SportsPulse: Trysta Krick overreacts to the top stories from this Week 2 of NFL preseason action. The high-profile rookie QB class is looking good. USA TODAY
Tom Brady abruptly ended a live radio interview Monday morning after being asked multiple questions about his longtime personal trainer, Alex Guerrero.
During an appearance on WEEI 93.7 FM in Boston, the New England Patriots quarterback was asked about why Guerrero was permitted to travel on the team’s plane recently after not being allowed to do so last season. Brady said he didn’t want to talk in depth about it, and bristled at three follow-up questions about Guerrero.
“I said I don’t want to get into it,” he said.
Then, after one more question about Guerrero from co-host Kirk Minihane, Brady decided that he’d had enough.
Brady has long avoided questions about Guerrero, who was reportedly a source of tension within the Patriots last season. The Boston Globe reported in December that the trainer, whose methods have sometimes differed from those of the Patriots’ official training staff, had been barred from traveling with the team.
This is also not the first time that Brady, 41, has cut an interview short on WEEI, a station on which he made weekly appearances last season. He hung up on the station in January because host Alex Reimer had called his daughter, Vivian, an “annoying little pissant.”
Contact Tom Schad at tschad@usatoday.com or on Twitter @Tom_Schad.
“Concern” was the word Lewis Hamilton used to describe his feelings about the rest of the season after his title rival Sebastian Vettel’s dominant victory in the Belgian Grand Prix.
Vettel did in his Ferrari what he should already have done in the previous two races in Germany and Hungary, but let slip through his fingers.
Although Hamilton took a superb pole position in wet conditions, the pre-race fears of Mercedes came true within 25 seconds of the start. Vettel used his car’s superior traction out of the slow first corner and greater straight-line speed to drag past on the straight.
After a brief fright when it looked like Force India’s Esteban Ocon might try a move down the inside into the Les Combes chicane as four cars headed side-by-side towards the corner, Vettel swept into the lead. And like that, he was gone.
Hamilton still leads the championship by 17 points but the message from the classic Spa-Francorchamps track was loud and clear – Ferrari have the fastest car in Formula 1.
The size of Mercedes’ task
It took seconds for Vettel wrestle the lead from Hamilton
“They’ve had the upper hand on us for some time,” Hamilton pointed out afterwards.
Vettel crashed out of the lead in a late-race rain shower at Hockenheim, and rain again came to the rescue in Hungary. Ferrari had been the faster car all weekend but in a downpour in qualifying, Hamilton excelled as usual. Vettel was only fourth and finished the race second.
Hamilton spent summer jetting around Europe, America and the Caribbean, and Vettel spent the break at home in Switzerland, and when they reconvened in Belgium, little had changed about the competitive picture, despite both teams introducing engine upgrades.
But again there was rain, and again Hamilton took a stunning pole – by more than 0.7secs from Vettel, whose Ferrari team had a kind of collective meltdown in the chaos brought on the by the weather.
The rain came as all the drivers took to the track at the start of final qualifying. The front-runners all returned to the pits for treaded tyres, but Ferrari were not ready. There were no tyres. Vettel was left sitting in the pit-lane as mechanics ran around in a flap, and he swore at the team over the radio as they tried to wheel him back into the garage, warning them not to damage the car.
Fernando Alonso has had easier days, hurtling through traffic after being shunted by Nico Hulkenberg
“We had a wobble, obviously,” Vettel said afterwards.
Not on Sunday this time, though.
The race went exactly to plan for Vettel. Once past Hamilton, a safety car for the massive first-corner pile-up gave him some fresh concerns but he handled the re-start well, helped by what Hamilton said was his car’s biggest deficit in Spa – poor traction.
That meant Hamilton could not stay close enough to Vettel at the re-start to do what the German had done to him earlier, and the Ferrari disappeared into the distance.
Its advantage was not huge – Vettel had pulled a gap of just under four seconds before Hamilton came back at him a little before the first stops – but it was more than enough to control the race.
Vettel described it as “a great weekend”. On the championship, his mantra all season has been that Ferrari simply need to focus on keeping up in the development race and improving the car. “The key will be to be fast, to have the speed,” he says.
How big a worry is it for Hamilton?
The crowd cheer and chant for the Ferrari drivers just as they always have in Monza, venue of the next race
Spa raises genuine concerns for Mercedes. It is a power track and Ferrari were the quickest team. The next race, Ferrari’s home event in Monza, is also a power track. And while the one after that, Singapore, is not, it is something of a bete noir for Mercedes, and they are already expecting a difficult weekend there.
