Good evening. Here’s the latest at the end of Thursday.
N.B.A. figures were charged in two gambling schemesThe basketball world was rocked today by a pair of indictments that accused three current and former N.B.A. players and coaches of participating in illegal gambling schemes to defraud victims out of millions of dollars. The charges — the result of years of investigations by the F.B.I. and other law enforcement officials — were made public this morning after the arrests of more than 30 people. They included Chauncey Billups, a Hall of Fame player who is now the head coach of the Portland Trail Blazers, and Terry Rozier, a guard for the Miami Heat. One of the indictments accused Rozier and a former N.B.A. coach, Damon Jones, among others, of trading inside information, like injuries and illnesses, to allow conspirators to win hundreds of thousands of dollars betting on games. Rozier, for example, was accused of telling a friend he planned to exit a game early, allowing the friend and others to gamble on his underperformance. The other indictment, which you can read in full here, detailed a sophisticated scheme involving rigged poker games set up by the Bonanno, Gambino, Lucchese and Genovese organized-crime families. Prosecutors accused Billups and Jones of helping mafia members cheat people out of at least $7 million by luring in wealthy players with their celebrity. The authorities said the poker games were rigged using marked cards, special contact lenses, preprogrammed shuffling machines and hidden cameras. Here’s what we know about how the poker cheating worked. The N.B.A. said that Rozier and Billups were placed on immediate leave from their teams, and that the league would continue to cooperate with the authorities. Sports leagues have fought against the influence of gambling and organized crime for more than a century. But the rapid rise in legal online sports betting — particularly so-called prop bets — has elevated concerns about gamblers’ sway over the outcome of games. Last year, one N.B.A. player was barred for life for betting on basketball, and others have warned about threats from fans. For more: You might not hear from them much. But yes, New York City’s mob families are still in business.
Virginia Democrats plan to redraw the state’s voting mapsDemocrats in Virginia’s legislature announced today that they were beginning to redraw the state’s congressional maps, which could give their party two or three more seats in the U.S. House of Representatives. The effort makes Virginia the second blue state, after California, where Democrats are trying to counter President Trump’s campaign to have Republican-led states draw new districts. The push is likely to scramble the last couple of weeks before the state’s Nov. 4 election.
Trump halts plan to send federal agents to San FranciscoThe president called off a deployment of federal immigration agents to San Francisco, just as they were beginning to gather at a Coast Guard base in the Bay Area. Trump said he had shelved the move — for now — at the request of friends who live in the region, and who vouched for the work of the city’s Democratic mayor, Daniel Lurie. In other Trump administration news:
Putin vows that Russia won’t bend under U.S. pressureVladimir Putin criticized Trump’s significant new sanctions on Russia’s oil giants as “an unfriendly act,” but he insisted that the Kremlin would never make any concessions under pressure. Oil prices jumped sharply on news of the sanctions, which could pressure India to stop buying Russian oil. Putin also threatened a “very serious, if not staggering” military response if Ukraine gets access to the long-range missiles it is seeking. But the Russian leader refrained from directly criticizing Trump. More top news
Can Ken Burns win the American Revolution?After nearly a decade, the acclaimed documentary filmmaker Ken Burns is set to release “The American Revolution,” a six-part, 12-hour series about our national origin story. The film tries to tell the raw story of the country’s founding, stripped of sentimentality and nostalgia. Burns acknowledges that the project is arriving in the middle of a culture war, but he remains optimistic. “Almost all of American history is division,” Burns said. Maybe storytelling, he added, can “help short-circuit the binaries we have today.”
It’s time to watch and screamThe lead-up to Halloween is the best time of the year to watch movies about ghosts, goblins, monsters and killers. My colleagues on our Culture desk have decided to watch Wes Craven’s 1996 classic, “Scream,” and they’d love for you to join them and discuss your reactions to the film. For more scary movies, take this short quiz and it will recommend a Halloween-themed movie.
Dinner table topics
Cook: This potato soup checks all of the comfort food boxes. Read: Susan Orlean’s “Joyride” started as a writing guide, but turned into a memoir of her high-flying life. Visit: Shows from these five rising contemporary artists are worth checking out. Game: The puzzle video game Keeper is a mind-blowing adventure. Plan: Here’s how to get the most out of a short trip to Miami. Hunt: Which Lower Manhattan home would you buy with a budget of $600,000? Play: Here are today’s Spelling Bee, |
