LOS ANGELES — Minnesota stunned the Los Angeles Lakers with its physicality in Saturday’s Game 1 victory in Los Angeles.

The Lakers returned the favor on Tuesday.

Los Angeles was the clear aggressor from start to finish, putting Minnesota on its heels early. The Wolves never recovered, falling 94-85 to even the series at 1-1.

Game 3 is Friday in Minneapolis.

Minnesota has the ability to match and exceed just about anyone’s physicality. But the Wolves instead grew frustrated and frequently demonstrated an utter lack of composure for 48 minutes that ultimately did them in.

In the fourth quarter alone, Naz Reid ran the ball down the floor out of frustration following a whistle that triggered the team’s second delay of game violation of the contest, giving the Lakers a technical free throw when the Wolves were trying to mount a rally.

Then Julius Randle, who scored a new playoff career-high 27 points to pace Minnesota, had a bucket wiped away when he needlessly swiped his off hand into the face of LeBron James before the ball could fall into the bucket. So instead of Minnesota trimming its deficit to 11, it stayed at nine.

Little things like that kept Minnesota from ever mounting a serious rally.

After getting overrun on Saturday, Los Angeles busted out of the gates Tuesday with a renewed tenacity and intensity on both ends of the floor that helped it build a 22-point first-half advantage.

Minnesota’s defense finally matched the Lakers in the second half, making every Los Angeles bucket difficult over the final two frames. But Minnesota never got any type of rhythm going offensively. The Wolves relied almost entirely on Randle isolations.

One game after seemingly dissecting the Los Angeles defense, Anthony Edwards did little in the form of playmaking. The guard finished with zero assists. And after they shot the lights out from deep in Game 1, Minnesota went ice cold from the field Tuesday.

Minnesota went 5 for 24 from beyond the arc, and shot just 38% from the field.

Luka Doncic had 31 points, 12 rebounds and nine assists for the Lakers.

For a moment on April 9, the average U.S. tariff rate leapt to 32%, making American consumers the highest tariffed people in the world. For the next 90 days, the average U.S. tariff rate will be about 25%, which will leave Americans paying more than the citizens of any other industrialized nation, putting us in the company of Sudan and Djibouti.

America, despite what you may have heard, is currently a pretty great place to live and work. While Americans represent just 4.2% of the world’s population, they produce more than 26% of the world’s GDP. As a result, U.S. median income is nearly nine times the global average and the U.S. poverty rate is about one-fortieth the global rate.

We have our problems. Every nation does. But Americans are among the healthiest and wealthiest people to ever walk the planet and are generally quite satisfied with their lives.

But this prosperity didn’t just happen. It was built on a foundation of economic freedom. And by our calculations, that freedom is rapidly eroding thanks to President Donald Trump’s trade war.

Individuals are more economically free when they are allowed to make more of their own economic choices. Governments can protect these choices by impartially safeguarding everyone’s right to own, use and exchange property. Or they can limit economic choice through taxes, regulations, tariffs and manipulation of the value of money.

One of us (Lawson) has been measuring economic freedom for nearly three decades. His annual Economic Freedom of the World report, published by the Fraser Institute in Canada and the Cato Institute in the U.S., measures the degree of economic freedom in each of 165 countries using 45 indicators of government policy. Ten of these indicators measure trade freedom, reflecting its importance in overall economic freedom.

Many of us cherish economic freedom for its own sake, believing that each of us has the inalienable right to choose our own vocation, to spend our own resources as we see fit, and to contract with others as we like.

But even if these considerations don’t appeal to you, you should value economic freedom. That’s because — as has been documented in nearly 1,000 peer reviewed studies — it makes life better. Compared with the least-economically free places, people in the freest nations earn 7.6 times as much, live 16 years longer, and are 40% more satisfied with their lives. They also tend to be more literate, more tolerant and less corrupt.