Mercedes F1 boss Toto Wolff said he saw “many deficits that are obvious, which caused us not to perform as we expect”.
Asked what these were, he pointed to traction and Mercedes’ over-use of their tyres, the latter something of an occasionally recurring theme for the team.
Ferrari’s apparent engine advantage was also a subject for discussion.
Hamilton referred to it afterwards, saying: “He drove past me like I wasn’t even there on the straights”, adding that Ferrari had “a few trick things going on in the car”.
Inevitably this was leapt on as a potential implication that he thought Ferrari might be doing something underhand – not least because governing body the FIA was asking questions about the same thing back in May, only to eventually give the all-clear.
But Hamilton said that was not what he meant.
“We all have trick things on our cars,” he said. “Trick is just a word for something special, I guess.
“I’m not saying that there’s anything illegal on it. I’m just saying we all have something trick. Trick is just something that helps you bring that extra bit of performance. That’s all I mean.
“I don’t mean anything to it so please don’t read into it and please don’t twist my words and say that I say they’re doing anything illegal because they’re not.
“They just outperformed us today and we’ve got to work harder, but there are things that they have on the car that we might not have on the car and vice versa and we’ve got to try and find out what and improve on that. That’s it.”
Do Ferrari actually have an engine advantage?
There is no doubt that Ferrari were quicker on the straights. But that is not necessarily down to an engine advantage.
Mercedes were running more downforce on their car. They were marginally quicker in the middle sector of the lap, where the majority of the corners are, through practice and qualifying.
The downforce would help with tyre usage – but also slows the car on the straights. Poor traction out of slow corners also affects straight-line speed.
Wolff insisted that the Ferrari engine also had an advantage.
“They have a power advantage,” he said. “We have seen that yesterday in qualifying. It is at various parts of the straight, even if the exits are worse than ours, they keep pulling.”
But he also mentioned poor traction – and Hamilton said that coming out of the two slow corners at Bus Stop and La Source was “where we lose a lot of time, most of our time to be honest”.
Hamilton also returned to the issue of over-use of tyres. “He didn’t have to do any management, he was flat chat on the tyres, but I did.”
If Mercedes’ biggest loss in Spa was out of the slow corners, it gives Hamilton some hope for Monza this weekend.
“Luckily, there, apart from Turn One, it is not that slow, the chicanes,” he said.” So I am hoping the traction loss we are having in these super-slow corners won’t be as bad there.”
Vettel claimed his 52nd career victory, and his fifth this season
Last year, Hamilton won in Spa, but only after fending off Vettel’s faster car all race. But a week later Mercedes dominated at Monza.
Wolff said: “Spa was always a bit of a tricky one for us in the past as well. Monza was a good one, so I am very curious to see how it is going to go in Monza.
“Last year we were very much in control of the whole weekend. Ferrari had their worst weekend of the whole season performance-wise.
“I am not worried. I think we should still address the opportunities that exist within our car where we need to optimise and only that will make us win the championship.”
Hamilton said: “I truly trust and believe in my guys but these next string of races are going to be really telling. The next two or three races will show if they are going to sustain this high performance or it is going to be more tooth and nail.
“This is definitely the hardest season and it is going to continue to get harder and harder throughout. It is going to take the whole package being 100% to out-perform them. Sebastian did a great job today and didn’t make any mistakes. We just have to keep applying the pressure to him.”
Russia has said it was not behind an air attack in northern Afghanistan and its military aircraft has not been conducting any operations near Afghanistan’s border with Tajikistan, the RIA news agency said citing the Russian Ministry of Defence.
On Monday, two Afghan government officials said a Tajik or Russian plane bombed the northeastern Durqad district of Takhar province in Afghanistan, during a clash between gunmen and Tajik border guards.
Afghan local media, quoting the provincial governor’s spokesman Mohammad Jawed Hejri, said clashes broke out on Sunday afternoon between drug smugglers in Afghanistan and Tajik border guards.
Hejri confirmed the jets were “foreign” but could not verify if they were either from Russia or Tajikistan.
“The identity of the drugs smugglers is not known,” said Hejri.
Security in Takhar has deteriorated recently as armed groups regularly attack security checkpoints in the province.
Clashes between security forces and the Taliban have also increased in the past few months as the armed group attempts to overrun districts in the country’s northeast.
