Ukraine's president has urged the European Union to back a plan to release billions of euros in frozen Russian cash to help fund the country's defence.

As EU leaders met in Brussels, Volodymyr Zelensky said he hoped they would make a "positive decision" about using €140bn (£122bn) in Russian assets currently held in a Belgian clearing house.

The controversial move would would be on top of sanctions the block has imposed on Russia - the latest on Thursday targeting the Kremlin's oil revenues.

They followed US measures against Russia's oil industry earlier - the first time President Donald Trump has sanctioned Moscow as he grows frustrated over President Vladimir Putin's refusal to end the war.

On Wednesday evening, the US president confirmed that a planned meeting with Putin in Budapest had been shelved indefinitely.

"Every time I speak to Vladimir, I have good conversations and then they don't go anywhere," he said.

The US sanctions targeted Russia's oil giants Rosneft and Lukoil.

On Thursday, European ministers held talks about how billions of euros worth of frozen Russian cash could be made available to Ukraine as a so-called "reparations loan".

Zelensky, who is attending the summit in Brussels, said: "I hope that they will make a political decision, positive decision in one or another way to help Ukraine with funds.

"Russia brought war to our land, and they have to pay for this war," he said

• What's the significance of the sanctions?
• EU set to endorse deal to turn frozen Russian assets into support for Ukraine
• Rosenberg: Trump abandons carrot and wields stick over Putin

There are a number of legal complexities surrounding using Russia's money.

Belgium, in particular, has been reluctant to back using the frozen assets, as it is nervous about having to shoulder any potential consequences should Russia legally challenge Euroclear, the clearing house where the money is located.

EU foreign affairs chief Kaja Kallas admitted there were "some issues" about using the assets for a loan.

But she said: "The fundamental message is Russia is responsible for the damages in Ukraine and has to pay."

Russia has criticised the idea. "Any confiscatory initiatives from Brussels will inevitably result in a painful response," said Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova.

The EU's latest measures against Russia targeted three Chinese businesses, including two oil refineries and an energy trader, that are "significant buyers of Russian crude oil".

The measures are "meant to deprive Russia of the means to fund this war," said Kallas as well as send a message, specifically that "Russia can't outlast us," she said.

China condemned the decision, which a commerce ministry spokesperson said "seriously undermined the overall framework of China–EU economic and trade co-operation".

US authorities announced several high-profile arrests on Thursday, including of a star player and a coach in the National Basketball Association (NBA), for alleged illegal sports betting.

Among those in custody are Portland Trail Blazers coach Chauncey Billups and Miami Heat player Terry Rozier, both of whom were reportedly arrested after their teams' games on Wednesday.

The arrests are part of a sweeping investigation into illegal gambling that produced two indictments, the FBI said — one into players who are allegedly faking injuries to influence betting odds, and another involving an illegal poker ring tied to organised crime.

Here is what we know about the cases.

What are the allegations?

FBI Director Kash Patel described the allegations to reporters as "mind-boggling".

They include indictments in two major cases, officials said, both involving fraud.

The first case is called "operation nothing but bet," in which players and associates allegedly used insider information to manipulate wagers on major sports betting platforms.

• FOLLOW LIVE: NBA stars and mafia among more than 30 arrested in illegal gambling crackdown

In some cases, players altered their performance or took themselves out of games to ensure those bets were paid out, according to New York City police commissioner Jessica Tisch. Those bets amounted to tens of thousands of dollars in profits.

The second case is more complex in nature, officials said, and involved four of the five major crime families in New York as well as professional athletes.

The accused in that case are alleged to have participated in a scheme to rig illegal poker games and steal millions of dollars.

They did so using "very sophisticated" technology including off-the-shelf shuffling machines, special contact lenses and eye glasses to read pre-marked cards, according to authorities. They also used an X-ray table that could read cards that were face down.

The victims were allegedly lured to play in these games with former professional athletes, who acted as "face cards" in the scheme. The victims were unaware that everyone, including the dealer and the other players, were in on the scam.

Authorities said they began probing these poker games in 2019, spanning multiple locations including the Hamptons, Las Vegas, Miami and Manhattan.

The accused allegedly laundered profits via bank wires and crypto currencies.

They are also alleged to have committed acts of violence, including a robbery at gunpoint and extortion against victims.

Both schemes amounted to tens of millions of dollars in theft and robbery across several years and 11 states, authorities said.

Which players have been arrested?

All in all, authorities say 34 defendants were indicted on charges related to the two fraud cases.

