deficit

Victor Wembanyama had 21 points and 13 rebounds and the San Antonio Spurs overcame an early 14-point deficit before blowing most of a 24-point lead and recovering to hold off the Clippers 119-115 on Monday night at Intuit Dome.

Stephon Castle had 23 points, eight assists and seven rebounds to lead the Spurs (50-18), who reached 50 wins for the first time since 2016-17 and trail the first-place Thunder by three games in the West. Devin Vassell added 20 points.

Fighting to secure a spot for the play-in tournament, the Clippers’ second straight loss dropped them back to .500 with Kawhi Leonard watching from the bench. The NBA’s sixth-leading scorer sat out with a sprained left knee.

Darius Garland drives to the basket against De’Aaron Fox and Victor Wembanyama of the Spurs in the second half.

(Eric Thayer/Los Angeles Times)

Darius Garland led six Clippers in double figures with 25 points and 10 assists. Jordan Miller had 22 points off the bench, which outscored the Spurs’ reserves 57-30.

After the Spurs ran off seven in a row to lead 115-102, Garland scored seven of the Clippers’ nine points to get within four with 38 seconds remaining. But the Spurs made four straight free throws to preserve the win.

The Spurs led by 24 points in the third before the Clippers closed with a 16-3 run to trail by 10 going into the fourth.

The Spurs started slowly, missing eight of their first nine shots, while the Clippers surged to a 17-3 lead. They shot 65% from the floor in the opening quarter, hit five of seven three-pointers and made 10 of 12 free throws.

San Antonio turned things around in the second. The Spurs erased all of their 14-point deficit, helped by 15 straight points over the end of the first and start of the second. In the period, they outscored the Clippers 37-15 to lead 66-52 at halftime.

SAN FRANCISCO — Kawhi Leonard had 23 points, eight rebounds and four assists, and the Clippers erased a 17-point deficit to beat the shorthanded Golden State Warriors 114-101 on Monday night.

Darius Garland scored 12 points in his Clippers debut, coming off the bench to play nearly 23 minutes in his first game since being acquired from Cleveland at the trade deadline last month in a deal that sent James Harden to the Cavaliers.

Garland had been nursing a toe injury, then he went down with 1:26 left in the second quarter after a collision with the Warriors’ Moses Moody when they both went for a loose ball and Moody’s right shoulder appeared to get Garland in the face. Both players were shaken but stayed in the game.

Garland’s three-pointer with 3:09 left in the third pulled the Clippers within 75-68, then Kris Dunn had a steal and layup to make it a five-point game. The Clippers were within 79-77 going into the final 12 minutes.

Dunn finished with 16 points, seven rebounds and seven assists for the Clippers (29-31), who shot just nine for 31 from three-point range. The Clippers used a 9-4 spurt to start the fourth quarter and go ahead 88-81.

Warriors guard Brandin Podziemski hit eight of his first 12 shots with three three-pointers for his second career 20-point half, but went one for six for two points after the break. Al Horford added 17 points for Golden State, which has lost five of seven and nine of 14.

All-Star guard Stephen Curry was sidelined for an 11th straight game because of a right knee injury, big man Kristaps Porzingis was out for his fifth consecutive contest because of an illness coach Steve Kerr called “mysterious,” and rookie Will Richard was in a walking boot after he sprained his right ankle in Saturday’s blowout home loss to the Lakers. Star forward Jimmy Butler is out for the season with a torn anterior cruciate ligament.

Up next for the Clippers: vs. Indiana at Intuit Dome on Wednesday.

The second straight monthly deterioration in the United States’ trade deficit occurred as US firms boosted imports of computer chips and other tech goods.

The United States trade deficit has widened sharply in December amid a surge in imports, and the goods shortfall in 2025 was the highest on record despite US President Donald Trump’s tariffs on foreign-manufactured merchandise.

The second straight monthly deterioration in the trade deficit reported by the US Commerce Department on Thursday suggested that trade made little or no contribution to gross domestic product (GDP) in the fourth quarter.

Exports rose 6 percent last year, and imports rose nearly 5 percent.

The US deficit in the trade of goods widened 2 percent to a record $1.24 trillion last year as American companies boosted imports of computer chips and other tech goods from Taiwan to support massive investments in artificial intelligence.

Amid continuing tensions with Beijing, the deficit in the goods trade with China plunged nearly 32 percent to $202bn in 2025 on a sharp drop in both exports to and imports from the world’s second-biggest economy. But trade was diverted away from China. The goods gap with Taiwan doubled to $147bn and shot up 44 percent, to $178bn, with Vietnam.

Trump last year unleashed a barrage of tariffs against trading partners with the aim, among other things, of addressing trade imbalances and protecting US industries. But the punitive duties have not yielded a manufacturing renaissance, with factory employment declining by 83,000 jobs from January 2025 through January 2026.

“There just isn’t any evidence out there in the economic research literature to suggest that tariffs have materially impacted trade deficits historically when countries have implemented them,” said Chad Bown, senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics.

The trade gap ballooned by 32.6 percent to a five-month high of $70.3bn, the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Economic Analysis and the US Census Bureau said. Economists polled by Reuters forecast the trade deficit would contract to $55.5bn.

The report was delayed because of last year’s government shutdown.

Imports increased 3.6 percent to $357.6bn in December. Goods imports surged 3.8 percent to $280.2bn, boosted by a $7bn increase in industrial supplies and materials, mostly non-monetary gold, copper and crude oil. Capital goods imports increased by $5.6bn, lifted by computer accessories and telecommunications equipment. That rise is likely related to the construction of data centres to support artificial intelligence.

But consumer goods imports fell, pulled down by pharmaceutical preparations. There have been large swings in imports of pharmaceutical preparations because of tariffs.

“But strong imports should also imply strength in details like inventories or business investment,” said Veronica Clark, an economist at Citigroup. “Surging computer imports in particular should correspond with stronger business equipment investment and could remain strong due to AI-related demand.”

Exports fell 1.7 percent to $287.3bn in December. But capital goods exports increased, boosted by semiconductors. There were increases in exports of consumer goods, including pharmaceutical preparations.