It can be argued that if something has the ability to cut through objects, it can technically be considered a knife.
So taking this rule to the extreme, you can turn all sorts of things into knives. At least, that’s the mentality of YouTuber and knife-maker extraordinaire Kiwami Japan, who turns rice, jello, and other unexpected objects into sharp cutting tools.
Upon watching these videos, I’m honestly not sure if I should be impressed, or scared. Take for example one of Kiwami’s most popular videos in which he takes a bunch of Jell-O, melts it down, and turns it into what looks like a deadly Jolly Rancher nightmare.
If you’re not feeling the Jell-O knife, he also made one entirely out of pasta that can stab through cardboard and cut through vegetables. The best part about this knife is that it’s also entirely edible after boiling.
But if you’re looking for something even more impressive, his rice knife will leave you in awe. And we absolutely cannot forget his cardboard knife that bring a whole meaning to the word “paper cut.”
Kiwami’s ice knife is something straight out of a video game. It isn’t the sharpest knife, but it still managed to pass his veggie-slicing test with flying colors.
Most of these knives can take weeks for Kiwami to make, but considering the knowledge and chemistry that goes into creating them, they always manage to impress with their sharp cutting abilities.
With his cutting-edge designs, he is certain to find a way to make even the softest of objects into a slicing machine.
President Trump‘s fresh tariffs on $34 billion in Chinese goods set the stage for price increases hitting American companies and consumers. So how does it affect the everyday American? We explain. USA TODAY
An Illinois farmer’s profit is fast turning into a loss as corn, soybean and pork prices tumble.
A Florida boat maker is paying its dealers in China millions of dollars to partly offset the cost of tariffs in that country, jeopardizing U.S. employee bonuses this year.
A craft brewery is spending more on aluminum cans, forcing it to shelve plans to add workers.
They’re portraits of distress in an escalating trade war that has begun taking a toll on myriad businesses across the country. Many are paying more for imported supplies, enduring falling sales overseas, or both, forcing them to put hiring and investment plans on hold.
Trump administration officials argue the tariffs are necessary to protect U.S. steel makers that have suffered as foreign producers dumped metals in this country at below-market prices. The taxes are also aimed at prodding China and other countries to reduce longstanding high tariffs on U.S. imports, potentially opening those markets to American companies.
To be sure, the trade war has produced some winners, including American steel makers and washing machine manufacturers that have benefited from the tariffs placed on their foreign competitors’ exports to the U.S.
CLOSE
President Donald Trump says the US and the EU have agreed to work toward “zero tariffs” and “zero subsidies” on non-automobile goods. EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker says he has made a deal with Trump to try to ease trade tensions. (July 25) AP
But their ranks are dwarfed by the losers. And the casualties among U.S. firms are mounting.
“I believe the (Trump) administration has good intentions,” says Bill Yeargin, CEO of Correct Craft of Orlando, Florida, one of the world’s largest powerboat makers. But, as a country, “I feel like we shot a hole in the bottom of our own boat.”
So far, the tariffs haven’t undercut a roaring U.S. economy, but they’re keeping it from growing even more robustly. And if President Donald Trump makes good on threats to levy duties on hundreds of billions of dollars more in imports, the pain for Main Street businesses will grow exponentially.
Trump has slapped tariffs on about $50 billion of imported steel and aluminum and $34 billion on an array of technology and other goods from China. Another $16 billion in duties on Chinese imports took effect Thursday. China, Canada, Mexico and the European Union have responded with tit-for-tat tariffs on U.S. shipments to their countries, from motorcycles and blue jeans to whiskey and orange juice.
If those taxes stay in place, it would shave a modest tenth of a percentage point off U.S. economic growth and reduce employment by 170,000 over the next year, says Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Analytics. The economy is expected to grow a solid 3 percent this year.
“It’s having an impact, but it’s not a big enough impact on the broader economy,” Zandi says, noting growth has been juiced by the sweeping Republican tax cuts.
But, he says, if Trump follows through with all $800 billion of his threatened tariffs, largely against China, and other countries retaliate as expected, it would slice growth by 1.6 percentage points and employment by another 2.6 million, tipping the economy into recession.
Already, thousands of businesses are feeling the effects. Here’s how some are coping.
