helps

Marcus Smart couldn’t believe the stat line. Five steals and two blocks for who?

“Lukaaaaa,” Smart said, elongating Luka Doncic’s name while smiling toward his star teammate who was sitting with his feet in an ice bucket with ice bags wrapped around his knees.

Doncic matched his career high for steals in a regular-season game Wednesday. The guard averaging 40 points per game claimed his defense was the only thing he did well on a night when he finished one rebound short of a triple-double. While collecting 35 points, 12 assists and nine rebounds, he was an inefficient nine-for-27 from the field and four-for-11 from three. He missed four free throws, turned the ball over four times and, after picking up his fifth foul with 7:58 remaining in the fourth, nearly fouled out.

The last fact took Rui Hachimura by surprise.

“I’ve never seen him like that,” Hachimura said. “But you know, he’s trying to be more aggressive [on defense] and that’s what we need from him, too.”

Redick said Doncic had a few games when he started slow defensively in terms of physicality and engagement, but has been overall “really good” this season. Even when he was switched on to Spurs star Victor Wembanyama or point guard Stephon Castle, Doncic still competed well.

“There wasn’t matador defense,” Redick said. “He still guarded. And that was huge. The reason we won the game is because we guarded in the fourth quarter. Our fourth-quarter defense was the No. 1 reason we won the game.”

The Lakers limited the Spurs to 36.8% shooting from the field during the fourth quarter while forcing six turnovers. Wembanyama was held to 19 points on labored five-for-14 shooting with eight rebounds. He was nine-for-11 on free throws and fouled out with 1:40 remaining when he bowled over Hachimura.

Nov. 5 (UPI) — The disruption of federal benefits that help feed families spurred a Pittsburgh man to create a front-yard food bank to help others as the federal government remains shut down.

A.J. Owen. 36, resides in the Pittsburgh suburb of Whitehall, and initially started his ad-hoc food pantry after completing a $150 food run with his two sons about a week ago, according to TribLIVE.

Owen has large plastic bins containing canned goods and other foods placed on portable tables in his front yard for those who need food and for others to leave food donations.

“The amount of donations we received and the amount of people coming and getting food is both so gratifying and so horrifying,” Owentold TribLIVE.

“So many people need help,” he added, “and I’m so happy to be a resource for them.”

Owen said he initially started the food pantry to teach his sons about the need to help others, but it has become a much greater endeavor, as affirmed by a recent visit from Good Morning America and its cameras.

The single father notified others of his effort on social media, which resulted in additional food donations — including one donation that he said was thousands of dollars’ worth of $100 bills from an anonymous person.

He found the money stuffed in an envelope inside his mailbox with a note saying, “May God prosper and bless your food pantry,” Owen told ABC News.

“My body started shaking,” he said. “I started crying.”

He also said, “This was the best cry ever because whatever you want to believe, an angel truly came down and blessed us that day. And we’ve been good ever since.”

Owen didn’t say how much money was in the envelope, other than it added up to “thousands” of dollars.

He posted a video of the anonymous donation on social media, which drew millions of views and prompted others to visit and donate more food.

Among them were Pittsburgh Steelers defensive end Yahya Blackand his fiancé, who donated “tons of food,” Owen said on social media.

Owen did not say if his food pantry effort might outlast the federal government shutdown, which entered a record 36 days on Wednesday and temporarily disrupted funding of the federal government’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.

Bam Adebayo had 25 points and 10 rebounds, Norman Powell added 21 points in his return to Southern California and the Miami Heat held off the Clippers 120-119 on Monday night.

Powell was a key member of the Clippers for three seasons before being traded to the Heat before this season.

Andrew Wiggins scored 17 points and Kel’el Ware added 16 to help the Heat end a two-game losing streak and win on the road for the second time in five games. Miami is 1-2 to open a four-game trip.

James Harden scored 29 points and Kawhi Leonard added 27 as the Clippers lost at home for the first time in four games this season.

Ivica Zubac had nine points and 12 rebounds for the Clippers. Derrick Jones Jr., Bradley Beal and John Collins each scored 12 points.

The Heat shot 54.2% from the field and made 12 of their 25 three-point attempts to 50% for the Clippers, who were 17 of 41 from long range. The Clippers had 21 turnovers that the Heat turned into 37 points.

Miami led 120-116 after two free throws from Adebayo with 56 seconds remaining. Adebayo missed a shot inside with 26 seconds left and Harden made a three-pointer on the other end with 20 seconds left to pull the Clippers within a point.

The Clippers had a chance to win it, but Leonard missed a 26-foot step-back three-pointer at the buzzer.

The Clippers trailed by as many as 13 points in the third quarter before getting even 105-105 with 9:55 remaining on a three-pointer from veteran Chris Paul.

TORONTO — Beneath his feet, confetti decorated the turf. Behind him, the video boards congratulated his team on its latest championship.

The Dodgers owner who lives and breathes championships smiled broadly. Magic Johnson always does, of course. This time, he had an impish twinkle in his eye.

“They said we ruined baseball,” Johnson said. “Well, I guess we didn’t.”

If you are not in Los Angeles, you might be screaming in frustration. The team with all the gold makes the rules, and the new rule is that the Dodgers win every year, and now their most famous owner is mocking you?

He is not.

He is, however, issuing a subtle warning to all of baseball’s owners: Don’t let your desperation for a salary cap destroy a sport on the rise — in no small part thanks to the Dodgers.

The NBA was not much more than a minor league 45 years ago. This is crazy to imagine now, but the NBA Finals aired on tape delay, on late-night television, most often at 11:30 p.m. The NBA audience was so small that advertisers would not pay prime-time rates for those commercials, so the games were not broadcast in prime time.