Six were charged in the first case of players allegedly faking injuries to influence betting odds, including Miami Heat player Rozier.

New York police commissioner Jessica Tisch said that in March 2023, Rozier, then playing for the Charlotte Hornets, allegedly let others close to him know that he planned to leave a game early with a supposed injury.

Members of the group then used that information to place fraudulent bets and cash out big, she said.

Commissioner Tisch said on Thursday after Rozier's arrest that his "career is already benched, not for injury but for integrity".

Former NBA player Damon Jones was also arrested. He is said to have been involved in two games that were allegedly part of the scheme, when the Los Angeles Lakers met the Milwaukee Bucks in February 2023, and a January 2024 game between the Lakers and Oklahoma City Thunder.

Authorities identified a total of seven NBA games between February 2023 and March 2024 that were part of the case:

• 9 February, 2023 – Los Angeles Lakers v Milwaukee Bucks

• 23 March, 2023 – Charlotte Hornets v New Orleans Pelicans

• 24 March, 2023 – Portland Trail Blazers v Chicago Bulls

• 6 April, 2023 – Orlando Magic v Cleveland Cavaliers

• 15 January, 2024 – Los Angeles Lakers v Oklahoma City Thunder

• 26 January, 2024 – Toronto Raptors v Los Angeles Clippers

• 20 March, 2024 – Toronto Raptors v Sacramento Kings

The second case related to illegal poker games involved a total of 31 defendants, including Portland Trail Blazers coach Billups, who was inducted into the basketball Hall of Fame last year.

Authorities said three of the accused were charged in both cases.

Thirteen members and associates of the Bonanon, Genovese and Gambino crime families in New York were also indicted in the illegal poker case.

The charges include robbery, extortion, wire fraud, bank fraud and illegal gambling.

The defendants have been arrested and are due to appear in court later on Thursday, authorities said. They are expected to be arraigned in a Brooklyn, New York, court at a later date.

What has the NBA said about the allegations?

In a statement on Thursday, the NBA said it is in the process of reviewing the federal indictments that were announced and that it is co-operating with authorities.

The league added that Rozier and Billups are being placed "on immediate leave" from their teams.

"We take these allegations with the utmost seriousness, and the integrity of our game remains our top priority," the statement said.

Who are New York's notorious 'Five Families'?

Authorities said the alleged scheme involved four of the five well-known crime families of New York.

The Five Families - the Bonanno, Colombo, Gambino, Genovese and Lucchese - have ruled the city's Italian American mafia since 1931.

Major mob takedowns reduced the prevalence of mafia activity in the 1990s, aided by the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act and then-New York mayor Rudy Giuliani.

But, as Thursday's indictments show, the mafia has not entirely gone away.

The Five Families are part of the larger American-Sicilian mafia operation known as La Cosa Nostra, which translates to "this thing of ours", and the members often work closely with their counterparts in Sicily.

On the Italian side, the gangsters consider New York City to be a "gym" where their members go to be toughened up, criminology professor and modern organised crime expert Anna Sergi, previously told BBC.

Afua Kyei, the Bank of England's chief financial officer, has been named the UK's most influential black person.

The 43-year-old is one of the UK's most senior finance leaders, in charge of the financial governance of the Bank's £1 trillion balance sheet and funding reforms.

The BoE executive director topped the 2026 Powerlist, which recognises the most powerful people of African, African Caribbean, and African American heritage in the UK.

Other influential names include former footballer Ian Wright, who's new to the list, make-up artist Dame Pat McGrath and actor Idris Elba.

Kyei, who was recruited by the Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney in his former role as the governor of the Bank of England, said topping the list was "incredibly humbling".

The mum-of-four said growing up she saw obvious differences in the workplace.

She said: "I didn't see so many women in big leadership roles who had families and I know that there are lots of women who think that they need to choose between work and having a family.

"What I love about the Bank of England is that we really support working families and working parents."

Kyei studied chemistry at Oxford University and was also awarded a junior research fellowship by Princeton University in organic chemistry.

'You don't need to be a mathematician'

During the global financial crisis, she was an investment banker before joining Barclays Bank where she was the Chief Financial Officer for Mortgages.

She joined the Bank of England in 2019 and is at the core of the Bank's leadership and decision making.

She said her parents, who moved to the UK from Ghana to go to university at 18, have been her biggest role models.

"My mother came to Liverpool, trained to become a midwife and enjoyed a 40-year plus career working for the NHS.

"My father has enjoyed a long career in the oil industry. I saw them juggling work and home. They instilled really strong values in us," she added.

