FLOWERY BRANCH, Ga. (AP) — New Atlanta coach Kevin Stefanski added more Cleveland Browns flavor to his Falcons staff by hiring Alex Van Pelt as quarterbacks coach on Saturday night.
Van Pelt joins offensive coordinator Tommy Rees as former Cleveland coaches on Stefanski's staff.
Stefanski spent six seasons with Cleveland, where he twice was named AP Coach of the Year and had a 45-56 record. He was fired on Jan. 5 after the Browns finished a 5-12 season.
Van Pelt was a senior offensive assistant for the Los Angeles Rams in 2005 after serving as offensive coordinator for the New England Patriots (2024) and the Browns (2020-23). Van Pelt worked on Stefanski's staff in Cleveland.
In Atlanta, Van Pelt will be charged with developing quarterback Michael Penix Jr , who is rehabbing a torn ACL that ended his 2025 season.
In New England, Van Pelt guided rookie quarterback Drake Maye to the Pro Bowl. While in Cleveland, Van Pelt worked with Stefanski to lead the Browns' offense to two of the top-five single-season point totals in franchise history, totaling 408 points in 2020 and 396 in 2023.
Stefanski was hired as coach on Jan. 17. The Falcons completed their remake of their new leadership team on Thursday night by hiring Ian Cunningham as general manager. The additions of Cunningham and Stefanski followed the hiring of former longtime Atlanta quarterback Matt Ryan as president of football.
Cunningham and Stefanski will report to Ryan.
Falcons owner Arthur Blank fired general manager Terry Fontenot and coach Raheem Morris after an 8-9 season.
Van Pelt was the quarterbacks coach for the Cincinnati Bengals in 2018-19. He held multiple roles with Green Bay from 2012-17, including four seasons as the quarterbacks coach.
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New Atlanta Falcons head coach Kevin Stefanski, left, speaks as Atlanta Falcons President of Football Matt Ryan looks on during a NFL Atlanta Falcons news conference, Tuesday, Jan. 27, 2026, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — An explosion tore through an apartment building Saturday in Iran 's port city of Bandar Abbas, killing a 4-year-old girl as local media footage purportedly showed a security force member being carried out by rescuers.
The blast happened a day before a planned naval drill by Iran in the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf through which a fifth of all oil traded passes. The U.S. military has warned Iran not to threaten its warships or commercial traffic in the strait, on which Bandar Abbas sits.
State television quoted a local fire official as blaming the blast on a gas leak. Media reported at least 14 others injured in the explosion.
A local newspaper, Sobh-e Sahel, aired footage of a correspondent speaking in front of the building. The footage included a sequence that showed a man in a green security force uniform being carried out on a stretcher. He wore a neck brace and appeared to be in pain, his left hand covering the branch insignia on his uniform.
The newspaper did not acknowledge the security force member being carried out elsewhere in its reporting. Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard did not discuss the blast, other than to deny that a Guard navy commander had been hurt.
Another explosion blamed on a gas explosion Saturday in the southwestern city of Ahvaz killed five people, state media reported.
Iran remains tense over a threat by U.S. President Donald Trump to potentially launch a military strike on the country over the killing of peaceful protesters or the possible mass execution of those detained in a major crackdown over the demonstrations.
Trump on Saturday night declined to say whether he’d made a decision on what he wanted to do regarding Iran.
Speaking to reporters as he flew to Florida, Trump sidestepped a question about whether Tehran would be emboldened if the U.S. backed away from launching any strikes on Iran, saying, “Some people think that. Some people don’t.”
Trump said Iran should negotiate a “satisfactory” deal to prevent the Middle Eastern country from getting any nuclear weapons but said, “I don’t know that they will. But they are talking to us. Seriously talking to us.”
Ali Larijani, a top security official in Iran, wrote on X late Saturday that “structural arrangements for negotiations are progressing.” However, there is no public sign of any direct talks with the United States, which Iran's 86-year-old Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has repeatedly ruled out.
Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi on Saturday called for de-escalation and said Egypt is working to bring the U.S. and Iran to the negotiating table to achieve a “peaceful and comprehensive settlement to the Iranian nuclear file," according to a statement on his phone call with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian.
Qatar in a statement said Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani visited Tehran on Saturday and met with Larijani about “efforts to de-escalate tensions in the region.”
Associated Press writers Samy Magdy in Cairo and Will Weissert aboard Air Force One contributed to this report.
An apartment building is seen after an explosion in the southern port city of Bandar Abbas, Iran, on Saturday, Jan. 31, 2026. (Amirhosein Khorgooi/ISNA via AP)
An apartment building is seen after an explosion in the southern port city of Bandar Abbas, Iran, on Saturday, Jan. 31, 2026. (Amirhosein Khorgooi/ISNA via AP)
An apartment building is seen after an explosion in the southern port city of Bandar Abbas, Iran, on Saturday, Jan. 31, 2026. (Amirhosein Khorgooi/ISNA via AP)
In this photo released by an official website of the office of the Iranian supreme leader, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei prays at the grave of the late revolutionary founder Ayatollah Khomeini, commemorating 47th anniversary of his return from exile during 1979 Islamic Revolution, just outside Tehran, Iran, Saturday, Jan. 31, 2026. (Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader via AP)
In this photo released by the official website of the office of the Iranian supreme leader, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei prays at the grave of the late revolutionary founder Ayatollah Khomeini, shown in the photo at right, commemorating 47th anniversary of his return from exile during 1979 Islamic Revolution, as Ayatollah Khomeini's grandson Hassan sits at rear, just outside Tehran, Iran, Saturday, Jan. 31, 2026. (Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader via AP)