Johnson helped change that. The rivalry between his Lakers and Larry Bird’s Celtics revived the NBA, and then Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls became global sporting icons.

From 1980-88, either the Lakers or the Celtics won the NBA title in every year but one. From 1991-98, the Bulls won six titles.

The Celtics and Lakers and Bulls did not ruin the NBA.

“What the Celtics and Lakers were able to do, and Michael Jordan’s Bulls, was to bring in new fans — fans that were, ‘Oh, I don’t know about the NBA,’” Johnson said, “but the play was so good, and the Celtics and Lakers and Bulls were so dominant, people said, ‘Oh man, I want to watch them.’

“It’s the same thing happening here.”

The NBA leadership could not believe its good fortune. Baseball’s leadership appears intent on lighting its good fortune on fire.

“My phone was blowing up with people who hadn’t watched baseball for a long time,” Johnson said. “They were watching this series.

“This was good for baseball around the world.”

The World Baseball Classic is four months away. The World Series most valuable player, the Dodgers’ Yoshinobu Yamamoto, is from Japan.

So is the Dodgers’ Shohei Ohtani, the closest baseball has ever had to its own Jordan. The Dodgers rescued him from purgatory in Anaheim and surrounded him with a star-studded roster, and now he makes more money from pitching products than pitching baseballs. To the Dodgers, he doubles as an All-Star and cash machine.

The league — and all the owners complaining about the Dodgers and their spending — happily profited from this traveling road show. The Dodgers get the same share of international merchandise and broadcast revenue every other team does.

The Dodgers led the major leagues in road attendance, again. The league sent the Dodgers to Seoul last spring and Tokyo this spring, meaning that, for two years running, they were one of the first two teams to report to spring training and one of the last two playing at season’s end. The league’s television partners rushed to book the Dodgers, even for games at times inconvenient to the team.

“MLB put us in every hard situation you can think about,” infielder Miguel Rojas said. “We never complained. We were trying to come through for the fans, for baseball, and everybody should be recognizing what we are doing.”

With the Blue Jays in the World Series, Canadian ratings for the World Series increased tenfold. The Dodgers did not destroy the Jays. They survived them, and barely at that.

The Dodgers have not ruined competition, despite the spotlight.

“They have a great team,” Toronto infielder Ernie Clement said. “There’s no denying it. They’re one of the best teams probably ever put together, and we’ve taken ‘em to seven games, so that’s got to say something about us.”

Toronto manager John Schneider said his team, which won more games than the Dodgers this season, had chances to sweep the World Series.

“People were calling it David versus Goliath,” Schneider said, shaking his head from side to side. “It’s not even… close.”

The Dodgers make a lot of money, pour the money back into the team, and win. They give the people what they want.

“People want the best,” co-owner Todd Boehly said.

Granted, not every team can spend like the Dodgers. Most cannot, and baseball should be able to find ways to share the wealth without risking its tenuous but growing popularity by locking out players in pursuit of a salary cap.

After all, isn’t a compelling product with stars from home and abroad good for baseball?

“You bet,” controlling owner Mark Walter said. “I think they think so, too.”

It was time to go. The parade was 36 hours away, and Johnson had to rest his throat.

“I’m hoarse,” he said. “I’ve never been hoarse.”

So we’ll leave you with one bit of sports trivia, in response to the mistaken notion that a salary cap assures competitive balance: In the Magic, Bird and Jordan years, the ones that lifted the NBA into popular culture, did the NBA have a salary cap?

It did then. It does now. Onto the quest for a three-peat.

Highlights from the Dodgers’ 5-4 win in 11 innings over the Blue Jays in Game 7 of the World Series.

STACEY Solomon has shared how she keeps her bouncy blow dry in place for more than a week after getting it done.

The mum-of-five retained her crown as the most relatable celeb in showbiz as she took to TikTok to post the exact routine she swears by.

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In the video, she said she was doing her best to get ready “as quickly as possible” for work, so had done her make-up in seconds and prepped her locks the night before.

“I didn’t wash it, but I just dampened it down,” Stacey said in a video on her TikTok page.

“It was, I had like a really old blow dry, and I’ve been trying to keep it in for a week.

“So I’ve just been putting my heatless curler in, and then going to bed with it, taking it out.”

Once taking the heatless curling rod out, Stacey, 35, used some of the REHAB. Essential Dry Shampoo on her roots – to absorb the grease and give her hair some extra texture.

She then ran her fingers through her hair, and grinned as she showed how it looked as though she’d had a “fresh, bouncy blow dry”.

“I wonder how long I can like this blow dry for,” she laughed.

“Like we’re on week one, I wonder if I can bring it into week two with my heatless curler.

“They’re just so good, and it just means I only have to destroy my hair with heat once every couple of weeks, because I can keep all of the curls in place, and keep it looking fresh with my dry shampoo and heatless curler.”

She finished off her speedy makeover with a swipe of lip oil, and then was ready to go.

“I want daily updates on the hair! BRING ON WEEK 2!” one person commented on the TikTok.

“You have such great hair,” another added.

“And it actually looks stunning!” a third praised.

“Go on girl!”

“I love the dry shampoo, it’s a life saver,” someone else said.

While others admitted they were more than a little jealous of Stacey’s finished look.

“I swear if I don’t wash my hair for two days on day three my curls look like rats’ tails!” one wrote.

“I have such hair envy! My hair doesn’t hold curl ever!” another added.

“OMG! You are so glamorous even when you’re not,” a third smiled.

“I get up looking like a badger’s bum!”

