Chocolate Thunder has gone back to Lovetron.

Longtime 76ers center Darryl Dawkins died Thursday at the age of 58.

The cause of death is said to be a heart attack, according to Dawkins' family. An autopsy is scheduled for Friday.

A Lehigh Valley Hospital-Cedar Crest spokesperson confirmed to Comcast SportsNet that Dawkins died there on Thursday.

"It is with great sadness that we share the passing of our beloved husband and father, Darryl Dawkins, who succumbed today to a heart attack," his family said in a statement. "Darryl touched the hearts and spirits of so many with his big smile and personality, ferocious dunks, but more than anything, his huge, loving heart."

One of the most popular players in the history of the Sixers franchise and the NBA, Dawkins was the first player drafted by an NBA team straight out of high school when he left Maynard Evans High in Orlando, Fla. for the Sixers as the No. 5 overall pick in the 1975 draft.

Known as “Chocolate Thunder,” a nickname bestowed by Stevie Wonder, Dawkins claimed he was from the planet Lovetron. During the NBA offseason Dawkins said he returned to his home planet to practice “interplanetary funkmanship.”

Certainly some of the dunks Dawkins threw down as the Sixers battled the Celtics and Lakers for the NBA title were interplanetary. Dawkins was famous for shattering two backboards, which ushered in new technology to prevent the shattered glass.

The first of Dawkins’ epic dunks came at Kemper Arena in a game against the Kansas City Kings in November, 1979. Replays famously show Dawkins rising to throw down a two-handed tomahawk with the Kings’ Bill Robinzine ducking for cover as the glass splintered.

Dawkins named his dunk, “The Chocolate-Thunder-Flying, Robinzine-Crying, Teeth-Shaking, Glass-Breaking, Rump-Roasting, Bun-Toasting, Wham-Bam, Glass-Breaker-I-Am-Jam.”

“It was such a sight,” Julius Erving told The Philadelphia Inquirer after the game in 1979. “Glass was everywhere. Robinzine was under the basket and he was trying to get out of the way, he was running. And Darryl was in shock.”

Three weeks later Dawkins busted up a backboard at the Spectrum with a dunk he named the “Get-Out-of-the-Waying, Backboard-Swaying, Game-Delaying, If-You-Ain’t-Grooving-You-Best-Get-Moving Dunk.”

He had piles of names for his dunks, such as, "The Rim Wrecker," "The Go-Rilla," "The Look Out Below," "The In-Your-Face Disgrace," "The Cover Your Head," "The Yo-Mama" and "The Spine-Chiller Supreme."

Dawkins’ autobiography, Chocolate Thunder: The Uncensored Life and Times of Darryl Dawkins, chronicled his on-and-off court exploits with Julius Erving and detailed why he was so popular with his teammates and the fans.

It also documents the wild potential Dawkins’ NBA contemporaries raved about. At times opponents saw an unparalleled talent without the consistency to match. Former Penn star Dave Wohl, who played in the NBA against Dawkins and then coached him with the Nets, wrote an article for Sports Illustrated about Dawkins in April 1988.

The title: “Did Darryl Dawkins, Sir Slam, fail to live up to the great expectations of his fans and his NBA coaches? A former coach searches for answers.”

“There were times when he teased us with a hint of how he could dominate a game,” Wohl wrote. “And we went home in awe and yet sad because we knew of no spell to make it happen more frequently. But few players could make us feel that way even once.”

Wohl also captured Dawkins’ ability to bring humor to any situation. Once, Wohl wrote, coach Billy Cunningham stopped practice to yell at Dawkins because he was not giving it his best effort. Dawkins, chagrined, hung his head and promised the coach he would do better.

“And then as [Cunningham] walked away, [Dawkins] tripped him.”

Cunningham, like everyone else at practice, broke up laughing, Wohl wrote.

But lest anyone believe Dawkins was simply a larger-than-life character, don’t be fooled by his fun demeanor. Dawkins, a 6-foot-11 athlete, averaged 13.4 points and eight rebounds per game from 1977 to 1981 for the Sixers. He helped the team reach the NBA Finals in 1977, 1980 and 1982 and came well known for a fight he had with Portland’s enforcer Maurice Lucas during the ’77 Finals.

That fight left Sixers teammate Doug Collins with a scar under his left eye.

