Twenty-six people have been charged with fixing US college and Chinese professional basketball games in an alleged transnational criminal conspiracy, federal prosecutors said Thursday.The indictment, filed in Philadelphia, includes bribery charges, and relates to nearly 30 games in which conspirators allegedly placed huge bets on the scores of contests after paying players to underperform.”We allege an extensive international criminal conspiracy of… players, alumni and professional bettors who fixed games across the country and poisoned the American spirit of competition for monetary gain,” said federal prosecutor David Metcalf.”This was a massive scheme. It enveloped the world of college basketball,” he told a press conference.It is the latest scandal to rock the world of US sports, after two sprawling federal investigations resulted in the arrest of an NBA coach and player in October.The indictment unveiled Thursday says an illegal sports gambling network originated in China in or about September 2022.Former NBA Chicago Bulls player Antonio Blakeney — who is named but not charged in the latest indictment — is alleged to have been recruited by conspirators to influence the outcomes of games in the Chinese Basketball Association league, where he was playing for the Jiangsu Dragons.A package containing nearly $200,000 in cash was allegedly left in Blakeney’s storage unit in Florida at the end of the CBA 2022-23 season.”Because it proved profitable, they decided to take their operation Stateside to the world of NCAA Division I men’s basketball,” said Metcalf, referring to the hugely popular US college league.Defendants allegedly then offered more than 39 US college players bribes of up to $30,000 per game, and made wagers totaling millions of dollars.More than a dozen of the defendants have played college basketball within the past three years.Former NBA player Blakeney is “charged elsewhere,” according to the indictment.If convicted on the bribery charges, defendants could face up to five years in prison.Sports wagering in most US states was illegal until 2018, but leagues have since rushed to get in on the multi-billion dollar bonanza of legalized betting.The NBA last year said it is reviewing league policies to ensure players know gambling’s “dire risks”.

Several valuable Pokemon cards were stolen in a gunpoint robbery at a New York store, US police said Thursday, with about $100,000 worth of merchandise reportedly taken. Images shared by the shop show a hooded man dressed in all black pointing what appears to be a pistol at someone sitting with their hands up. US media said some of the individual cards taken were worth as much as $5,500. Pokemon cards bearing “little monsters” attract children as well as adult superfans and collectors, with billions printed and some selling for millions of dollars.Earlier this month, around $300,000 worth of Pokemon cards were stolen in another armed robbery in California. New York police said they received reports late Wednesday that three men had entered The Poke Court shop in Manhattan and “displayed a firearm and made threats to individuals.””They then removed multiple merchandise and cash and a phone,” a spokesman said.No arrests have been made.Courtney Chin, owner of The Poke Court, said in a video posted on Instagram that all customers and staff were safe. She spoke in front of display cases that had been smashed.The store listed several cards as stolen, each stored in protective plastic cases called “slabs” that verify their authenticity. The stolen cards include those of famous Pokemon characters like Pikachu, the large yellow mouse with a lightning bolt-shaped tail. Several people were in the Manhattan store to attend a community event when the robbery unfolded. “This hobby should be a safe and welcoming place and while cardboard can be replaced, no one should ever have to go through this,” the shop wrote on Instagram.Characters from Pokemon games have been spun off into films, animated series and a plethora of merchandise.The franchise racked up $12 billion in licensing revenue in 2024, according to specialist publication License Global — more than toy giant Mattel.

Global outrage persisted Thursday over sexualized deepfakes created by Elon Musk’s AI tool Grok, even after his social media platform X said it was blocking the chatbot from undressing images in certain locations.The Philippines became the third country to ban Grok, following Southeast Asian neighbours Malaysia and Indonesia, while Britain and France said they would maintain pressure after the chatbot cranked out a flood of lewd photos of women and children.X announced Wednesday that it would “geoblock the ability” of all Grok and X users to create images of people in “bikinis, underwear, and similar attire” in jurisdictions where such actions are illegal.It was not immediately clear where the tool would be restricted.The announcement came after California’s attorney general launched an investigation into xAI — the developer of Grok — over the sexually explicit material and several countries opened their own probes.Following an initial uproar last week, Grok said it would restrict image generation and editing to paying subscribers, prompting outraged critics to accuse Musk’s company of monetizing the problem rather than solving it.Bowing to global pressure, X on Wednesday said it would restrict “all users,” including paying subscribers, from using the Grok account to edit images of people in “revealing clothes such as bikinis.”But just hours later, the Philippines announced the country’s block could be effective by the end of Thursday.Cybercrime chief Renato Paraiso said that X’s announcement would have no effect on the government’s plans, adding that authorities will monitor whether the platform follows through on its promises.”We need to clean the internet now because much toxic content is appearing, especially with the advent of AI,” said Philippine telecommunications secretary Henry Rhoel Aguda.Meanwhile, Malaysia on Thursday said its regulators found that X’s measures to prevent Grok from generating revealing images were “not done in totality.”If X can successfully deactivate and prevent the generation of such content, Malaysia will lift the temporary restriction on Grok, communications minister Fahmi Fadzil said.- ‘Zero tolerance’ -British Prime Minister Keir Starmer — a favourite target of Musk’s political posts — welcomed that X was acting to ensure “full compliance with UK law,” but insisted that it “must happen immediately.””If we need to strengthen existing laws further, we are prepare to do that,” Starmer wrote on X.Pressure has been building on xAI to rein in Grok after its so-called “Spicy Mode” feature allowed users to create sexualized deepfakes using simple text prompts such as “put her in a bikini” or “remove her clothes.”The European Commission, which acts as the EU’s digital watchdog, has said it will “carefully assess” measures taken by X to ensure “they effectively protect citizens.””France and Europe taking action… is producing results,” Paris’s digital minister Anne Le Henanff told AFP on Thursday, warning that “no platform is above the law.”California Governor Gavin Newsom said that xAI’s “vile” decision to allow sexually explicit deepfakes to proliferate prompted him to urge the state’s attorney general, Rob Bonta, to hold the company accountable.”We have zero tolerance for the AI-based creation and dissemination of nonconsensual intimate images or of child sexual abuse material,” Bonta said on Wednesday.He added that the California investigation would determine whether xAI violated state law after the explicit imagery was “used to harass people across the internet.”Further adding pressure on xAI, a coalition of 28 civil society groups submitted open letters to the CEOs of Apple and Google on Wednesday, urging them to ban Grok and X from their app stores amid the surge in sexualized images.burs-ac/arp