VLADIMIR Putin has fired his top general amid ongoing humiliating blows from Ukraine.

General Alexander Lapin, 61, was reportedly sacked for failing to sweep through the Sumy region – considered one of the tyrant’s key war goals.

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Once a decorated militant, he was awarded the Kremlin’s top honour: the Hero of Russia.

Despite his many medals, however, he came under fire and was criticised as “incompetent” by military experts.

Putin ally Ramzan Kadyrov, head of Chechnya, said of him three years ago: “If I had my way, I would have demoted Lapin to private, deprived him of his awards, and sent him to the front line to wash off his shame with the rifle in his hands.”

Reports suggest Russia lost three battalions in its attempt to capture the Sumy region as Ukraine continues to grind down on Vlad.

His dismissal, however, has raised suspicions Putin is looking for scapegoats to explain his humiliating military defeats.

This includes his slow territorial gains into Ukraine while losing millions of men both injured and killed.

He was also earlier blamed for Ukraine’s impressive advance into Russia’s Kursk region, which the tyrant only narrowly pushed back on thanks to North Korean forces.

During the war, Lapin commanded the Centre group of forces, reaching  the title Hero of Russia.

A year later, he was appointed Chief of the General Staff of Russian Ground Forces.

Later he commanded the Leningrad Military District, then the North group.

In his new role, he will be in charge of recruiting contract soldiers in Tatarstan, the 44th largest region in Russia.

He will also liaise with service families including widows of fallen soldiers. 

It comes as analysts have recognised how Ukraine has been heavily defending a key town for over a year in its war with Russia.

The key town of Pokrovsk has also been deemed strategically critical for Putin’s territorial ambitions.

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As a vital railway and transport hub, Provosk could give Russia a huge supply line if captured, according to intelligence officer Philip Ingram.

It has been nicknamed the “gateway to Donetsk” by Russian media with key crossroads that could enable Putin the seize the rest of the area.

Putin has also revealed how he just about “dodged” death trying to fire up the engine of a motorbike.

The 72-year-old told defence minister Andrei Belousov of the incident: “I once got on a motorcycle, revved it.

“And it went into a spin and flipped over.

“I just dodged it at the last second. It fell right next to me.”

The Russian leader has long sought to cultivate an image as a macho tough guy as part of his domestic persona.

He shared the motorbike anecdote dressed in military fatigues – despite being hundreds of miles from the war zone.

Dave Roberts started out of the dugout with a walk.

Once Blake Snell caught his gaze, it turned into a trot.

With two out in the seventh inning, and Snell trying to put the finishing touches on his best performance in a Dodgers uniform, Roberts appeared to be coming to the mound after a pair of walks to turn to his shaky bullpen with a three-run lead.

As he usually does when removing a pitcher, his gait was slow — at least, initially.

Once Snell saw him coming, however, Roberts picked up his pace — as he will sometimes do when electing to leave a pitcher in the game.

This time, it was the latter.

After a brief discussion between manager and starting pitcher, Snell stayed in.

Five throws later, the $180-million offseason signee rewarded the decision, striking out Otto Kemp with a 95-mph fastball to put an emphatic ending on his scoreless seven-inning start, one that lifted the Dodgers to a 5-0 win over the Philadelphia Phillies.

Entering Wednesday, all the discussion around the Dodgers had centered on the bullpen. The slumping unit was coming off two of its worst performances of the season. The majority of Roberts’ pregame address with reporters was spent dissecting how to fix it.

“Before the results, has to be confidence,” Roberts said, comparing the relief corps’ struggles to the second-half scuffles that the offense only recently emerged from. “It’s just kind of trying to reset a mentality, a mindset and expect that things happen. … You can’t chase a zero in an inning until you execute the first pitch, and then keep going like that. And I think that right now you can see that they’re kind of trying a little too hard.”

On Wednesday night, however, Snell made their job easy.

Efficient from the start with the kind of aggressive, attacking game plan he had acknowledged was missing in his last three outings, Snell went to work quickly against the Phillies, retiring the side on eight pitches (and two strikeouts) in the first inning, en route to setting down the first eight batters he faced.

Brief trouble arose in the third, when Bryson Stott and Harrison Bader had back-to-back singles.

But then Snell froze Kyle Schwarber with a curveball, one of the seven punchouts he recorded with the pitch. He had a season-high 12 strikeouts on the night.

And after that, the Phillies didn’t put another runner aboard until the seventh, with Snell breezing through the next 12 batters.

In the meantime, the Dodgers built a lead. Freddie Freeman homered to lead off the second. Ben Rortvedt (starting his third straight game behind the plate, even with Dalton Rushing back from a leg injury) added an RBI single later in the inning, following an Andy Pages hit-and-run single that put runners on the corners.

Another run came around in the fourth, after Pages worked a two-out walk, stole second, took third on a wild pickoff throw and scored on an RBI single from Kiké Hernández (who played third base in place of Max Muncy, who still felt “fuzzy” on Tuesday from a hit-by-pitch he took to the head over the weekend).

And from there, the Dodgers watched Snell cruise, with the $182-million offseason acquisition attacking the corners of the strike zone while also inducing misses on 24 of 54 swings.

The night culminated in the seventh, after walks to Nick Castellanos and Max Kepler drew Roberts out of the dugout. In the bullpen, left-hander Alex Vesia was getting warm. For a brief moment, it appeared the game would be in the hands of the relievers.

Snell had other ideas, signaling Roberts to hurry to the mound in the middle of his walk before seemingly pleading his case to stay in.

Whatever he said, Roberts listened.

Snell stayed on the rubber. A crowd of 50,859 roared in approval.

