SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Apr 8, 2026--
Ahead of the 2026 WNBA season and in celebration of their partnership with the New York Liberty, Ant International hosted a U.S. event where Leiming Chen, Senior Vice President and Chief Sustainability Officer of Ant International, laid out the vision for the intersection of technology and sports to expand the horizon of community action.
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Ant International’s Alipay+ entered into a multi-year partnership with the New York Liberty in 2025, becoming the team’s official sponsor and innovation partner for sustainability. The collaboration focuses on three transformative pillars in the community of New York City – community empowerment, environmental sustainability, and youth development.
Aligned with New York Liberty’s impact goals to advocating for underserved communities, Alipay+ shares a similar aspiration to boost local economies through connectivity and inclusivity. As of today, Alipay+, as a unified wallets gateway, has partnered with over 40 mobile payment and banking partners globally, collectively enabled more inclusive and affordable digital payment methods for more than 150 million merchants worldwide, including many of them in the U.S., to reach more than 1.8 billion user accounts in over 70 destination markets. As digital e-wallet and app payments gain popularity in Asian countries like Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and the Philippines, these digital native users will become key driver for cross-border tourism and payment transactions.
Empowering Communities
In December 2025, Alipay+ joined the Liberty for their Shoe Sorting Day as part of the team’s Season of Giving. Volunteers from Alipay+ and the New York Liberty donated sneakers with handwritten notes for students across New York City.
Winning for New York, Winning for Earth
Alipay+ is championing urban reforestation efforts with the Liberty’s “Threes for Trees” initiative. For every three-pointer the team makes at home during the season, the Liberty will plant a tree in partnership with Alipay+, giving fans and players a way to tangibly contribute to conservation efforts.
Bridging the Divide, Supporting Young Innovators
Alipay+ and the New York Liberty share a commitment to enabling the next generation to thrive with ever-expanding capacities and skills. The program, Math Hoops, leverages the game of basketball and the NBA and WNBA brands to build fundamental math skills through physical and digital basketball-themed board games, curriculum, and community program experiences. This STEM program helps develop students’ algebra readiness prior to entering high school, while strengthening their decision-making skills. By combining the universal language of sports and building digital skills, the partners aim to bridge the digital divide for underprivileged communities and inspire the next generation of leaders.
Ant International, with the mission “to make it easy to do business anywhere, bringing small and beautiful changes to the world”, began its partnership with New York Liberty last year, bringing together New York Liberty’s incredible talent, passion, and teamwork with Ant International’s commitment to sustainability and digital innovation.
“Sustainability is a core value to the New York Liberty, and working with partners like Alipay+ inspires us to infuse sustainability and community engagement into everything we do,” said Shana Stephenson, Chief Brand Officer of the New York Liberty. “We are extremely excited about our partnership for this new season of initiatives, such as our Threes for Trees program.”
“The New York Liberty’s existing environmental initiatives made us natural partners for social impact collaboration,” said Leiming Chen, Senior Vice President and Chief Sustainability Officer at Ant International. “This partnership enables us to leverage sports as a universal language that transcends culture, religion, and geography to engage the public directly in meaningful social impact programs.”
Chen and Stephenson spoke at Ant International’s U.S. Merchant Forum in San Francisco. The event brought together merchants and partners of Ant International in the Americas to explore new growth avenues in APAC, especially through developing innovative solutions that enhance efficiency and security across mainstream and alternative payment methods.
(L-R) Jenner Balagot, Director of Global Affairs and Strategic Development for the Americas of Ant International; Leiming Chen, Senior Vice President and Chief Sustainability Officer of Ant International; Fan Li, Head of Responsible Supply Chain, Greater China of Nike; Shana Stephenson, Chief Brand Officer of the New York Liberty
LOURDES, France (AP) — Pope Leo XIV on Sunday blasted the legalization of medically assisted death as immoral “false compassion,” as he doubled down on Catholic teaching about life during a visit Sunday to Lourdes, the French Catholic shrine associated with miraculous cures of the sick.
