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
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran, the United States and Israel reached a tentative, two-week ceasefire Wednesday in the war that tore across the Middle East and disrupted the global energy market, with U.S. President Donald Trump pulling back from his threats to destroy Iranian “civilization.”
But questions emerged over what appeared to be dueling proposals to halt the fighting and reopen the vital Strait of Hormuz, with Iran insisting it would control and charge ships passing through the strait and continue to enrich uranium.
Trump then suggested American warships would be “hangin’ around” the narrow waterway through which 20% of all oil and natural gas passes in peacetime. That could be a potential flashpoint, as could Iran’s atomic program, which Trump has insisted must be entirely abandoned by Tehran over his fears of the Islamic Republic potentially being able to acquire a nuclear bomb.
Trump initially said had Iran proposed a “workable” 10-point plan that could help end the war he launched with Israel on Feb. 28. But he later called the plan fraudulent without elaborating. Trump has said ending Iran’s nuclear program entirely was a key point of the war.
Israel backed the U.S. ceasefire with Iran, but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday it won't stop his country's fight against Hezbollah in Lebanon, which continued through the morning. That contradicted comments from Pakistan, a key mediator, which said the ceasefire included the fighting in Lebanon.
Pakistan said that talks over cementing a peace plan would begin in Islamabad as soon as Friday. Pakistan also said the ceasefire was to begin immediately, while Iran launched attacks on Gulf Arab states and Israel soon after.
Oil prices fell and stocks rose as Asian markets opened Wednesday after the eleventh-hour agreement to reopen the strait.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called on all parties “to abide by the terms of the ceasefire in order to pave the way towards a lasting and comprehensive peace in the region,” his spokesman said.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said passage through the strait would be allowed under Iranian military management. It wasn’t clear whether that meant Iran would completely loosen its chokehold on the waterway.
The plan allows for both Iran and Oman to charge fees on ships transiting through the strait, according to a regional official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss negotiations they were directly involved in. The official said Iran would use the money it raised for reconstruction.
But that would upend decades of reliance on the strait as an international waterway free for transit and will likely not be acceptable to the Gulf Arab states, which also need to rebuild after repeated Iranian attacks targeting their oilfields.
“Big money will be made. Iran can start the reconstruction process,” Trump said on social media.
It's not clear what will happen when the two weeks of the ceasefire run out.
There was little public sign that Iran and the United States had resolved disagreements over the fate of Iran's nuclear program, its ballistic missiles or its regional proxies — among the issues that the United States and Israel cited as justifications for launching the war.
In addition to control of the strait, Iran’s demands for ending the war include withdrawal of U.S. combat forces from the region, the lifting of sanctions and the release of its frozen assets. All those likely are nonstarters for Trump and potentially other Western nations.
Since the war began, Trump has repeatedly backed off deadlines just before they expire. In doing so again Tuesday, Trump said in a social media post he had come to the decision “based on conversations” with Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Gen. Asim Munir, Pakistan’s powerful army chief.
There are concerns in Israel about the agreement, according to a person familiar with the situation who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not allowed to speak to the media. The person said Israel would like to achieve more.
In the streets of Tehran, pro-government demonstrators screamed: “Death to America, death to Israel, death to compromisers!” after the ceasefire announcement and burned American and Israeli flags. It shows the ongoing anger from hard-liners, who had been preparing for what many assumed would be an apocalyptical battle with the United States.
“A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again,” if a deal isn’t reached, Trump said in an online post Tuesday morning. The expansive threat did not seem to account for potential harm to civilians, prompting some officials and scholars to say such strikes would violate international law.
Tehran’s representative at the U.N., Amir-Saeid Iravani, said the threats “constitute incitement to war crimes and potentially genocide” and that Iran would immediately retaliate to such actions.
The U.S. and Israel have battered Iran with attacks targeting its military capabilities, leadership and nuclear program. Iran has responded with strikes on Israel and Gulf Arab neighbors, causing regional chaos and outsized economic and political shock.
While Iran cannot match the sophistication of U.S. and Israeli weaponry or their dominance in the air, its chokehold on the strait began has roiled the world economy and raised the pressure on Trump to find a solution.
Missile alerts were issued in the United Arab Emirates, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Kuwait after the ceasefire announcement. A gas processing facility in Abu Dhabi was ablaze after incoming Iranian fire, officials said.
Earlier Tuesday the Israeli military said it attacked an Iranian petrochemical site in Shiraz, the second day in a row it hit such a facility. The military later said it struck bridges used by Iranian forces to transport weapons and military equipment.
More than 1,900 people had been killed in Iran as of late March, but the government has not updated the war's toll for days.
In Lebanon, where Israel is fighting Iran-backed Hezbollah militants, more than 1,500 people have been killed. and 1 million people have been displaced. Eleven Israeli soldiers have died.
In Gulf Arab states and the occupied West Bank, more than two dozen people have died, while 23 have been reported dead in Israel, and 13 U.S. service members have been killed.
Gambrell reported from Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Magdy reported from Cairo and Metz reported from Ramallah, West Bank. Associated Press writers Edie Lederer at the United Nations, Sam Mednick in Tel Aviv, Israel, and Aamer Madhani in Washington contributed to this report.
People check the damage of a coffeeshop at the site of an Israeli strike in the southern port city of Sidon, Lebanon, Wednesday, April, 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)
Men carry the coffins with the bodies of Pierre Mouawad, an official with the anti-Hezbollah Lebanese Forces party, and his wife during their funeral in Yahshush, Lebanon, Tuesday, April 7, 2026. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)
The White House is seen in Washington, Tuesday, April 7, 2026, at 8:00 p.m. EDT. (AP Photo/Rod Lamkey, Jr.)
An Iranian cluster munition missile explodes in the sky over northern Israel, Wednesday, April 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)
Activists protest near the White House in Washington, Tuesday evening, April 7, 2026. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)
Pro-government demonstrators chant slogans as they hold Iranian flags and a poster of the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei in a gathering after announcement of a two-week ceasefire in the war with the United States and Israel, at the Enqelab-e-Eslami, or Islamic Revolution, Square, in Tehran, Iran, Wednesday, April 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