Struggling farmer takes another hit
Brian Duncan, 53, a midsize corn, soybean and hog farmer with 4,000 acres in Polo, Illinois, already had been grappling with thinner profits. The culprit has been a surplus of global crop supplies fostered by favorable weather and the expectation of rising demand. Now, retaliatory tariffs by China and Mexico have crimped demand in those countries, reducing market prices for his products by 16 percent to 27 percent since April.
If the tariffs remain, Duncan expects his sales over the next year to fall by $1.5 million in his hog business, about $400,000 in corn and $100,000 in soybeans. Duncan has 3,500 acres of corn and 500 acres of soybeans. And he raises 70,000 hogs a year that are sold to giant pork producers such as Tyson Foods and Smithfield Foods.
“The trade war has swung me from a half-million-dollar profit to a half-million-dollar loss,” the 35-year, third-generation farmer says.
As a result, he’s putting off plans to buy a new tractor and combine.
“You’re always trying to expand and grow the business,” he says. But now, “that doesn’t seem like a wise thing to do.
“I recognize there’s trade issues that need to be dealt with,” he says. “But I think there’s a better way. … The way we’re going about it is like a bull in a china shop.”
Tariff is like anchor for boat maker
Correct Craft, the Florida boat maker, is getting hit by both sides of the trade skirmish.
After current contracts with suppliers expire in a couple of months, it will pay 20 percent to 30 percent more for the aluminum that makes up the shell of some of its boats, and 5 percent to 15 percent more for aluminum parts that go in the boats, says CEO Yeargin.
The company buys those supplies domestically, but the 10 percent tariff on aluminum imports is allowing U.S. makers to raise their prices as well, since they no longer have to compete aggressively with low-priced foreign rivals. And the tariffs are “giving them cover” to boost prices by even more than the 10 percent duty, Yeargin says.
The extra taxes will increase the company’s costs by hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, he says.
The bigger problem, Yeargin says, is that exports to 70 countries make up 30 percent of the company’s $500 million in annual sales. And Canada, Mexico and the European Union have slapped tariffs – of 10 percent, 15 percent and 25 percent, respectively – on all power boats from the U.S. Initially, he says, orders from overseas dealers came to a dead halt.
Customers “don’t want to be the ones who bought a boat with a 25 percent tariff,” Yeargin says, especially if the duty is temporary.
Then, the company decided to provide rebates to offset 20 percent to 50 percent of the tariffs. Now, Yeargin says, the hit to sales is modest, but “it’s costing us millions of dollars.”
Correct Craft has suspended plans to expand factories and hire dozens of workers in coming months. “We’re not approving any new growth initiatives,” he says.
And the reduced sales and profits could crimp the annual bonuses of Craft’s 1,300 employees.
The strong economy has been a boon for U.S. boat makers, with Correct’s sales rising more than 20 percent annually in recent years. Yet Yeargin worries that customers who put off a boat purchase may take up another hobby instead.
“Once they get out, they may never get back to boating,” he says.
Beer-can costs add up
Even seemingly trivial increases can have outsize effects.
Octopi Brewing, a contractor in Waunakee, Wisconsin, that makes beer for other brewers, is paying 15 percent more for aluminum cans since the tariff took effect a few months ago. Its supplier has increased its price from 10.5 cents a can to 12 cents, says Isaac Showaki, president of the 3-year-old company.
That doesn’t sound like much, but it adds up to about $100,000 a year for a company that churns out a few million cans of beer annually. “When you’re talking about millions of units, you’re talking about real money,” says Showaki, 34.
Initially, Octopi absorbed the added cost, but now it’s passing it along to its brewing-company customers. Still, there’s a lag until Octopi can recover those extra costs – about $30,000 so far – from customers. That’s reducing the company’s cash flow.
“That’s money we could have spent on hiring people,” Showaki says, noting Octopi sales have been growing 50 percent a year and the company had planned to add two to three workers. “It just puts a brake on everything. It just makes you slow down.”
Auto parts maker fights for its life
Lucerne International, an auto parts supplier based in Auburn Hills, Michigan, already has absorbed one blow from the trade war, and it’s bracing for a much bigger one.
The company makes about $50 million in parts annually at eight plants in Asia, then ships them back to the U.S. for final production for large automakers.
Its part sales to BMW have fallen 20 percent because China raised its tariff on cars it imports from the U.S. to 40 percent in retaliation for Trump’s higher duties on Chinese goods. BMW builds SUVs in Spartanburg, South Carolina, and exports them to 140 countries, including China. It has scaled back the number of cars it plans to sell in that country because of the levy. And so it’s ordering fewer parts from Lucerne, says the company’s CEO, Mary Buchzeiger.