On his third day in France, Leo again waded into the end-of-life debate that has erupted in countries around the world. It roiled French politics for years before resulting recently in legislation allowing adults with incurable illnesses to receive lethal medication.
Leo's visit to the once staunchly Catholic and officially secular France has been marked by huge crowds — 800,000 at Leo's Mass on Paris' iconic Place de la Concorde — and his messaging against abortion and assisted dying.
On Sunday, the American pope celebrated Mass before some 150,000 people — many in wheelchairs — on the prairie next to Lourdes' main basilica. He then visited a care center for sick people on the sanctuary's grounds. He sought to encourage especially those who live in “terrible pain” that they have inherent dignity that no law or algorithm can “eliminate.”
“On the contrary, it is precisely in the name of this inalienable dignity of the human person that we must reject the temptation to cause death under the guise of false compassion,” he said. “What is legal is not necessarily moral,” Leo said to applause from the crowd.
Lourdes became a major pilgrimage destination after the Catholic Church officially recognized visions of the Virgin Mary reported here by a young girl in 1858. The site near the Spanish border draws millions of pilgrims each year, especially sick and disabled believers hoping for a cure from the famed spring water in the Lourdes grotto where the visions purportedly occurred.
Leo arrived in Lourdes from Paris on Saturday night and immediately prayed inside the Grotto of Apparitions and drank from the spring.
“He has given a message of hope for France, a message of hope and greatness for France, and renewal for France," said Paris pilgrim Pierre Caziljc.
In France, Leo has repeatedly called for a renewed respect for life in keeping with Catholic teaching that all human life must be protected and defended from conception until natural death. The teaching translates into firm opposition to abortion, euthanasia and medically assisted dying.
In Lourdes, where the church has recognized 72 “miraculous” cures as authentic, the question of respecting even the most frail, sick and vulnerable is particularly acute.
“Your crutches, your wheelchairs and your hidden tears are not obstacles; instead, they are the very place where you are fully respected and welcomed,” Leo said in his homily. “Lourdes is blessed as a place for professing the beauty and sanctity of life, for life is welcomed here as a precious gift from God.”
More recently, Lourdes has also become a place of healing for survivors of clergy sexual abuse. Leo was to meet with seven survivors later Sunday, including one who was abused as an adult, in recognition of the new frontier of the abuse crisis facing the church.
The French church has endured a brutal reckoning with its legacy of abuse. An independent report in 2021 estimated 330,000 children had been abused over 70 years by some 3,000 priests and church workers.
Despite criticism of the report’s methodology and conclusions, French bishops put in place an independent system of compensation for victims that to date has recommended the church pay out more than 20 million euros ($22.7 million).
During a meeting with French bishops on Sunday morning, Leo praised their response to victims and urged them to continue. But he also acknowledged that the cratering in priestly vocations in the French church is related to the scandal, given the priesthood is now sometimes viewed with suspicion.
“For priestly vocations to flourish, the priest must be welcomed, accepted, and loved,” Leo said.
On the day Leo arrived in Paris, a group of victims wrote an open letter asking him to acknowledge the church’s responsibility in the scandal, highlighting what critics see as the conflict of interest of bishops being asked to be both spiritual fathers to their priests and judges when they abuse.
“The Church must relinquish its position as both judge and party to the proceedings,” the victims wrote in the letter published by French newspaper Liberation. The victims also complained that only seven of them would meet with Leo, chosen by the church.
Monsignor Pierre-Antoine Bozo, spokesperson for the bishops’ conference, said Leo intentionally wanted to keep the group small to facilitate an intimate encounter.
“When it comes to listening to them, you can’t have 50 people in front of you,” he said. “So I think that’s really what the pope chose: to listen so that we can act and respond more effectively."
In Lourdes, Leo was also reminded of a prickly abuse case inherited from Pope Francis.