Against his final batter, Kemp, Snell fell behind, missing low with a changeup before pulling a fastball wide. Undeterred, he went back on the attack, getting one foul ball with a heater on the inner half, then another with a curveball that leaked over the plate. The count was 2-and-2. Chavez Ravine rose to its feet.

The next pitch — Snell’s 112th of the night — was another fastball, this time on the upper, outside corner at 95.3 mph. Kemp swung through it. Snell screamed and pumped his fist. In the dugout, Roberts raised an arm in the air, then began clapping as Snell walked off to a raucous ovation.

The next two innings were refreshingly simple. Alex Vesia retired the side in the top of the eighth. The Dodgers made it a five-run lead by scoring twice in the bottom half of the frame, including on Shohei Ohtani’s 51st home run of the season. Embattled closer Tanner Scott spun a stress-free ninth, pitching three consecutive scoreless outings for the first time since early July.

Come October, that’s the kind of blueprint the Dodgers (who maintained a two-game lead in the National League West over the San Diego Padres) will have to try and replicate.

Their bullpen still needs fixing. Their relief issues aren’t solved. But more gems like Snell’s would certainly help.

In this podcast, Motley Fool contributors Travis Hoium, Lou Whiteman, and Rachel Warren discuss:

• Google keeps Chrome.
• Kraft Heinz to split.
• An IPO frenzy.

To catch full episodes of all The Motley Fool’s free podcasts, check out our podcast center. When you’re ready to invest, check out this top 10 list of stocks to buy.

A full transcript is below.

This podcast was recorded on Sept. 03, 2025.

Travis Hoium: Alphabet stock is up 9% today. Did the courts save Google’s cash cow? Motley Fool Money starts now. Welcome to Motley Fool Money. I’m Travis Hoium joined by Lou Whiteman and Rachel Warren. Let’s start with the big news today, and that is Alphabet. The stock is soaring today. After the market closed on Tuesday, we learned that Google, will technically still a monopoly isn’t going to have to change a lot about its business, not going to have to spin off Chrome or Android. They can still pay to be the default on devices like the iPhone. That’s going to be a benefit for Apple as well. There were some changes. They have to share data with competitors. We don’t know exactly what those details are going to look like. The idea is to bring more competition into the market, but ironically, OpenAI and the competition from artificial intelligence may have saved Google’s massive search business. What did you take away from this, Rachel?

Rachel Warren: I think this is definitely a case that shareholders in Alphabet like myself have been watching closely for a while now, and I think the key takeaway here is, Alphabet has avoided the worst case scenario that I think a lot of investors had feared, and shareholders like myself should be happy with that. But I think there’s also been a lot of confusion around this case, trying to understand why is this so important to Alphabet’s future as a business? Well, Chrome plays a really instrumental role. Really in the ecosystem that Alphabet has, it’s a key distribution channel for its profitable Google search business, its advertising services. The Chrome browser itself isn’t directly monetized, but it has this key and dominant market position, and so that allows Alphabet to maintain control over user data, over the flow of Internet traffic. It also reinforces the dominance of Google search, because Chrome has been set historically as the default search engine. It’s also a really crucial mechanism for collecting data on user browsing habits. It serves as a really key entry point to the broader Google ecosystem. It encourages users to adopt other products, like Gmail, Google accounts, their AI product, Gemini. I haven’t wavered on my thesis for this business. We’ve seen the stock really beaten down in the last months in anticipation of this ruling. Shares soaring today. I think that this ruling reinforces the strength of the business as it moves forward in the AI revolution, and I think investors should be happy with these results.

Travis Hoium: Lou, this is one of the companies that has been the cheapest in the Mag 7 for quite a while. Earlier this year, trading for less than 20 times earnings. We’re now up to 22, 23 times earnings, but it seems like this is a sigh of relief for a lot of investors in Alphabet, given that Google, and we’re going to use these names interchangeably, but Alphabet is the parent company, Google is the business that we all probably know and use, but it’s a sigh of relief for investors right now.

Lou Whiteman: Google’s to cash cow. For these purposes, we can go ahead and talk. This is Google. It isn’t status quo. I think, the lawyers would argue with me on that, and both sides are going to appeal because that’s what they do. But as far as we need to look at it, it is the status quo, that the important tenants that have made Alphabet the business they are, that they remain. I think, Travis, the lesson for investors here is, yes, it’s underperformed. I think a lot of that has been just vague fears but antitrust. We probably were too clever for our own good beating the stock down, worrying about this stuff. Yes, we’re getting a bounce back rally here. We were probably overly worried about it before, but the Alphabet we know, this cash cow generate money making machine, there’s still threats out there, but the government isn’t going to break it up. We can just keeping on.

Travis Hoium: One of the reasons they’re not breaking it up that I thought was really interesting in the opinion was because of artificial intelligence and companies like OpenAI. They basically said, you know what? A few years ago, I believe the term was a no fly zone for investors, and then said, you know what? There’s hundreds of billions of dollars flowing into these AI companies that have explicitly said they’re going after Google’s business. Lou is, this one of these cases where disruption or the potential for disruption came out of nowhere? This suit was filed long before ChatGPT was launched. OpenAI existed at that time, but ChatGPT was not the name that it is today. Now you do have this vector of competition that has allowed Google to keep these points of strength and maybe give it a little bit of a leg up, trying to compete with these companies that everybody thinks is going to disrupt the core search business.