Kyei hopes to inspire more young people to consider banking as a career.

"You don't need to be a mathematician, you don't need to be an accountant and you don't need to be an economist. What we're looking for is fresh perspectives and we want the best people".

Kyei takes the place of tech CEO Dean Forbes at the head of the list.

The rest of the 2026 Powerlist

The annual Powerlist was first published in 2007, with its aim to provide role models for young black people, according to Powerful Media.

Powerlist founder Michael Eboda said he thought they would run out of people after three years, but the opposite has happened.

"Over the last 20 years we've seen more influencers from the private sector as opposed to the public sector and that's a great story of success in Britain".

Spoiler warning: This article reveals details from the sixth episode of The Celebrity Traitors.

It started with a cliffhanger and ended with a cliffhanger.

And host Claudia Winkleman was in no mood for messing around.

"Silence please," she barked at the contestants seated at the round table as the banishment vote was split and had to be decided for the first time by chance - or should we say, the Chest of Chance. A dramatic version of flipping a coin, if you will.

Poor Mark Bonnar - an actor punished for overacting - took the high road (perhaps he shouldn't have sung The Bonnie Banks of Loch Lomond on Wednesday's episode) after the chest he picked was empty. Historian David Olusoga luckily found a protective shield in his.

One fan on X was clearly amused. "Imagine the first time they do this chest's of chance thing and it's over 2 faithfuls," they mused, later joking: "They've literally just made this up behind the cameras."

But it was no laughing matter for the faithfuls, who are now officially the worst performing group of all time on the UK version of the show.

In the first series of The Traitors, it took the faithfuls six episodes to get a traitor. And the game was new. This lot are still on the hunt going into episode seven, with only nine players now left from the original 19. And three of those are traitors. The faithfuls have just three episodes left to catch them.

Once again, the faithfuls were left to mull over another failure.

Claudia sounded genuinely distraught, her voice breaking as she told the group: "You are breaking my heart, you are not getting it, what are you not seeing? You have to open your eyes please."

"I feel that we are disastrously losing this game. And I think it's going to get worse," David added gloomily.

On a lighter note, while we all know someone who fast forwards the challenges when watching on catch-up, there was some real excitement on Thursday night thanks to the return of last season's life-size chessboard and larger-than-life traitor figures. Think Darth Vader after a growth spurt.

Sir Stephen Fry lived up to his brainy reputation over breakfast, by predicting the chessboard was back: "I could be a knight - oh, I already am," he joked. Comic Alan Carr was predictably quick to prick any potential pomposity: "Or an old queen," he quipped.

In fact, Alan continues to relish his role as a traitor with increasing enthusiasm.

When in the turret discussing who to murder next, he asked fellow traitors singer Cat Burns and presenter Jonathan Ross: "Stephen Fry: Shall we just get on with it and kill him? What's a knighthood when you're dead?"

"Brutal," Jonathan replied, and he wasn't wrong.

"Gets easier every time," Alan said later.

"I'm bursting with confidence now... not a single bead of sweat."

But it was comedian Joe Wilkinson who was sent to meet his maker, another faithful put to the sword.

Leopard-print PJs

Alan's strategy skills were then put to the test on the giant chess board.

The contestants split into teams, but former rugby player Joe Marler wasn't happy, believing (correctly) that the traitors were all on one team and would know all the answers to Claudia's questions (which the traitors had set).

So some swapping between the groups ensued.

To audible gasps, Nick Mohammed later admitted at the round table that he and Joe Marler had colluded by sabotaging the final round of the chess game so that Nick's team lost. He wanted to protect more faithfuls as he believed there were more traitors in his own team. But that only caused journalist Kate Garraway to be suspicious.

One viewer, posting on X, noted: "Nick has done a faithful sabotage! Unheard of games!"

Speaking of Kate, she also used her profession as a journalist to defend her performance on the show (she was voted the weakest player during the chess game).

"My weakness has become a strength. At last, I've been of use," she joked, explaining that she wasn't very good at the game because she just asked questions and didn't give opinions in her job.

It was also her turn for a fashion moment when she was later spotted sitting at her dressing table in leopard-print pyjamas. Luckily, there was no clash with Jonathan, a man partial to an animal print, who instead opted for a Showaddywaddy-style long checked jacket (if you're old enough to remember them).

Other notable moments on the show included Celia bringing Alan's name up at breakfast.

"I woke up thinking about you..." she told him over a plate of croissants.

"A fantasy?" Alan giggled. Actress Celia Imrie confessed to a crush on Jonathan in a previous episode, so perhaps it's Alan's turn now.

