Missed Paychecks, NBA Gambling Scandal, Russia Reacts

More than a million federal workers are missing a paycheck during this government shutdown.

The White House says it's playing a game of twister with the budget to keep some workers paid while others go without.

I'm Steve Inskeep with A.

Martinez, and this is up first from NPR News.

An NBA gambling scandal is shaking the sports world with an active player and head coach among those arrested.

The case sounds like a movie script, one that involves millions of dollars, the mafia, and high-tech equipment to rig poker games.

And Russia responds after the U.S.

placed sanctions on two of the country's largest oil companies.

President Putin says they won't have any impact and shrugged off the canceled meeting with President Trump.

So, what does this mean for the war in Ukraine?

Stay with us.

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It's day 24 of the government shutdown, and across the country, close to a million and a half federal workers are going without pay.

On Thursday, the Senate voted on Democratic and Republican bills to pay federal employees.

Republicans would have paid the people still working.

Democrats would have paid everybody, including those on furlough.

Both bills failed.

MPR's Andrew Hsu joins us now to talk about it.

So, Andrea, tell us about who exactly is not getting paid.

Yeah, so these are civilian employees of the government all over the country.

And roughly 700,000 of them are furloughed, meaning they're not working and not getting paid.

And close to that many are working, but also not getting paid.

This includes, you know, air traffic controllers, also people working at the Social Security Administration like Tiara Carter.

She answers the 1-800 line there from her base in Tampa, Florida.

And she's also a union rep for the American Federation of Government Employees.

And she says the shutdown has been a real financial hit.

You know, she's had to take out loans and seek out a hardship withdrawal from her 401k.

I kind of feel like I'm in a pool and I'm trying to swim to the top, but every time I get to the middle, I'm getting knocked back down.

That's got to feel rough.

What kind of resources are available to federal workers like her who find themselves suddenly struggling to try and get by?

Well, here in the D.C.

area, where there's a high concentration of federal workers, food banks have been distributing boxes of provisions to government employees.

Those events have drawn hundreds of people with lines stretching around the block.

And A, a lot of federal workers do their banking at credit unions.

And now these credit unions all over the country are offering short-term interest-free loans to help with things like house payments or car payments until their next paychecks arrive.

And credit unions say they've been hearing from more federal workers every day.

Now, here's the thing, though.

I mean, as bad as things are for federal employees, I mean, there are a lot of people listening right now, Andrea, who might not be noticing that there's anything astray and anything amiss, right?

So, because there are parts of the government that are still functioning.

So when exactly might there be an impact of the shutdown that people will feel?

Well, it really depends on how long the shutdown goes on.

If it drags on and on, experts say the general public will feel the economic effects in their communities.

I spoke with Shia Kabus about this.

He's with the Bipartisan Policy Center.

That's a think tank here in Washington.

Not everybody feels it yet, but it's actually affecting the broader economy.

And the longer it goes on, the more people will feel the ripple effects.

Grocery stores that are located near federal buildings are seeing less foot traffic.

Daycares are seeing fewer kids because their parents are now furloughed.

Things like that are already happening.

Okay.

There are, though, some federal workers that are getting paid.

Who are they?

And where is that money coming from?

Yeah, well, in any shutdown, there are people who continue working and getting paid because their salaries don't come from the funding that Congress has to approve every year.

So most everyone at the VA falls into this category.

But this time, the Trump administration has also moved money around to ensure that some others are also getting paid.

White House Budget Director Russ Fog called this budgetary twister.

So for example, last week, members of the military did get their paychecks on schedule.

That money came from unused research and development funds from the Defense Department.

And this week, law enforcement officers doing immigration enforcement got what Homeland Security Secretary Christy Noam called a super check that included pay all the way back to October 1st.

And their paychecks are coming from money approved for Homeland Security as part of last summer's tax and spending bill.

But you know, some of their colleagues, those serving in support roles, are still not getting paid.

So, in the shutdown, A, increasingly, there are haves and have-nots within the federal workforce.

