ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. (AP) — New Jersey gambling regulators have handed out $40,000 in fines to two sportsbooks and a tech company for violations that included taking bets on unauthorized events, and on games that had already ended. In information made public Monday, the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement fined DraftKings $20,000. It also levied $10,000 fines on Rush Street Interactive NJ and the sports betting technology company Kambi. According to documents released by the state, Rush Street accepted 16 bets worth $1,523 in Nov. 2021 on a college basketball game between the University of North Carolina-Asheville and Tennessee Tech University after the game had already concluded with a UNC victory. Kambi told the enforcement division that a trader had failed to manually remove that game from its betting markets, saying it had stopped receiving messages from its own sports data provider due to a network connectivity error. Kambi said it has updated its guidelines and retrained its traders to prevent a recurrence. Kambi, which is based in Malta, did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment Monday. Rush Street declined comment, and DraftKings had no immediate comment Monday. DraftKings stopped using Kambi in 2021. In March 2022 Rush Street took seven bets totaling just under $2,900 on three Magic City Jai Alai games after the results were already known. Kambi told the division it experienced a connectivity issue that allowed the bets to be accepted after the games were over. An explanation of what Kambi did to address the situation was blacked out in documents released by the division. A month earlier Rush Street took 13 wagers worth $8,150 with pre-match odds on a Professional Golf Association match after the event had already begun. In this case, Kambi told the division a newly hired trader failed to enter the correct closing time time for bets on the event. The trader and a supervisor underwent retraining. DraftKings was fined for taking bets on unapproved events including Russian basketball for nine months in 2020 and 2021. It eventually voided over $61,000 in bets and returned the money to customers after being directed to do so by the state. In this case, Kambi told the division it misidentified this particular Russian basketball league as one that was approved for wagering in New Jersey. DraftKings told the state it did not catch the error, either. In 2020, DraftKings accepted 484 wagers on unapproved table tennis matches. Kambi incorrectly enabled the events for wagering without conditions required by the state, the division said. In Feb. 2022, the division said DraftKings took pre-season NFL bets involving specific players but did not give the state specific information on what information was to be included in the bets, drawing 182 wagers worth nearly $7,000 that were later voided and refunded to customers. Follow Wayne Parry on X at www.twitter.com/WayneParryACJammu, Dec 12: The government Thursday ordered the transfers and postings of three Jammu and Kashmir Administrative Service (JKAS) officers with immediate effect. As per an order issued by the General Administration Department (GAD), Farukh Ahmad Qazi, Additional Secretary in the J&K Public Service Commission, has been transferred and posted as Additional Secretary in the J&K Services Selection Board. Suhail Ahmad, awaiting orders of adjustment in the General Administration Department, has been transferred and posted as Additional Secretary in the J&K Public Service Commission. Through a separate GAD order, Mohammad Usman Khan, under orders of transfer as Deputy District Election Officer, Kishtwar, in terms of Government Order No 1728-JK (GAD) of 2024 dated October 9, 2024, has been posted as Special Assistant with the Minister for Food, Civil Supplies and Consumer Affairs, Transport, Science and Technology, Information Technology, Youth Services and Sports and ARI and Trainings
As it crossed the Niger Delta in 2021, a satellite imaged acres of bare land. The site outside the city of Port Harcourt was on a United Nations Environment Programme cleanup list, supposed to be restored to green farmland as the Delta was before thousands of oil spills turned it into a byword for pollution. Instead it was left a sandy “moonscape” unusable for farming, according to U.N. documents. It wasn’t the only botched cleanup, a cache of previously unreported investigations, emails, letters to Nigerian ministers and meeting minutes show. Senior U.N. officials considered the Nigerian cleanup agency a “total failure.” The agency, the Hydrocarbon Pollution Remediation Project, or Hyprep, selected cleanup contractors without relevant experience, a U.N. review found. It sent soil samples to laboratories lacking the equipment for tests they had claimed to perform. Auditors were physically blocked from checking that work had been completed. Most cleanup companies are owned by politicians, a former Nigerian environment minister told the AP, and correspondence shows similar views were shared by U.N. officials. It wasn’t supposed to be this way. There have been thousands of oil spills since Niger Delta production began in the 1950s. Reports and studies document that people often wash, drink, fish and cook in contaminated water. Spills still occur frequently. In November, the Ogboinbiri community in Bayelsa state suffered its fourth spill in three months, harming fields, streams and fishing. “We have not harvested anything," said farmer Timipre Bridget, there is now “no way to survive.” After a major U.N. pollution survey in 2011, oil companies agreed to a $1 billion cleanup fund for the worst-affected