Lou Whiteman: Definitely. It’s a fascinating case. I guess, to the court’s credit, they did adapt at times. Because the court wasn’t stuck in the past here, which they could have been. But now, look, disruption is real. As an investor, you always have to be watching all things. We were so focused on the court case. I don’t think we’ve ignored AI, but I do think, AI is coming, whether or not that’s a threat to Google or an opportunity both, probably. But it’s funny to think about how the world has changed since this suit was first filed. I think the court appropriately reflected that change in their decision. They’re not anchored in the past, which they could have been.

Travis Hoium: Rachel, one of the companies that we probably aren’t talking enough about today is Apple. Apple is the company that is getting that $20 billion or so check from Alphabet, from Google, every single year to be the default on the search engine. That’s one of the things that was kept in place in this. They can pay for this. The logic here was pretty interesting. It wasn’t that this wasn’t going to help Google maintain its previous monopoly status. It was going to harm the ecosystem. That check that they write gets the most attention. But if you think about companies like Mozilla, I think, it’s 80% of Mozilla’s revenue comes from a similar deal with Google to be paid to be the default search engine. If that money goes away, Mozilla has a really hard time building their browser. But this is a big benefit for Apple, who’s going to continue getting this cash cow, for essentially doing nothing but saying, hey, default is Google.

Rachel Warren: Well, even though Alphabet can’t enter into deals that would prevent other search engines or browsers from being pre-installed on different devices, as you noted, it can continue to pay these fees to distributors. Apple being a key entity there to be that go to or default search engine. There is a real positive impact for Apple, which interestingly, hasn’t seemed to really respond in terms of a share price perspective, the same way that we’ve seen Alphabet shares rocket today, but that essentially secures what is something like an annual payment of $20 billion from Google for being the default search engine on iPhone. There are certainly reverberations from this ruling that go far beyond just the Alphabet ecosystem.

Travis Hoium: Final question for both of you, and just to put some numbers on Apple. Apple stocks actually down as we’re recording. We’re about an hour into trading on Wednesday. That’s a shocker to me, because I think that was really financially the biggest risk if they were deemed not able to pay that fee to Apple to be the default search engine, that could have just been money that Google kept rather than paying to Apple. But the market is not seeing it that way. Alphabet stock is up about 8% as we’re recording. We now know that this is at least for now behind us. Lou said that there are going to be appeals. Rachel, I’ll start with you. Do you own shares, and does this make you more bullish or does it change your thesis with Alphabet at all?

Rachel Warren: Interestingly, I own shares of both Alphabet and Apple. Speaking to Alphabet specifically, I think my thesis on the company remains unchanged. I had not been, perhaps, as alarmed by what we had been seeing in this particular element of the antitrust case in recent months as, perhaps, the market’s broader reflection was. I had an inkling that this would be something that would perhaps end in Alphabet’s favor, based on just the trends we’re seeing in the AI space. I think, as Lou mentioned, the judge’s ruling was very much within the context of the changes we are seeing rapidly amid the AI revolution. For Alphabet shareholders like myself, I think this really bolsters the underlying thesis that this is a business that has a really key role to play in the AI space moving forward.

Lou Whiteman: I don’t know, neither. I’m the Mag 7 through all my mutual funds, so I just don’t bother. But I will say, Alphabet still looks intriguing to me. We were caught up in this anti trust thing. We’re still caught up in the AI threat that could be an opportunity. There’s always dramas. There’s always something to worry about. Alphabet is a really well run good company. I think buy good companies for the long haul, focus on that long haul. I think it works here. I think if I was to buy a Mag 7, Alphabet would be on the top of my list.

Travis Hoium: Alphabet is another one that I own, as well. I just have not understood why this was so overlooked by the market, but maybe that sentiment is going to be changing just for a little bit of perspective. They’re still growing their revenue double digits. Apple, three-year growth rate 1.8% on a compound annual basis. Yet, Google even after today’s move is trading for about 22 times earnings. Apple’s trading for 35 times earnings. Maybe we see an inversion of those in the future, but I think Alphabet is probably much better positioned today knowing that they’re going to keep Chrome and Android in house. When we come back, we’re going to talk about the resplit of Kraft Heinz, and Lou is going to explain what dis-synergies are. You’re listening to Motley Fool Money.

Welcome back to Motley Fool Money. Kraft Heinz has plan to split again into companies that they are currently calling Global Taste Elevation and American Grocery Company, inspiring names coming out of Kraft Heinz. The other thing that they talked about was the dis-synergies of this deal. Lou, this has been, I think, probably a failure up and down. It’s hard to look at this merger, what was it a decade ago and see really any positives. But first of all, what are these dis-synergies? What are you taking of this resplit of the company?

Lou Whiteman: Those terrible names are probably the icing on the cake. They’re the perfect final chapter of this. Dis-synergy seems like the perfect term because there is no way this drives efficiency, getting smaller, doubling up back off, because everything we talk about when we talk about the advantage of M&A, they are getting rid of. They are using terms like simplicity, but for logistics, for negotiating just share in grocery stores, scale matters. Bottom line here, Travis, like you said, this has been a disaster. This has been a failure of management. The deal made sense. The compelling, if you get it right, made sense, but the execution was wrong. Now it’s back to the drawing board. They’ve already divested some assets. Honest to God, I wonder if that isn’t just a better way to go here, see what they can sell off to others, because scale does make sense, but it has to be scale in the hands of a management team that knows what to do with it.

Travis Hoium: This seemed to be, at least when the deal was initially announced, a management team that should have known what they were doing. 3G ran the deal. Buffett was involved. Rachel, how does this go so wrong for investors, because this seemed like one of those slam dunk businesses. Kraft and Heinz aren’t going anywhere. Turns out they are.

