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MUMBAI, India (AP) — The most-anticipated game of theT20 World Cupis set to attract over a billion eyeballs when India takes on archrival Pakistan at Colombo on Sunday with uncertainty aplenty still surrounding world cricket's marquee matchup.

World Cup-India-Pakistan-Preview

Political and diplomatic tensions between the two nations have often boiled over on to the cricket field. Sunday's game will be the first time the teams have met since last year's acrimonious Asia Cup tournament in the United Arab Emirates which was won by Indiaand where players refused to shake hands.

Elsewhere, West Indies aim for its third successive win in Group C as it won the toss and elected to field against Nepal in Mumbai. United States, which lost to bothIndiaandPakistanbefore beating the Netherlands, takes on Namibia in its final Group A game later Sunday.

The win against Nepal will guarantee West Indies a place in the Super 8s after it alreadybeat Scotlandand England. Nepal, playing its third successive game in Mumbai, came close toupsetting Englandbefore first-timer Italy handed it a10-wicket drubbing.

All eyes on Colombo

But Colombo remains the focal point on Sunday where the marquee game of the tournament begins at 7 p.m. local time (1400 GMT).

In the lead up to the match, Pakistan captain Salman Ali Agha said he believed it was up to the Indian players to decide whether they will shake hands with his team before and after Sunday's game.

Indian skipper Suryakumar Yadav, for his part, was non-committal.

"Why are you highlighting that?" Suryakumar asked reporters on the eve of the game. "We are here to play cricket. We will play good cricket. We will take all those calls tomorrow. We will see tomorrow."

Pakistan's governmentthreatened a boycottof Sunday's match after the International Cricket Council kicked Bangladesh out of the World Cup for refusing to play matches in India, citing security concerns.

Pakistanonly agreed to play after intense discussions with the ICC. The fixture is the major revenue earner for the ICC.

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Tensions running high

Tensions came to a head in the Asia Cup when Suryakumarrefused to shake handswith Agha. Heated moments followed between the two sides throughout the tournament, with Suryakumar and Pakistan's Haris Rauf fined for breaching the ICC's code of conduct.

India went on to win the Asia Cup but refused to accept the trophy from Pakistan Cricket Board chairman Mohsin Naqvi.

"The game should be played in real spirit, the way it has been played since it started. The rest is up to them (India), what they want to do," Agha told media on Saturday about the possibility of the players shaking hands.

Political and military tensionshave meant the two teams have not played a bilateral series for years.

India has not traveled to Pakistan since 2008 and Pakistan visited India for the 50-over World Cup in 2023 but has since played ICC tournaments at neutral venues.

India has defeated Pakistan 12 times in the 16 T20 games they have played. It also has an impressive 6-1 record in the eight T20 World Cup matches since the first edition in 2007, with one being tied.

Tariq's action

Pakistanspinner Usman Tariq'sbowling action has been the subject of discussion in recent days. The Indian media has questioned whether Tariq's action is legal because he pauses before delivering the ball.

"The guy has been cleared twice and he has done whatever the ICC said, and whatever it requires to bowl in international cricket," Agha said of Tariq. "I don't know why people are saying so many things about him, but the one thing I can assure you, he doesn't care about that because he's very used to this stuff."

AP cricket:https://apnews.com/hub/cricket

Milan Momcilovic scored 18 points and No. 5 Iowa State's ferocious defense smothered No. 9 Kansas for a 74-56 Big 12 victory on Saturday in Ames, Iowa, to snap the Jayhawks' eight-game winning streak.

Joshua Jefferson, Tamin Lipsey, Jamarion Batemon and Blake Buchanan added 11 points apiece for the Cyclones (22-3, 9-3 Big 12), who moved into a third-place tie with the Jayhawks (19-6, 9-3). Jefferson and Lipsey each added four assists while Buchanan grabbed six rebounds.

Iowa State made 11 of 30 (36.7%) from long range while forcing 13 turnovers and limiting Kansas to 37.2% percent shooting from the floor.

Melvin Council Jr. paced Kansas with 15 points, five rebounds, four assists and two steals. Flory Bidunga had 11 points and 13 rebounds, but prized freshman Darryn Peterson was limited to a season-low 10 points on 3-of-10 shooting in 24 minutes.

Kansas went up 6-2 during a rugged start as Bidunga, Peterson and Bryson Tiller made baskets, but the home crowd came to life when Buchanan threw down a vicious slam dunk off Lipsey's missed layup at 12:11 to knot it 6-6. Killyan Toure then sank a 24-footer to cap a 9-0 run and give Iowa State its first lead at 11:43.

Council sparked the Jayhawks by canning a trio of three-pointers and adding an alley-oop assist on Bidunga's dunk to give the visitors a 20-16 lead at the 6:41 mark.

