COLUMBIA, S.C. — Kelly Inouye-Perez was thinking about one pitch.
Even with her team three outs from elimination, needing at least three runs to stay alive in Game 2 of the Columbia Super Regional, she was still just thinking about one pitch.
Superstar slugger Jordan Woolery found it, hitting a walk-off home run to give UCLA an improbable 5-4 victory that set up a winner-take-all Game 3 on Sunday at Beckham Field.
“You never want to put yourself in a position to have a game feel like it’s out of your reach,” Inouye-Perez said. “It’s not about three outs or the bottom of the seventh or what the score is. Give us one pitch and anything can happen. And I think that’s the brilliance of our sport. It’s not a timed sport, you have an opportunity if you have one pitch.”
Just getting to the point where one pitch could win the game seemed improbable for most of the day. South Carolina (44-16) took the lead in the first inning and never gave it up until Woolery’s swing, leading 4-1 heading to the bottom of the seventh with Jori Heard on the mound.
Pinch hitter Taylor Stephens worked a lead-off walk and came around to score on Kaitlyn Terry’s one-out triple. That line drive into the gap made it 4-2 and brought the tying run to the plate, but Heard followed it up by striking out Jessica Clements.
South Carolina was one out from its first trip to the Women’s College World Series since 1997, but Savannah Pola kept the game alive with an RBI single.
With Woolery coming to the plate in a one-run game, South Carolina made a pitching change. Sam Gress, who started the game and allowed one run in four innings, reentered the circle.
Woolery was 0 for 2 against Gress earlier in the game, but the pitching change was a blessing in disguise.
“I was just happy to have more time to take some breaths in between, honestly,” Woolery said. “I was happy to take a little timeout, catch my breath and get in the right head space. Both pitchers did a great job the last two days, so I have a lot of respect for both of them.”
One pitch later, she crushed her 23rd home run of the season, one with more importance than the first 22 combined. Down to its last breath, Woolery kept UCLA’s season alive.
“Coach always says the game comes back around,” Woolery said. “I’ve had a rough two days, so it was just trusting that was eventually going to come through. I just wanted to have my teammates’ backs today.”
Woolery’s heroics ended the game, but pitcher Taylor Tinsley made it possible. Tinsley threw a 137-pitch complete game with four runs allowed, but pitched out of a couple of key jams to keep the Bruins afloat. Tinsley stranded runners on the corners in the first inning, got out of a bases-loaded jam in the sixth inning and held the deficit at 4-1 with two runners on base in the seventh.
The sixth-inning jam did feature one big break with a South Carolina base running blunder. Second baseman Karley Shelton grounded out to her counterpart Pola with the bases loaded, but thought the inning was over after Pola fired home to cut down the lead runner. In reality, there were only two outs, but Shelton trotted off the field like the inning was over. Once she hit the dugout, she was automatically out.
It was far from a conventional double play, but it was exactly what UCLA needed to stay within three runs.
“Credit to Taylor Tinsley,” Inouye-Perez said. “She has been just a leader, she has been tough, she has had success, she has had disappointment. But she has prepared for this moment and was so locked in.”
Still, it would have been a clutch performance in a losing effort if not for one final rally. The type of miracle comeback that will earn a place in UCLA’s steeped softball lore if the Bruins can come back to win tomorrow.
“One thing that I told the team was we were going to have an opportunity to get the last punch,” Inouye-Perez said. “And we have a thing. We believe in Bruin magic. And great things can happen when you come together and play as a team.”
Four runs to save the season, three of them down to the final out. Magic might be the only explanation.
“The Bruin magic is literally just the belief that we will win this game,” she continued. “That’s something that has been a big part of the history of this part of this program. We’ve seen it, we have experience in it. But to see this team do it in this big moment is a big part of why you come to UCLA.”
Game 3 of the series is scheduled for Sunday, with the start time and broadcast information to be revealed later Saturday night.
Commentary: Guess who suddenly has a ‘TACO’ allergy? How a tasty sounding acronym haunts Trump
Guess who suddenly has a “TACO” allergy? President Yuge Taco Salad himself.
In the annals of four-letter words and acronyms Donald Trump has long hitched his political fortunes on, the word “taco” may be easy to overlook.
There’s MAGA, most famously. DOGE, courtesy of Elon Musk. Huge (pronounced yuge, of course). Wall, as in the one he continues to build on the U.S.-Mexico border. “Love” for himself, “hate” against all who stand in his way.