area, Ogoniland. Shell, the largest private oil and gas company in the country, contributed $300 million. The U.N. was relegated to an advisory role. The Nigerian government would handle the funds. But a confidential investigation by U.N. scientists last year found the site outside Port Harcourt was left with a “complete absence of topsoil,” with almost seven times more petroleum remaining than Nigerian health limits allow. The company responsible had its contract revoked, Nenibarini Zabbey, the current director of Hyprep, told the AP by email. The head of operations when the contract was awarded, Philip Shekwolo, called allegations in the U.N. documents “baseless" and "cheap blackmail.” Shekwolo, who used to head up oil spill remediation for Shell, insists the cleanup was successful. But the documents show U.N. officials raising the alarm since 2021, when Shekwolo was acting chief. A January 2022 U.N. review found 21 of the 41 contractors okayed to clean up spill sites had no relevant experience. These included construction companies and general merchants. They were effectively handed a “blank check,” U.N. Senior Project Advisor Iyenemi Kakulu is recorded saying in the minutes of a meeting with Hyprep and Shell. Incompetent companies were to blame for bad cleanups, Hyprep’s own communications chief, Joseph Kpobari is in the minutes as having said. Despite this, they were rewarded contracts for more polluted sites, the U.N. delegation warned. Zabbey denied Kpobari’s admission. He said 16 out of 20 sites in the project’s first stage are certified as clean by Nigerian regulators and many have been returned to communities. Hyprep always issued contracts correctly, he said. Two sources close to the cleanup efforts, speaking anonymously for fear of loss of business or employment, said when officials visited laboratories used by Hyprep, they lacked equipment needed to perform the tests they reported. In a letter to customers, one U.K. laboratory frequently used by Hyprep acknowledged its tests for most of 2022 were flawed and unreliable and the U.K. laboratory accreditation service confirmed the lab was twice suspended. Zabbey says now Hyprep monitors contractors more closely, labs adhere to Nigerian and U.N. recommendations and are frequently checked. The U.N. also warned the Nigerian government in a 2021 assessment that Hyprep’s spending was not being tracked. Internal auditors were considered “the enemy” and “demonized for doing their job.” Shekwolo’s predecessor as Hyprep chief blocked financial controls and “physically prevented” auditors from checking that work had been completed, it found. Zabbey responded that the audit team is valued now, and accounts are audited annually, although he provided only one audit cover letter. In it, the accountants “identified weaknesses.” One Nigerian politician tried to change things: Sharon Ikeazor spent decades as a lawyer before becoming environment minister in 2019. “The companies had no competence whatsoever,” she said in a phone interview. In February 2022, she received a letter from senior U.N. official Muralee Thummarukudy, warning of “significant opportunities for malpractice" over contract awards, unusually strong language in U.N. diplomacy. She removed Shekwolo as acting Hyprep chief the next month, explaining that she believed he was too close to the politicians. Most cleanup companies were owned by politicians, she said. The few competent companies “wouldn’t get the big jobs.” Shekwolo assessed who was competent for contract awards, Ikeazor said. Shekwolo’s former employer Shell and the U.N. both warned her about him, she said, something Shekwolo says he was unaware of. Ikeazor asked Shekwolo’s successor to review every suspect contract and investigate the cleanup companies. “That sent shockwaves around the political class,” she said. She was quickly replaced as environment minister, with Shekwolo rehired, after just two months out of office. Shekwolo denied being too close to politicians. He insists no reason was given for his removal and suggested Ikeazor simply didn’t like him. Last year, the U.N. Environment Programme ended its official involvement in the Nigerian oil spill cleanup, explaining its five-year consultancy was over. Ikeazor said the real reason was U.N. frustration over corruption, and the two sources close to the project concurred. Zabbey said he believes the U.N. merely changed its goals and moved on. Associated Press reporters Taiwo Adebayo and Dan Ikpoyi contributed from Abuja and Bayelsa, Nigeria. The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org .Freddie Prinze Jr. wasn’t too disappointed to see LA Knight lose the WWE United States Championship, as he thinks Knight never needed the title to get over. Knight lost the title to Shinsuke Nakamura at Survivor Series: WarGames and the actor & former WWE writer shared his thoughts on the matter on his Wrestling with Freddie podcast. You can see highlights below (h/t to Wrestling Inc ): On Knight losing the title: “He never needed that belt. He didn’t need it. He’s too over. Titles are meant to help talent look great. That’s their sole function, is to help talent look great. The belt is to assist the wearer of the belt, sorry for the lack of a better term, but yeah LA Knight I never thought needed it.” On stars like Knight, Kevin Owens and MJF not needing titles: “There’s just certain guys and certain girls that are so friggin’ good in every facet of the game — like MJF does not need a title. It’s awesome when they have ’em, but they can tell you stories that make you feel whatever it is they’re fighting for is just as important as a world championship. You don’t need a title.”
