Test BSP-1923 - Featured article - Left alignment
Carlos Alcaraz of Spain applauds as Jack Draper of Britain leaves after retiring from their fourth round match at the Australian Open tennis championship in Melbourne, Australia, Sunday, Jan. 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Mark Baker)
BEIJING (AP) — China’s vice president held meetings with the U.S. vice president-elect and U.S. business leaders, including Elon Musk, in Washington on the eve of Donald Trump’s inauguration, as the two major powers tackle ongoing tensions over trade and technology.
Horizontal image
From left to right, Thailand’s Foreign Minister Maris Sangiampongsa, Vietnam’s Foreign Minister Bui Thanh Son and Malaysia’s Foreign Minister Mohamad Hasan clap after a group photo session during the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Foreign Ministers’ Retreat in Langkawi Island, Malaysia Sunday, Jan. 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Azneal Ishak, Pool)
From left to right, Thailand’s Foreign Minister Maris Sangiampongsa, Vietnam’s Foreign Minister Bui Thanh Son and Malaysia’s Foreign Minister Mohamad Hasan clap after a group photo session during the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Foreign Ministers’ Retreat in Langkawi Island, Malaysia Sunday, Jan. 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Azneal Ishak, Pool)
Han Zheng, who serves as an envoy for Chinese President Xi Jinping at the inauguration, “discussed a range of topics including fentanyl, balancing trade and regional stability” with J.D. Vance, according to the Trump transition team.
Han stressed the “extensive common interests and enormous space of cooperation” the United States and China share in economic and trade relations despite “some disagreements and frictions,” according to a readout of his meeting with Vance issued by the Chinese Foreign Ministry on Monday.
Vertical image
Trump has threatened to impose tariffs and other measures against China in his second term, while also hinting and ways in which the two rival powers could cooperate on issues such as regional conflicts and curbing the export of substances used in the production of fentanyl.
In an unorthodox move, Trump last month invited Xi to his inauguration. No head of state has previously made an official visit to the U.S. for the inauguration, according to State Department historical records.
While Xi will not personally attend the event, he and Trump held a phone call on Friday during which they discussed trade, fentanyl and TikTok. The Chinese social media app restored service to users in the U.S. on Sunday, just hours after it went dark in response to a federal ban, which Trump said he would pause by executive order on Monday.
Square image
This combination photo shows, top row from left, album art for “Bon Jovi 2020,” single art for Avril Lavinge’s “We Are War,” single art for Mike Love’s “This Too Shall Pass,” single art for Luke Combs’ “Six Feet Apart,” album art for One Republic’s “Human,” second row from left, single art for The Rolling Stones’ “Living in a Ghost Town,” single art for St. Pedro’s “Phone Sex,” single art for Tye Tribbett’s “We Gon’ Be Alright,” single art for Yungblud’s “Weird!” single art for Twenty One Pilots’ “Level of Concern,” third row from left, single art for Rosanne Cash and John Paul White’s “We’re All in this Together Now,” single art for Rodney “Darkchild” Jerkins Presents’ “The Good News ‘Come Together’,” single art for Adam Hambrick’s “Between Me and the End of the World,” EP art for Riley Green’s “Valley Road,” single art for Randy Newman’s “Stay Away,” fourth row from left, single art for Queen + Adam Lambert’s “You are the Champions,” single art for Pitbull’s “I Believe that We Will Win (World Anthem),” single art for Nora Jones’ “Tryin’ to Keep it Together,” single art for Michael Buble, Barenaked Ladies and Sofia Reyes’ “Gotta Be Patient,” single art for Lil TJay’s “Ice Cold,” bottom row from left, single art for Jewel’s “Grateful,” single art for Hillsong Young & Free’s “Best Friends,” album art for HAIM’s “Women in Music Pt III,” single art for Erika Ender’s “Back to Basics,” and single art for Cardi B and iMarkkeyz’s “Coronavirus.” (Island Records, BMG, BMG, River House Artists/Columbia Nashville, Interscope, Interscope, Interscope, Motown Gospel, Locomotion/Interscope, Fueled by Ramen, Single Lock Records, RCA Inspiration, UMG Nashville, Big Machine, Nonesuch, Hollywood Records, Saban Music Group, Blue Note, Warner Records, Columbia, Worlds Matter, Capitol, Columbia, BMG, Atlantic via AP)
This combination photo shows, top row from left, album art for “Bon Jovi 2020,” single art for Avril Lavinge’s “We Are War,” single art for Mike Love’s “This Too Shall Pass,” single art for Luke Combs’ “Six Feet Apart,” album art for One Republic’s “Human,” second row from left, single art for The Rolling Stones’ “Living in a Ghost Town,” single art for St. Pedro’s “Phone Sex,” single art for Tye Tribbett’s “We Gon’ Be Alright,” single art for Yungblud’s “Weird!” single art for Twenty One Pilots’ “Level of Concern,” third row from left, single art for Rosanne Cash and John Paul White’s “We’re All in this Together Now,” single art for Rodney “Darkchild” Jerkins Presents’ “The Good News ‘Come Together’,” single art for Adam Hambrick’s “Between Me and the End of the World,” EP art for Riley Green’s “Valley Road,” single art for Randy Newman’s “Stay Away,” fourth row from left, single art for Queen + Adam Lambert’s “You are the Champions,” single art for Pitbull’s “I Believe that We Will Win (World Anthem),” single art for Nora Jones’ “Tryin’ to Keep it Together,” single art for Michael Buble, Barenaked Ladies and Sofia Reyes’ “Gotta Be Patient,” single art for Lil TJay’s “Ice Cold,” bottom row from left, single art for Jewel’s “Grateful,” single art for Hillsong Young & Free’s “Best Friends,” album art for HAIM’s “Women in Music Pt III,” single art for Erika Ender’s “Back to Basics,” and single art for Cardi B and iMarkkeyz’s “Coronavirus.” (Island Records, BMG, BMG, River House Artists/Columbia Nashville, Interscope, Interscope, Interscope, Motown Gospel, Locomotion/Interscope, Fueled by Ramen, Single Lock Records, RCA Inspiration, UMG Nashville, Big Machine, Nonesuch, Hollywood Records, Saban Music Group, Blue Note, Warner Records, Columbia, Worlds Matter, Capitol, Columbia, BMG, Atlantic via AP)
Han also met with Musk and other top U.S. business executives, including representatives of the U.S.-China Business Council and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Washington, D.C., according to the Chinese Foreign Ministry.