There’s a four-letter term, however, that best sums up Trump’s shambolic presidency, one no one would’ve ever associated with him when he announced his first successful presidential campaign a decade ago.
Taco.
His first use of the most quintessential of Mexican meals happened on Cinco de Mayo 2016, when Trump posted a portrait of himself grinning in front of a giant taco salad while proclaiming “I Love Hispanics!” Latino leaders immediately ridiculed his Hispandering, with UnidosUS president Janet Murguia telling the New York Times that it was “clueless, offensive and self-promoting” while also complaining, “I don’t know that any self-respecting Latino would even acknowledge that a taco bowl is part of our culture.”
I might’ve been the only Trump critic in the country to defend his decision to promote taco salads. After all, it’s a dish invented by a Mexican American family at the old Casa de Fritos stand in Disneyland. But also because the meal can be a beautiful, crunchy thing in the right hands. Besides, I realized what Trump was doing: getting his name in the news, trolling opponents, and having a hell of a good time doing it while welcoming Latinos into his basket of deplorables as he strove for the presidency. Hey, you couldn’t blame the guy for trying.
Guess what happened?
Despite consistently trashing Latinos, Trump increased his share of that electorate in each of his presidential runs and leaned on them last year to capture swing states like Arizona and Nevada. Latino Republican politicians made historic gains across the country in his wake — especially in California, where the number of Latino GOP legislators jumped from four in 2022 to a record nine.
The Trump taco salad tweet allowed his campaign to present their billionaire boss to Latinos as just any other Jose Schmo ready to chow down on Mexican food. It used the ridicule thrown at him as proof to other supporters that elites hated people like them. Trump must have at least felt confident the taco salad gambit from yesteryear worked because he reposted the image on social media this Cinco de Mayo, adding the line “This was so wonderful, 9 years ago today!”
It’s not exactly live by the taco, die by the taco. (Come on, why would such a tasty force of good want to hurt anyone)? But Trump is suddenly perturbed by the mere mention of TACO.
Doritos Locos Tacos at the Taco Bell Laguna Beach location.
(Don Leach/Daily Pilot)
That’s an acronym mentioned in a Financial Times newsletter earlier this month that means Trump Always Chickens Out. The insult is in reference to the growing belief in Wall Street that people who invest in stocks should keep in mind that the president talks tough on tariffs but never follows through because he folds under pressure like the Clippers. Or a taco, come to think of it.
Trump raged when CNBC reporter Megan Cassella asked him about TACO at a White House press conference this week.
“Don’t ever say what you said,” the commander in chief snarled before boasting about how he wasn’t a chicken and was actually a tough guy. “That’s a nasty question.”
No other reporter followed up with TACO questions, because the rest of the internet did. Images of Trump in everything from taco suits to taco crowns to carnivorous tacos swallowing Trump whole have bloomed ever since. News outlets are spreading Trump’s out-of-proportion response to something he could’ve just laughed off, while “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” just aired a parody song to the tune of “Macho Man” titled — what else? — “Taco Man.”
The TACO coinage is perfect: snappy, easily understandable, truthful and seems Trump-proof. The master of appropriating insults just can’t do anything to make TACO his — Trump Always Cares Outstandingly just doesn’t have the same ring. It’s also a reminder that Trump’s anti-Latino agenda so far in his administration makes a predictable mockery of his taco salad boast and related Hispandering.
In just over four months, Trump and his lackeys have tried to deport as many Latino immigrants — legal and illegal — as possible and has threatened Mexico — one of this country’s vital trading partners — with a 25% tariff. He has signed executive orders declaring English the official language of the United States and seeking to bring back penalties against truck drivers who supposedly don’t speak English well enough at a time when immigrants make up about 18% of the troquero force and Latinos are a big chunk of it.
Meanwhile, the economy — the main reason why so many Latinos went for Trump in 2024 in the first place — hasn’t improved since the Biden administration and always seems one Trump speech away from getting even wobblier.
As for Latinos, there are some signs Trump’s early presidency has done him no great favors with them. An April survey by the Pew Research Center — considered the proverbial gold standard when it comes to objectively gauging how Latinos feel about issues — found 27% of them approve of how he’s doing as president, down from 36% back in February.
President Trump gives a thumbs up to the cheering crowd after a Latinos for Trump Coalition roundtable in Phoenix in 2020.
(Ross D. Franklin / Associated Press)
Trump was always an imperfect champion of the taco’s winning potential, and not because the fish tacos at his Trump Grill come with French fries (labeled “Idaho” on the menu) and the taco salad currently costs a ghastly $25. He never really understood that a successful taco must appeal to everyone, never shatter or rip apart under pressure and can never take itself seriously like a burrito or a snooty mole.
