On Sunday afternoon, 5-time NBA Champion and 17-time All-Star Kobe Bryant, who broke into the NBA at the tender age of 18, announced that he will retire at the conclusion of this season! Kobe is an international icon known worldwide! He actually grew up in Italy, as his dad (Joe Bryant) played professionally overseas from 1984 to 1992! He will retire being the only player in NBA history to play 20 years for the same franchise, the LA Lakers, and third all-time in scoring!

Don’t assume to the rich goes all the spoils. France has ghetto’s and hoods just like NY, LA, and all over North America… even Missouri. Most Americans live under the assumption that what your peers tell you is what it is. People commonly don’t research gossip instead take it for a penny. The good and honest people sacrifice their voice to save face (not facebook).

There is no silver lining to this story, and Spain is not allowing wealth to uphold impunity. Lionel Messi, one of the top paid athletes in the world, FC Barcelona forward, will stand trial with his father, Jorge, for intentionally not paying taxes from endorsement earnings (defrauding Spain) from 2007-2009 amounting to about $5 million dollars. The judge in the case rejected requests from prosecutors to drop the charges on the star soccer/futbal player and his father, and they will have to stand trial with no date set yet. Lawyers from the tax authority are lobbying for a 22-month sentence for both Lionel and his father. Lionel and his father are denying any knowledge of wrongdoing and intentional fraud.

Lithuania served Serbia a crushing defeat, 67-64, on Friday to advance to the EuroBasket (FIBA) Finals to take on Spain! Lithuania (and Spain) have automatically clinched a spot at the 2016 Olympic games in Rio (Jogos Olímpicos de Verão de 2016) by advancing to the Finals! Serbia must now claw and nail through the Olympic qualifiers next July flirting with Greece, Italy, France, and the Czech Republic!

At the #USOpenFinal, the crowd was a little (a lot) silly cheering when Novak Djokovic missed shots and sometimes yelling stupid phrases when he served. Fortunately, Djokovic tuned out the BS, and thrived beating Roger Federer 6-4, 5-7, 6-4, 6-4! Djokovic has won three Majors this year (Australian Open, Wimbledon, US Open), and now has 10 Majors in his career!

It was absolutely a tale of David & Goliath with Vinci at a 300-to-1 odds to win, and Serena perhaps get caught up in the hype and distractions (Drake kept leering in the crowd)! She seemed to be a bit over-animated on her winners and at points even serving up unusual facial expressions! The biggest story in Women’s Tennis and the US Open was building up to be Serena Williams going onto win the Calendar Slam (winning all four majors in the same calendar year), BUT in the semi-final today the story changed quickly! 43 ranked Roberta Vinci played her heart out, and ignored all the cheers and jeers from the crowd for the heavily favored Williams, and came back to win 2-6, 6-4, 6-4!!!

Srbija #1 ranked Novak Djokovic beat Sweisland Roger Federer 7-6, 6-7, 6-4, 6-3 to take the 44$ Million Purse and Wimbledon (England) back-to-back! Srbija #1 Novak Đoković pobedio rangirani Sveisland Rodžer Federer 7-6, 6-7, 6-4, 6-3 uzeti 44 miliona dolara torbicu i Vimbldon (Engleska) nazad-to-nazad!

During the pre-game commentary, former 18-time slam winner, Chrissy Everett implicitly uttered “She plays her best when she’s mad,” well I guess Serena was “mad” because she won in two sets 6-4, 6-4 over up-and-coming Spains’ Garbiñe Muguruza to win the Wimbledon Finals and complete the ‘Serena Slam’ (winning four Majors in a row)!

U.S. Women’s Soccer is back on ‘Top of The World’ after capturing the WORLD CUP GOLD, which had been eluding them since 1999! Carli Lloyd helped U.S.A. jump out to a quick 4-0 start in the first 16 minutes of play, scoring three goals including a hat-trick goal! They then held onto a 5-2 win over the defending champions, Japan! Carli Lloyd was of course named the player of the tournament!

An absolute disgrace to his Chechen roots… Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the Boston Marathon bomber who desecrated people’s live all over America on April 15, 2013 sending off a bomb during the race, was found guilty on all 30 charges in court on Wednesday (yesterday) including: using weapons of mass destruction, guilty of bombing a place of public use, guilty of conspiracy and aiding and abetting. He will be sentenced (to either life in jail or the death penalty) on April 15, 2015, and the Boston Marathon will once again begin on April 20, 2015.