The Big Dog theory reared its head once again - would Jonathan or Sir Stephen be put to the sword?

"I am one of the whimpering hounds it seems - it's either Jonathan or Alan I would say," said Sir Stephen earlier in the day.

They finally seemed to be getting closer to the truth. Or were they?

Joe Marler called Jonathan "the wolf of The Traitors," saying "time's up for Mr Ross."

It was the most tetchy round table so far, as the pressure and frustration mounted.

Sir Stephen stated that traitors don't get as much sleep as the faithfuls do, pointing at Cat. But she said her autism and ADHD meant she "found it a lot more effort to speak".

After much debate, one of the Big Dogs was finally removed. But not the right one (for the faithfuls at least). The knight in shining armour, AKA Sir Stephen, was banished.

Following the show, on the podcast Traitors Uncloaked, Sir Stephen found out who the Traitors were.

"Two big dogs and one small Cat," was his response.

On the losing chess team, Jonathan, Kate, Nick and Lucy are now up for murder. And it will be a face-to-face killing, back at the chess board. Your move, Traitors.

The Celebrity Traitors is on BBC One on Wednesdays and Thursdays at 21:00 BST and on BBC iPlayer. There will be nine episodes.

The five-week shutdown of Jaguar Land Rover's (JLR) factories following a cyber-attack drove car production down by more than a quarter in September.

JLR facilities did not produce a single vehicle last month, after the cyber-attack forced the car maker to shut down its IT systems and halt its global manufacturing operations, including at its three UK plants.

Overall UK car production fell by 27% with just over 51,000 made last month, data from the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) showed.

It is the lowest number of cars made in any September in the UK since 1952, including the pandemic, the SMMT said.

The JLR cyber-attack was largely responsible for the slump in UK car production, the SMMT said, because other manufacturers reported stable figures for the month.

The attack is also estimated to cost £1.9bn and be the most economically damaging cyber event in UK history, according to research published on Tuesday.

The Cyber Monitoring Centre (CMC) found 5,000 businesses have been affected by the event and a full recovery will not occur until January 2026.

JLR said production across sites in Solihull, Wolverhampton and Halewood was returning in a phased approach.

The maker of the Jaguar I-Pace and Range Rover Sport is the second-largest car producer by volume in the UK after Nissan.

Overall, total vehicle production slumped by 35.9% in September compared to a year ago to about 54,300 vehicles.

The SMMT chief executive Mike Hawes said: "September's performance comes as no surprise given the total loss of production at Britain's biggest automotive employer following a cyber incident.

"While the situation has improved, the sector remains under immense pressure," he added.

The majority of vehicles made in the UK are shipped overseas, and exports in September also slumped - down 24.5% - with the EU, US, Turkey, Japan and South Korea the top five destinations.

This year so far UK car and van factories have made 582,250 vehicles, which is 15.2% lower than at the same point in 2024.

The five-week JLR shutdown was a "severe, but short-term issue" for the overall industry, the boss of Autotrader Ian Plummer said.

"It'll be a bit like Covid, where after the shutdown and delays end, there's a surge in demand and sales," he said.

Mr Plummer, who runs the UK's biggest car-selling platform said, JLR brands had risen to have the highest number of monthly sales leads on Autotrader, "so there is demand out there, even as the pipeline is currently stuck".

The SMMT's Mr Hawes also said a recent ambition from the UK government to help foster a resurgence in domestic car production to 1.3m vehicles a year is in doubt if the chancellor Rachel Reeves ends tax breaks offered to Employee Car Ownership Schemes (ECOS).

"The industry is calling for rapid interventions to shore up its competitiveness," he said.

Keeping manufacturers' ECOS schemes would be "an immediate relief", he said, and bringing forward other interventions including programmes to bolster supply chain resilience "would further boost the sector".

Just 37 years old, Chen Zhi is accused of being "the mastermind behind a sprawling cyber-fraud empire… a criminal enterprise built on human suffering".

With his wispy goatee beard and baby-faced features, he looks even younger than he is. He has certainly become very wealthy, very quickly.

Last week the US Department of Justice charged him with running scam compounds in Cambodia that stole billions in cryptocurrency from victims all over the world. The US Treasury Department has confiscated more than $14bn (£10.5bn) worth of bitcoin that it says is linked to him - it said this was the largest ever crypto-currency seizure.

His own company, the Cambodian Prince Group, describes him on its website as "a respected entrepreneur and renowned philanthropist" whose "vision and leadership have transformed Prince Group into a leading business group in Cambodia that adheres to international standards". The BBC has contacted the Prince Group for comment.