The Chinese vice president reiterated promises for an improved business environment for foreign firms in China and expressed hopes that U.S. companies will continue expanding investment in the country.
Musk, whose company Tesla operates a factory in Shanghai, posted on his platform X after the meeting that he has long opposed the TikTok ban “because it goes against freedom of speech.”
“That said, the current situation where TikTok is allowed to operate in America, but X is not allowed to operate in China is unbalanced,” he wrote. “Something needs to change.”
2 up images - Horizontal
X is banned in China alongside other major U.S. social media and news apps and websites, including YouTube, Google, Facebook and many major U.S. media.
Lea Miller-Tooley hopped off a call to welcome the Baylor women’s basketball team to the Atlantis resort in the Bahamas, where 80-degree temperatures made it easy for the Bears to settle in on Paradise Island a week before Thanksgiving.
About 5,000 miles west of the Caribbean nation, similar climes awaited Maui Invitational men’s teams in Hawaii. They’ve often been greeted with a lei, the traditional Hawaiian welcome of friendship.
2 up images (Vertical)
College basketball teams and fans look forward to this time of the year. The holiday week tournaments feature buzzworthy matchups and all-day TV coverage, sure, but there is a familiarity about them as they help ward off the November chill. For four decades, these sandy-beach getaways filled with basketball have become a beloved mainstay of the sport itself.
“When you see (ESPN’s) ‘Feast Week’ of college basketball on TV, when you see the Battle 4 Atlantis on TV, you know college basketball is back,” said Miller-Tooley, the founder and organizer of the Battle 4 Atlantis men’s and women’s tournaments. “Because it’s a saturated time of the year with the NFL, college football and the NBA. But when you see these gorgeous events in these beautiful places, you realize, ‘Wow, hoops are back, let’s get excited.’”
The Great Alaska Shootout was the trend-setting multiple-team event (MTE) nearly five decades ago. The brainchild of late Alaska-Anchorage coach Bob Rachal sought to raise his program’s profile by bringing in national-power programs, which could take advantage of NCAA rules allowing them to exceed the maximum allotment of regular-season games if they played the three-game tournament outside the contiguous 48 states.
2 up images - Square
The first edition, named the Sea Wolf Classic, saw N.C. State beat Louisville 72-66 for the title on Nov. 26, 1978.
The Maui Invitational followed in November 1984, borne from the buzz of NAIA program Chaminade’s shocking upset of top-ranked Virginia and 7-foot-4 star Ralph Sampson in Hawaii two years earlier.
Events kept coming, with warm-weather locales getting in on the action. The Paradise Jam in the U.S. Virgin Islands. The Cancun Challenge in Mexico. The Cayman Islands Classic. The Jamaica Classic. The Myrtle Beach Invitational joining the Charleston Classic in South Carolina. Numerous tournaments in Florida.
Some events have faded away like the Puerto Rico Tipoff and the Great Alaska Shootout, the latter in 2017 amid event competition and schools opting for warm-weather locales.
Miller-Tooley’s push to build an MTE for Atlantis began as a December 2010 doubleheader with Georgia Tech beating Richmond and Virginia Tech beating Mississippi State in a prove-it moment for a tournament’s viability. It also required changing NCAA legislation to permit MTEs in the Bahamas. Approval came in March 2011; the first eight-team Atlantis men’s tournament followed in November.
That tournament quickly earned marquee status with big-name fields, with Atlantis champions Villanova (2017) and Virginia (2018) later winning that season’s NCAA title. Games run in a ballroom-turned-arena at the resort, where players also check out massive swimming pools, water slides and inner-tube rapids surrounded by palm trees and the Atlantic Ocean.
“It’s just the value of getting your passport stamped, that will never get old,” Miller-Tooley said. “Watching some of these kids, this may be their first and last time — and staff and families — that they ever travel outside the United States. … You can see through these kids’ eyes that it’s really an unbelievable experience.”
ACC Network analyst Luke Hancock knows that firsthand. His Louisville team finished second at Atlantis in 2012 and won that year’s later-vacated NCAA title, with Hancock as the Final Four’s most outstanding player.
“I remember (then-coach Rick Pitino) saying something to the effect of: ‘Some of you guys might never get this opportunity again. We’re staying in this unbelievable place, you’re doing it with people you love,’” Hancock said.
“It was a business trip for us there at Thanksgiving, but he definitely had a tone of ‘We’ve got to enjoy this as well.’”