Rachel Warren: Look, I mean, the namesake brands aren’t going anywhere, even if they’re under different entities moving forward. But it’s very fair to say that this merger, which was engineered by Buffett along with 3G Capital back in 2015, it has not performed as expected. There’s been a lot of challenges for the Kraft Heinz business in particular. I mean, that’s very much been reflected in the share price of the company in recent years. There’s been a shifting consumer preference toward healthier options and away from a lot of the process products that Kraft Heinz sells. They have, as a business, had to enact significant asset write downs. All of this has created a picture of difficulty for the business, and it’s also been a difficult dynamic for Berkshire Hathaway. This is a company that is the largest shareholder of Kraft Heinz. They hold a 27.5% stake in the business. Buffett has been doing the interview rounds the last few days. He said he believes this is code a repudiation of the original vision of the 2015 merger. There’s a lot that’s gone wrong with the business the last few years. It’s really unclear, though, whether trying to turn the ship around, so to speak, from that decision made a decade ago is actually going to solve the problems that Kraft Heinz is facing.

Travis Hoium: Lou, I’m going to put you on the spot. We have two companies. I’m going to know which one you like better. Global Taste Elevation, $15.4 billion in 2024 sales, $4 billion in adjusted EBITDA. They will have Heinz, Philadelphia cream cheese, Craft Mac & Cheese or you get North American Grocery, $10.4 billion in sales, 2.3 billion in adjusted EBITDA. You get craft singles and lunchables. Which one are you taking?

Lou Whiteman: Probably want to take the first one, but gosh, you can’t get enough craft singles. The world revolves on craft signals.

Travis Hoium: Which one do you want, Rachel?

Rachel Warren: I got to say, Global Taste Elevation just sounds more exciting as a business.

Travis Hoium: It just rolls off the tongue.

Rachel Warren: It really does. It’s just so easy to say. Say it 10 times fast.

Travis Hoium: When we come back, we are going to talk about the hot IPO market. You’re listening to Motley Fool Money.

Welcome back to Motley Fool Money. The IPO market has suddenly opened up again with some huge IPOs from Circle Figma and Chime already this year, and we learned that Klarna, Figure Technology Solutions and Gemini Space Solutions are pricing their offerings. Stripe and Databricks seem to be waiting in the wings. Is this a healthy IPO market? Are we entering some 2021 style frenzy, given some of these stocks? I think Circle was up almost 10X from its IPO price. What do you think is going on here, Rachel?

Rachel Warren: I think, first, it is worth noting. In July of this year, we saw the most IPOs since November of 2021. We have seen a lot of recent IPOs really focus on areas around AI, crypto. There’s been a lot of strong first day or first week’s gains. There’s been a lot of focus as well in the IPO space this year on Fintech and other service oriented business. I don’t think it’s a one-to-one with what we saw in 2021. We obviously haven’t reached those levels yet in terms of companies entering the public markets, but it’s also a very different environment for the market for investors. A lot of these companies that are going public are tech, blockchain, crypto companies. With the passage of the Genius Act, there’s been a heightened appetite for those types of businesses. I think that that is very much being reflected in the types of companies that are now entertaining public offerings. Klarna, we’ve been waiting for a long time for them to actually formally announce their IPO after they had halted those plans earlier in the year. They’re targeting a valuation of up to $14 billion in their US IPO. Figure is another blockchain lender that said they’re going to go public. They’re looking at a valuation of about four billion. Then notably, you have Gemini. That’s the crypto exchange that was co-founded by the Winklevoss Twins, and they’re looking for a valuation around 2.2 billion. I think a lot of this is hype around AI and crypto, not all of it, certainly, but as always, it’s so important to take each company on its merits. The opportunities are there, but there’s a lot of hype and excitement right now, and sometimes differentiating that from a viable business, I think, can be really tough in this market.

Travis Hoium: Lou, IPOs are good. We need to have exits for some of these companies that have been staying private for longer than we have seen historically. Amazon and NVIDIA came public in the 1990s. When they were really small businesses, we don’t really see that today, even a company like Figure, Circle very well established, if Stripe does come public, that’s been rumored for what seems like a decade at this point. But how are you thinking about the IPO market that we have today, and potentially, considering these investments?

Lou Whiteman: For some context, yes. We’ve had a couple of hundred IPOs already this year. That’s up from 154 in ’23, so we are up. But there are over 1,000 in 2021. We are not anywhere near that level. Travis, I think a lot of a frenzy, and I do think there is some frenzy. But like you say, these are names that they’re quite mature. We know the names. There is just this demand because there’s built in familiarity. We want these companies. But look, the best advice is that, two things can be true at the same time. These can be great companies, and there can be a frenzy that makes the IPO dangerous. I think both of those things are true. If you look at Figma, Figma has lost half of its value since August 1st. I welcome these companies to the public. This is much different than the SPAC boom when it was all pre-revenue. I think this is healthy. But if I’m an investor, I’m not diving in on Day 1. I’m going to let these things play out. I don’t know if all of them will do what Figma did, but I think patience is the best bet now. If these companies are as good as we think they are, you can get in after a couple of months and still do fine over time.

Travis Hoium: One example with that is CoreWeave, and this is something we need to consider as well, there’s typically some lockup period for insiders who are not selling during the IPO. Their lockup period just ended. I believe insiders sold seven million shares of CoreWeave. Lou, that may just be another reason to wait it out. It’s OK to be six months late not get in on Day 1. Even some of the best companies in the world, Facebook [Meta‘s] traded below its IPO price. That was, I think, the first few weeks, but eventually the hype cycle typically wears off, whether it’s 2022 or 2023 that you jump into those 2021 IPOs or whether it’s just a few months later.

