SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — This will be an actual All-Star matchup. On one side, there's a team with 86 combined All-Star selections, $2.7 billion in on-court earnings and where every single player on the team is either an NBA champion, an Olympic gold medalist, or both.
On the other, there's a bunch of young guys without much in the way of resumes yet.
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FILE - Team LeBron forward LeBron James (6) dunks during the first half of the NBA basketball All-Star game Sunday, Feb. 19, 2023, in Salt Lake City. (AP Photo/Kyle Terada/Pool Photo via AP, File)
FILE - The top three all-time leading NBA scorers, LeBron James, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Karl Malone pose during halftime of the NBA basketball All-Star game Sunday, Feb. 19, 2023, in Salt Lake City. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer, File)
Stephen Curry visits with students of East Oakland Pride Elementary School as part of the NBA basketball league's Day of Service, Friday, Feb. 14, 2025, Oakland, Calif. (AP Photo/Godofredo A. Vásquez)
Stephen Curry, of the Golden State Warriors, speaks to media during the NBA All-Star game media day, Saturday, Feb. 15, 2025, in Oakland, Calif. (AP Photo/Godofredo A. Vásquez)
Welcome to the reimagined NBA All-Star Game, a single-elimination mini-tournament: four teams of eight players, three games, first to 40 points wins and a David vs. Goliath element thrown in there for good measure. It happens Sunday night in San Francisco, the NBA's latest way of trying to make the midseason showcase event competitive again.
“It’s definitely different, definitely interesting,” New York's Jalen Brunson said. “We’ll see. I’m just as interested as you.”
There's no more Eastern Conference vs. Western Conference. There are four teams with new names: Shaq's OGs, Kenny's Young Stars, Chuck's Global Stars and Candace's Rising Stars, all a nod to TNT analysts and basketball greats Shaquille O'Neal, Kenny Smith, Charles Barkley and Candace Parker.
It'll be Smith's team against Barkley's team in the first semifinal. The second one is the one with all the intrigue: O'Neal's team of some of the biggest names in basketball history — LeBron James, Kevin Durant, Stephen Curry, James Harden, Damian Lillard, Kyrie Irving, Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum.
They're going up against this group of first- and second-year players that earned their way into the All-Star mix by winning Friday's Rising Stars competition: San Antonio's Stephon Castle, Utah's Keyonte George, Phoenix’s Ryan Dunn, Memphis teammates Zach Edey and Jaylen Wells, Golden State’s Trayce Jackson-Davis, the Los Angeles Lakers’ Dalton Knecht and Houston's Amen Thompson. Fine players, for sure, but they're not All-Stars — at least, officially.
And yet, they could win the All-Star Game.
“I think that’s probably why they put this type of format in, to kind of heighten that sense of pride and not wanting to be on the wrong end of that,” Lillard said. “I mean, we’ll see. I think one thing about a team full of young players is they’re going to come out there and they’re going to play with some energy. They’re going to play fast. I think that’ll probably heighten the competition.”
The Rising Stars team is, by far, the long shot to win this thing, according to BetMGM Sportsbook. It's fair to say that they won't have much expected of them. But that said, Mac McClung — who went up against that team in the Rising Stars competition title game Friday night — said he wouldn't count them out.
“They’re still NBA basketball players. They’re still really good basketball players," McClung said. “And I think everybody’s vibe is just joy right now. We'll see how competitive the game is. I’m excited to watch it myself.”
That's the whole reason for the change: Competition, or at least the hope of having some.
The All-Star Game last year set all sorts of records: a 211-186 final score, almost everything 3-pointers or dunks, and it didn't sit well with Commissioner Adam Silver and the rest of the NBA decision-makers. They don't want Game 7-type mayhem. They want a better product.
So, the tournament idea became reality.
“I like taking chances on something different, knowing that the game had kind of stalled out for a couple of years," Curry said. "I think it’ll work just because it’ll be something new for everybody.”
At least one player is vowing to play defense in this All-Star Game. San Antonio's Victor Wembanyama, a top defensive player of the year candidate who is in the All-Star Game for the first time, said he's bringing his best.
“That’s the goal,” Wembanyama said. “The goal is not to chill, for sure.”
To illustrate the size of the mismatch — on paper — in the second semifinal, consider this:
Shaq's OGs have the No. 1 (James), No. 8 (Durant), No. 13 (Harden), the No. 27 (Curry), No. 37 (Lillard), No. 81 (Irving), No. 220 (Tatum) and No. 337 (Brown) scorers in NBA history.
The Rising Stars' leading scorer: That would be George, tied for 1,813th on the all-time scoring list.
It's fairly simple: untimed games, first team to 40 points wins, no fouling out, regular rules pretty much apply. There is no consolation game.
Players on the winning team get $125,000 each. Players on the team that finishes second get $50,000 each. The other two teams get $25,000 per player.
