a million times. I just think it’s such a great idea,” he explained.

To Cain, Hatcher was the best actress to play Lois.

“I still think she’s the best Lois Lane of all time,” he said. “She carried the show.”

Dean Cain and Teri Hatcher starred in “Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman.” (Getty Images/Hulton Archive)

Although Cain has no plans to revisit “Lois & Clark,” he later appeared on “Smallville,” which starred Okemos High School alumnus Tom Welling as a pre-Superman Clark Kent, as well as “Supergirl.”

One of Cain’s main competitors for the role of Superman was Kevin Sorbo of “Hercules: The Legendary Journeys.”

“I thought I had it wrapped up, then they made me do an extra scene. I was like, ‘Uh-oh,’” recalled Cain. “Kevin’s a great guy, a true professional. He knows what to do, how to do it, how to get it done. We’re friends outside work and I’m not friends with too many actors outside of work. … He’s a great guy, but too blond to be Superman. He had the hair for Hercules.”

Cain and writer Jeph Loeb — who’s penned Superman’s adventures on the printed page and the small screen — gave their insights on what gives Superman his staying power after 87 years.

“The guy’s the most powerful being on Earth and raised with small-town American values in Kansas by a farm couple,” said Cain. “To me, he’s the ultimate picture of goodness and morality. I believe in truth, justice and the American way. To me, it made perfect sense. I’m honored to be associated with the character.”

Loeb, who appeared this past May at the Motor City Comic Con in Novi, listed two things that contributed to Superman’s longevity.

“First: He was the first. When you’re the first and you’re great, you have staying power. Second: I think this is the most important. Superman, for me, is always about hope,” Loeb said. “He does without preaching, which is important; he shows us what we can be. It’s odd that a man from another planet can show us how to be the best humans we can be. Yet in a weird way, it’s kinda the greatest immigration story in that a man from another land comes to us and shows us that we can be better people. That’s brilliant and hopeful. I want to read those stories all the time and I want to read them over and over again. He’s the greatest. That’s why ‘Superman: For All Seasons’ is one of my favorite things I’ve ever done. What (artist Tim Sale) captured wasn’t just the spirit of Superman, but the spirit of what it means to be a good human being. And that’s something worth thinking about, particularly in these times. Be nice. Be kind.”

Mt. Clemens native Dean Cain embraces his role as Superman. “It’s the thing I’m certainly most known for. I don’t have a problem with that whatsoever,” he said. (Photo by Presley Ann/Getty Images for Family Film and TV Awards)

If you go

The Man of Steel returns to the big screen on Friday, July 11 with “Superman,” written and directed by James Gunn (“Guardians of the Galaxy”) in one of the summer’s most anticipated movies that also restarts the DC Cinematic Universe with a clean slate. David Corenswet (“Twisters”) plays Superman and alter-ego Clark Kent; Rachel Brosnahan (“The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”) plays reporter Lois Lane, Superman’s love interest; Nicholas Hoult (“Mad Max: Fury Road”) plays Lex Luthor, Superman’s archnemesis. The movie also stars Nathan Fillion (“Firefly”) as Guy Garden, an unlikeable good guy with a power ring who’s a member of the Green Lantern Corps. Check your local listings.