Via Middle East Eye As this year comes to an end, the most populous Arab country remains a stagnant mammoth with a slowly rotting political order, lacking domestic legitimacy and kept alive only by a continuous lifeline of cash from the West and Arab Gulf states who fear the repercussions of the Egyptian regime’s implosion. The year started with Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, who is now 70, renewing his presidential term until 2030 after an electoral circus whose outcome was determined from the start. His only serious competition, former parliamentarian Ahmed Tantawi, was swiftly jailed . Egypt’s secret police, Homeland Security , continued throughout the year targeting all forms and shades of dissent, both online and offline, keeping citizens incarcerated in an endless labyrinth of fabricated cases , dubbed by rights lawyers as a process of "rotation" . Prison conditions remain draconian, and detainees have repeatedly gone on hunger strikes to protest torture and maltreatment. More than 50 incarcerated people have died in interior ministry-run prisons, Homeland Security branches and police stations this year. Criticism of the president or regime officials in the mainstream media is virtually non-existent . Most media outlets are officially owned and micromanaged by one company created by the General Intelligence Service (GIS). A handful of online independent news sites operate under strict conditions, are censored and denied media licences and face constant harassment . At the time of writing, at least 24 journalists and media workers remained in prison, according to the Egyptian Journalists Syndicate. Street activism, which experienced a rare, sudden revival in October 2023 with the outbreak of the Gaza war , was quickly crushed by security services , who ensured the streets remained quiet. A year later, more than 100 people are still in prison for taking part in peaceful solidarity actions with the Palestinian people. Syria shows the way? While organized street dissent remains under siege, spontaneous social protests by politically unaffiliated citizens involving confrontations with state forces have become increasingly frequent. Specifically, there have been industrial actions over wages and working conditions, as well as protests over housing, evictions and road safety. Since the 2013 coup, the regime has embarked on one of the biggest demolition campaigns in Egypt’s modern history, part of its militarised urban restructuring . Architect Omnia Khalil estimates that roughly 10 percent of the residents of Giza and Cairo alone have been displaced since 2013. This onslaught has triggered long-running fights against evictions, which have turned into clashes with the military and police, such as in Jemima, Port Said, Warraq and elsewhere. These protests should be monitored because they will likely escalate in the coming year. Earlier this month, Egyptians watched in jubilation as the brutal dynastic dictatorship of Bashar al-Assad fell. How this will play out for the millions who live under Sisi's brutal dictatorship remains to be seen. With the destruction of the Egyptian opposition and almost daily acts of state terror against the slightest sign or gesture of dissent , a repetition of the 2011 domino effect is unlikely - at least in the short run. However, there are certainly those in Egypt who are watching the Syrian events and contemplating whether an armed insurgency is the only way to topple Sisi, just as the Syrian 'rebels' did. Needless to say, the rebels' victory will boost political Islam in Egypt and elsewhere . Sisi is also nervous about the events in Syria. Roughly one week after Assad's downfall, he met with military commanders, senior police officials, the GIS chief, the prime minister and several other top government officials at the defense ministry's strategic command headquarters in the new administrative capital to discuss the impact of the regional wars in Syria and Gaza. Humanitarian organizations and media reports have estimated that there are some 70,000 political prisoners under Sisi ... "Sisi's prisons are no less horrifying than the atrocities of Syria's prisons." After Syria's rebels freed scores of political detainees, Egyptians are calling for the same in Egypt. Since 2013, Egypt's President Sisi has detained over 60,000 political prisoners nationwide. pic.twitter.com/ZCdvGc7Knq Speaking to his publicists on the same day, he called on the people to unite and safeguard the Egyptian state. "There are two things I've never done, thanks to God," he said . "I neither stained my hands with anyone's blood nor took anyone's money." Military business Despite pressure from international donors - and occasionally, prominent Egyptian businessmen - on the regime to remove the army from the civilian economy, the military continues to expand its control . It manipulates free-market forces in its favor and uses its clout to impose itself in partnerships with local and global capital. In 2024, Sisi continued to dodge calls to privatize military corporations or curb their influence. On the contrary, they were given more monopolies and a larger share of the pie. Early this month , Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly announced plans to list several companies affiliated with the military on the Egyptian Exchange. However, this is not the first time such statements have been made. Sisi announced in November 2022 that two military firms - a petrol company and a bottled water producer - would be listed on the stock exchange. A few months later, Madbouly