You can not, without the assistance of the internet or its loud new voice called artificial intelligence, name the heavyweight champion of the world.

OK then, his name is Oleksandr Usyk, a 38-year-old Ukrainian. He unified the WBA, WBC, IBF and WBO titles when he defeated another heavyweight in May 2024. That boxer’s name was Tyson Fury, his first name given to him by his father, a former boxer named John Fury, in honor of the boxer Mike Tyson.

You might have recently seen that name when Tyson made $20 million fighting, so to speak, Jake Paul on Netflix last November, or as a wildly successful owner and chatty advocate in the legal marijuana business.

That he is alive and active amazes. But remember when he was young and fighting and going to prison and his name was as prominent as any on the planet? Tyson’s fame was, as writer Mark Kriegel puts it, “a lethal dose of a peculiarly American disease, a form of insanity whose victims include Elvis, Marilyn and Tupac.”

Those words come early in Kriegel’s remarkable new book, “Baddest Man: The Making of Mike Tyson,” which moves from the boxer’s birth in 1966 to 1988, what Kriegel calls “the year of (Tyson’s) first public crack-up.”

Do not think of this as a boxing book, but boxing does make a colorful and primal backdrop for a uniquely American book, filled with enough mentors and monsters to do any Dickens novel justice.

I suppose that somewhere, someone is writing about Usyk, because writers have long been drawn to boxing and boxers. The physical and emotional drama that is inherent in the sport has attracted writers as far back as Homer and Plato. Jack London wrote a lot about boxing and so did George Bernard Shaw, Hemingway, Mailer and A.J. Liebling, who called it the “sweet science of bruising.” Novelist Joyce Carol Oates once called it “the drama of life in the flesh.”

Tyson attracted Mailer and Oates, as well as Gay Talese and Pete Hamill, all neatly represented here, and with whom Kriegel holds his own, as when he writes, “Tyson surpassed my capacity to imagine. Well, not just mine, but ours. His own, too. (This book) began as a kind of essay — an attempt to explain the Tyson phenomenon — and became, perhaps inevitably, a biography. There is a distinct anatomy to his fame. For even among those with no recollection of his prime, the sheer idea of him, the planet’s Baddest Man, remains as potent as ever.”

The only other boxer who comes close to Tyson’s stature was, of course, Muhammad Ali, deserving of our admiration in the ring and out of it. He appears momentarily in “Baddest Man,” the ravages of his ring career heartbreakingly apparent, as when he appears at a Tyson fight and Mailer sadly writes, “Ali now moved with the deliberate calm of a blind man, sobering all those who stared upon him.”

There is so much to savor in the book that it is understandably getting lavish praise — though the antics and dark intentions of such people as promoter Don King, actress Robin Givens and her mother Ruth, the current president of the United States Donald Trump, and Tyson himself are vile and often disgusting.

Kriegel, who spent his early career as a crime reporter for New York City tabloids, has written such previous biographies of Joe Namath, Pete Maravich and Ray “Boom Boom” Mancini. He has been called “one of America’s finest living sportswriters,” and this book has been deemed “a masterpiece from an author who long ago entered the pantheon of the true greats” by writer Wright Thompson.

Michael Spinks goes down after receiving a knockout by Mike Tyson during their 91-second heavyweight fight, June 27, 1988 in Atlantic City. (Richard Drew/AP)

Kriegel’s research is exhaustive. I had no idea or didn’t remember that before she hooked up with Tyson, actress Givens had a relationship with Michael Jordan, or that after attending the 1988 NBA All-Star game at the Chicago Stadium, Givens and Tyson took a limo ride to Father George Clements’ home.

“After 10 minutes of premarital counseling,” he married the couple. Well, not exactly, since they had neglected to obtain a marriage license. They did so when they got back to New York and married in a civil ceremony.

Kriegel interviewed dozens of people and read dozens of books. One of them was Jonathan Eig’s stunning “Ali: A Life,” published in 2017. Eig lives and works here, so I called to find out if he had read “Baddest Man.” Of course, he had and says, “Mark’s book on Tyson is one of the most exciting, satisfying and nuanced portraits of an athlete that I’ve read in years. I think I understand Tyson better than ever now, and that’s saying a lot, because I’ve been fascinated by him since he first emerged as a young fighter. I get the feeling that Mark did a lot of old-fashioned, shoe-leather reporting on this, and he’s a fantastic writer.”