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FILE - Team LeBron forward LeBron James (6) dunks during the first half of the NBA basketball All-Star game Sunday, Feb. 19, 2023, in Salt Lake City. (AP Photo/Kyle Terada/Pool Photo via AP, File)
FILE - The top three all-time leading NBA scorers, LeBron James, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Karl Malone pose during halftime of the NBA basketball All-Star game Sunday, Feb. 19, 2023, in Salt Lake City. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer, File)
Stephen Curry visits with students of East Oakland Pride Elementary School as part of the NBA basketball league's Day of Service, Friday, Feb. 14, 2025, Oakland, Calif. (AP Photo/Godofredo A. Vásquez)
Stephen Curry, of the Golden State Warriors, speaks to media during the NBA All-Star game media day, Saturday, Feb. 15, 2025, in Oakland, Calif. (AP Photo/Godofredo A. Vásquez)
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powellsaid Sunday the Department of Justice has served the central bank with subpoenas and threatened it with a criminal indictment over his testimony this summer about the Fed’s building renovations.
The move represents an unprecedented escalation in President Donald Trump’s battle with the Fed, an independent agency he's repeatedly attacked for not cutting its key interest rate as sharply as he prefers. The renewed fight will likely rattle financial markets Monday and could over time escalate borrowing costs for mortgages and other loans.
The subpoenas relate to Powell’s testimony before the Senate Banking Committee in June, the Fed chair said, regarding the Fed’s $2.5 billion renovation of two office buildings, a project Trump has criticized as excessive.
Here's the latest:
London’s murder rate fell in 2025 to its lowest level in decades, officials said Monday. Mayor Sadiq Khan said the figures disprove claims spread by President Trump and others on the political right that crime is out of control in Britain’s capital.
Police recorded 97 homicides in London in 2025, down from 109 in 2024 and the fewest since 2014. The Metropolitan Police force says the rate by population is the lowest since comparable records began in 1997, at 1.1 homicides for every 100,000 people.
That compares to 1.6 per 100,000 in Paris, 2.8 in New York and 3.2 in Berlin, the force said.
“There are some politicians and commentators who’ve been spamming social media with an endless stream of distortions and untruths, painting an image of a dystopian London,” Khan told The Associated Press. “And nothing could be further from the truth.”
▶ Read more about crime in London
The Democratic Party regained the partisanship edge when independents were asked whether they lean more toward the Democratic or Republican Party in a new Gallup poll.
Nearly half, 47%, of U.S. adults now identify as Democrats or lean toward the Democratic Party, while 42% are Republicans or lean Republican.
This is an indication of how Americans are feeling about their political affiliations, and it may not be reflected in voters’ actual registration.
Independents appear to be driven by their unhappiness with the party in power. That’s a dynamic that could be good for Democrats for now, but it doesn’t promise lasting loyalty. Attitudes toward the party haven’t gotten warmer, suggesting the Democrats’ gains are probably more related to independents’ sour views of President Trump.
That comes a day after President Trump threatened the Caribbean island in the wake of the U.S. attack on Venezuela.
Díaz-Canel posted a flurry of brief statements on X after Trump suggested Cuba “make a deal, BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE.” He did not say what kind of deal.
Díaz-Canel wrote that for “relations between the U.S. and Cuba to progress, they must be based on international law rather than hostility, threats, and economic coercion.”
The island’s communist government has said U.S. sanctions cost the country more than $7.5 billion between March 2024 and February 2025.
Díaz-Canel added: “We have always been willing to hold a serious and responsible dialogue with the various US governments, including the current one, on the basis of sovereign equality, mutual respect, principles of International Law, and mutual benefit without interference in internal affairs and with full respect for our independence.”
Cuba’s president stressed on X that “there are no talks with the U.S. government, except for technical contacts in the area of migration.”
About 8 in 10 U.S. adults said the Federal Reserve Board should be independent of political control, according to Marquette/SSRS polling from September, while roughly 2 in 10 said the president should have more influence over setting interest rates and monetary policy. There was bipartisan consensus that the Fed should remain independent. About 9 in 10 Democrats and about two-thirds of Republicans said the Fed should not be subjected to political control.
That poll found about 3 in 10 Americans said they had “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in The Federal Reserve Board. Nearly half — 45% — had some confidence, and roughly one-quarter had “very little” confidence or “none at all.”
Stocks are falling on Wall Street after Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said the Department of Justice had served the central bank with subpoenas and threatened it with a criminal indictment over his testimony about the Fed’s building renovations.
The S&P 500 fell 0.3% in early trading Monday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 384 points, or 0.8%, and the Nasdaq composite fell 0.2%.
Powell characterized the threat of criminal charges as pretexts to undermine the Fed’s independence in setting interest rates, its main tool for fighting inflation. The threat is the latest escalation in President Trump’s feud with the Fed.
▶ Read more about the financial markets
She says she had “a very good conversation” with Trump on Monday morning about topics including “security with respect to our sovereignties.”
