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American reality television series

America's Next Top Model (abbreviated ANTM and Top Model) is an American reality television series and interactive competition in which a number of aspiring models compete for the title of "America's Next Top Model" and a chance to begin their career in the modeling industry. Created by Tyra Banks, who also serves as an executive producer, and developed by Ken Mok and Kenya Barris, the series premiered in May 2003, and aired semiannually until 2012, then annually from 2013. The first six seasons (referred to as "cycles") aired on UPN, before UPN merged with The WB to create The CW in 2006. The following sixteen cycles aired on The CW until the series was first cancelled in October 2015. The series was revived in 2016 and has been airing on VH1 ever since. The series was among the highest-rated programs on UPN and was the highest-rated show on The CW from 2007 to 2010. Advertisers paid $61,315 per 30-second slot during the 2011–12 television season, the highest of any series on The CW. The first 22 cycles of the series and cycle 24 were presented by Banks, while cycle 23 was presented by Rita Ora. The series also employs a panel of two or three additional judges, a creative director and a runway coach.

Cycles 1–16, 19 and 23–24 each consisted of a cast of 10–15 female contestants with no previous participation on the series. Cycle 17's cast consisted entirely of previous participants, while cycle 18's had seven new contestants and seven former Britain's Next Top Model participants. Cycles 20–22 featured male contestants in the contest, including two male winners. As of April 2018, 24 people have won the competition. Winners typically receive a feature in a magazine and a contract with a modeling agency, among other prizes. The series is the originator of the international Top Model franchise. Over fifty versio

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In September 2024, China gathered leaders from all 53 African countries, excluding Eswatini, with which it has no diplomatic ties, for the ninth Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC 9) in Beijing—the largest “home-ground diplomacy” event of the year. In his keynote speech, President Xi Jinping proudly declared that “the China-Africa relationship is currently at its best in its 70-year history.” However, in stark contrast to the grandeur of the international conference, China’s economy remains in a slump, with sluggish production, consumption, and investment dragging on growth. Despite these challenges, FOCAC 9 concluded with the adoption of two major agreements: the “Beijing Declaration on Jointly Building an All-Weather China-Africa Community with a Shared Future for the New Era” (hereafter referred to as the “Beijing Declaration”) and the “FOCAC Beijing Action Plan (2025-2027)” (hereafter referred to as the “Beijing Action Plan”). Importantly, the Beijing Declaration praises FOCAC as a model for “South-South Cooperation,” where countries of the Global South help each other achieve development, suggesting that China-Africa cooperation differs from the top-down, donor-driven approach taken by developed nations when engaging with Africa. The Chinese government hailed these as significant diplomatic achievements.

The world has long turned its attention to Africa, which makes up a significant part of the Global South. Many countries have held “Africa+1” summits—such as FOCAC—as a means to strengthen relations with the continent. The trend began in 1993, when Japan took the initiative to launch the Tokyo International Conference on African Development (

Alexandria Everettis a 21-year-old model from Huntington Beach but right now she’s living in Tyra’s world. Everett is one of 11 women still in the competition on the 16th season of supermodel Tyra Banks’ reality series “America’s Next Top Model.”

Everett, who lived in Newport Beach before moving to Huntington, describes herself in her show bio as a surfer, a snowboarder, a hiker. She’s from a big family and she doesn’t want to fall down and embarrass herself on the show. You can read all about her in the captions of the slide show that follows, which includes photos of Alexandria from the first three episodes of the season, as well as shots of the other 10 women who are still in it, too.

(And, if you happen to be a fan of contestant Sara Longoria, a 19-year-old bisexual and polyamorous model from Texas, you can read all about her in the Monitor, her hometown newspaper.)

Alexandria Everettmade it through the initial rounds of auditions for“America’s Next Top Model.”The Huntington Beach model had made it through the application and first interviews, and had a callback the next morning that might make or break her dream of competing on the reality series run by supermodel Tyra Banks.

So why not play a little tag with her best friend’s little brother – what could possibly go wrong?

“Her brother swung a door into my face,” says Everett, laughing now – she can laugh, fortunately, because she made it onto the show in spite of the black eye she sported during her video interview the morning after the ill-fated game. “He looked at me and was, ‘Oh, my goodness, I’m so sorry!’

“And I go, ‘What are they going to think?’ Tomorrow is the day they’re going to do our videos to send to Tyra! What are they going to think?

“So I went in with an eye patch – I looked like the girl from ‘Kill Bill’– and it was actually kind of cool,” Everett says. “They felt so bad, but guess what? It made me stand out. I got to be quirky and funny, and that’s who I am.”

Everett, 22, grew up mostly in Newport Beach, and after graduating from Newport Harbor High School in 2007, tried college for a semester or two before deciding to see whether she might be able to work as a model.

“I always thought I could do it, but I never had the opportunity to try,” she says. “My parents wouldn’t let me do it during high school, and now I was finally an adult and could make my own decision.”

So she lost a little weight through eating healthful foods, hiking in Laguna and taking advantage of other outdoor recreation, got an agent and set out to find jobs, which so far have included runway work at New York and Los Angeles fashion weeks, a Zac Brown Band music video, and more recently an