With his team struggling from long range, Jefferson drove past Bidunga on one possession and Peterson on another to make layups while being fouled. Jefferson completed both 3-point plays to make it 29-22 with 3:37 left in the half.

Iowa State forced 10 first-half turnovers and closed the on a 21-7 run to take a 37-27 lead into the break.

Momcilovic, who made 4 of 9 3-point attempts for the day, connected on his first two treys in the opening 90 seconds of the second half before Lipsey hit two from deep for a 49-29 lead at 17:06.

When Momcilovic cashed the Cyclones' fifth straight 3-point attempt to start the second half, Iowa State held a 52-32 lead with 15:56 to go.

Kansas got as close as 68-56 on Council's jumper with 4:22 left, but the Jayhawks didn't score again as Iowa State wrapped up its sixth win in seven games.

--Field Level Media

ALEPPO, Syria (AP) — A month afterclashes rockeda Kurdish-majority neighborhood inSyria's second-largest city of Aleppo, most of the tens of thousands of residents who fled the fighting between government forces and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces have returned — an unusually quick turnaround in a country where conflict has left many displaced for years.

APTOPIX Syria Kurdish Neighborhood

"Ninety percent of the people have come back," Aaliya Jaafar, a Kurdish resident of the Sheikh Maqsoud neighborhood who runs a hair salon, said Saturday. "And they didn't take long. This was maybe the shortest displacement in Syria."

Her family only briefly left their house when government forces launched a drone strike on a lot next door where weapons were stored, setting off explosions.

The Associated Press visited the community that was briefly at the center of Syria's fragile transition from years of civil war as the new government tries to assert control over the country and gain the trust of minority groups anxious about their security.

Lessons learned

The clashes broke out Jan. 6 in the predominantly Kurdish neighborhoods of Sheikh Maqsoud, Achrafieh and Bani Zaid after the government and the SDF reached an impasse in talks on how to merge Syria's largest remaining armed group into the national army. Security forces captured the neighborhoods after several days of intense fighting during which at least 23 people were killed and more than 140,000 people displaced.

However, Syria's new government took measures to avoid civilians being harmed, unlike during previous outbreaks of violence between its forces and other groups on the coast and in the southern province ofSweida, during which hundreds of civilians from the Alawite and Druze religious minorities were killed in sectarian revenge attacks.

Before entering the contested Aleppo neighborhoods, the Syrian army opened corridors for civilians to flee.

Ali Sheikh Ahmad, a former member of the SDF-affiliated local police force who runs a secondhand clothing shop in Sheikh Maqsoud, was among those who left. He and his family returned a few days after the fighting stopped.

At first, he said, residents were afraid of revenge attacks after Kurdish forces withdrew and handed over the neighborhood to government forces. But that has not happened. A ceasefire agreement between Damascus and the SDF has been holding, and the two sides have made progress toward political and military integration.

"We didn't have any serious problems like what happened on the coast or in Sweida," Sheikh Ahmad said. The new security forces "treated us well," and residents' fears began to dissipate.

Jaafar agreed that residents had been afraid at first but that government forces "didn't harm anyone, to be honest, and they imposed security, so people were reassured."

The neighborhood's shops have since reopened and traffic moves normally, but the checkpoint at the neighborhood's entrance is now manned by government forces instead of Kurdish fighters.

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Residents, both Kurds and Arabs, chatted with neighbors along the street. An Arab man who said he was named Saddam after the late Iraqi dictator — known for oppressing the Kurds — smiled as his son and a group of Kurdish children played with a dirty but friendly orange kitten.

Other children played with surgical staplers from a neighborhood hospital that was targeted during the recent fighting, holding them like toy guns. The government accused the SDF of taking over the hospital and using it as a military site, while the SDF said it was sheltering civilians.

One boy, looking pleased with himself, emerged from an alleyway carrying the remnant of an artillery shell.

Economic woes remain

On Friday, SDF leader Mazloum Abdi said he had held a "very productive meeting" with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shibani on the sidelines of asecurity conference in Munichto discuss progress made on the integration agreement.

While the security situation is calm, residents said their economic plight has worsened. Many previously relied on jobs with the SDF-affiliated local authorities, who are no longer in charge. And small businesses suffered after the clashes drove away customers and interrupted electricity and other services.

"The economic situation has really deteriorated," Jaafar said. "For more than a month, we've barely worked at all."

Others are taking a longer view. Sheikh Ahmad said he hopes that if the ceasefire remains in place and the political situation stabilizes, he will be able to return to his original home in the town of Afrin near the border with Turkey, which his family fled during a 2018 Turkish offensive against Kurdish forces.

Like many Syrians. Sheikh Ahmad has been displaced multiple times since mass protests against the government of then-President Bashar Assad spiraled into a brutal 14-year civil war.

