WASHINGTON — Secretary of State Antony Blinken is leaving Saturday on a diplomatic trip to Europe that includes a meeting of foreign ministers from the leading industrialized nations that will focus on the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East.

The State Department said Blinken will participate in Group of Seven and bilateral meetings outside Rome on Monday and Tuesday as the Biden administration winds down amid concerns that President-elect Donald Trump’s team may substantially alter U.S. foreign policy.

The G7 — Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States — has been at the forefront of providing military and economic support for Ukraine since Russia’s invasion in February 2022, and Democratic President Joe Biden is looking to ensure that backing is boosted and sustained. G7 members are particularly concerned about how Trump will change the U.S. approach.

Trump has criticized the billions of dollars that the Biden administration has poured into Ukraine. Washington has recently stepped up weapons shipments ad has forgiven billions in loans provided to Kyiv. The incoming Republican president has said he could end the war in 24 hours, comments that appear to suggest he would press Ukraine to surrender territory that Russia now occupies.

On the Middle East, Trump has announced a number of officials who are staunchly pro-Israel. He is expected to pursue a policy that strongly favors Israel over the aspirations of the Palestinians and others for a two-state resolution to the long-running conflict that has been focused on Gaza for the past 13 months since Hamas launched attacks inside Israel.

Several Arab foreign ministers are expected to join the G7 in Italy for urgent discussions on ending the war in Gaza and setting up a mechanism for governance, reconstruction and security for the heavily damaged territory once the fighting is over.

U.S. officials are rushing to complete the formation of that structure before Biden leaves office in January, but there have been numerous complications. Efforts were most recently jolted by the International Criminal Court’s decision to issue arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his former defense minister and top Hamas officials.

Israel’s military operations in Lebanon against Iran-backed Hezbollah will also feature in the G7 discussions. US officials say they are hopeful that a recent flurry of diplomatic activity may yield a cease-fire agreement. .

G7 relations with China will figure in Blinken’s discussions. There are increasing concerns about Beijing’s aggressiveness toward Taiwan and in the South China Sea, as well as trade disputes that Trump has threatened to address by imposing massive tariffs on Chinese products.

Blinken will meet with Pope Francis and several of his top aides in Vatican City on Wednesday before returning to Washington.

WASHINGTON — The White House was tinted green on Thursday, when President Joe Biden — Secret Service code name: Celtic — welcomed “Coach Joe” Mazzulla and the Boston Celtics to the South Lawn to celebrate the franchise’s unprecedented 18th NBA championship.

In a tradition believed to have begun when Bill Russell’s 1963 Celtics met with President John F. Kennedy, Biden welcomed the NBA’s 2024 champions and gave them a tour of the Oval Office. In all, the league’s most-decorated franchise has won at least one title in eight of the last 13 presidential administrations.

“The Celtics aren’t just a basketball team. They’re a way of life,” Biden told the crowd, quoting Celtics patriarch Red Auerbach before receiving a No. 46 jersey from All-Star Jayson Tatum and guard Derrick White.

Biden noted that his Secret Service code name is “Celtic.”

“For real. Because I’m Irish,” the president said. “Everybody behind me is Irish in their heart. I feel a special pride in this trophy. From this old Irish Celtic, to all you Celtics, congratulations.”

Biden, who was once one of the youngest senators in U.S. history and is now the country’s oldest president ever, said he felt a kinship with Mazzulla, who was 35 when he led the Celtics to the title in his second season.

“Joe’s the youngest head coach to win a title since the great Bill Russell,” Biden said. “I told him I used to be the youngest and now I’m the oldest. I liked being the youngest better.”

The Celtics were greeted with a band playing “Shipping up to Boston,” before Biden and team owner Wyc Grousbeck joined them on the risers facing the Washington Monument; green lights shined from from the eaves of the White House behind them. Among those in attendance were Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu and most of the state’s congressional delegation.

“I didn’t really know what to expect. I walked in, I was like ‘I’m more excited than I thought I was going be,” White told reporters afterward. “To be in the White House, to be where all the decisions — all the cool things — are happening, that was the best part.”

Celtics co-owner Steve Pagliuca said Biden’s 4-year-old grandson, Beau Jr., tried on his championship ring. (Oshae Brissett, a member of the 2024 team who is not with the Celtics this year, was at the ceremony and received his championship ring on Thursday.)

Biden also received a commemorative basketball, which he tossed to Sen. Ed Markey of Massachusetts, who was sitting in the front row, and then to Celtics center Al Horford.

“I wasn’t expecting a pump fake,” White told reporters. “It’s harder to make a pass in a suit, so I was impressed.”

Biden was well-briefed on the Celtics history and their success last year, when they cruised to 64 wins in the regular season – their most since winning the 2008 title, and the fourth-best in franchise history. They went 16-3 in the playoffs, eliminating the Dallas Mavericks in five games.

Biden even noted that the ’24 Celtics had the highest ratio of points per possession in NBA history – one of the wonkier stats, but one that had team vice president and stats guru Mike Zarren beaming.

“The basketball stats community has come a long way: the President of the United States is talking about points per possession!” Zarren posted on X after speaking to reporters at the ceremony.

Members of the Celtics organization went back into the White House after the festivities to meet with administration officials on pet issues, including “Raise the Age,” which seeks to have 18- to 20-year-olds treated as juveniles in the criminal justice system, and “Curbside Care,” which provides medical aid to new mothers in underserved communities.