And in some cases, they're working right alongside each other.

That's NPR's Andrea Shu.

Thanks a lot.

Thank you.

The NBA says it's cooperating with the FBI's investigation into illegal gambling.

Yeah, federal authorities arrested more than 30 people yesterday.

They include an active pro player, Terry Rogier of the Miami Heat, and an active coach, Chauncey Billops of the Portland Trailblazers.

So how widespread is this?

NPR sports correspondent Becky Sullivan is with us.

Becky, this would be a big deal if it was just one player, but this is way more than that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.

It's not just one player.

It's not just one team.

According to the indictment, this scandal involved leagues from multiple teams.

You had players or coaches with the Charlotte Hornets, the Toronto Raptors, the Los Angeles Lakers, the Orlando Magic, and the Portland Trailblazers, allegedly sharing non-public information with gamblers or friends who then told gamblers.

And I think the access that crime ranks and organized gamblers apparently have to NBA players and coaches should be a serious concern for the league because it's clear that even those who are making millions of dollars are at risk for getting swept up in this stuff.

I mean, Billips made more than $100 million over the course of his Hall of Fame NBA career.

He makes millions per year as a coach.

Rogier was on a contract to make $26 million this year alone.

Yeah, how did all this even come to light?

Well, the way that these modern online gambling companies work is that there are these monitoring services that track bets across platforms looking for unusual patterns.

And so if you take the Terry Rogier game, for example, this was a game back in 2023.

He told a friend that he was going to withdraw early from the game with an injury.

That wasn't public information at the time.

The friend allegedly sold that information to a gambler, and then organized bettors placed collectively around a quarter million dollars on various prop bets, basically saying, guessing that Rogier would have a worse game than usual.

And so, obviously, when you have a quarter mill all flooding in on sort of a relatively random player's unders, that rings alarm bells.

The NBA was notified.

The league actually investigated at the time and cleared Rogier of wrongdoing, although the indictment alleges that Rogier knew what was happening and had conspirators come to his home afterward to count their earnings.

Rogier's lawyer, I should say, denies this and plans to fight these charges.

Now, Chauncey Billops was inducted into the Naismith Hall of Fame in 2024.

He's the highest profile person named so far.

So what are the charges against him?

Well, he faces a count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to money launder.

Both of those are related actually to an indictment about underground poker games.

In that indictment, prosecutors allege that organized crime groups basically run these games and use Billups.

They say that they used Billups.

And then the organizers used all this high-tech equipment like rigged shuffling machines and x-ray poker tables and special glasses to cheat and win.

But the other indictment that's about sports gambling, Billops is not named there, but there is an unnamed co-conspirator described in a way that matches Billops exactly.

The years he played in the league, when he became a coach, that person shared confidential info about how the Trailblazers were planning to sit their stars in a game against the Chicago Bulls with a defendant who then shared that info with gamblers who then wagered more than $100,000 on the game successfully.

Billops, you know, his lawyer, said in a statement to me, they deny the allegations, both related to the poker and providing insider information and said, quote, we look forward to our day in court.

How's the league been reacting to this?

I mean, I think people are stunned by what's happening.

You know, people lamenting that just this mix of sort of social media, everybody's easy to contact, plus widespread legalization of gambling, results in this constant contact with gamblers.

Here's how Bruce Brown, a guard at the Denver Nuggets, put it to reporters yesterday.

There's been games where I've gotten called every name in the book just because I didn't hit a three or two.

I mean, that's just the state of the game we're in when first betting got legal.

So, I mean, just kind of deal with it.

Just not think about it.

Don't check your DMs after games.

Also, every team has their general counsel come talk to players before the season began to tell them what to do, what not to do, what's legal, what's not.

And obviously, no betting on games, no sharing that kind of confidential information with gamblers.

For many teams, that talk happens this week, so it's obviously jarring for this news to happen now.

Becky, I know this is very fresh right now, but will this prompt any change with the NBA?