Assad was ousted in November 2024 in an insurgent offensive, but the country has continued to see sporadic outbreaks of violence, and the new government has struggled to win the trust of religious and ethnic minorities.

Hopes for reconciliation

Last month, interim President Ahmad al-Sharaa issued a decree strengthening the rights of Syria's Kurdish minority, including recognizing Kurdish as a national language along with Arabic and adopting Nowruz, a traditional celebration of spring and renewal marked by Kurds around the region, as an official holiday. Kurds make up about 10% of Syria's population.

The decree also restored the citizenship of tens of thousands of Kurds in northeastern al-Hasakeh province after they were stripped of it during the 1962 census

Sheikh Ahmad said he was encouraged by al-Sharaa's attempts to reassure the Kurds that they are equal citizens and hopes to see more than tolerance among Syria's different communities.

"We want something better than that. We want people to love each other. We've had enough of wars after 15 years. It's enough," he said.

LONDON (AP) — In turbulent political times, stability comes with four legs, whiskers and a fondness for napping.

Britain Larry The Cat

Larry the catcelebrates 15 years on Sunday as the British government's official rodent-catcher and unofficial first feline, a reassuring presence who hasserved under six prime ministers. Sometimes it seems like they have served under him.

"Larry the cat's approval ratings will be very high," said Philip Howell, a Cambridge University professor who has studied the history of human-animal relations. "And prime ministers tend not to hit those numbers.

"He represents stability, and that's at a premium."

The gray-and-white tabby's rags-to-riches story has taken him from stray on the streets to Britain's seat of power, 10 Downing St., where he bears the official title Chief Mouser to the Cabinet Office.

Adopted from London's Battersea Dogs and Cats Home by then-Prime Minister David Cameron, Larry entered Downing Street on Feb. 15, 2011. According to a profile on the U.K. government website, his duties include "greeting guests to the house, inspecting security defenses and testing antique furniture for napping quality."

Larryroams freelyand has a knack for upstaging world leaders arriving at 10 Downing St.'s famous black door, to the delight of news photographers.

"He's great at photo-bombing," said Justin Ng, a freelance photographer who has come to know Larry well over the years. "If there's a foreign leader that's about to visit then we know he'll just come out at the exact moment that meet-and-greet is about to happen."

Larry has met many world leaders, who sometimes have to step around or over him. It has been observed that he is largely unfriendly to men, though he took a liking to former U.S. President Barack Obama, and he drew a smile from President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on one of the Ukrainian leader's visits to London.

When U.S. President Donald Trump visited in 2019, Larry crashed the official doorstep photo and then took a nap under the Beast, the president's armored car.

Reports of Larry's rodent-catching skills vary, though he has been photographed snagging the occasional mouse — and, once, a pigeon, which escaped.

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"He's more of a lover than a fighter," Ng said. "He's very good at what he does: lounging around and basically showing people that he's very nonchalant."

Larry has cohabited, sometimes uneasily, with prime ministerial pets including Boris Johnson's Jack Russell cross Dilyn and Rishi Sunak's Labrador retriever Nova. He is kept well away from currentPrime Minister Keir Starmer'sfamily cats, JoJo and Prince, who inhabit the private family quarters while Larry rules the working areas of Downing Street.

He had a volatile relationship withPalmerston, diplomatic top cat at the Foreign Office across the street from No. 10. The pair were caught tussling several times before Palmerston retired in 2020. Palmerston died this month in Bermuda, where he was serving as"feline relations consultant"to the governor.

Meanwhile, Larry abides. He is 18 or 19, and has slowed down a bit, but continues to patrol his turf and to sleep on a window ledge above a radiator just inside the No. 10 door.

He is British soft power in feline form, and woe betide any prime minister who got rid of him.

"A cat-hating PM, that seems to me to be political suicide," said Howell.

He said Larry's status as nonpartisan "official pet" sets him apart from the Americanpresidential pets– most often dogs – that U.S. leaders have sometimes deployed to soften their image.

"The fact that cats are less tractable is part of the charm, too," Howell said. "He's sort of whimsically not partisan in a political sense, but he tends to take to some people and not to others and he won't necessarily sit where you want him to sit and pose where you want him to pose.

"There is a certain kind of unruliness about Larry which I think would endear him, certainly, to Brits."

Associated Press video journalist Kwiyeon Ha contributed to this story.

LONDON (AP) — Photos look back at 15 years of Larry the cat as Britain's Chief Mouser at 10 Downing Street, where the former stray has become a familiar presence through years of political change. Adopted in 2011, Larry has served under six prime ministers, earning a reputation for greeting dignitaries, lounging in the spotlight and remaining a constant at the heart of British government.

Britain Larry The Cat Photo Gallery

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This is a photo gallery curated by AP photo editors.