By GERALD IMRAY

CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) — China and South Africa signed a framework agreement for a new trade deal on Friday as Africa’s leading economy looks to other options following the high import tariffs imposed on it by the U.S. and its diplomatic fallout with the Trump administration.

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South Africa’s Ministry of Trade and Industry said the agreement would start negotiations over a deal that would give some South African goods, such as fruit, duty-free access to the Chinese market. The ministry said it expected the trade deal to be finalized by the end of March.

In return, the trade ministry said China will get enhanced investment opportunities in South Africa, where its car sales have seen rapid growth.

The U.S. slapped 30% duties on some South African goods under U.S. President Donald Trump’s reciprocal tariffs policy — one of the higher rates applied across the world. South Africa has said it is still negotiating with the U.S. for a better deal.

The China-South Africa deal follows others looking for alternatives to U.S. partnership in the face of Trump’s aggressive trade policies.

The announcement on the negotiations between China and South Africa came days after Trump issued a short-term renewal of a longstanding free-trade agreement between the U.S. and African nations. The U.S. extended the African Growth and Opportunity Act, which South Africa is a major beneficiary of, just until the end of the year and indicated it would be modified to fit the administration’s America First policy.

China is already South Africa’s largest trade partner for both imports and exports, while Chinese economic influence across the African continent continues to grow and it dominates in the extraction of Africa’s critical minerals that are key components for new high-tech products.

“South Africa looks forward to working with China in a friendly, pragmatic and flexible manner,” the trade ministry said.

Trade and Industry Minister Parks Tau, who traveled to China to sign the agreement, said the deal would benefit South Africa’s mining, agriculture, renewable energy and technology sectors.

U.S.-South Africa diplomatic ties have plunged to their worst point in decades after the Trump administration accused South Africa of pursuing an anti-American foreign policy and allowing the violent persecution of a white minority group at home. South Africa’s government has denied allegations that white Afrikaner farmers are being killed in a widespread effort to seize their land as baseless.

Trump has also barred South Africa from taking part in meetings of the Group of 20 rich and developing nations this year in the U.S.

South Africa’s biggest exports to China are gold, iron ore and platinum-group metals, while Chinese cars have quickly grown their market share in South Africa. Industry groups estimate Chinese brands have grown from around 2.8% of the South African market in 2020 to between 11% and 15% last year.

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AP Africa news: https://apnews.com/hub/africa

By WYATTE GRANTHAM-PHILIPS and HALLIE GOLDEN

A federal jury has ordered Uber to pay $8.5 million to a woman who says one of its drivers raped her during a 2023 trip.

Uber has faced criticism for its safety record, much of it spanning from thousands of incidents of sexual assault reported by both passengers and drivers. Because drivers on the ridesharing platform are categorized as gig workers — working as contractors, rather than company employees — Uber has long maintained that its not liable for their misconduct.

Thursday’s verdict, reached in Arizona, “validates the thousands of survivors who have come forward at great personal risk to demand accountability against Uber,” said Sarah London, one of the lawyers representing the plaintiff — who said the company has put the “focus on profit over passenger safety.”

Uber said it plans to appeal the jury’s decision, and noted that the jury did not find the company to be negligent, nor that its safety systems were “defective.”

The verdict “affirms that Uber acted responsibly and has invested meaningfully in rider safety,” spokesperson Andrew Hasbun said in a statement. He also referenced the fact that the jury did not award the full amount initially requested from the plaintiffs’ lawyers.

The lawsuit stems from an Uber ride in November 2023, when the plaintiff was heading to her hotel after celebrating her upcoming graduation from flight attendant training at her boyfriend’s home in Arizona. Partway through the ride, the complaint alleged, the driver stopped the car, entered the back seat and raped the woman.

The lawsuit argued that Uber had long known that its drivers were assaulting passengers, and that it didn’t implement the safety measures needed to stop this from happening.

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Uber has previously faced similar allegations of not having sufficient guardrails to protect rider safety. But Uber maintains that sexual assault reports have decreased substantially over the years. According to company reports, 5,981 incidents of sexual assault were reported in U.S. rides between 2017 and 2018 — compared to 2,717 between 2021 and 2022 (the latest years with data available), which Uber says represented 0.0001% of total trips nationwide.

Uber has taken multiple steps to try to fix its problems with safety, including teaming up with Lyft in 2021 to create a database of drivers ousted from their ride-hailing services for complaints over sexual assault and other crimes.

Still, critics stress that there’s more work to be done — and have increasingly called on ridesharing companies to take responsibility for assaults.

The Associated Press does not name people who have said they were sexually abused, unless they come forward publicly or have given consent through their attorneys.

AP Writer Josh Funk contributed to this report.

By JOHN HANNA

Jasmine Crockett’s most-watched TikTok clip is a five-second interview outside the U.S. Capitol. Someone asks the Democratic congresswoman from Texas what she would tell billionaire Elon Musk, and Crockett replies with a vulgar, two-word phrase. It’s been viewed 20.7 million times.

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James Talarico’s top TikTok video is 88 seconds from a speech in which the Texas state representative says billionaires, not minorities, are destroying America, adding that “the biggest division in our politics is not left versus right, it’s top versus bottom.” It’s been watched 15.5 million times.

The two are facing off in the party’s U.S. Senate primary March 3, showcasing divergent approaches to harvesting a modern politician’s most precious resource — attention.

Crockett feuds with President Donald Trump and other Republicans. Talarico calls himself a policy wonk and quotes the Bible.