All of this helps explain why the United States — which last ranked as the fifth-freest economy in the world — is so prosperous. Americans have long been some of the most economically free people on the planet. U.S. trade freedom, the area of economic freedom that gauges our ability to exchange with people in other nations, is a key component of that. It accounts for tariffs, regulatory trade barriers, controls, and black-market exchange rates. U.S. trade freedom peaked in the 1990s at 8th in the world. But as other countries allowed their own citizens to trade more freely, the U.S. failed to keep up and by 2022, it had fallen to 53rd place.

As U.S. tariff rates have gyrated up and down, we have re-run the numbers, estimating the effects on U.S. trade freedom and on U.S. economic freedom more broadly. For the brief time this month when average U.S. tariff rates were 32%, U.S. trade freedom slipped to 72nd place, just behind Haiti, a country that the president has brutally mocked for its poor living conditions.

We also slipped to 10th place in overall economic freedom. Now, with average U.S. tariffs at 25%, U.S. trade freedom has crept back up to 70th place, just ahead of Rwanda while overall economic freedom remains 10th.

America is a great nation. But our prosperity depends on our freedom and Trump’s trade war is a clear threat to that.

Robert Lawson is Fullinwider Chair in Economic Freedom and director of the Bridwell Institute for Economic Freedom at Southern Methodist University. Matthew Mitchell is a Senior Fellow in the Center for Human Freedom at the Fraser Institute and a Senior Affiliated Scholar with the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. They wrote this column for Tribune News Service.

Two of my books are among the 381 volumes that Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth ordered removed from the library of the U.S. Naval Academy because they were deemed to relate to the topics of diversity, equity or inclusion.

The arbitrary removal of these books reveals a sophomoric approach to history by word search. That amateurish tactic of linking title and theme has already resulted in comical yet depressing results. A recent DEI purge at the Pentagon led to the removal in its digital archive of images of the B-29 plane Enola Gay that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, presumably because of the word “gay” in the title. The Defense Department is at it again on a bigger scale, with higher stakes: our grand American democratic experiment.

Censorship by keyword search is not only anti-intellectual but also foolish, presuming that there is solidarity of thought or unanimity of vision when it comes to race, gender, sexuality or class — as though every author who uses a certain term is making the same argument on the issue. Scholars, writers and other thinkers are a notoriously cantankerous lot. We often find useful or sometimes petty ways to disagree even with those with whom we ought to agree.

Many of these removed books argue with prevailing notions of race, class, sex and gender. Some are critical of earlier or competing versions of these subjects and advocate relentless revision and tireless interrogation.

Ibram X. Kendi’s influential “How to Be an Antiracist” topped the list of removed books, but with more careful consideration the Defense Department might have kept it around, because it argues for a radically different view of racism than many of Kendi’s scholarly predecessors and colleagues.

Old-school race thinkers argue that racism concerns power. They would say that although Black folk can be bigoted, prejudiced and willfully biased, they technically can’t be racist. Kendi shatters such a paradigm and argues that one is either racist or antiracist, whatever one’s color or circumstance. That ought to suggest to white critics that Kendi is being evenhanded in grappling with the manifestation of racist belief or behavior from people of any background. The Trump administration stated in January that students should not be “compelled to adopt identities as either victims or oppressors solely based on their skin color.” In a far different political register, Kendi’s work comes to a similar conclusion.

In one of my banished books, “Tears We Cannot Stop: A Sermon to White America,” I argue against white guilt as a strategy for social change. In my other removed book, “Long Time Coming: Reckoning With Race in America,” I offer a harsh rebuke to cancel culture on the left as a proxy of sorts for the very white supremacy it aims to destroy.

Hegseth doesn’t seem to understand, or care to know, that most of the books he fears and disagrees with, and thus removes, offer nuanced and complicated visions of race and other forms of diversity.

These books are not dogmatic or indoctrinating; they are self-critical and invite readers to question their own understandings. Courageous curiosity and open-minded engagement should lead us to read widely to determine what we like and what we don’t like, what we agree with and what we oppose. This contributes to us being informed citizens upholding our democratic experiment. The state has no business shrinking reading lists from a perch of partisan fear.