The bigger impact will come if Trump follows through on threats to slap a 25 percent tariff on all imported vehicles and auto parts based on national security concerns. Long-term contracts with customers prevent Lucerne from passing along higher material costs or tariffs. And Lucerne’s profit margin is too thin to eat the added expense.
“I can’t sell the products for less than what it costs me to produce them, and that’s what would happen with the tariffs,” says Buchzeiger, who bought the 25-year-old company from her father in 2015. “We’d be out of business in three months.”
Lucerne’s revenue has been “gangbusters” the past three years, she says, and revenue of nearly $50 million is expected to reach $1 billion in nine years. As a result, the company has considered opening a U.S. plant to reduce its reliance on Asian imports, an initiative that would create 125 jobs. But with the company’s future hanging in the balance, those plans are on hold, Buchzeiger says.
Contributing: Jamie L LaReau of the Detroit Free Press
Heavy clashes between armed groups have erupted in Libya’s capital, Tripoli, since Sunday evening, officials said.
Two people were reportedly killed while several others were wounded in the clashes on Monday, as the health ministry declared a state of emergency in the capital, according to local media.
It remains unclear with whom the armed groups are affiliated.
The National Committee for Human Rights in Libya said in a statement on Monday that it was deeply concerned over the outbreak of the violence, Libya News reported.
The statement called on all parties to the conflict to put down their arms and cease fighting immediately.
The incident follows a deadly attack last week on a checkpoint in western Libya, in which six soldiers loyal the Government of National Accord (GNA) were killed.
On Saturday, an affiliate of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group claimed responsibility for the attack in Zliten, a town that lies 170km from the capital.
Libyan authorities announced the arrest of the suspected perpetrators.
“Soldiers of the caliphate assaulted the ‘Wadi Kaam’ gate, on the Zliten-Khoms road two days ago, targeting a gathering of apostate security elements” loyal to Libya’s UN-backed unity government, the armed group said via its Amaq media arm.
In an interview on Saturday with Libya’s private al-Ahrar broadcaster, the unity government’s Interior Minister Abdelsalam Ashour said “the perpetrators of the attack were apprehended”, without specifying how many people were arrested.
Seven years after the 2011 NATO-backed overthrow of Muammar Ghaddafi, Libya remains divided between the UN-backed GNA in Tripoli and a rival administration in the east, backed by military leader Khalifa Haftar.
A myriad of armed groups and people traffickers have taken advantage of the chaos to gain a foothold in the North African country.
Robert Kyagulanyi, a musician-turned-MP whose arrest prompted protests in Uganda, has been granted bail by a court in the northern city of Gulu.
The opposition legislator and 11 others were freed on a ‘non-cash’ bail on Monday.
The court did not approve the bail application of more than 10 other suspects charged alongside the MP.
Kyagulanyi, who is better known by his stage name, Bobi Wine, has been charged with treason.
They were arraigned over their alleged role in the pelting with stones of the President Yoweri Museveni‘s convoy after a local election rally.
Military prosecutors on Friday dropped weapons possession charges against Kyagulanyi.
A civilian magistrate ordered Kyagulanyi remanded in custody until August 30 and granted him access to private doctors citing the “health of the accused”, according to footage broadcast on state channel UBC.
Kyagulanyi had been arrested since his arrest on August 14.
Protesters have been demonstrating against the arrest and detention of Bobi Wine [Reuters]
The popular musician has emerged as an influential critic of Museveni after winning a seat in parliament last year.
The 36-year-old opposition legislator has used his music to address the country’s political and social issues.
In recent days, Uganda’s government has faced pressure to free Kyagulanyi, with dozens of musicians around the world speaking out against his alleged beating in detention.
Security forces in recent days have violently put down street protests by Ugandans demanding his release.
Still freaking out over Sharp Objects? HBO has already moved on!
In a trailer that aired during Sharp Objects‘ finale, HBO showed a compilation clip for all the cool projects they have coming up in 2019 — and it included the very first Game of Thrones Season 8 footage.
Yes, yes, it’s only about a two-second clip. But the footage of an unhappy Sansa hugging a morose Jon is sure to keep fans speculating.
Game of Thrones is set to return for the final six episodes in the first half of 2019. We’ll be analyzing every second of footage in the meantime.
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