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SPORTSBRIEFING

Trump gets a soccer ball

HELSINKI (AP) — Riding high after hosting a successful World Cup, Russian President Vladimir Putin brought a special gift to his summit with U.S. President Donald Trump: a soccer ball.

After a journalist asked a question at their joint press conference Monday in Helsinki using soccer metaphors, Putin pulled out a red-and-white ball and tossed it at Trump, at the neighboring podium.

Trump said he’d give it to his 12-year-old son Barron, a soccer fan. Then the U.S. president tossed the ball to his wife Melania, sitting in the front row.

Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, a Putin critic, tweeted: “if it were me, I’d check the soccer ball for listening devices and never allow it in the White House.”

Russia’s organization of the monthlong World Cup, which ended Sunday, won wide praise.

Final Four sites named

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — The Final Four is headed back to Houston, Phoenix, San Antonio and Indianapolis.

The NCAA announced the sites for 2023-2026 on Monday, with all four cities recently hosting the finale of the NCAA Tournament.

Houston, site of Villanova’s last-second win over North Carolina in 2016, will host the Final Four in 2023. Phoenix will get the Final Four for the second time in 2024 after hosting in 2017.

San Antonio, site of this year’s Final Four, will host in 2025 and Indianapolis will be the host city in 2026, along with 2021.Indianopolis has hosted the Final Four five times, including in 2015.

The Final Four will be played in Minneapolis in 2019, Atlanta in 2020 and New Orleans in 2022.

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