announced that 10 more army companies would be offered on the stock market. To date, no single military firm has been privatised. There is a good reason why the regime has been procrastinating all those years with selling those firms. At this point, Sisi’s loyal constituency is confined to the officer corps. His popularity among all social classes in Egypt, including sections of big capital, has hit rock bottom. Antagonising the brass or messing with their economic privileges could prove fatal in such turbulent times. So, is the regime finally embarking on privatizing the army’s firms? The devil is always in the details. According to Madbouly’s statements, parts of the firms will be sold directly to a "strategic investor", though no specifics were provided regarding the identity of these investors or the percentage of shares to be sold. Also, the firms will not be fully privatized, but a percentage will be offered in the stock market. Again, it is unclear what percentage. Some possible scenarios to watch in 2025 include stocks being sold to civilian investors who act as fronts for the military or to companies that the military partially or wholly owns. For instance, the army’s National Service Projects Organization (NSPO) holds a 20 percent stake in Taqa Arabia, which is seen as a potential bidder for Wataniya - one of the four firms to be listed. If Sisi takes something away from the army with one hand, he will compensate them for it with the other hand. This could mean more concessions in other sectors, allocated lands and so on. For example, while planning the privatization of Silo Foods, the Egyptian Air Force (EAF) is now, in effect, running the agricultural production sector and has recently been given a monopoly over grain imports . Crisis of hegemony In the summer of 2023, Sisi signed a law ending tax exemptions for government economic activities. But tax exemptions for army business ventures remained in place, as the new law included an exception for economic activities related to “national security”, which could be conveniently interpreted as anything related to the military. In the coming year, the regime is likely to continue evading calls to reform the military-economic complex. It will likely resort to maneuvers such as floating military firms in the stock market, only to buy them through other companies and businessmen who are fronts for the army, or curbing the privileges of military corporations in one sector, only to compensate in another. Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi unveiled the new administrative capital and presidential palace, built 45 kilometers east of Cairo in the desert, during the D-8 summit. The mega city, comparable in size to Hamburg, cost $45 billion. pic.twitter.com/J1YnIm0ttG Meanwhile, news emerged this month that Ibrahim al-Organi , a criminal smuggler-turned-militiaman and state-sponsored businessman, is planning to launch a political party. An official declaration has yet to be made. But if the project proceeds, the proposed party will contest the parliamentary and senate elections in 2025. (I stress “if”, as Organi has not publicly confirmed this, and the project could ultimately be scrapped.) But we must ask why such plans are being floated. This is not necessarily driven by Organi’s personal ambitions. He is an agent for the state and can be easily replaced at any point if the regime deems him useless or harmful. Rather, this is driven by the regime’s crisis of hegemony . Sisi is ruling solely by coercion, unlike his predecessors and has eviscerated the civil society and political institutions that manufacture some necessary level of consent, which is crucial for the endurance of the regime and the state. Political desert Sisi desperately needs something a la former President Hosni Mubarak’s National Democratic Party (NDP). But so far, he has failed to replicate it, including through the miserable Nation’s Future Party, whose public events for shoring up support for Sisi only backfire and turn into anti-regime protests . Attempts at rigging the votes in professional syndicates either fail or descend into pure thuggery , causing scandals that the regime has to scramble to manage. News of Organi’s proposed political party is the latest attempt to “create politics” in a country whose political scene has become wholly desertified. The total reliance on foreign debt has led to domestic fallout, widening class gaps in Egypt and a state of social decay , along with a decline in Cairo’s regional clout and soft power . From an active regional hegemon under previous regimes, Sisi’s Egypt is now dependent on foreign loans, grants and continuous bailouts by regional and international donors who see Egypt as "too big to fail" and do not want to risk further instability in the Middle East . As a result, Sisi has been unable to steer the course of events in Egypt’s traditional spheres of influence. Instead, he has either suffered diplomatic defeats or brought Egypt to a state of shameless complicity in the ongoing genocide on his eastern border under the watchful eyes of his military. In the coming year, Egypt will remain relevant to the Israeli - Palestinian conflict by virtue of geographical proximity, which puts it in control of Gaza’s only exit to the outside world - the Rafah crossing. While incapable of forcing Israel to withdraw from the Philadelphi Corridor along its border, Cairo will continue to pressure the weaker side - the Palestinians - into concessions and compromises to prove its own worth to the Trump administration in the US .