“Darryl swung at [the Blazers'] Bobby Gross and hit me,” Collins remembered. “I was the unintentional recipient. But later on, when Darryl and Luke squared off, it looked like something out of the 1920s, like John L. Sullivan bare-knuckling at halfcourt.”

Dawkins owns the seventh-best shooting percentage of all-time, hitting at a 57.2 percent clip. He also led the NBA in fouls three times.

However, prior to the 1982-83 season, the Sixers acquired Moses Malone and traded Dawkins and fellow center, Caldwell Jones. Dawkins went to divisional rival New Jersey for a draft pick that turned out to be Leo Rautins, and the Sixers won the NBA Championship.

From 1982 to 1987, Dawkins played for the Nets and averaged a career-best 16.8 points per game during the 1983-84 season. It was during the playoffs that year that Dawkins, Michael Ray Richardson and Buck Williams stunned the defending champion Sixers in the first round of the playoffs. Dawkins shot 58.7 percent from the field and connected on 14 of 16 free throws during the five-game upset.

But Dawkins could never get over the hump to win a championship. After the Sixers, his best chance came in 1989 when he appeared in 14 games for the champion Pistons, but injuries kept Dawkins on the sidelines. Following the 1989 season Dawkins played in Italy until 1994 before attempting a comeback with the Nuggets and Celtics.

After a stint in the CBA in 1995-96, Dawkins retired at age 39, save for a stint in the IBA for the Winnipeg Cyclones. He then turned his attention to coaching.

In recent years, Dawkins lived in the Allentown, Pa. area in South Whitehall Township. He has coached the Lehigh Carbon Community College men's basketball team since 2009 and also coached in the newest version of the ABA as well as the USBL team in the Lehigh Valley.

Dawkins is survived by his wife Janice, three children and a step-daughter.

"More than anything Darryl accomplished in his basketball career as the inimitable 'Chocolate Thunder,' he was most proud of his role and responsibility as a husband and father," the family said in a statement. "We ask that the public please respect our privacy as we grieve his loss."

A New Jersey doctor faces a bevy of charges for allegedly groping at least four employees and a patient, biting one of them on the cheek, authorities said Thursday.

An employee of 54-year-old Raja Jagtiani, a married licensed physician in Bergenfield, told police the doctor touched her breast and bit her cheek while she was working with him one day in July.

Authorities launched an investigation and identified several other alleged victims, including current and former employees and one patient.

Jagtiani, of Dumont, was arrested Tuesday on multiple counts of criminal sexual contact and harassment by offensive touching. He was also charged with one count of simple assault.

Information on an attorney for Jagtiani wasn't immediately available.

According to an online profile, Jagtiani has nearly three decades of experience and won a Patient's Choice Award from Vitals in 2012. The annual award goes to just 5 percent of the nation's active physicians.

Tuna lovers have your pick: $25 in cash or $50 in tuna.

StarKist is offering affected customers cash or tuna fish as part of a settlement in a class action lawsuit that alleged the company under-filled some of its 5-ounce cans of tuna by several tenths of an ounce, NBC News reported. StarKist has denied wrongdoing. 

A shopper must have bought one of the company's 5-ounce cans of chunk light tuna or solid white tuna in water or oil between Feb. 19, 2009, and Oct. 31, 2014, to be eligible for the cash or tuna.

Affected consumers can file a claim through the settlement website TunaLawsuit.com. 

The website says that a receipt or other proof of purchase is not needed to submit a claim. 

A passenger in a car that struck and killed a pedestrian in South Jersey has also died in a wreck that left the busy road closed for hours.

New Jersey State Police Lt. Brian Polite said authorities investigated the accident that happened around 2 p.m. on southbound U.S. Route 206 at Garden Street. Polite said the car struck the pedestrian and then overturned.

The car's driver was flown to Cooper University Hospital in Camden.

State Police Sgt. First Class Gregory Williams called the accident "very serious." As SkyForce10 hovered overhead you could see crews looking at a vehicle that went off the roadway.

Police close both north and southbound lanes of the roadway.

Investigators didn't immediately identify anyone involved nor did they reveal a cause.

The road remained closed for about six hours.

Not only firefighters but hazmat crews responded after a fire broke out in an old plastics warehouse in South Jersey Thursday afternoon.

The fire broke out before 3 p.m. at 5 Elbow Lane in Burlington, Burlington County – that’s not far from Burlington Center Mall.