The façade of one of the Lourdes basilicas was designed by the Rev. Marko Rupnik, one of the Catholic Church’s most famous mosaic artists.
Rupnik is currently on trial in a Vatican court, accused by more than two dozen women of having psychologically, spiritually and sexually abused them starting in the 1990s, including during the creation of his artworks.
His case was covered up for three decades by his Jesuit superiors, and even Francis was suspected of having protected his fellow Jesuit. In response to a media outcry, Francis ordered a canonical trial in 2024, which is ongoing.
The Rupnik case posed the question of what to do with his mosaics, which adorn basilicas around the world.
Lourdes Bishop Jean-Marc Micas in 2025 decided cover the façade of the Notre Dame du Rosaire Basilica, reasoning that abuse victims who come to Lourdes for healing shouldn’t be forced to see them.
On Sunday, Leo looped in front of the basilica in his popemobile, passing by the mosaic panels now covered by mustard-colored curtains affixed with plastic ties.
In a letter to Leo ahead of his trip, five women who say they were abused by Rupnik praised Micas’ decision to cover the mosaics but criticized the Vatican’s treatment of their case and the three decades it has taken for them to be heard.
“This prolonged and loud silence has been experienced by us, the victims, as a further, continuous violence,” they wrote.
Associated Press writer Samuel Petrequin in Paris contributed to this report.
Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.
A priest arrives for a Mass celebrated by Pope Leo XIV at the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes, Sunday, Sept. 27, 2026. (AP Photo/Laurent Cipriani)
Priests sit before a Mass celebrated by Pope Leo XIV at the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes, France Sunday, Sept. 27, 2026. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)
Pope Leo XIV celebrates Mass at the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes, France, Sunday, Sept. 27, 2026. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)
Pope Leo XIV presides over Mass at the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes, Sunday, Sept. 27, 2026, in Lourdes, France. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)
Pope Leo XIV celebrates Mass at the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes, France, Sunday, Sept. 27, 2026. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)
Pope Leo XIV arrives on the popemobile to celebrate Mass at the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes, Sunday, Sept. 27, 2026, in Lourdes, France. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)
Pilgrims arrive for a Mass celebrated by Pope Leo XIV at the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes, France Sunday, Sept. 27, 2026. (AP Photo/Laurent Cipriani)
Pope Leo XIV arrives on the popemobile to celebrate Mass at the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes, Sunday, Sept. 27, 2026, in Lourdes, France. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)
Pilgrims and faithful wait for Pope Leo XIV to celebrate Mass at the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes, Sunday, Sept. 27, 2026, in Lourdes, France. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)
A priest watches his phone before a Mass celebrated by Pope Leo XIV at the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes, France Sunday, Sept. 27, 2026. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)
Priests sit before a Mass celebrated by Pope Leo XIV at the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes, France Sunday, Sept. 27, 2026. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)
In this handout photo provided by Vatican Media Pope Leo XIV prays at the Grotto of the Apparitions of Massabielle, in Lourdes, France, Saturday, Sept. 26, 2026. (Vatican Media via AP)
The Notre-Dame-du-Rosaire Basilica is seen during the prayer of Pope Leo XIV in Lourdes, France, Saturday, Sept. 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)
In this handout photo provided by Vatican Media Pope Leo XIV lights candels before praying at the Grotto of the Apparitions of Massabielle, in Lourdes, France, Saturday, Sept. 26, 2026. (Vatican Media via AP)
In this handout photo provided by Vatican Media Pope Leo XIV leads a prayer at the Grotto of the Apparitions of Massabielle, in Lourdes, France, Saturday, Sept. 26, 2026. (Vatican Media via AP)
In this handout photo provided by Vatican Media Pope Leo XIV prays at the Grotto of the Apparitions of Massabielle, in Lourdes, France, Saturday, Sept. 26, 2026. (Vatican Media via AP)
