Paige Bueckers was 0 for 3 in state championship games in her varsity career heading into the Class 4A title bout in 2019. But there the then-junior was at 5 a.m. on the morning of Hopkins’ title tilt against Stillwater, puking.

Great.

One thing was for sure: it was not going to keep the guard off the floor. Months later, Bueckers recalled the power drinks and “gross” Gatorade gummy chews she forced down that day to ensure she was ready to play.

She led Hopkins to the state championship, and a weight was lifted that evening.

“Nobody was allowed to say I did all this and all that but haven’t won state yet,” Bueckers later said.

Fast forward six years, and Bueckers is in a familiar spot. She was the national player of the year as a freshman at UConn, and is a finalist for those honors again this season. Friday’s national semifinal against UCLA marks the Huskies’ third trip to the Final Four in Bueckers’ tenure. The two times they didn’t go were the season and a half the guard missed following a major knee injury.

Bueckers is a shoo-in to be the No. 1 overall pick in the upcoming WNBA Draft and has ascended to become one of the faces of the women’s game. All that’s left to do in her collegiate career? Win a national title.

That’s not to give any credence to the “rings culture” that suggests if you didn’t win the title, all was for naught. A lack of a trophy will do little to take away from Bueckers’ basketball legacy. Caitlin Clark didn’t win a title at Iowa after falling in the championship game of each of her final two collegiate campaigns.

But the reality is Bueckers wants that ring — who doesn’t? Particularly at UConn, a program that doesn’t bother to cut down nets after Elite 8 victories.

“I think before you even get here, you kind of know the pressures that exist by committing to UConn,” Bueckers told reporters on Monday. “So, by making that decision to want to come here and try to live up to that and be a part of a legendary program, it’s a decision you have to make even before you step on campus. And once you walk inside the practice facility, you see all the history, all the names, all the banners. It’s just motivation.

“Obviously there’s expectations here. And anything less than a national championship is really a disappointment. As players, that’s what you play for and what you want to live up to. And the expectations and the pressure, it’s a privilege.”

Brian Cosgriff, who coached Bueckers at Hopkins and is now the Minnetonka girls head coach, believes it’s “very important” to Bueckers to win a championship; not for her own resume, “But because she loves her coaches and teammates so much.”

“And she loves the community and the school,” Cosgriff said. “So, I think it’s very important for her. It’s just the same way it was at Hopkins.”

That yearn to win can be a hindrance on performance. When you want something so badly, it can become more difficult to attain, particularly in this era of social media stardom.

“I don’t think I’ve ever coached someone in this generation where they have to deal with this type of scrutiny and pressure that comes from the world that they live in. She’s the first one,” UConn coach Geno Auriemma told reporters. “So, for her to get all the attention she gets, have all the demands on her life, all the expectations in her life, and still be able to deliver, she — yeah — she’s very unique.”

Bueckers’ advice for anyone trying to block out the added noise of today’s world is to stay off social media and listen to “the right voices.” She works with a sports psychologist, which helps ease her nerves and focus on the now.

“I know a lot of things can happen during this time, a lot of pressures, the stakes, what you’re trying to accomplish, you can get caught up in that,” she said. “I know a huge emphasis for me was staying present, staying in the moment, standing firm in who we are as a team, who we want to be as individuals, and just not getting too caught up in anything else but trying to be present for the team, enjoy every moment.”

Bueckers is playing with a clear urgency at the moment, capping a remarkable career with a scintillating run through the tournament. The senior is averaging 35 points, four rebounds, four assists and four steals over UConn’s past three games, all while shooting 59% from the field and 62% from 3-point range.

Yet after the Huskies’ regional final win over USC, Auriemma sat at the press conference table, pointed at the guard’s four turnovers in the box score and asked, “What was that?”

“And she immediately went to the next column and she said, ‘Look, I got it back, I got four steals,’” Auriemma said. “Like that’s … her mentality is always, ‘This is what I did to help us win, I’m not worried about what the other stuff was.’”

“I saw that all throughout high school. She was going to do whatever it took for the team and the program to be successful,” Cosgriff said. “That hasn’t changed since she’s been out there. She’s a complete player, complete person. She’s just so passionate about trying to be the best possible player and person she can be, night in and night out.”

And, yeah, when there’s the most at stake, she might ramp even her consistent excellence up a notch or two. Expect the best version of Bueckers to take the floor in Tampa Bay this weekend.

“She’s going to take the charge, she’s going to make the big free throw, she’s going to make the big shot. She’s going to get the big rebound. She’s going to do whatever it takes in order for UConn and Geno Auriemma to be successful,” Cosgriff said.

“It does not matter what the skill or task is asked of her, she’s going to be doing that. She’s got two more games. She wants to go out there and leave it all on the table. She doesn’t want there to be any stone left unturned.”