Lou Whiteman: Exactly. Look, everybody loves the excitement on Day 1. You love the pop. You love all that, but real wealth is created over the next five, 10 years by investing in good company, so you don’t have to be in Day 1.

Travis Hoium: Even getting in late on a IPO, like Google, a few years late would have been very good for investors, so something to keep in mind with that long-term. As always, people on the program may have interest in the stocks they talk about and the Motley Fool may have formal recommendations for or against, so don’t buy or sell stocks based solely on what you hear. All personal finance content follows Motley Fool editorial standards, and is not approved by advertisers. Advertisements are sponsored content and provided for informational purposes only. To see our Fool advertising disclosure, please check out our show notes. For Lou Whiteman, Rachel Warren, Dan Boyd, behind the glass, and the entire Motley Fool team, I’m Travis Hoium. Thanks for listening to Motley Fool Money. We’ll see you here tomorrow.

American Jessica Pegula says completing an escape room with friends helped her rediscover her form and embark on a run to the US Open quarter-finals.

Fourth seed Pegula needed just 54 minutes to beat a nervous Ann Li 6-1 6-2 on Sunday and keep alive her hopes of winning a career-first Grand Slam.

In the last eight she will face 2024 Wimbledon champion Barbora Krejcikova, who saved eight match points on her way to beating home hopeful Taylor Townsend 1-6 7-6 (15-13) 6-3 in a thrilling match.

Pegula, 31, has endured a difficult summer, with a humbling first-round exit at Wimbledon followed by early round exits at WTA events in Washington, Montreal and Cincinnati.

“I felt terrible coming into this tournament, honestly,” Pegula said after beating compatriot Li.

After quitting midway through a practice session with world number one Aryna Sabalenka days before the US Open, Pegula’s mood improved after a night out with friends.

“[We] went and did an escape room with my friends and had, like, two drinks and [realised] I need to just chill and stop getting so frustrated and overthinking all these practices,” she said.

Pegula – who enjoyed a superb run to the final at Flushing Meadows 12 months ago – looked much closer to her best on Sunday as she broke Li six times on her way to victory.

“I know when she’s serving well and has confidence she’s really dangerous,” Pegula said of Li, who she beat in a much tighter match at the French Open back in May.

“I felt like she came out a little slow and nervous and I wanted to jump on that and not let her feel comfortable for a second, that was my motivation all match.”

EXCLUSIVE: Jean, 85, can still vividly remember the moment her newborn baby girl was taken from her when she was 16. A Long Lost Family special tracks down Jean’s daughter and highlights a UK-wide scandal

Nearly 70 years after she held her baby in her arms for the last time, elderly Jean’s eyes fill with tears as she remembers her newborn’s blue eyes and blonde hair. Her baby girl, who she named Maria, was snatched away for adoption without even time for a kiss goodbye – and Jean never saw her again, until now.

In heartbreaking scenes to be screened in a Long Lost Family: Mother and Baby Home Scandal special on ITV, the 85-year-old finally gets to meet the child who was taken away from her so brutally, leaving her traumatised for decades. Jean was just 16 in the summer of 1956 when she discovered she was pregnant by Tony, her first ever boyfriend. They wanted to marry, but having brought shame to her family, Jean was sent to the Home of the Good Shepherd Mother and Baby Home in Haslemere, Surrey, a home established by a moral welfare association connected to the Church of England, and a baptism and adoption were arranged.

Jean, from Chertsey, Surrey, recalls: “It was a big house and we had to scrub all that clean. We had to go to chapel every morning and evening to ask forgiveness for what we’d done. I didn’t know I was pregnant at first because I wasn’t sure how you had a baby. I was terrified, I didn’t know what to do. My dad was a bully. I remember him saying to my mother, ‘I told you she’d be no good didn’t I?’ He called me the biggest whore under the sun when he found out I was pregnant. I couldn’t stay there because ‘What about my father’s job?’. You’d think he was the Prime Minister, instead of the caretaker of a school.” Jean adds: “I’ve always felt inferior, I’m not good enough for people.”

With no option, Jean and Tony reluctantly took their 10-week-old baby to the London offices of the Southwark Catholic Rescue society. Jean says: “I gave her to this woman who’d said we’d go and show her off, so I thought she was bringing her back to let us kiss her goodbye, but she didn’t. When she was 18, I wrote to the society to ask if they had any news of her. He wrote back and said ‘No’ and maybe we’ll be reunited in heaven one day. I thought that was a horrible thing to say to me.”

Jean’s story is just one of many distressing accounts from a period between the 1940s and the 1970s, when an estimated 200,000 unmarried women, many just teenagers, were placed in homes, run often by religious organisations – and thousands of their babies were taken for adoption. Lyn, who was in a Cornish mother and baby home, says: “No matter how far pregnant you were, you had to wait on the staff and scrub the floors. It was all draconian and very cruel. You’d walk down the middle of the church, and you’d hear, ‘Sl*g, prostitute, whore, slapper. ’ I mean what had we done wrong? Nothing. It was hell.”

The two-part ITV special, hosted by Davina McCall and Nicky Campbell, delves into this scandal, following three emotive searches. Davina says: “You’ve probably walked past a mother and baby home on a quiet suburban street and have no idea of its secret history or what happened to young unmarried mothers.”

Fortunately for Jean, there is a huge breakthrough as the Long Lost Family team tracks down her daughter, now named Cathy, with the middle name Maria. Mother-of-two Cathy, 68, who lives with Gary, her husband of 51 years, in Ilford, London, had a wonderful adoption and is thrilled to hear from her birth mother. She says: “I feel very sorry for what she had to go through – I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy. My own daughter is unmarried and has a daughter who lives with us and she’s a delight. I think it was an absolute disgrace the way women were treated in those days.”