The blaze, which county dispatchers said broke out in the abandoned building, quickly spread to two alarms. Dispatchers said that hazmat crews also responded due to chemicals in the building.

No injuries were reported.

"Let’s do this (expletive)!"

Those are the words investigators say a man armed with a knife yelled at two Deputy Sheriffs inside the Chester County Justice Center before he was fatally shot.

Curtis Smith, 34, walked into the Justice Center on Tuesday, pulled out a knife, yelled “Let’s do this s***!” and slashed a Deputy Sheriff in the back with a folding knife, investigators said.

A second Deputy Sheriff returned fire, striking Smith twice in the torso. Smith later died from his injuries at Paoli Hospital.

Investigators said the Deputy Sheriff slashed by Smith was actually struck in the hand by one of the bullets fired by the other Deputy Sheriff. The Deputy Sheriff’s ballistic vest stopped Smith’s knife. The Deputy Sheriff underwent surgery and is in stable condition.

The shooting has been justified by the Chester County District Attorney’s Office.

“The Deputy Sheriffs responded appropriately and professionally to this attack,” Chester County District Attorney Tom Hogan said in a statement released Thursday.

In March of this year, Smith allegedly jumped a fence at the White House and was apprehended by the Secret Service. The charges in that case were still pending at the time of Tuesday’s incident.

Smith was set to face burglary, assault and harassment charges at a preliminary hearing -- that has been continued multiple times -- in October stemming from a May domestic assault arrest, according to court records. He also pleaded guilty in late May to traffic violations.

In 2013, Smith’s brother, Derek Smith, pled guilty to murdering their father, which occurred in Chester County. Derek Smith was sentenced to 15-30 years.

Donald Trump forcefully defended his hair and attacked the New York Times for a front-page report on his adversarial relationship with Spanish-language media during a rally in South Carolina on Thursday.

The GOP presidential frontrunner took umbrage to the opening paragraph of the Times story that details how Hispanic radio host Ricardo Sánchez has nicknamed Trump "El hombre del peluquín," or "the man of the toupee."

"I don't wear a toupee. It's my hair. I swear," he said before inviting a woman in attendance to inspect his head. 

New Castle County Police said the killing of a Temple University law school graduate found shot to death in a car in the parking lot of a Delaware business Monday night didn't appear to be a random act of violence.

Detectives found a "substantial amount of marijuana in the car" belonging to Shazim Uppal, said police.

Police were called to the parking lot of Genesis Healthcare on the 100 block of St. Claire Drive in Hockessin around 7 p.m. Monday. The caller told police a 2007 black Audi A8 was sitting in the parking lot for an unusually long time. Responding officers found Uppal's body in the driver’s seat.

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Investigators determined Uppal, a 27-year-old from Hockessin, died from gunshot wounds to the upper torso. Police also said he was last seen driving the Audi in the Pine Creek, Delaware area Sunday between 10 and 11 p.m. On Thursday, investigators expanded that timeline to 2 a.m. and expanded the area he could have been to Concordville, Pennsylvania.

Uppal had just graduated from Temple University's Beasley School of Law in July, according to a school spokesperson.

Uppal also attended Masjid Isa Ibn-e-Maryam, a mosque located in Newark, Delaware. Members of the mosque expressed their condolences on the official Facebook page.

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Police asked anyone with information on Uppal's death to contact Detective J. Ziemba by phone, 302-395-8068 or

email

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Even Tougher Than Usual
Hurricane forecasts have improved dramatically since I worked at the National Hurricane Center in the 1970s. Here is the proof:

The numbers show that the track error (where the storm will be) in a TWO day forecast in the 70s is about the same as the current error in their FIVE day forecast. Another way to put it: their TWO day forecast is THREE times as accurate as it was in 1970! Better computer models are the main reason for the tremendous improvement.

But not all hurricanes are alike. The ones tracking straight west across the Tropical Atlantic are the “easiest” ones to forecast. The ones that track northeastward across the North Atlantic also have high accuracy scores. The toughest forecasts are for “recurvature”-the transition between that westward track and the northeastward track. That is part of the forecast problem with Erika.

Weak Goes Left; Strong Goes Right
There are exceptions to every rule in hurricane forecasting. But there are tendencies and trends. Weaker, more disorganized storms (like Erika is now) tend to track more to the left than computer models suggest. It’s related to the structure of the storm. So, instead of getting “steered” by winds above 10,000 feet, the disorganized storms get steered by lower level winds, which in the tropics are often east to west.