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It’s a sloth!

Como Park Zoo and Conservatory visitors and staff were surprised to witness the birth of a Hoffman’s two-toed sloth Wednesday while the baby’s mother was on exhibit.

“We couldn’t have planned a more exciting experience for our guests yesterday,” said Senior Zookeeper Jill Erzar in a statement. “It’s not every day you get to see a sloth being born right in front of you! It was a truly special moment, and Sago is already proving to be a fantastic first-time mom.”

Mother Sago, 6, and father Ziggy, 3, are Hoffman’s two-toed sloths that arrived at Como Zoo, located in St. Paul, in spring of 2023 as part of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums Species Survival Plan breeding recommendation. It is the first baby for both sloths.

Chloe, Como’s other Hoffman’s two-toed sloth, resides in the Tropical Encounters exhibit.

Hoffman’s two-toed sloths live in Central America and northern South America and have a conservation status of “least concern.” They typically live 10 to 15 years and can sleep for up to 20 hours a day.

Hoffman’s two-toed sloths have a gestation period of around 11.5 months. After birth, the baby will cling to the mother’s fur and make its way to her chest to be cleaned. The baby will remain attached to Sago for around six months, nursing throughout the day. A female sloth typically spends up to a year raising her baby.

Sago and Ziggy share an exhibit with Como’s saki monkeys in the Primate Building where visitors will be able to see her and the baby.

“Right now, we’re just enjoying watching the baby bond with Sago,” Erzar said. “It will be a while before we know if we have a little boy or girl, but for now, we’re focused on making sure both mom and baby are thriving.”

Como Park Zoo and Conservatory is free to visitors and open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. from October through April. It is open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. from May through September. Donations are accepted.

For updates on the baby sloth, visit Como Park Zoo and Conservatory on social media.

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The Minnesota State Patrol says an Inver Grove Heights man damaged an Easter display outside the Capitol this week, according to a citation filed against him Thursday.

Capitol Security dispatchers could see a man on camera “destroying” a display on the building’s front lawn on Monday afternoon, the citation said. The display, which had a permit, included a wooden cross and the Ten Commandments, according to a State Patrol spokesman.

A trooper arrived as the man was walking away from the display.

He told the trooper the display “was hate speech and didn’t know damaging it was against the law.” He also said he didn’t know it “belonged to anyone and thought it was just left outside,” the trooper wrote in the citation.

The wooden cross was broken and part of the display was missing.

The trooper cited the man, 36, for misdemeanor criminal damage to property.

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WASHINGTON — The trade war President Donald Trump promised has begun, threatening the world economy and straining the United States’ longstanding alliances in Europe and Asia.

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These are the places affected by Trump’s tariffs

Goods imported from dozens of countries and territories are now going to be taxed at sharply higher rates, and that is expected to drive up the costs of everything from cars to clothes to computers.

These tariffs – which can run as high as 50% — are meant to punish countries for trade barriers that Trump says unfairly limit U.S. exports and cause it to run huge trade deficits.

Even countries with which the U.S. enjoys trade surpluses – meaning it sells to them more than it buys, such as the United Kingdom and Argentina – are being targeted with a minimum tariff of 10%. And the highest tariffs are landing on two tiny territories that trade little with America — the African kingdom of Lesotho and the French possession of Saint Pierre and Miquelon off Canada’s Atlantic coast.

For decades, global commerce abided by tariff rates agreed to by the U.S. and 122 other countries during the 1980s and 1990s. On Wednesday, Trump detonated that arrangement, saying that other countries had exploited the system and “ripped off’’ the United States for years, causing its once-mighty manufacturing base to shrink.

“Our country has been looted, pillaged, raped and plundered,” the president said in the Rose Garden.

Global financial markets recoiled on Thursday. On Wall Street, the Dow Jones industrial average dropped 1,394 points, or more than 3%, and the U.S. dollar fell against other major currencies – a sign that investors are worried about the U.S. economy.

“This is a game changer, not only for the U.S. economy but for the global economy,” said Olu Sonola, head of U.S. economic research for Fitch Ratings. “Many countries will likely end up in a recession. You can throw most forecasts out the door, if this tariff rate stays on for an extended period of time.”

President Donald Trump speaks during an event to announce new tariffs in the Rose Garden at the White House, Wednesday, April 2, 2025, in Washington, as Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick listens. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)

Trump is doing what he said he’d do

During the presidential campaign, Trump repeatedly talked about imposing a “universal tariff’’ of 10% to 20% on all imports — and the new 10% baseline tariffs fit the description.

He also threatened to hit imports from China with 60% tariffs, and he’s now slapping a “reciprocal’’ tariff of 34% on China – on top of the 20% levies he’d announced earlier this year.

