As aggressive and successful as Minnesota’s defense was in the third quarter to get the Lynx back in Sunday night’s game, the lack thereof before and again early in the fourth quarter proved costly.

Atlanta ultimately held off a late Lynx charge and handed Minnesota its first regular-season home loss in 15 outings with a 90-86 win at Target Center.

“We didn’t feel that playing hard is an adjustment and that’s what we had to do at halftime, and we did,” said coach Cheryl Reeve, whose team was down 14 points at halftime. “In the fourth quarter we lost our ball pressure again, we didn’t guard again. We did it for one quarter today.”

Napheesa Collier once again lit up the score sheet with 32 points, eight rebounds, seven assists, four steals and two blocks in almost 37 minutes of action.

Nine of of those points came in the final 4:38 when the Lynx (22-5) thrillingly turned a 13-point deficit into a three-point game in the final seconds and the sellout crowd of 8,788 was rocking.

Collier had seven points in the final 1:22, including a jumper with 10.6 ticks remaining.

She then stole the inbounds pass along the baseline less than three seconds later, but her momentum forced her to step out of bounds before she could get the ball to a teammate.

The positives of the final few minutes are not something Reeve will dwell on.

“We didn’t lay down. That doesn’t mean a whole lot to us, that’s what you’re supposed to do … but we had bigger problems on the night. We just didn’t come to play defensively. We were really easy to play against in the first half. Offensively, we gave into their physicality. It’s not new for us, we saw it in Atlanta.”

That was June 27, a game the Lynx won 96-92 in overtime.

Collier was 14 of 18 from the field. Minnesota’s other four starters were a combined 12 for 34.

“I thought Phee was the only one playing with great aggression … she just didn’t much help,” Reeve said.

Alanna Smith finished with 12 points, Courtney Williams had 11 to go with nine assists. Kayla McBride and Bridget Carleton combined for four points.

Natisha Hiedeman had all 10 of her points off the bench in the fourth quarter.

Brittney Griner, Atlanta’s 6-foot-9 agile center, scored 17 of her season-high 22 points in first half when the Dream shot 60.7% and opened a 46-32 lead at the break. She entered averaging 10.8 per game.

“Coming out in that first half like that really set us back, but we got back on track in the second half,” Collier said.

That started with the defensive pressure.

Providing a bolt of energy off the bench, Diamond Miller’s aggression on both ends helped set the tone as Atlanta (15-10) made just five of 20 shots in the third quarter and Minnesota got within three before the Dream led 60-54 at quarter’s end.

“We were sporadic in our aggression, When we did it we were pretty effective,” Reeve said.

The Dream then made their first six shots of the fourth to push the lead to 74-63.

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A powerful and quick-moving storm swept through the Twin Cities metro area Sunday night, dumping golf ball-sized hail across a swath starting in Plymouth, swooping through Golden Valley, Roseville and downtown St. Paul, meteorologists said.

Dan Hawblitzel, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service Twin Cities office, said the storm brought with it 50 to 65 mph winds. Another storm was striking the southwestern metro about 8:30 p.m. after the first storm had left, prompting warnings in parts of Carver and Scott counties.

There were reports of sporadic tree damage but it was too early to gauge rainfall amounts, he said.

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By DAVID McHUGH

FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) — President Donald Trump and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen have announced a sweeping trade deal that imposes 15% tariffs on most European goods, warding off Trump’s threat of a 30% rate if no deal had been reached by Aug. 1.

The tariffs, or import taxes, paid when Americans buy European products could raise prices for U.S. consumers and dent profits for European companies and their partners who bring goods into the country.

Here are some things to know about the trade deal between the United States and the European Union:

What’s in the agreement?

Trump and von der Leyen’s announcement, made during Trump’s visit to one of his golf courses in Scotland, leaves many details to be filled in.

The headline figure is a 15% tariff rate on “the vast majority” of European goods brought into the U.S., including cars, computer chips and pharmaceuticals. It’s lower than the 20% Trump initially proposed, and lower than his threats of 50% and then 30%.

Von der Leyen said the two sides agreed on zero tariffs on both sides for a range of “strategic” goods: Aircraft and aircraft parts, certain chemicals, semiconductor equipment, certain agricultural products, and some natural resources and critical raw materials. Specifics were lacking.

She said the two sides “would keep working” to add more products to the list.

Additionally, the EU side would purchase what Trump said was $750 billion (638 billion euros) worth of natural gas, oil and nuclear fuel to replace Russian energy supplies, and Europeans would invest an additional $600 billion (511 billion euros) in the U.S.

What’s not in the deal?

Trump said the 50% U.S. tariff on imported steel would remain; von der Leyen said the two sides agreed to further negotiations to fight a global steel glut, reduce tariffs and establish import quotas — that is, set amounts that can be imported, often at a lower rate.

Trump said pharmaceuticals were not included in the deal. Von der Leyen said the pharmaceuticals issue was “on a separate sheet of paper” from Sunday’s deal.