It is bitterly ironic that the political party that rages against ideological orthodoxy, virtue signaling and purity tests is now their most brutal exponent. The war against “wokeness” is a war against enlightenment. Its advocates despise science and are allergic to curiosity and reason. Instead, they embrace denial, ignorance, avoidance, erasure and amnesia.

Hegseth’s move offers the nation a peek into the frightening fascist imagination. Its characteristics are noxious. It conceives of dissent as disloyalty. It misrepresents vulnerable populations as freeloaders and frauds. It turns healthy skepticism about government into unhinged paranoia about the “deep state.”

Yet there is good news. The fascist imagination is not yet the fascist state. The fascist imagination points toward a poisonous authoritarianism that masquerades as legitimate politics. We must oppose the fascist imagination with an emancipated worldview that combats the illusion of security that fascism offers.

The emancipated worldview also draws connections between accepted “white” classics and spurned “Black” books — and those of other diverse communities — in this perilous moment. There may be 381 perspectives on diversity, equity and inclusion that are now purged from the Naval Academy, but there are literally thousands of classic literary avenues for those ideas to get back in.

If James Baldwin is slighted, Ralph Ellison ignored, W.E.B. Du Bois despised, Toni Morrison disdained and Maya Angelou dissed, we can read race and other identities through the work of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Michel de Montaigne, John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. We can interpret complicated cultural concepts by using the poetry of Alfred Lord Tennyson or Thomas Gray.

Society must also push back as the Republican administration tries to whitewash the curricula of public schools, from kindergarten on up. We can also establish Saturday schools where we practice defiant pedagogy to teach our children the books that are banned. We can creatively wrestle in Black communities with ideas that are deemed dangerous and troubling, but which matter greatly to Black folk under attack. Such schools might usefully counter the flurry of executive orders that seek to erase history, deny truth, perpetuate lies and eviscerate community.

We must also support local museums of Black history that preserve memory and transmit knowledge. It is tragic that Black folks for whom reading was once outlawed are brought full circle to a culture that is hostile to Black cultural literacy. It would be tragic to allow a renewed taboo against exploring the intellectual heritage of Black life and underscoring the crucial Black contribution to American democracy.

One of the best ways to combat autocracy is to remember that racism is a dry run for fascism. All the features of the fascist imagination have been rehearsed in the spitefully creative effort to suppress Black speech, oppress Black culture, control Black mobility and to curtail Black progress. Fascism applies to the broader culture the racist principles first applied to Black life.

Many other Americans become like honorary Black folk in the mistreatment they endure in the fascist imagination — which, beyond targeting many white folks who voted for Trump, tries to erase other racial and ethnic minorities, immigrants, LGBTQ+ people and women. Therefore, the fight to uphold Black liberty is the fight to uphold American liberty. The Black fight for democracy is the American fight for democracy.

Hegseth may have targeted “woke” America with his book ban, but his beliefs, and those of his boss, ridicule and threaten the entire nation. Today the peril is for 381 books with which the secretary of Defense assumes he would disagree; tomorrow it may be that our very freedom to openly disagree about the administration is at risk.

Instead of our democracy dying in the dark of an aspiring dictatorship, we must insist that our democracy be an open book to be read by all citizens.

Michael Eric Dyson is a professor of African American studies at Vanderbilt University and an author, most recently co-author of “Represent: The Unfinished Fight for the Vote.” He wrote this column for the Los Angeles Times.

 

Is there anything more soul-lifting than staring down a big pile of spring leaf lettuce, and imaging all the different things you can do with it?

After a long, brisk winter of settling for root vegetables and heartier leafy greens like cabbage and kale, I don’t think so.

I’m not knocking cold-weather veggies here, because without them, preparing many of the comfort foods associated with winter dining would be a slog.

It’s just that once spring finally shows its sunny face, there’s something incredibly satisfying about digging into a salad made with fresh, seasonal greens like butterhead and baby Romaine.

Not only are these loose, round- and oval-shaped heads wonderfully sweet, with a light, refreshing crunch, but you just know you’re doing your body an incredible favor healthwise by eating it.