“This was a very exciting and moving day,” Grousbeck told reporters in a video call afterwards. “We had not been focused on this. We got through the banner and opening night, and then it was all business. Joe (Mazzulla) doesn’t want us to dwell too much on the past, he wants everyone to focus on moving forward. Having said that, everyone here, including Joe, seemed to have a great time.”

Zarren said he spoke to a Secret Service agent who was a Celtics fan and had to bear with the Golden State Warriors’ visit two years ago.

“He told them it was a bittersweet moment because he wished his Celtics were here. And they said to him, ‘Don’t worry, they’ll be here soon,’” Zarren said. “So for him, it was a good moment to see us show up inside there.”

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AP NBA: https://apnews.com/hub/nba

SANTA CRUZ, Calif. — A woman told police that she was sexually assaulted in 2017 by Pete Hegseth after he took her phone, blocked the door to a California hotel room and refused to let her leave, according to a detailed investigative report made public late Wednesday.

Hegseth, a Fox News personality and President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee to be defense secretary, told police at the time that the encounter had been consensual and denied any wrongdoing, the report said.

News of the allegations surfaced last week when local officials released a brief statement confirming that a woman had accused Hegseth of sexual assault in October 2017 after he had spoken at a Republican women’s event in Monterey.

Hegseth’s lawyer did not immediately respond to a request for comment early Thursday. He has said Hegseth paid the woman in 2023 to head off the threat of a baseless lawsuit.

The 22-page police report was released in response to a public records request and offers the first detailed account of what the woman alleged to have transpired — one that is at odds with Hegseth’s version of events. The report cited police interviews with the alleged victim, a nurse who treated her, a hotel staffer, another woman at the event and Hegseth.

The woman’s name was not released, and The Associated Press does not typically name people who say they have been sexually assaulted.

A spokeswoman for the Trump transition said early Thursday that the “report corroborates what Mr. Hegseth’s attorneys have said all along: the incident was fully investigated and no charges were filed because police found the allegations to be false.”

The report does not say that police found the allegations were false. Police recommended the case report be forwarded to the Monterey County District Attorney’s Office for review.

Investigators were first alerted to the alleged assault, the report said, by a nurse who called them after a patient requested a sexual assault exam. The patient told medical personnel she believed she was assaulted five days earlier but couldn’t remember much about what had happened. She reported something may have been slipped into her drink before ending up in the hotel room where she said the assault occurred.

Police collected the unwashed dress and underwear she had worn that night, the report said.

The woman’s partner, who was staying at the hotel with her, told police that he was worried about her that night after she didn’t come back to their room. At 2 a.m., he went to the hotel bar, but she wasn’t there. She made it back a few hours later, apologizing that she “must have fallen asleep.” A few days later, she told him she had been sexually assaulted.

The woman, who helped organize the California Federation of Republican women gathering at which Hegseth spoke, told police that she had witnessed the TV anchor acting inappropriately throughout the night and saw him stroking multiple women’s thighs. She texted a friend that Hegseth was giving off a “creeper” vibe, according to the report.

After the event, the woman and others attended an afterparty in a hotel suite where she said she confronted Hegseth, telling him that she “did not appreciate how he treated women,” the report states.

A group of people, including Hegseth and the woman, decamped for the hotel’s bar. That’s when “things got fuzzy,” the woman told police.

She remembered having a drink at the bar with Hegseth and others, the police report states. She also told police that she argued with Hegseth near the hotel pool, an account that is supported by a hotel staffer who was sent to handle the disturbance and spoke to police, according to the report.

Soon, she told police, she was inside a hotel room with Hegseth, who took her phone and blocked the door with his body so that she could not leave, according to the report. She also told police she remembered “saying ‘no’ a lot,” the report said.

Her next memory was laying on a couch or bed with Hegseth hovering over her bare-chested, his dog tags dangling over her, the report states. Hegseth served in the National Guard, rising to the rank of major.

After Hegseth finished, she recalled him asking if she was “OK,” the report states. She told police she did not recall how she got back to her own hotel room and had since suffered from nightmares and memory loss.

At the time of the alleged assault in 2017, Hegseth, now 44, was going through a divorce with his second wife, with whom he has three children. She filed for divorce after he had a child with a Fox News producer who is now his wife, according to court records and social media posts by Hegseth. His first marriage ended in 2009, also after infidelity by Hegseth, according to court records.

Hegseth said he attended an after party and drank beer but did not consume liquor, and acknowledged being “buzzed” but not drunk.

He said he met the woman at the hotel bar, and she led him by the arm back to his hotel room, which surprised him because he initially had no intention of having sex with her, the report said.

Hegseth told investigators that the sexual encounter that followed was consensual, adding that he explicitly asked more than once if she was comfortable. Hegseth said in the morning the woman “showed early signs of regret,” and he assured her that he wouldn’t tell anyone about the encounter.

Hegseth’s attorney said a payment was made to the woman as part of a confidential settlement a few years after the police investigation because Hegseth was concerned that she was prepared to file a lawsuit that he feared could have resulted in him being fired from Fox News, where he was a popular host. The attorney would not reveal the amount of the payment.

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Slodysko reported from Washington and Linderman reported from Baltimore.