BEREA, Ohio (AP) — Cleveland Browns general manager Andrew Berry indicated Thursday that he doesn't expect to see Quinshon Judkins on the field at training camp for a while.
The rookie running back remains unsigned after he was arrested on July 12 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, on a charge of battery and domestic violence.
“So in terms of those decisions, signing, being at camp and everything like that, it’s honestly probably too early to make any type of determination. So as we gather information, we’ll have a better view on that,” Berry said before the Browns held their second training camp practice. “Sometimes the information comes a little bit more slowly, but we’re still in probably the information-gathering stage with him.”
The Browns selected Judkins with the 36th overall pick in the draft after he rushed for 1,060 yards and 14 touchdowns at Ohio State last season.
Judkins and Cincinnati defensive end Shemar Stewart (the 17th overall pick) are the NFL’s only unsigned draft picks. Berry made it sound as if Judkins' situation is related more to off-field matters than money.
“Obviously the second round was unique this year, now it’s pretty well slotted. So whether there’s a formal framework in place, maybe the technical answer is no, but in terms of where that slot should land, yes, that’s pretty straightforward,” Berry said.
The bigger concern for Berry and the organization could be their vetting process with draft prospects. This is the second straight summer Cleveland has had to deal with an off-field domestic violence incident.
Defensive tackle Mike Hall Jr. — the team’s second-round pick in 2024 — was arrested during training camp on a domestic violence charge. He pleaded no contest to a reduced charge of disorderly conduct but was placed on the commissioner’s exempt list because of the arrest and suspended five games by the NFL.
“You lose a ton of sleep over it not just because of the seriousness of the allegations, but also because of the amount of time and energy you spend really vetting any person who comes into your organization,” Berry said. “And then probably for us, in the past two years in particular, the amount of time and resources we spent on the education part of it with not just with our players but with our whole organization.”
Berry also wasn't pleased that another rookie made news for the wrong reasons.
Quarterback Shedeur Sanders was ticketed twice in June for speeding.
He was stopped by the Ohio State Patrol on June 5 in Brunswick Hills for going 91 mph in a 65 mph zone. On June 17, the Strongsville Police Department stopped Sanders for going 101 mph in a 60 mph zone on Interstate 71 near the Ohio Turnpike.
Berry said he addressed the incidents with Sanders, one of four Browns QBs along with with Joe Flacco, Kenny Pickett and Dillon Gabriel.
“I think the thing is it’s not just about yourself. It’s not just about having a joy ride. It’s not just about driving a car really fast, but it’s about the fact that you can endanger other people,” Berry said.
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FILE - Cleveland Browns running back Quinshon Judkins (10) runs with the ball during NFL football minicamp in Berea, Ohio, June 12, 2025. (AP Photo/David Richard, file)
Cleveland Browns quarterback Shedeur Sanders (12) throws during a practice at the team's NFL football training camp Wednesday, July 23, 2025, in Berea, Ohio. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki)
FILE - Cleveland Browns general manager Andrew Berry walks on the field during NFL football minicamp in Berea, Ohio, Thursday, June 12, 2025. (AP Photo/David Richard, File)
BEIJING (AP) — In China, the names of things are often either ornately poetic or jarringly direct. A new, wildly popular app among young Chinese people is definitively the latter.
It's called, simply, “Are You Dead?"
In a vast country whose young people are increasingly on the move, the new, one-button app — which has taken the country by digital storm this month — is essentially exactly what it says it is. People who live alone in far-off cities and may be at risk — or just perceived as such by friends or relatives — can push an outsized green circle on their phone screens and send proof of life over the network to a friend or loved one. The cost: 8 yuan (about $1.10).
It's simple and straightforward — essentially a 21st-century Chinese digital version of those American pendants with an alert button on them for senior citizens that gave birth to the famed TV commercial: “I've fallen, and I can't get up!”