Yeah, Yeah, I mean, it is too soon to tell, but certainly if this isn't a huge red flag, I don't know what is.

You had active players, active coaches involved.

And frankly, I think that's a disaster for trust in the game.

And it's not just the NBA that is dealing with this stuff, by the way.

The NCAA banned a handful of D1 college basketball players last month because they had gambled directly on their own games or worked with gamblers to do so.

Major League Baseball is investigating a pair of pitchers with the Cleveland Guardians, who were the subject of suspicious betting activity this summer.

And all of this, of course, is why these leagues used to be vocally against legalizing legalizing sports gambling, but that ship has now sailed and there is a lot of money to be made by embracing it.

That's NPR's Becky Sullivan.

Becky, thanks.

You're welcome.

We have the view from Moscow of President Trump's shifting efforts to end Russia's war in Ukraine.

In recent days, President Trump said he would hold another summit meeting with Russian leader Vladimir Putin.

Then he said he wouldn't.

He has said Ukraine will have to surrender territory to the Russian invaders, yet also imposed new sanctions on Russia.

NPR's Moscow correspondent Charles Mainz is watching all of this from the Russian capital.

Charles, so let's start with these sanctions.

They seem to be a bit of a shift in Trump's approach to Russia.

Tell us more about them.

Yeah, sure.

These sanctions target two of Russia's top oil companies, Rosnaft and Lukoil, which jointly make up nearly half of Russian oil exports.

And they're significant because they mark the first time Trump has followed through on threats to make Russia pay a price for its war in Ukraine.

So why now?

Well, it's no secret Trump wants to see this war end.

Part of his larger mission, I think, to cast himself as a global peacemaker.

You know, and Trump has expressed real frustration with Putin's foot-dragging on a peace deal, most recently with this summit meeting agreed to and then tabled in a matter of days.

Now, the reason is negotiations to set up the meeting showed zero flexibility from the Russian side, flexibility that Trump thought he had from Putin, including to Trump's latest proposal, which was to freeze the the conflict along current battle lines.

Now, was this a case of missed signals of being played?

We just don't know.

But Trump said with Putin, he found it was often nice talk, but the actual deal-making went nowhere, and so sanctions.

And Charles, what about Russian reaction to all this?

Because I can't imagine they're pleased.

They are not.

I think, though, this took Moscow a bit by surprise.

You know, one moment they're up, next they're down.

The summit idea itself came out of a phone call that Putin initiated with Trump, just as Trump was set to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky about the possibility of giving U.S.

long-range weapons, these tomahawk missiles you may have heard about.

Trump then decides not to give the tomahawks, instead he'll meet with Putin instead, which was seen as a real coup here in Moscow until it wasn't.

You know, suddenly it's no meeting, now sanctions.

Putin addressed the issue last night with reporters saying this undermined recent progress in restoring relations with the U.S., that he hoped the meeting with Trump wasn't canceled but postponed, but he also gave no ground.

So here he says no self-respecting country or no self-respecting people ever decides anything under pressure.

All right.

Now, Charles, is there any way to think that these sanctions might work and might change Vladimir Putin's calculus when it comes to negotiating an end to the war?

Well, for now, the answer would seem to be no.

Putin acknowledged these sanctions were harmful, but insisted they were not fatal to the Russian economy.

And it's true.

You know, oil revenues make up a significant portion of the federal budget, but there are others.

And certainly, Russia has a lot of practice with sanctions evasion, including in the energy sector.

But this could make things really uncomfortable for Russia, particularly if China and India scale back oil imports out of fear of secondary sanctions, for example.

But then again, you know, there are risks for Trump here, too.

His predecessor, Joe Biden, didn't impose sanctions on Russian oil for a reason.

He was afraid of how they might affect global markets and, of course, how they might affect American consumers.

NPR's Moscow correspondent, Charles Mainz.

Charles, thank you.

Thank you.

And that's Up First for Friday, October 24th.

I'm eRTA.

And I'm Steve Inskeep.

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