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Today’s introduction comes from Marc Tracy, who covers college sports for The Times.

The U.C.L.A. sunglasses-stealing saga concluded Wednesday, not with a bang, but with a whimper.

Last week, three Bruin freshman basketball players — including LiAngelo Ball, the middle son of a famous and aptly named basketball-playing family — were arrested in Hangzhou, China, apparently for stealing designer sunglasses from a Louis Vuitton store. This happened two days before they were to play in an annual showcase game in Shanghai put on by the Pacific-12 Conference.

The players’ passports were revoked, U.C.L.A.’s athletic director, Dan Guerrero, said Wednesday, and U.C.L.A. dictated that they stay in the team hotel while their teammates left for Shanghai, beat Georgia Tech and departed the continent.

President Trump, who was in China on diplomatic business, raised the issue with Chinese President Xi Jinping, asking, according to John F. Kelly, the White House chief of staff: “Do you know anything about these knuckleheads that got caught allegedly stealing?”