The president needs to move on from his taco dalliance and pay attention to another four-letter word, one more and more Americans utter after every pendejo move Trump and his flunkies commit:
Help.
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Wall Street retreats as Trump tariffs get a temporary reprieve from appeals court
By Tina Teng
Published on
30/05/2025 – 8:03 GMT+2
A Federal appeals court temporarily blocked a ruling from the Court of International Trade that barred most of the Trump administration’s sweeping tariffs on global trading partners. The legal development reignited uncertainty, sparking renewed selloffs in US stock markets and dragged the US dollar sharply lower from its intraday high.
The decision provides the White House with additional time to defend the legality of the president’s efforts to reshape global trade relations. Federal officials signalled that the same level of import levies could be reintroduced under alternative legal authorities, although enacting tariffs via other sections of the Trade Act could take several months.
“I can assure the American people that the Trump tariff agenda is alive, well, healthy and will be implemented to protect you, to save your jobs and your factories, and to stop shipping foreign wealth — our wealth — into foreign hands,” Peter Navarro, Trump’s top trade adviser, said on Thursday.
Trump had invoked the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) to impose the so-called reciprocal tariffs announced in early April. However, on Wednesday, the trade court ruled that the president does not have the authority to impose such broad levies under the IEEPA.
“America cannot function if President Trump — or any other president, for that matter — has their sensitive diplomatic or trade negotiations railroaded by activist judges,” said White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt. “Ultimately, the Supreme Court must put an end to this for the sake of our Constitution and our country.”
Wall Street pares early gains
The US stock markets initially jumped on the original court ruling, alongside positive quarterly earnings results from Nvidia. However, major indices gave up early gains despite a higher close on Thursday. During Friday’s Asian session, US stock futures continued to fall as risk-off sentiment prevailed.
As of 4 am CEST, Dow Jones Industrial Average futures were down 0.08%, while the S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 futures both declined 0.26%.
European markets are also expected to open lower, according to futures pricing. The Euro Stoxx 50 was down 0.19%, and Germany’s DAX slipped 0.15%. German equities extended losses for a second consecutive day on Thursday, following a record high on Tuesday. Investors will be closely watching the progress of US-EU trade talks, though the legal battle surrounding the Trump administration’s tariffs is adding complexity to the outlook.
Asian equity markets also traded mostly lower on Friday. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index fell 1.4%, Japan’s Nikkei 225 lost 1.39%, and South Korea’s Kospi dropped 0.61%. Australia’s ASX 200 was flat as of 3:10 am CEST.
The US dollar tumbles as haven assets rise
The latest court developments have once again dented investor confidence in US assets, particularly the dollar. Yields on US government bonds initially jumped to 4.5% but later pulled back to 4.42% as Treasury prices came under renewed pressure.
Meanwhile, haven assets have rallied. Gold jumped, and the euro, the Swiss franc, and the Japanese yen all strengthened significantly. The euro rebounded sharply from an intraday low against the dollar on Thursday after the tariff ruling was paused. The EUR/USD pair fell as low as 1.1210 before surging to 1.1353 as of 3:11 am CEST on Friday. Gold futures also swung higher, climbing to $3,321 per ounce from an intraday low of $3,269 on Thursday.
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UCLA softball rallies to beat South Carolina, extend season
COLUMBIA, S.C. — Kelly Inouye-Perez was thinking about one pitch.
Even with her team three outs from elimination, needing at least three runs to stay alive in Game 2 of the Columbia Super Regional, she was still just thinking about one pitch.
Superstar slugger Jordan Woolery found it, hitting a walk-off home run to give UCLA an improbable 5-4 victory that set up a winner-take-all Game 3 on Sunday at Beckham Field.
“You never want to put yourself in a position to have a game feel like it’s out of your reach,” Inouye-Perez said. “It’s not about three outs or the bottom of the seventh or what the score is. Give us one pitch and anything can happen. And I think that’s the brilliance of our sport. It’s not a timed sport, you have an opportunity if you have one pitch.”
Just getting to the point where one pitch could win the game seemed improbable for most of the day. South Carolina (44-16) took the lead in the first inning and never gave it up until Woolery’s swing, leading 4-1 heading to the bottom of the seventh with Jori Heard on the mound.
Pinch hitter Taylor Stephens worked a lead-off walk and came around to score on Kaitlyn Terry’s one-out triple. That line drive into the gap made it 4-2 and brought the tying run to the plate, but Heard followed it up by striking out Jessica Clements.