Because it’s primarily water, lettuce is extremely low-cal. (One cup has only around 7 calories.) It’s also a good source of vitamins A and K, which promote bone and eye health, and contains antioxidants as well as digestion-boosting fiber.

Thanks to its vibrant shade of green, lettuce is also beautiful heaped in a bowl or spread out on a plate — a definite plus when you eat first with your eyes.

But the real bonus of spring lettuce is that it’s a surprisingly versatile vegetable, and often among the more economical purchases at farmers markets or in the produce section.

Using the leaves as a base for salad or as a vegetal garnish for hamburgers and your favorite sandwiches is just the start. Hardier leaves like Romaine can be grilled, seared, braised or sauteed. Shredded, lettuce leaves also can be baked into a frittata or stirred into a cheesy, creamy risotto to add ribbons of green.

Because of its high water content, lettuce makes a good addition to soups and juices and can also team up with fruit in a good-for-you smoothie.

Trying to cut down on carbs? Use soft, sturdy Bibb lettuce leaves as cups or wraps instead of bread or a flour or corn tortilla for any number of flavorful fillings. Or simply slice and saute it as you would cabbage, kale or spinach with a little olive or sesame oil for a simple side dish.

The four recipes that follow prove lettuce can be much more exciting to cook with than you might think.

The best part is that all can be prepared fairly quickly, leaving plenty of time and energy for where most of us really want to be spending time come spring — not in the kitchen, but outdoors in the fresh air and sunshine.

Pasta with Lettuce Pesto

Pesto is most commonly made with fresh pesto leaves. Its name comes from the Italian verb pestare, which means “to pound or crush.” But the fresh, pounded sauce can be made with almost any fresh green you happen to have on hand, including lettuce.

In this recipe, I used big handfuls of mixed spring greens (which includes baby lettuces) to make the sauce, with some fresh basil mixed in to round out the flavor. I didn’t have any pine nuts — a classic choice for pesto — so I used toasted almonds instead. For a less garlicky sauce, use fewer garlic cloves.

This sauce is great on pasta but also can be dolloped on pizza, spread onto sandwiches or used as a garnish for grilled meats and roasted vegetables.

INGREDIENTS

4 packed cups of lettuce (spring mix, Bibb or Romaine works well)

Handful (about 1/3 cup) fresh basil

3 cloves garlic, roughly chopped

1/2 cup toasted almonds or pine nuts

1/2 teaspoon salt

A good squeeze of fresh lemon juice

1/4 – 1/2 cup olive oil

1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese

16 ounces cooked pasta

DIRECTIONS

Place lettuce leaves, basil, garlic, nuts, salt and lemon juice in the bowl of a food processor.

Pulse until well chopped.

With the food processor running, drizzle in 1/4 cup of olive oil and pulse until combined. Add the Parmesan cheese, if using, and pulse to briefly combine. For a smoother pesto, add more olive oil.

Toss with cooked pasta, then serve immediately.

Serves 4.

— Gretchen McKay, Post-Gazette

Lettuce Smoothie

Kale smoothies are incredibly popular so why not experiment with lettuce? I pureed Romaine with some spinach, apple and a frozen banana to make these vibrant green drinks. It sounds crazy, I know, but it actually tastes incredibly fresh, and healthful.

INGREDIENTS

1 cup chopped Romaine lettuce

1 cup baby spinach

1/2 apple, chopped

1 frozen banana, broken into chunks

Juice of 1 lemon

1 cup water

1 tablespoon chia seeds, optional

DIRECTIONS

Add lettuce, baby spinach, apple, banana, lemon juice and water to a high-speed blender. For a thicker smoothie, also add chia seeds.

Blend on high until smooth, then pour into two glasses and serve.

Makes 2 smoothies.

— adapted from realfoodwholelife.com

Lettuce Risotto

You almost won’t notice the shredded Bibb lettuce in this creamy risotto, which was adapted from a recipe by Lidia Bastianich. It wilts into thin thread-like strands. But it’s a great way to avoid waste when you’ve tired of salad, or bought too many greens to use right away.