Marler to retire from rugby on Friday, a month after quitting international duty with England
“Wanted” posters with the names and faces of health care executives have been popping up on the streets of New York. Hit lists with images of bullets are circulating online with warnings that industry leaders should be afraid. The apparent targeted killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson and the menacing threats that followed have sent a shudder through corporate America and the health care industry in particular, leading to increased security for executives and some workers. In the week since the brazen shooting , health insurers have removed information about their top executives from company websites, canceled in-person meetings with shareholders and advised all employees to work from home temporarily. An internal New York Police Department bulletin warned this week that the online vitriol that followed the shooting could signal an immediate “elevated threat.” Police fear that the Dec. 4 shooting could "inspire a variety of extremists and grievance-driven malicious actors to violence," according to the bulletin, which was obtained by The Associated Press. “Wanted” posters pasted to parking meters and construction site fences in Manhattan included photos of health care executives and the words “Deny, defend, depose” — similar to a phrase scrawled on bullets found near Thompson’s body and echoing those used by insurance industry critics . Thompson's wife, Paulette, told NBC News last week that he told her some people had been threatening him and suggested the threats may have involved issues with insurance coverage. Investigators believe the shooting suspect, Luigi Mangione , may have been motivated by hostility toward health insurers. They are studying his writings about a previous back injury, and his disdain for corporate America and the U.S. health care system. Mangione’s lawyer has cautioned against prejudging the case. Mangione, 26, has remained jailed in Pennsylvania, where he was arrested Monday . Manhattan prosecutors are working to bring him to New York to face a murder charge. UnitedHealthcare’s parent company, UnitedHealth Group, said this week it was working with law enforcement to ensure a safe work environment and to reinforce security guidelines and building access policies, a spokesperson said. The company has taken down photos, names and biographies for its top executives from its websites, a spokesperson said. Other organizations, including CVS, the parent company for insurance giant Aetna, have taken similar actions. Government health insurance provider Centene Corp. has announced that its investor day will be held online, rather than in-person as originally planned. Medica, a Minnesota-based nonprofit health care firm, said last week it was temporarily closing its six offices for security reasons and would have its employees work from home. Heightened security measures likely will make health care companies and their leaders more inaccessible to their policyholders, said former Cigna executive Wendell Potter. “And understandably so, with this act of violence. There’s no assurance that this won’t happen again,” said Potter, who’s now an advocate for health care reform. Private security firms and consultants have been in high demand, fielding calls almost immediately after the shooting from companies across a range of industries, including manufacturing and finance. Companies have long faced security risks and grappled with how far to take precautions for high-profile executives. But these recent threats sparked by Thompson's killing should not be ignored, said Dave Komendat, a former security chief for Boeing who now heads his own risk-management company. “The tone and tenor is different. The social reaction to this tragedy is different. And so I think that people need to take this seriously,” Komendat said. Just over a quarter of the companies in the Fortune 500 reported spending money to protect their CEOs and top executives. Of those, the median payment for personal security doubled over the last three years to just under $100,000. Hours after the shooting, Komendat was on a call with dozens of chief security officers from big corporations, and there have been many similar meetings since, hosted by security groups or law enforcement agencies assessing the threats, he said. “It just takes one person who is motivated by a poster — who may have experienced something in their life through one of these companies that was harmful," Komendat said. Associated Press reporters Wyatte Grantham-Philips in New York and Barbara Ortutay in San Francisco, contributed to this report. The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.Ford government looking to build three new power plants to meet electricity demands. Here's where they'd be locatedJason Kelce Found It 'Annoying' Competing Against His Brother Travis Kelce