Tearful as she reads a letter from Jean asking for her forgiveness, she adds: “I never ever blamed her. I’m sad that she’s been looking for so long.” When Jean hears the news that Cathy has been found and wants to meet her, she is completely overwhelmed. Jean, who went on to have four other children and split from her husband, says: “I just hope she likes me and I don’t let her down.” There is a clear narrative that many of the women affected blamed themselves, with adoptions often forced on vulnerable young women.

Campaigners are now lobbying the UK government to join the Welsh, Scottish and Irish governments in apologising to those affected. But time is running out for these women to find any adopted children. Jean and Cathy are among the luckier ones. Both are nervous and emotional as they prepare to reunite, but immediately they hug and are clutching each other’s hands. “I didn’t think this day would ever come,” says Cathy. “We’ve been waiting nearly 69 years since she was last able to hug me.” Jean tells her: “We had nobody to help us and I had no choice. I had nowhere to go. I knew I couldn’t keep you so I tried not to love you too much.” Cathy replies: “I had a hole in my life, you had a hole in your life. We’ve now managed to fill the hole.”

Jean says afterwards: “I kept looking at my arms because last time she was in my arms. It will probably sink in a lot more as time goes by. But I’ve also got to try to forgive myself.” As the mother and daughter introduce each other to their extended families, Jean says: “Now I know why I’ve lived so long. This is the reason.” She adds: “I’m feeling quite happy inside. I still can’t believe it. I won’t need to worry about her anymore because she’s got a family and they seem very kind.” Cathy says: “This is going to change my life. That void has been filled.”

Also in the show, sisters Viv and Julie are looking for their lost older sibling on behalf of their mum Margaret, who gave birth in a Baptist Union-run mother and baby home called The Haven, in Yateley, Hampshire, in the late 1950s. Margaret was in the Royal Navy in Cornwall when she fell pregnant aged 20. The father hadn’t revealed he was married with a family and abandoned her. In a poignant moment, Margaret, now 89 and suffering from moderate dementia, recalls singing ‘You Are My Sunshine’ to her baby Helen, and sings the chorus, which ends ‘Please don’t take my sunshine away’.

Margaret adds: “I’d love to see her and know she’s had a good life. I want her to know I loved her and haven’t forgotten her.” Julie says: “I don’t think mum was given any choice. We had an older brother who died in a motorbike accident just before he was 30. So mum feels that she’s lost two children.”

Ann also wants to solve the mystery of what happened to her brother Martin, after their mother Cora gave birth in the Catholic mother and baby home, St Pelagia’s in Highgate, North London in 1962. Ann, from London, says: “I had no idea that there was an elder brother. And then one day, one of my younger sisters came across a death certificate which said, ‘Martin, son of Cora’. My mum promptly whipped it from her hands, tore it up, and said, ‘Give me that. Don’t worry about that. Just forget you ever saw it’.”

After her mother Cora’s death in 2008, Ann discovered that Martin’s father was a Sri Lankan man who Cora had fallen in love with at work. Ann says: “My mum had not only had a child out of wedlock, but to have had a mixed-race child then, she would have been doubly frowned upon.” Ann has since discovered racist descriptions of her brother in his file and proof he was rejected for adoption and taken in at a children’s home run by nuns. After handing Martin over fit and well at eight-weeks-old, Cora was told within 48 hours that he had died – but Ann wants to know the truth.

For Ann, closure appears to be hard reach, as the team investigates an alleged scandal in Ireland of babies being illegally adopted, with parents told the babies had died. Could this have happened in England too? With varying testimony, it’s tough to know for sure, but it is believed most likely that Martin would have died.

There is better news for Margaret as her 68-year-old daughter, now called Sian, is finally found after months of scouring the records. Sian has cerebral palsy, which was diagnosed after the adoption, which means she is non-verbal and has been a wheelchair user since childhood. She’s delighted that her birth mum has been looking for. Sian says: “I know that my mother had difficulties while I was being delivered, because the umbilical cord was wrapped around my neck, so oxygen didn’t get to me.”

Davina reveals to Viv and Julie that Sian has been found, and that when her condition was discovered, the adoptive family were asked if they wanted to give Sian back. Davina says: “They were offered the opportunity to swap her for another child without a disability. But they’d completely fallen in love with her.” Having shared the news with their mum, Viv says: “Mum said to us that now we’ve found Sian, she can die happy.”

A government spokesperson says: “This abhorrent practice should never have taken place and our deepest sympathies are with all those affected.” A spokesperson for the Church of England said: “It is horrifying to hear first-hand accounts of pain and distress experienced by women and their children connected to mother and baby homes, including any which were affiliated with the Church of England. There is no doubt that attitudes towards unmarried mothers in society at the time, including by many within the Church, often put immense pressure on young women to give up their babies for adoption. We all now recognise the profound and lasting impact some of these decisions have clearly had on so many lives and we express our heartfelt sorrow and regret for those who have been hurt.”

A spokesperson for the Diocese of Guildford said: “We feel immense sadness and regret for the emotional pain experienced by Jean and other women who were separated from their children. We are grateful to this programme for reuniting Jean with her daughter Cathy, but we are also aware that many like her would have sadly died without being reunited or having a sense of closure. While attitudes within the church and society have significantly changed since that time, it does not erase the lasting damage that these adoptions had on the women.” The Sisters of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary reflected and declined to comment and said that the allegation related to the “actions and decisions of sisters who are no longer with us”.

*Long Lost Family: The Mother And Baby Home Scandal airs across two nights on ITV1: September 3rd and 4th at 9pm

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