Developed by three young people in their 20s, “Are You Dead?” became the most downloaded paid app on the Apple App Store in China last week, according to local media reports. It is also becoming a top download in places as diverse as Singapore and the Netherlands, Britain and India and the United States — in line with the developers' attitude that loneliness and safety aren't just Chinese issues.
“Every country has young people who move to big cities to chase their dreams,” Ian Lü, 29, one of the app's developers, said Thursday.
Lü, who worked and lived alone in the southern city of Shenzhen for five years, experienced such loneliness himself. He said the need for a frictionless check-in is especially strong among introverts. “It's unrealistic,” he said, “to message people every day just to tell them you're still alive.”
Against the backdrop of modern and increasingly frenetic Chinese life, the market for the app is understandable.
Traditionally, Chinese families have tended to live together or at least in close proximity across generations — something embedded deep in the nation's culture until recent years. That has changed in the last few decades with urbanization and rapid economic growth that have sent many Chinese to join what is effectively a diaspora within their own nation — and taken hundreds of millions far from parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles.
Today, the country has more than 100 million households with only one person, according to an annual report from the National Bureau of Statistics of China in 2024.
Consider Chen Xingyu, 32, who has lived on her own for years in Kunming, the capital of southern China’s Yunnan province. “It is new and funny. The name ’Are You Dead?' is very interesting,” Chen said.
Chen, a “lying flat” practitioner who has rejected the grueling, fast-paced career of many in her age group, would try the app but worries about data security. “Assuming many who want to try are women users, if information of such detail about users gets leaked, that’d be terrible,” she said.
Yuan Sangsang, a Shanghai designer, has been living on her own for a decade and describes herself as a “single cow and horse.” She's not hoping the app will save her life — only help her relatives in the event that she does, in fact, expire alone.
"I just don’t want to die with no dignity, like the body gets rotten and smelly before it is found," said Yuan, 38. “That would be unfair for the ones who have to deal with it.”
While such an app might at first seem best suited to elderly people — regardless of their smartphone literacy — all reports indicate that “Are You Dead?” is being snapped up by younger people as the wry equivalent of a social media check-in.
“Some netizens say that the 'Are you dead?' greeting feels like a carefree joke between close friends — both heartfelt and gives a sense of unguarded ease,” the business website Yicai, the Chinese Business Network, said in a commentary. ""It likely explains why so many young people unanimously like this app."
The commentary, by writer He Tao, went further in analyzing the cultural landscape. He wrote that the app's immediate success “serves as a darkly humorous social metaphor, reminding us to pay attention to the living conditions and inner world of contemporary young people. Those who downloaded it clearly need more than just a functional security measure; they crave a signal of being seen and understood.”
Death is a taboo subject in Chinese culture, and the word itself is shunned to the point where many buildings in China have no fourth floor because the word for “four” and the word for “death” sound the same — “si.” Lü acknowledged that the app's name sparked public pressure.
“Death is an issue every one of us has to face,” he said. “Only when you truly understand death do you start thinking about how long you can exist in this world, and how you want to realize the value of your life.”
A few days ago, though, the developers said on their official account on China’s Weibo social platform that they’d pivot to a new name. Their choice: the more cryptic “Demumu,” which they said they hoped could "serve more solo dwellers globally.”
Then, a twist: Late Wednesday, the app team posted on its Weibo account that workshopping the name Demumu didn’t turn out “as well as expected.” The app team is offering a reward for whoever offers a new name that will be picked this weekend. Lü said more than 10,000 people have weighed in.
The reward for the new moniker: $96 — or, in China, 666 yuan.
Fu Ting reported from Washington. AP researcher Shihuan Chen in Beijing contributed.
The app Are You Dead? is seen on a smartphone in Beijing, China, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)
A woman looks at her smartphone in a cafe in Beijing, China, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)
A woman looks at her smartphone outside a restaurant in Beijing, China, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)
A man looks down near his smartphone in Beijing, China, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)
A man reacts while holding his smartphone in Beijing, China, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)