Last week, Sheinbaum had said she was seeking a conversation with Trump or U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio after the U.S. president made comments in an interview that he was ready to confront drug cartels on the ground and repeated the accusation that cartels were running Mexico.
Trump’s offers of using U.S. forces against Mexican cartels took on a new weight after the Trump administration deposed Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. Sheinbaum was expected to share more about their conversation later Monday.
A leader of the Canadian government is visiting China this week for the first time in nearly a decade, a bid to rebuild his country’s fractured relations with the world’s second-largest economy — and reduce Canada’s dependence on the United States, its neighbor and until recently one of its most supportive and unswerving allies.
The push by Prime Minster Mark Carney, who arrives Wednesday, is part of a major rethink as ties sour with the United States — the world’s No. 1 economy and long the largest trading partner for Canada by far.
Carney aims to double Canada’s non-U.S. exports in the next decade in the face of President Trump’s tariffs and the American leader’s musing that Canada could become “the 51st state.”
▶ Read more about relations between Canada and China
The comment by a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson came in response to a question at a regular daily briefing. President Trump has said he would like to make a deal to acquire Greenland, a semiautonomous region of NATO ally Denmark, to prevent Russia or China from taking it over.
Tensions have grown between Washington, Denmark and Greenland this month as Trump and his administration push the issue and the White House considers a range of options, including military force, to acquire the vast Arctic island.
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen has warned that an American takeover of Greenland would mark the end of NATO.
▶ Read more about the U.S. and Greenland
Trump said Sunday that he is “inclined” to keep ExxonMobil out of Venezuela after its top executive was skeptical about oil investment efforts in the country after the toppling of former President Nicolás Maduro.
“I didn’t like Exxon’s response,” Trump said to reporters on Air Force One as he departed West Palm Beach, Florida. “They’re playing too cute.”
During a meeting Friday with oil executives, Trump tried to assuage the concerns of the companies and said they would be dealing directly with the U.S., rather than the Venezuelan government.
Some, however, weren’t convinced.
“If we look at the commercial constructs and frameworks in place today in Venezuela, today it’s uninvestable,” said Darren Woods, CEO of ExxonMobil, the largest U.S. oil company.
An ExxonMobil spokesperson did not immediately respond Sunday to a request for comment.
▶ Read more about Trump’s comments on ExxonMobil
Trump’s motorcade took a different route than usual to the airport as he was departing Florida on Sunday due to a “suspicious object,” according to the White House.
The object, which the White House did not describe, was discovered during security sweeps in advance of Trump’s arrival at Palm Beach International Airport.
“A further investigation was warranted and the presidential motorcade route was adjusted accordingly,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement Sunday.
The president, when asked about the package by reporters, said, “I know nothing about it.”
Anthony Guglielmi, the spokesman for U.S. Secret Service, said the secondary route was taken just as a precaution and that “that is standard protocol.”
▶ Read more about the “suspicious object”
Trump said Iran wants to negotiate with Washington after his threat to strike the Islamic Republic over its bloody crackdown on protesters, a move coming as activists said Monday the death toll in the nationwide demonstrations rose to at least 544.
Iran had no direct reaction to Trump’s comments, which came after the foreign minister of Oman — long an interlocutor between Washington and Tehran — traveled to Iran this weekend. It also remains unclear just what Iran could promise, particularly as Trump has set strict demands over its nuclear program and its ballistic missile arsenal, which Tehran insists is crucial for its national defense.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, speaking to foreign diplomats in Tehran, insisted “the situation has come under total control” in fiery remarks that blamed Israel and the U.S. for the violence, without offering evidence.
▶ Read more about the possible negotiations and follow live updates
Fed Chair Powell said Sunday the DOJ has served the central bank with subpoenas and threatened it with a criminal indictment over his testimony this summer about the Fed’s building renovations.
The move represents an unprecedented escalation in Trump’s battle with the Fed, an independent agency he has repeatedly attacked for not cutting its key interest rate as sharply as he prefers. The renewed fight will likely rattle financial markets Monday and could over time escalate borrowing costs for mortgages and other loans.
The subpoenas relate to Powell’s testimony before the Senate Banking Committee in June, the Fed chair said, regarding the Fed’s $2.5 billion renovation of two office buildings, a project that Trump has criticized as excessive.
Powell on Sunday cast off what has up to this point been a restrained approach to Trump’s criticisms and personal insults, which he has mostly ignored. Instead, Powell issued a video statement in which he bluntly characterized the threat of criminal charges as simple “pretexts” to undermine the Fed’s independence when it comes to setting interest rates.
▶ Read more about the subpoenas
President Donald Trump speaks to reporters while in flight on Air Force One to Joint Base Andrews, Md., Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
President Donald Trump waves after arriving on Air Force One from Florida, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026, at Joint Base Andrews, Md. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