South Carolina was one out from its first trip to the Women’s College World Series since 1997, but Savannah Pola kept the game alive with an RBI single.
With Woolery coming to the plate in a one-run game, South Carolina made a pitching change. Sam Gress, who started the game and allowed one run in four innings, reentered the circle.
Woolery was 0 for 2 against Gress earlier in the game, but the pitching change was a blessing in disguise.
“I was just happy to have more time to take some breaths in between, honestly,” Woolery said. “I was happy to take a little timeout, catch my breath and get in the right head space. Both pitchers did a great job the last two days, so I have a lot of respect for both of them.”
One pitch later, she crushed her 23rd home run of the season, one with more importance than the first 22 combined. Down to its last breath, Woolery kept UCLA’s season alive.
“Coach always says the game comes back around,” Woolery said. “I’ve had a rough two days, so it was just trusting that was eventually going to come through. I just wanted to have my teammates’ backs today.”
Woolery’s heroics ended the game, but pitcher Taylor Tinsley made it possible. Tinsley threw a 137-pitch complete game with four runs allowed, but pitched out of a couple of key jams to keep the Bruins afloat. Tinsley stranded runners on the corners in the first inning, got out of a bases-loaded jam in the sixth inning and held the deficit at 4-1 with two runners on base in the seventh.
The sixth-inning jam did feature one big break with a South Carolina base running blunder. Second baseman Karley Shelton grounded out to her counterpart Pola with the bases loaded, but thought the inning was over after Pola fired home to cut down the lead runner. In reality, there were only two outs, but Shelton trotted off the field like the inning was over. Once she hit the dugout, she was automatically out.
It was far from a conventional double play, but it was exactly what UCLA needed to stay within three runs.
“Credit to Taylor Tinsley,” Inouye-Perez said. “She has been just a leader, she has been tough, she has had success, she has had disappointment. But she has prepared for this moment and was so locked in.”
Still, it would have been a clutch performance in a losing effort if not for one final rally. The type of miracle comeback that will earn a place in UCLA’s steeped softball lore if the Bruins can come back to win tomorrow.
“One thing that I told the team was we were going to have an opportunity to get the last punch,” Inouye-Perez said. “And we have a thing. We believe in Bruin magic. And great things can happen when you come together and play as a team.”
Four runs to save the season, three of them down to the final out. Magic might be the only explanation.
“The Bruin magic is literally just the belief that we will win this game,” she continued. “That’s something that has been a big part of the history of this part of this program. We’ve seen it, we have experience in it. But to see this team do it in this big moment is a big part of why you come to UCLA.”
Game 3 of the series is scheduled for Sunday, with the start time and broadcast information to be revealed later Saturday night.
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Skai Jackson alleges physical abuse by father of son Kasai
Skai Jackson says Deondre Burgin, the father of her 3-month-old son, has been abusing her since last spring, including suggesting that she drink bleach while she was expecting in order to terminate her pregnancy.
Jackson was granted a temporary restraining order against him Monday, according to court documents. The actor, her son and her dog Otis are covered by the order.
The former Disney Channel star, 23, detailed a litany of alleged abuses by Burgin, 21, in her request filed Monday in Los Angeles County Superior Court. Most of them are from 2024, but the inciting event behind the filing appears to have been an alleged attack on Mother’s Day of this year. Jackson said in her filing that Burgin attacked her on May 11 while she was carrying son Kasai.
“He grabbed me by the hair, slammed my head on the back seat window of my car and hit me in the face while holding my son,” the “Jessie” and “Bunk’d” actor wrote in her filing. “Deondre caused me to have a bloody nose. I don’t feel safe with my son being around him due to his violent history. He also said ‘F’ my child.”
Last June, Burgin took Jackson’s phone so he could check her messages because a man had texted her, the filing says. Jackson said he then broke her iPhone and choked her against a kitchen counter.
“He demanded that I drink bleach to kill our unborn child,” Jackson wrote about the June incident. “He then walked me to the car with a knife in his hand telling me to get in the driver seat and if I called out for help he would stab me in the stomach. He then called his friend … telling him he was about to kill me. He then told me to drive to the doctor to get an abortion. When I tried to he asked me was I crazy and why would I want to kill our child.”
Jackson said she had video documentation from July when he allegedly punched through the door of an upstairs bathroom she had locked herself in for safety and choked her until she couldn’t breathe. Jackson said that in 2024, there was a six-month period where he choked her or slammed her head into a wall about once a week, destroyed a television and punched holes in her walls.