So is Eig, whose most recent book, “King: A Life,” about Martin Luther King, won the 2024 Pulitzer Prize for biography.

“Baddest Man: The Making of Mike Tyson” by Mark Kriegel. (June 2025, Penguin Press)

It is much to Kriegel’s credit and to your enjoyment that he does not focus on the ferocity of Tyson’s fights. They are, of course, mentioned, but delivered without the sensationalism or look-at-me literary fireworks that mar much sportswriting.

The book ends immediately after Tyson’s destruction of then-reigning heavyweight champion Michael Spinks, at Trump’s Atlantic City hotel and casino, with Tyson, “his arms outstretched, palms up, not a gladiator now as much as an emperor.”

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He was just shy of his 22nd birthday. There are troubles ahead, a lot of them, but we know that he survived.

Or, as Kriegel writes at the beginning of his spectacular book, “Glory is a long shot in any boxing story … Even as Tyson became boxing’s greatest-ever attraction, his doom seemed a lock. In fact, before too long it was the very prospect of impending doom that became the attraction itself. At any juncture in his career, the smart bet on Tyson’s mortality was always the under.”

rkogan@chicagotribune.com

By Rae Ellen Bichell, Katheryn Houghton, KFF Health News

Nicole Silva’s 4-year-old daughter was headed to a relative’s house near the southern Colorado town of La Jara when a vehicle T-boned the car she was riding in. A cascade of ambulance rides ensued — a ground ambulance to a local hospital, an air ambulance to Denver, and another ground ambulance to Children’s Hospital Colorado.

Silva’s daughter was on Medicaid, which was supposed to cover the cost of the ambulances. But one of the three ambulance companies, Northglenn Ambulance, a public company since acquired by a private one, sent Silva’s bill to a debt collector. It was for $2,181.60, which grew to more than $3,000 with court fees and interest, court records show. The preschool teacher couldn’t pay, and the collector garnished Silva’s wages.

“It put us so behind on bills — our house payment, electric, phone bills, food for the kids,” said Silva, whose daughter recovered fully from the 2015 crash. “It took away from everything.”

Some state legislators are looking to curb bills like the one she received — surprise bills for ground ambulance rides.

When an ambulance company charges more than an insurer is willing to pay, patients can be left with a big bill they probably had no choice in.

States are trying to fill a gap left by the federal No Surprises Act, which covers air ambulances but not ground services, including ambulances that travel by road and water. This year, Utah and North Dakota joined 18 other states that have passed protections against surprise billing for such rides.

Those protections often include setting a minimum for insurers to pay out if someone they cover needs a ride. But the sticking point is where to set that bar. Legislation in Colorado and Montana stalled this year because policymakers worried that forcing insurers to pay more would lead to higher health coverage costs for everyone.

Surprise ambulance bills are one piece of a health care system that systematically saddles Americans with medical debt, straining their finances, preventing them from accessing care, and increasing racial disparities, as KFF Health News has reported.

“If people are hesitating to call the ambulance because they’re worried about putting a huge financial burden on their family, it means we’re going to get stroke victims who don’t get to the hospital on time,” said Patricia Kelmar, who directs health care campaigns at PIRG, a national consumer advocacy group. “It means that person who’s worried it might be a heart attack won’t call.”

The No Surprises Act, signed into law by President Donald Trump in 2020, says that for most emergency services, patients can be billed for out-of-network care only for the same amount they would have been billed if it were in-network. Like doctors or hospitals, ambulance companies can contract with insurers, making them in-network. Those that don’t remain out-of-network.

But unlike when making an appointment with a doctor or planning a surgery, a patient generally can’t choose the ambulance company that will respond to their 911 call. This means they can get hit with large out-of-network bills.

Federal lawmakers punted on including ground ambulances, in part because of the variety of business models — from private companies to volunteer fire departments — and a lack of data on how much rides cost.