Combine the new tariffs on China with the ones left over from his first term, and from President Joe Biden’s, and the full tax on Chinese goods will now approach 70%, said Julian Evans-Pritchard of Capital Economics.

“It’s extreme, but it aligns with what Trump campaigned on,’’ said Erica York, vice president of federal tax policy at the Tax Foundation.

Nobody knows if the tariffs will prove permanent or if the U.S. will lower or drop them in response to other countries negotiating to reduce their own tariffs and other trade barriers.

FILE – President Herbert Hoover signs the unemployment and drought relief bills on Dec. 20, 1930. (AP Photo, File)

U.S. tariff rates are going back more than 100 years

Even before Wednesday’s bombshell, the president had been lobbing tariffs with abandon in his second term. He restored 25% tariffs from his first term on steel and aluminum, imposed 25% levies on cars and light trucks, hit China with 20% import taxes and levied 25% tariffs on some Canadian and Mexican imports.

The Budget Lab at Yale University estimates that his 2025 tariffs – including Wednesday’s – would lift America’s effective average tariff rate to 22.5%. That would be up from 2.5% last year and the highest level since 1909 — even higher than the notorious Smoot-Hawley tariffs that Congress passed during the Great Depression.

Before lawmakers ratified the 16th amendment to the Constitution in 1913, introducing a national income tax, tariffs supplied a big share of the federal government’s revenue – more than 90% at times in the mid-1800s. The U.S. moved from tariffs to income taxes to raise more money to finance an expanding government, collect more revenue from the wealthy and make the economy more efficient by reducing trade barriers and encouraging competition.

Trump wants to return to those days and replace income tax collections with tariffs. Last year, tariffs accounted for less than 2% of federal revenue, while 51% came from the income tax and 36% from Social Security and Medicare taxes.

US President Donald Trump appears on a television screen at the stock market in Frankfurt, Germany, Thursday, April 3, 2025. (AP Photo/Michael Probst)

Tariffs are likely to damage the U.S. and world economies

The Yale Budget Lab estimates that Trump’s 2025 tariffs will increase U.S. consumer prices by 2.3% in the short run, costing American households $3,800 a year.

The tariffs he announced on “Liberation Day” alone will push up prices by 1.3%, the lab calculates – a $2,100 tax on households. Clothing prices will go up 17% as higher import tariffs hit textiles from Southeast Asia and Bangladesh.

The lab says that Trump’s tariffs will reduce U.S. economic growth – which was 2.8% in 2024 — by 0.9 percentage points this year.

The damage will also extend to Europe, Southeast Asia and China. “We can expect global economic growth to start plummeting as trade flows decline, prices increase and businesses put off investments,’’ said Wendy Cutler, a former U.S. trade official who is now vice president at the Asia Society Policy Institute.

Trump hits allies and poor countries

Between the so-called reciprocal and baseline tariffs, Trump hit allies and adversaries, rich and poor countries, and those open and closed to U.S. exports.

Even Singapore, perhaps the freest-trading economy in the world, is getting slugged with the 10% levies, belying Trump’s claims to be balancing other countries’ protectionist policies, said Scott Lincicome, a trade analyst with the libertarian Cato Institute.

“This is not reciprocal at all,’’ Lincicome said. “Getting to real numbers on foreign trade barriers and their effects on U.S. trade numbers would require lengthy investigations and would take months, if not years, to produce. … They might as well have pulled the numbers out of a hat.’’

Taiwan, a U.S. ally, faces a 32% tariff, not much less than geopolitical rival China’s 34%.

Poor countries also bore the brunt of some of Trump’s most onerous tariffs.

Lesotho, a tiny country surrounded by South Africa, is facing a 50% “reciprocal’’ tariff, for example, even though its annual economic output per person is less than $2,900 (compared to America’s $76,200).

Cambodia, whose annual economic output per person is about $7,200, is absorbing a 49% tariff. That is partly, the White House says, because it has been a conduit for Chinese-made goods eventually headed to the United States to dodge U.S. tariffs on China.

Canada and Mexico got off relatively easy

Trump’s trade policies toward America’s northern and southern neighbors has been erratic. He has twice announced and then suspended or watered down 25% tariffs on Canadian and Mexican goods, ostensibly to get them to do more than crack down on fentanyl and immigrants crossing into the U.S. illegally.

Last month, Trump suspended the 25% duties on Canadian and Mexican goods that comply with the US-Mexico Canada Agreement, a trade pact he negotiated with the two countries in his first term. On Wednesday, the White House said that USMCA-compliant imports could continue to enter the United States duty free.

Once the two countries have satisfied Trump’s demands on immigration and drug trafficking, the tariff on the rest of their imports would drop from 25% to 12%, the White House said.

“The obvious winners were Canada and Mexico,’’ Neil Shearing and Paul Ashworth of Capital Economics wrote in a commentary.