Where the $600 billion for additional investment would come from was not specified. And von der Leyen said that when it came to farm products, the EU side made clear that “there were tariffs that could not be lowered,” without specifying which products.

What’s the impact?

The 15% rate removes Trump’s threat of a 30% tariff. It’s still much higher than the average tariff before Trump came into office of around 1%, and higher than Trump’s minimum 10% baseline tariff.

Higher tariffs, or import taxes, on European goods mean sellers in the U.S. would have to either increase prices for consumers — risking loss of market share — or swallow the added cost in terms of lower profits. The higher tariffs are expected to hurt export earnings for European firms and slow the economy.

The 10% baseline applied while the deal was negotiated was already sufficiently high to make the European Union’s executive commission cut its growth forecast for this year from 1.3% to 0.9%.

Von der Leyen said the 15% rate was “the best we could do” and credited the deal with maintaining access to the U.S. market and providing “stability and predictability for companies on both sides.”

What is some of the reaction to the deal?

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz welcomed the deal which avoided “an unnecessary escalation in transatlantic trade relations” and said that “we were able to preserve our core interests,” while adding that “I would have very much wished for further relief in transatlantic trade.”

The Federation of German Industries was blunter. “Even a 15% tariff rate will have immense negative effects on export-oriented German industry,” said Wolfgang Niedermark, a member of the federation’s leadership.

While the rate is lower than threatened, “the big caveat to today’s deal is that there is nothing on paper, yet,” said Carsten Brzeski, global chief of macro at ING bank.

“With this disclaimer in mind and at face value, today’s agreement would clearly bring an end to the uncertainty of recent months. An escalation of the US-EU trade tensions would have been a severe risk for the global economy,” Brzeski said.

“This risk seems to have been avoided.”

What about car companies?

Asked if European carmakers could still sell cars at 15%, von der Leyen said the rate was much lower than the current 27.5%. That has been the rate under Trump’s 25% tariff on cars from all countries, plus the preexisting U.S. car tariff of 2.5%.

The impact is likely to be substantial on some companies, given that automaker Volkswagen said it suffered a 1.3 billion euro ($1.5 billion) hit to profit in the first half of the year from the higher tariffs.

Mercedes-Benz dealers in the U.S. have said they are holding the line on 2025 model year prices “until further notice.” The German automaker has a partial tariff shield because it makes 35% of the Mercedes-Benz vehicles sold in the U.S. in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, but the company said it expects prices to undergo “significant increases” in coming years.

What were the issues dividing the two sides?

Before Trump returned to office, the U.S. and the EU maintained generally low tariff levels in what is the largest bilateral trading relationship in the world, with some 1.7 trillion euros ($2 trillion) in annual trade. Together the U.S. and the EU have 44% of the global economy. The U.S. rate averaged 1.47% for European goods, while the EU’s averaged 1.35% for American products, according to the Bruegel think tank in Brussels.

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Trump has complained about the EU’s 198 billion-euro trade surplus in goods, which shows Americans buy more from European businesses than the other way around, and has said the European market is not open enough for U.S.-made cars.

However, American companies fill some of the trade gap by outselling the EU when it comes to services such as cloud computing, travel bookings, and legal and financial services. And some 30% of European imports are from American-owned companies, according to the European Central Bank.

The Twins’ dream of building some buyer’s momentum ahead of the trade deadline likely died on Sunday.

With a x-x loss to the Washington Nationals at Target Field, the Twins fell to 3-6 since returning from the all-star break on July 18, with only a three-game series with the Red Sox between them and the deadline on Thursday evening.

Four of those six losses have been to the two worst teams in baseball, Colorado and Washington — although with two wins this weekend, the Nationals pulled closer to the pack in the National League.

Minnesota Twins’ Harrison Bader reacts after hitting a double against the Washington Nationals during the fifth inning of a baseball game Sunday, July 27, 2025, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Stacy Bengs)

Alex Call, who drove in a pair of runs in the Nationals’ 9-3 victory on Saturday, hit a two-run single against a drawn-in infield as Washington broke open a tight game with four runs against Travis Adams in the fifth inning.

That made it 6-2, and sent Nathaniel Lowe to third base. Daylen Lile followed with a sacrifice fly to right field for a 7-2 lead. In the fourth inning, Lile hit a out-out triple off Adams and scored on a sac fly by Paul DeJong.

Adams (1-1) was charged with five earned runs on five hits and two walks in 3⅓ innings. He fanned three.

With Bailey Ober (hip) and David Festa (shoulder) both on the injured list, Cole Sands pitched the first two innings of a bullpen game. CJ Abrams his his first pitch for a home run for a quick 1-0 lead.

Matt Wallner’s 11th home run of the season tied the game 1-1 in the second inning, and Trevor Larnach tied it 2-2 with a sacrifice fly in the third that scored Harrison Bader, who had gone first to third on a groundout.

That was all the Twins could muster against starter Jake Irvin (8-5). The right-hander was charged with two earned runs on five hits in seven innings. He didn’t walk a batter and struck out two.

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