Instead, Congress created an advisory committee that issued recommendations last year. Its overarching conclusion — that patients shouldn’t be stuck in the crossfire between providers and payers — was not controversial or partisan. In Colorado, a measure aimed at expanding protections from surprise ambulance bills got a unanimous thumbs-up in both legislative chambers.

Colorado had previously passed a law protecting people from surprise bills from private ambulance companies. This new measure was aimed at providing similar protections against bills from public ambulance services and for transfers between hospitals.

“We knew it had bipartisan support, but there are some people that vote no on everything,” said a pleasantly surprised Karen McCormick, a Democratic state representative.

A less pleasant surprise came later, when Gov. Jared Polis, who is also a Democrat, vetoed it, citing the fear of rising premiums.

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States can do only so much on this issue, because state laws apply only to state-regulated health plans. That leaves out a lot of workers. According to a 2024 national survey by KFF, a health information nonprofit that includes KFF Health News, 63% of people who work for private employers and get health insurance through their jobs have self-funded plans, which aren’t state-regulated.

“It’s why we need a federal ambulance protection law, even if we passed 50 state laws,” Kelmar said.

According to data from the Colorado secretary of state’s office, the only lobbying groups registered as “opposing” the bill were Anthem and UnitedHealth Group, plus UnitedHealth subsidiaries Optum and UnitedHealthcare.

As soon as the legislative session ended in May, Kevin McFatridge, executive director of the Colorado Association of Health Plans, a trade group representing health insurance companies in the state, sent a letter to the governor requesting a veto, with an estimate that the legislation would result in premiums rising 0.4%.

The Colorado bill said local governments — such as cities, counties, or special districts — would set rates.

“We are in a much better place by not having local entities set their own rates,” McFatridge told KFF Health News. “That’s almost like the fox managing the henhouse.”

Jack Hoadley, an emeritus research professor with Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy, said it isn’t clear whether state laws approved elsewhere are raising premiums, or if so by how much. Hoadley said Washington state is expected to come out with an impact analysis of its law in a couple of years.

The national trade association for insurance companies declined to provide a comment for this article. Instead, AHIP forwarded letters that its leaders submitted to lawmakers in Ohio, West Virginia, and North Dakota this year opposing measures in each state to set base ambulance rates. AHIP leadership described the proposals as inflated, government-mandated pricing that would reduce insurers’ chance to negotiate fair prices. Ultimately, the association warned, the proposed minimums would increase health care costs.

In Montana, legislators were considering a minimum reimbursement for ground ambulances of 400% of what Medicare pays, or at a set local rate if one exists. The proposal was sponsored by two Republicans and backed by ambulance companies. Health insurers successfully lobbied against it, arguing that the price was too steep.

Sarah Clerget, a lobbyist representing AHIP, told Montana lawmakers in a legislative hearing that it’s already hard to get ambulance companies to go in-network with insurers, “because folks are going to need ambulance care regardless of whether their insurance company will cover it.” She said the state’s proposal would leave those paying for health coverage with the burden of the new price.

“None of us like our insurance rates to move,” Republican state Sen. Mark Noland said during a legislative meeting as a committee tabled the bill. He equated the proposed minimum to a mandate that could lead to people having to pay more for health coverage for an important but nonetheless niche service.

Colorado’s governor was similarly focused on premiums. Polis said in his veto letter that the legislation would have raised premiums between 73 cents and $2.15 per member per month.

“I agree that filling this gap in enforcement is crucial to saving people money on health care,” he wrote. “However, those cost savings are outweighed in my view by the premium increases.”

Isabel Cruz, policy director at the Colorado Consumer Health Initiative, which supported the bill, said that even if premiums did rise, Coloradans might be OK with the change. After all, she said, they’d be trading the threat of a big ambulance bill for the price of half a cup of coffee per month.

©2025 KFF Health News. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

By Lauren Schwahn, NerdWallet

The investing information provided on this page is for educational purposes only. NerdWallet, Inc. does not offer advisory or brokerage services, nor does it recommend or advise investors to buy or sell particular stocks, securities or other investments.

President Donald Trump’s “one big, beautiful bill” is launching a new way to save for children’s futures: the “Trump Account.” This investment account gives kids who meet certain requirements $1,000 courtesy of the federal government.

