Good morning. Late last night, President Trump said he was cutting off trade negotiations with Canada. And in Israel, Vice President JD Vance said an international security force would disarm Hamas. It’s not clear what that will look like. More news is below. But first, we look at a cheating scandal in the N.B.A. and the demolition of the East Wing. The future of cheating
They’re two of the oldest scams in gambling: Rigging a card game and rigging a ball game. Yesterday, federal officials charged dozens of people — including two active N.B.A. figures and several reputed mobsters — in schemes to carry out both. But these scams were anything but old-fashioned. Each used high-tech methods that wouldn’t have been possible a few years ago, according to officials. The poker scheme: Officials said four New York Mafia families — the Bonanno, Gambino, Lucchese and Genovese families — set up poker nights that swindled millions of dollars from unwitting players. Chauncey Billups, the head coach of the Portland Trail Blazers, was charged with playing the role of a “face card,” taking part in the games to attract high rollers. In some of the rigged games, the poker chip trays had hidden cameras that could read the cards on the table. Sometimes, the cards had markings visible only to people wearing specially designed contact lenses or sunglasses, officials said. The organizers are also accused of using a card-shuffling machine that could read the cards in the deck and predict which player had the best hand. That information would then make its way back to the table, through a relay of insiders who communicated with cellphones and secret signals. The basketball scheme: With online betting, prop bets allow individual wagers on nearly every player and every statistic. Now players don’t need to throw a game to make gamblers rich. They just need to miss a shot — or take a seat on the bench. In March 2023, the indictment says, the veteran guard Terry Rozier told an associate that he planned to pull himself out of a game in the first quarter, citing an injury. Word spread among a group of bettors, who placed hundreds of thousands of dollars of bets on Rozier to under-deliver that night. The bets on his points, assists and 3-point totals paid out — and the gamblers split the proceeds with Rozier, prosecutors said. More coverage
A demolition
The East Wing, the entrance to the White House for millions of Americans on official tours, the site of offices for every first lady for nearly half a century and the home of calligraphers who prepared thousands of invitations for White House state dinners, disappeared into a pile of rubble yesterday. It had stood for 123 years. Built during the Theodore Roosevelt administration as an entryway for guests arriving in carriages, and rebuilt during Franklin D. Roosevelt’s presidency, the East Wing met its end under orders from Trump. He dismissed it this week as “a very small building” that was in the way of his planned 90,000-square-foot, $300 million ballroom. With it went the Jacqueline Kennedy Garden and the East Colonnade, which connected the East Wing to the White House and included the president’s theater. “It’s not just a building,” said Laura Schwartz, the White House director of events in the Clinton administration. “It’s the living history.” Meeting a need
Tearing down the East Wing to make space for the ballroom was an unfortunate necessity, said Gahl Hodges Burt, who was social secretary for three years under President Ronald Reagan. Since the largest spaces in the building have room for 200 seated guests at most, recent administrations have erected enormous tents on the South Lawn for ever larger state dinners. “Putting up a tent does nothing but make people upset that they’ve come to a state dinner but they never get inside the White House,” Burt said. “The only bathroom facilities for a tent are porta-potties. Setting up a kitchen out there is hugely expensive. When the tent is up, the helicopter can’t land. And the grass dies.” (Ms. Burt was referring to the presidential helicopter, Marine One.)
Michael LaRosa, the press secretary to Jill Biden, lamented the loss but agreed that a ballroom was needed: “The French have the Élysée Palace, and here we are having a lawn party.” A rich history
During its 123 years, two modern East Wing incidents stand out. In 2009, in what passed as a scandal at the time, two uninvited guests and aspiring television reality stars, Michaele and Tareq Salahi, slipped into the first state dinner of the Obama administration. They rubbed shoulders with Vice President Joe Biden. On Sept. 11, 2001, Secret Service agents grabbed Vice President Dick Cheney from his West Wing office and rushed him into a bunker below the East Wing, which had been built as a shelter for Roosevelt during World War II. Cheney headed underground the moment that American Airlines Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon. The East Wing never had the political importance or cachet of the West Wing, which houses the Oval Office. But it became prominent, and controversial, when Republicans denounced the expensive new construction, built partly to cover Roosevelt’s new underground shelter, as wasteful. The first lady’s spot
The personality of the East Wing was always calmer and less intense than that of the testosterone-filled West Wing. Until Thursday, the ground floor housed the White House visitors’ office and the Office of Legislative Affairs, while the second floor was home to the White House Military Office and the offices of the first lady. Presidents watched the Super Bowl and showed movies before their release in the theater in the colonnade, which was used as a coat check for big events. During holiday parties, a band would often play Christmas carols just outside the East Wing entrance as guests arrived.
Melania Trump visited the East Wing so infrequently during her husband’s first term that her empty office there was converted into a gift-wrapping room. It is unclear how many times she has been there in the second term, or if she had offered any feedback on her husband’s plans. For more
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Other Big Stories
Americans are thrilled with the Louvre heist. It’s because we need a story to escape into, Sloane Crosley writes. The 2025 World Series will be the last with only human umpires. Savor it, Jane Leavy writes.
The Chinese dream once followed a simple formula: move to a big city, work hard, and buy a home. But China’s economy is suffering. Young people are struggling to find the kind of lucrative office jobs that were once common after college, and some are rejecting the pressure to pursue prosperity at all costs. Meanwhile, the population is aging, and blue-collar jobs are becoming increasingly attractive. In response, many workers are finding new careers in the digital gig economy — and in the process, redefining what work looks like. The New York Times profiled some of these workers: a mother helping people navigate China’s bureaucratic hospital system; a lifestyle influencer who urges people to “lie flat” and live affordable, stress-free lives; and a former retail manager who quit her office job to become a licensed electrician. Morning readers: Save on the complete Times experience. Experience all of The Times, all in one subscription — all with this introductory offer. You’ll gain unlimited access to news and analysis, plus games, recipes, product reviews and more. |