Whomever Democrats nominate will say a lot about what they see as their best strategy for breaking the Republican hold on the state and helping their long-shot effort to recapture the Senate majority.

“I think their voting records would be identical, but their style of politics is very different, which is fascinating to watch,” said Allison Campolo, Democratic Party chair for Fort Worth’s home county.

Social media has pitfalls, though. A TikTok influencer posted this week that Talarico referred to former U.S. Rep. Colin Allred of Texas, the Democrats’ unsuccessful 2024 Senate nominee, as “mediocre,” creating a tempest. Talarico is white; the influencer, Allred and Crockett are Black.

Talarico put out a statement calling it a “mischaracterization” of a private conversation.

Democrats are bullish again about their chances

Democrats haven’t won a Senate race in Texas since 1988, but they see an opening this year. Republicans might not renominate four-term Sen. John Cornyn and might opt for state Attorney General Ken Paxton, who’s popular with Trump’s base but has also spent most of his career under legal troubles. Rep. Wesley Hunt also is seeking the GOP nomination.

Democrats’ success in elections since Trump began his second term — including a special election for the Texas state Senate last month — has buoyed the party’s hopes that, after decades of losses in statewide races, this may be their year.

Crockett, 44, a former public defender and civil-rights attorney, served two years in the Texas House before winning her congressional seat in the Dallas area in 2022. Her supporters see her as the candidate better able to excite voters of color, who’ve been a key part of the Democratic base.

Talarico, 36, is training to be a Presbyterian minister. A former middle school teacher, he first won his Austin-area legislative seat in 2018. His backers believe the discussion of his Christian faith could win over a wider swath of voters this fall.

Both are adept at creating digital moments — and followings.

Viral moments

Crockett has 2.2 million TikTok followers, giving her one of the largest reaches on the platform among members of Congress. By comparison, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York has 4.1 million followers.

Primary candidate for U.S. Senate, Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Texas, participates in a debate with Texas state Rep. James Talarico, D-Austin, during the Texas AFL-CIO Committee on Political Education Convention, Saturday, Jan. 24, 2026, in Georgetown, Texas. (Bob Daemmrich/Texas Tribune via AP, Pool)

Crockett’s most popular posts include audio of Trump insulting her as she remains expressionless until flashing a smile at the end, in a video her campaign posted with the hashtag #TexasTough. Another clip, viewed 2 million times, is her simply lip-syncing to the 1990s rock hit “What’s Up?” by 4 Non Blondes along with a Democratic candidate in Michigan.

But clips from combative exchanges in Congress are what accelerated Crockett’s ascent into one of the party’s rising young stars. In one May 2024 clash with then-Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, the Georgia Republican suggested during a hearing that Crockett’s “fake eyelashes” got in the way of reading legislation. Crockett snaps back with her own put-down, suggesting that Greene had a “bleach-blonde, bad-built butch body.”

Crockett has said her training as a trial lawyer allows her to answer Republicans in the moment, but her remarks that take off on social media have also brought blowback. After a video of her calling Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, who uses a wheelchair, “Governor Hot Wheels” went viral, Crockett responded by saying she was referring to Abbott using transportation to send migrants from Texas to U.S. cities.

Crockett acknowledged during her only debate so far with Talarico that she is “not about politics as usual.”

“I think that I will do the edgy things, the things that the political consultants will never tell you to do,” Crockett said.

Sit-down with Joe Rogan

Talarico, who has 1.5 million TikTok followers, said Democrats cannot win the Texas seat “with the same old politics of division.”

U.S. Senate primary candidate, Texas state Rep. James Talarico, D-Austin, participates in a debate with Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Texas, during the Texas AFL-CIO Committee on Political Education Convention, Saturday, Jan. 24, 2026, in Georgetown, Texas. (Bob Daemmrich/Texas Tribune via AP, Pool)

On social media, Talarico leans into his background as a seminarian. Clips show him asking pointed questions in legislative debates, opposing school vouchers or a requirement that teachers post the Ten Commandments in their classrooms. In one video, Talarico notes lawmakers are working on the Sabbath to pass the Ten Commandments bill, a violation of one of those commandments.

“Maybe they should try following the Ten Commandments before mandating them,” he wrote alongside the post.

Talarico regularly talks about Jesus’ command for people to love others as they love themselves. He’s done long podcast interviews, including with Joe Rogan, the popular podcaster who endorsed Trump in 2024 after the Republican sat down for an interview. Rogan told Talarico near the end of their 2 1/2-hour podcast last summer that he should run for president.

Digital strategies get attention — and help fundraise

Platforms like X, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok also help candidates raise money and test messaging.

“You can communicate as often as you want at the times that you prefer and you can vary the format,” said Pinar Yildirim, an associate professor of marketing and economics at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business.

Candidates tie social media content to online ads to test which messages most effectively bring potential supporters to their websites, said Jennifer Stromer-Galley, a professor of information studies at Syracuse University.

“Now they can do it in much more fine-grained, real-time ways,” said Stromer-Galley, who wrote a book on the history of presidential candidates’ online campaign efforts.

Social media also bridges the distance between Senate candidates and the national donor base they need to tap, said Mike Doyle, the Democratic chair for Austin’s home county.

Crockett raised about $642,000 during the first week of her campaign and has collected $6.5 million so far, most of it carried over from her House account. Talarico raised more than $1.2 million in his campaign’s first week, on his way to more than $13 million in contributions so far.

“You don’t have to be on the ground to see Jasmine or James on social media,” Doyle said.