But a Trump Account may not be a superior replacement for existing investment tools just yet.

What is a Trump Account?

Formerly called “Money Accounts for Growth and Advancement,” or “MAGA accounts,” the Trump Account is a special trust designed to give children a head start financially. Money contributed to these accounts gets invested in the stock market.

The Trump Accounts Contribution Pilot Program starts eligible kids off with a one-time $1,000 credit. The money comes from the Department of the Treasury.

Who qualifies?

Not every kid can get a Trump Account. To be eligible for the $1,000 credit under the pilot program, children must:

Be born between Jan. 1, 2025, and Dec. 31, 2028.
Be a U.S. citizen.
Have a Social Security number.

How do Trump Accounts work?

Getting started

Under the pilot program, the Treasury will set up accounts for qualifying kids if their parents haven’t already done so. Parents aren’t required to make an election.

How do contributions and withdrawals work?

Trump Accounts come with some restrictions. Contributions made before the calendar year in which the beneficiary turns 18 are limited to $5,000 per year. Employers can contribute up to $2,500 to accounts, which won’t count as income for the parents or children.

Trump Account distributions aren’t allowed before the first day of the calendar year the child turns 18.

Contributions made after the child’s 18th year generally follow traditional IRA rules. The IRA contribution limit in 2025 is $7,000 for those under age 50. The money invested grows tax-deferred, and withdrawals are taxed as ordinary income.

There’s a 10% penalty for withdrawing money from an IRA before age 59 ½, unless there’s a qualifying exception, such as homebuying, or paying for higher education expenses.

What about taxes?

Contributions made to Trump Accounts before the child’s 18th birth year must be made with after-tax dollars, which means no tax deduction for parents or employers, said Jacob Martin, a certified financial planner in Columbus, Ohio, in an email interview.

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Contributions made during the 18th birth year and after could be deductible.

How do they compare with existing investment vehicles?

Trump Accounts have perks, but there are other long-term investment and college savings strategies that bring more to the table, financial experts say. Let’s explore a couple of options further.

Trump Accounts resemble traditional IRAs, except contributions made before the beneficiary’s 18th birth year aren’t deductible and have a lower annual cap. Unlike an IRA, there’s no earned income requirement to start.

Brokerage accounts, including UTMA & UGMA custodial accounts, don’t have contribution or withdrawal limits.

A 529 plan offers more flexibility than a Trump Account when it comes to who can open an account and use the money. For example, account holders can change beneficiaries, or roll funds from one family member’s plan to another.

While the exact amount varies by state, contribution limits for 529 education savings plans are high. Contributions grow tax-free, and withdrawals are tax-free when made for qualifying expenses. Some plans offer state residents tax deductions. You can also roll over unused money, up to a certain amount, into a Roth IRA.

Is a Trump Account worth it?

If your child can get the $1,000 credit, consider it, Robert Persichitte, a CFP in Arvada, Colorado, said in an email interview.

“If it’s free money, great. Take what you can get,” he said.

A Trump Account gives children the ability to start investing early with a little seed money. It could help establish a fund your kid could put toward buying a home or starting a business someday.

But for most taxpayers, Roth IRAs and 529 accounts are likely the better options because they offer much better tax savings, Persichitte said.

Other investment accounts, including IRAs, 529s and other custodial accounts, also allow higher contribution limits, which could help you save a larger amount over the long term.

Lauren Schwahn writes for NerdWallet. Email: lschwahn@nerdwallet.com. Twitter: @lauren_schwahn.

The article $1K ‘Trump Accounts’ for Kids: How Do They Stack Up? originally appeared on NerdWallet.

By ELAINE KURTENBACH and MATT OTT, Associated Press Business Writers

Early trading on Wall Street was quietly mixed on Wednesday as markets shift their attention toward a deluge of corporate earnings reports while monitoring ever-changing developments on U.S. trade policy.

Futures for the S&P 500 were flat before the bell, while futures for the Dow industrials rose 0.2% Nasdaq futures were down 0.2%.