Jackson said Burgin threatened her with a handgun and also has a rifle and a switchblade, the filing says. The “Dragons: Rescue Riders” voice actor said he threatened in September 2024 to have a member of his family come kill her and her mother.
In October, Burgin allegedly threatened to kill her after she asked him to go to therapy, the documents said.
He stands 6-foot-4 to Jackson’s reported 5-foot-2, according to her application. She asked the court to stop him and his family from posting anything about her on social media, saying that he had threatened to post revenge porn.
The two have brushed up against authorities in the past because of alleged violence between them.
“The Man in the White Van” actor was arrested at Universal Studios Hollywood last August after she and Burgin were detained by security on suspicion of domestic assault. She was arrested by sheriff’s deputies after security footage showed she had pushed Burgin twice. However, the L.A. County District Attorney’s Office didn’t pursue the case.
At the time, Jackson allegedly told authorities that she and Burgin were happily engaged and expecting a baby together.
A permanent restraining order will be considered at a June 9 hearing. The Times was unable to contact Burgin for comment. A representative for Skai Jackson did not respond immediately to The Times’ request for comment.
Former Times staff writer Nardine Saad contributed to this report.
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Sell-offs resume on Wall Street as Moody’s downgrades US credit rating
Following a broad weekly rally on Wall Street amid a de-escalation in the US-China trade war, risk-off sentiment once again prevailed in global markets following a major downgrade of US credit ratings by Moody’s. Global equity indices fell during Monday’s Asian session as sell-offs in US assets resumed, with US stock futures, the dollar, and government bonds all declining.
Moody’s downgrades US credit ratings
On Friday, Moody’s Ratings, a major American credit rating agency, downgraded the “US long-term issuer and senior unsecured ratings” to Aa1 from the top-tier Aaa due to mounting concerns over rising government debt and widening fiscal deficits.
The agency stated: “Over more than a decade, US federal debt has risen sharply due to continuous fiscal deficits. During that time, federal spending has increased while tax cuts have reduced government revenues. As deficits and debt have grown, and interest rates have risen, interest payments on government debt have increased markedly.”
Moody’s downgrade followed similar moves by rival agencies: Standard & Poor’s cut its US sovereign credit rating to AA+ in 2011, and Fitch Ratings made the same downgrade in 2023.
The decision led to a rise in US government bond yields as investors demanded a higher premium to compensate for perceived risks. The 10-year Treasury yield rose by 5 basis points (1 basis point = 0.01 percentage point) to 4.48% on Friday, climbing further to 4.51% during Monday’s Asian session. The downgrade also appeared to dampen investor appetite for other US assets, including equities and the dollar.
Moody’s expects federal budget flexibility to remain “limited” without adjustments to taxation and government spending. The agency projected that the US deficit would expand by approximately $4 trillion (€3.58 trillion) over the next decade if the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act is extended. “Federal interest payments are likely to absorb around 30% of revenue by 2035, up from about 18% in 2024 and 9% in 2021,” Moody’s added.
“It does speak to a level of market risk in US debt, which is to say that the value of US bonds could be compromised if the economy can no longer run at the growth rates necessary to service the government’s liabilities,” Kyle Rodda, senior market analyst at Capital.com in Australia, said.
Risk-off sentiment prevails
US equity futures fell sharply during Monday’s Asian session following Moody’s downgrade. As of 4:42 am CEST, futures on the Dow Jones Industrial Average were down 0.65%, the S&P 500 dropped 0.92%, and the Nasdaq Composite declined by 1.22%.
Asian equities also came under pressure amid the risk-off tone. Japan’s Nikkei 225 dropped 0.66%, Australia’s ASX 200 declined 0.46%, and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index slid 0.56% during the same period.
The ripple effect is expected to spill into European markets, though major indices such as the Euro Stoxx 600 and the DAX were set to open flat.
The US dollar also weakened against other G10 currencies, particularly safe-haven currencies including the euro, the Japanese yen, and the Swiss franc. Gold prices rose amid increased haven demand, although the yellow metal pulled back from an intraday high, likely due to pressure from rising US bond yields. Gold futures initially surged over 1% before retreating and were 0.8% higher, trading at $3,213 per ounce as of 4:12 am CEST.
Despite market jitters, Rodda believes the impact of Moody’s move will be short-lived. “I don’t think it will have a lasting impact,” he said, although he views the downgrade as “a reminder of the very loose fiscal policy the US is running and the structural problems related to US public finance.”
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