You can serve this risotto either as a main dish with a simple salad and crusty bread or as a side dish.

INGREDIENTS

7 cups or more hot chicken stock, preferably homemade

Kosher salt

1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil

2 shallots, finely chopped

2 cups Arborio rice

1 cup white wine

8 ounces outer lettuce leaves (Romaine, Bibb, etc.), shredded

2 tablespoons butter, cubed

Finely grated zest of 1/2 small lemon

1/2 cup grated Parmesan or Grana Padano

DIRECTIONS

Bring chicken stock to a simmer in a medium saucepan and season with salt.

Heat olive oil in a large, shallow, straight-sided pot over medium heat. Once the oil is hot, add shallots, sauté for 1 minute, then ladle in 1/2 cup hot stock to soften the vegetables.

Cook until the vegetables are tender and stock has evaporated, about 5 minutes. Raise the heat to medium-high.

Add rice all at once, and stir continuously until the grains are toasted but not colored, about 2 minutes. Add wine and cook until the liquid is almost absorbed.

Add shredded lettuce and cook until wilted, about 2-3 minutes.

Ladle in about 2 cups of the stock, stir and cook until almost absorbed, about 5 minutes. Ladle in 1 more cup of the stock, and again simmer until the liquid is almost absorbed.

Continue cooking and adding stock in this manner until the rice is cooked al dente but still with texture, about 15-20 minutes in all.

When the risotto is creamy, turn off the heat. Beat in the butter, stir in the lemon zest and cheese, season with salt if necessary and serve.

Serves 3 as a main dish, 6 as a side.

— adapted from lidiasitaly.com

Chicken Lettuce Wraps

Lettuce wraps are easy to make, and a fun spin on the humble taco. I used ground chicken but ground turkey also works beautifully. If you don’t love carrots or water chestnuts, experiment with other crunchy veggies such as bell peppers.

You’ll definitely want to use a butterhead lettuce like Boston or Bibb, as they have tender, sturdy leaves that will easily fold around the filling without tearing.

I added chili crisp for some extra spice, but you could also use sweet chili sauce or sriracha to add some gentle heat.

When serving as lettuce cups, submerge leaves in a large bowl of cold water in the refrigerator. (It will keep the lettuce cold and crisp.) Gently dry with a paper towel before serving.

INGREDIENTS

4 tablespoons teriyaki sauce or hoisin sauce

2 tablespoons soy sauce

2 tablespoons rice vinegar

1 teaspoon toasted sesame oil

1 tablespoon chili crisp

1 teaspoon cornstarch

2 teaspoons vegetable oil

1 pound ground chicken

3 cloves garlic, minced

1 tablespoon peeled and minced fresh ginger

3 green onions, finely diced and divided

1/2 cup grated or finely diced carrots

1 (8-ounce) can chopped water chestnuts, drained

2 small heads Bibb or butter lettuce

Chopped roasted peanuts or cashews, for garnish

Sriracha sauce, optional

DIRECTIONS

Place teriyaki sauce, soy sauce, rice vinegar, sesame oil and chili crisp in a small bowl. Whisk to combine, then stir in cornstarch and set aside.

Heat oil in a large skillet over medium heat until it shimmers. Add ground chicken, minced garlic and ginger and cook, breaking the meat into small pieces with a wooden spoon until it starts to brown.

Stir in half of the chopped green onions, carrots and water chestnuts, and continue cooking until chicken is no longer pink and fully cooked, another 3-4 minutes.

Add sauce and cook, stirring occasionally, until bubbling and the sauce is warmed through, 30-60 seconds.

Separate the lettuce leaves, rinse under cold water and pat dry with a paper towel. Pile them onto a large platter or divide among 4 plates.

Transfer the hot chicken mixture to a serving bowl or spoon directly into the lettuce leaves.

Serve with remaining scallions and chopped nuts as a garnish, and eat immediately.

Serves 4.

— Gretchen McKay, Post-Gazette