Johnson & Johnson rose 1.8% after the drug and medical device giant beat analysts’ sales and profit targets and raised its full-year outlook on both. J&J said it expects “game-changing approvals and submissions” in the second half of 2025 on an array of products in its pipeline.

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Bank of America ticked up less than 1% after it beat Wall Street’s second-quarter profit targets. The bank’s net interest income grew for the fourth straight quarter, but came in slightly lower than expectations.

Goldman Sachs also beat Wall Street’s sales and profit targets on a strong performance from its trading division, which took advantage of market volatility triggered by President Donald Trump’s on-again-off-again tariff announcements this spring. Its shares rose about 1% before markets opened.

Netherlands-based ASML, the world’s leading supplier of chipmaking gear, said in its latest earnings report Wednesday that the impact of Trump’s tariffs on its business was less negative than anticipated, but its shares tumbled more than 7% after the company said it couldn’t guarantee growth next year.

The company makes equipment used in cutting edge semiconductors and one of its key customers is Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., or TSMC, a major supplier for Nvidia.

“The level of uncertainty is increasing, mostly due to macroeconomic and geopolitical consideration. And that includes, of course, tariffs,” CEO Christophe Fouquet said.

United Airlines posts its most recent quarterly results after the bell Wednesday.

Also coming Wednesday is the government’s report on producer prices, which measures inflation at the wholesale level.

A report on Tuesday showed that consumer inflation in the United States accelerated to 2.7% last month from 2.4% in May. Economists said higher prices for clothes, toys and other imported goods suggest that Trump’s stiffer tariffs are fueling inflation. That sticky inflation could mean that the Federal Reserve will hold its ground on interest rates, which have remained elevated in recent years after red-hot demand and supply chain breakdowns in the wake of the pandemic sent prices for just about everything skyrocketing.

Wall Street loves lower interest rates because they juice prices higher for stocks and other investments, and Trump himself has been clamoring for the Federal Reserve to cut rates more quickly. But the Fed has been keeping interest rates on hold this year since lower rates can give inflation more fuel while they boost the economy. Fed Chair Jerome Powell has insisted he wants to see more data about how tariffs affect the economy and inflation.

Elsewhere, in Europe at midday Germany’s DAX rose 0.4%, while Britain’s FTSE 100 gained 0.3%. The CAC 40 in Paris was unchanged.

In Asian trading, Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 edged less than 0.1% lower, to 39,663.40. Investors are focusing on the potential impact of an election for the Upper House of Parliament on Sunday that is expected to lead to tax cuts and higher spending as lawmakers try to restore the waning popularity of the ruling Liberal Democrats.

Worries over a deterioration in Japan’s fiscal health have pushed yields of long-term Japanese government bonds to their highest levels in years.

“What’s at stake isn’t simply which party hands out the biggest bundle of goodies. It’s whether the walls holding up Japan’s house of debt can withstand another round of fiscal fireworks…” Stephen Innes of SPI Asset Management said in a commentary.

Elsewhere in Asia, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng shed 0.3% to 24,517.76, while the Shanghai Composite index slipped less than 0.1% to 3,503.78.

South Korea’s Kospi lost 0.9% to 3,186.38 and in Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 declined 0.8% to 8,561.80.

Taiwan’s Taiex jumped 0.9% and India’s Sensex added 0.2%. Thailand’s SET dropped 0.3%.

In Jakarta, shares rose 0.7% after President Donald Trump said on Truth Social that he plans to charge imports from Indonesia a tariff of 19%, while American goods sent to the Southeast Asian country will face no tariffs. Trump also said Indonesia committed to buying U.S. energy, agricultural products and aircraft.

Indonesia’s central bank cut its key interest rate by 0.25 percentage points on Wednesday, to 5.25%.

“We have calculated everything and discussed everything. The most important thing for me is my people, as I must protect the interests of our workers,” Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto told reporters, adding that “this is our offer, and we are not able to give more (to the U.S.).”

In energy trading, U.S. benchmark crude oil shed 79 cents to $65.73 per barrel. Brent crude, the international standard, slipped 67 cents at $68.04 per barrel.

The dollar fell to 148.75 Japanese yen from 148.87 yen. The euro was steady at $1.1601.