So far, Erika has been weak enough to be steered straight west. As long as it stays weak and disorganized, it should track more to the left than most computer models say. It just happens time after time. But when it starts getting better organized, it can turn more to the right.

Wind Shear: Slayer of Hurricanes
Hurricanes are powerful storms, but in a way they’re kind of fragile. They need just the right combination of warm ocean AND wind patterns from the lower to upper atmosphere. Otherwise, they weaken, or don’t form at all. One big negative factor is when upper-air winds are much stronger and/or from different directions than lower-level winds. It’s called “wind shear,” and the greater the wind shear, the more hostile the conditions.

Here’s a map showing predicted wind shear in the Caribbean and Atlantic for Friday morning. The reddish colors show the strongest shear, and there’s plenty of it in Erika’s path toward Florida. (Erika is the “L” in the middle of the map). Even the green and yellow colors show unfavorable conditions:

So, if Erika is going to become a hurricane, it’s not likely to happen until the weekend-perhaps late in the weekend. Once a Tropical Storm is “ripped apart,” it takes a while to get organized again. Warm water, a lack of mountains, and low wind shear are all needed.

About Those Mountains…
There are some really big mountains that are in the possible path of Erika. Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic/Haiti, and Cuba all have at least one mountain that is at least 4000 feet high! It’s all about friction, and any type of land creates some friction. The greater the area of mountains, and the higher the mountains, the greater amount of friction there is. Hurricanes hate friction.

In the past, some already-developed hurricanes have taken the “triple island-mountain track” of Puerto Rico + Dominican Republic/Haiti +Cuba. All have weakened. Some have been crushed into a disorganized mess. Erika is already disorganized-if it tracks over the triple islands, it may not survive.

The Track Forecast Is Tough Enough, But…
So, the track of Erika is more uncertain than usual. And if you think that’s tough, look at the intensity forecasts!

No, they’re not kidding! The possible solutions range from a “nothing,” torn apart by the mountains and shear, all the way to a Category 5, with winds over 160 mph! I have never seen such a variation. But looking closely, there is a good deal of agreement for the first 72 hours that Erika will NOT be a hurricane through Sunday afternoon. Those strong solutions involve tracks that curve Erika well east of Florida and up toward the North Carolina coast by the middle of next week.

The Bottom Line
The “bottom line” is there is so much uncertainty, in both track and intensity, that possibilities range from Erika moving into the Gulf of Mexico all the way to curving off the Southeast U.S. coast. The rooting interest here is for Erika to track more to the left, move near the mountainous islands from Puerto Rico to Cuba, and be so disorganized that it won’t be able to recover. There’s at least a 30-percent chance of that happening. But that also means there’s nearly a 70-percent chance that it will turn out to be a threat to the U.S. mainland next week.

The Philadelphia Zoo showed off its newest furry addition Thursday as Kayla made her public debut.

The 2-year-old sloth bear, weighing in at nearly 200 pounds, came to the Philly zoo from the San Diego Zoo last month. A sloth bear, unlike other bears, uses its snout and claws to dig for insects and search for fruit. They often make grunting or snorting sounds, according to National Geographic.

Visitors can see Kayla in the Philly zoo’s newly-enlarged Bear County exhibit.

“There’re very busy diggers, so if you come to the Philadelphia Zoo you will absolutely see Kayla out digging around, looking for bugs," said zoo curator of carnivores and ungulates Donna Evernham.

Philadelphia Police took a suspect into custody Thursday night in connection with a series of burglaries that targeted Drexel University students.

Southwest detectives didn't immediately name the suspect in at least five University City break-ins as they awaited charges.

Three burglaries occurred Saturday between 6 and 8 a.m. at apartments on the 3200 block of Powelton Avenue and a home on the 3200 block of Summer Street. Police said a burglar or burglars entered through an unlocked window and unlocked door and stole electronics, backpacks and jewelry.

Two more burglaries occurred on Monday between 8:55 and 10:30 a.m. at an apartment house on the 300 block of N. 33rd Street. Police said the apartments were entered by force and a second-floor hallway door was propped open.

Police didn't reveal if there are other suspects in the burglaries.

If you have any information on the thefts, please call the Drexel Police Department at 215.895.2222 or call 911.