So, how much do we know about Chen Zhi, the mysterious figure allegedly running a scam empire?

A startling rise

Brought up in Fujian province in south-eastern China, he started with a small, and apparently not very successful internet gaming company, and moved to Cambodia in either late 2010 or 2011, where he began working in the then-booming real estate sector.

His arrival coincided with the start of a speculative property boom in Cambodia. It was fuelled by the availability of large tracts of land expropriated by powerful, politically-connected figures and by a flood of Chinese capital.

Some of it was pouring in on the tail end of Xi Jinping's Belt and Road Initiative to export Chinese-made infrastructure, and some of it was from individual Chinese investors seeking more affordable alternatives to China's overheated property market. The number of Chinese tourists visiting Cambodia was also rising fast.

The skyline of the capital Phnom Penh changed dramatically. The characterful, low-rise cityscape of mustard-coloured French colonial mansions was transformed into another Asian high-rise forest of glass and steel towers.

The transformation of Sihanoukville, a once quiet little seaside resort, was even more extreme. It was not just Chinese holidaymakers and property speculators heading there, but also gamblers - gambling is illegal in China.

New casinos sprang up, alongside gaudy, luxury hotels and apartment blocks. There was plenty of money to be made.

Even so, Chen Zhi's trajectory was startling.

In 2014 he became a Cambodian citizen, giving up his Chinese nationality. This enabled him to buy land in his own name, but required a minimum investment or donation to the government of $250,000.

It was never clear where Chen Zhi's money came from. When applying for a bank account on the Isle of Man in 2019 he listed an unnamed uncle who he said had given him $2m to start his first property company in 2011, but no evidence for this was ever provided.

Chen Zhi founded the Prince Group in 2015, focused on property development, when he was still only 27 years old.

He got a commercial banking licence in 2018 to establish Prince Bank. The same year he obtained a Cypriot passport, in return for a minimum investment there of $2.5m, giving him easy access to the European Union. He later acquired Vanuatu citizenship as well.

He started Cambodia's third airline, and in 2020 obtained a certificate to operate a fourth. There were luxury malls in Phnom Penh built by the Prince property arm, five-star hotels in Sihanoukville, and an ambitious scheme to construct a $16bn "eco-city" called "Bay of Lights" there.

In 2020 Chen Zhi was awarded the highest title bestowed by Cambodia's king, that of "Neak Oknha", which requires a donation of at least $500,000 to the government.

He had already been made an official adviser to Interior Minister Sar Kheng since 2017, was a business partner with his son Sar Sokha, and an official adviser to Cambodia's most powerful man Hun Sen, and later his son Hun Manet after he succeeded his father as prime minister in 2023.

Chen Zhi was lauded in the local media as a philanthropist, who had funded scholarships for low-income students and donated substantially to help Cambodia deal with the Covid pandemic.

Yet he remained an enigmatic figure, staying out of the limelight, making few public statements.

"Everyone I've spoken to who's worked with him directly, been in the room with him, they all describe him as very courteous, very calm, very measured," says Jack Adamovic Davies, a journalist who did a three year-long investigation of Chen Zhi which was published by Radio Free Asia last year.

"I think not being the kind of flamboyant person that people will write tabloid-y things about was smart. Even those who no longer want to be associated with him are still impressed by his quiet charisma, his gravitas."

But where was all this wealth and power coming from?

'A litany of transnational crimes'

In 2019 the property bubble burst in Sihanoukville. The online gambling business had attracted Chinese criminal syndicates, who then began violent turf wars with each other. Tourists were scared off.

Under pressure from China, then-prime minister Hun Sen banned online gambling in August that year. Around 450,000 Chinese left the city as its main business collapsed. Many of Prince Group's residential blocks were left empty.

Yet Chen Zhi continued to expand his business interests and spend freely.

According to the UK authorities, in 2019 he bought a £12m mansion in north London and a £95m office block in the city's financial district. The US says he and his associates bought properties in New York, private jets and superyachts, and a Picasso painting.

And, they allege, Chen Zhi's wealth came from the most profitable business in Asia today, online fraud, and the human trafficking and money laundering that go with it.

The US and UK have imposed sanctions on 128 companies linked to Chen Zhi and Prince Group, and on 17 individuals from seven different nationalities who they allege helped run his scam empire. Assets linked to Chen Zhi in the US and UK have been frozen.

The sanctions announcement describes an elaborate web of shell companies and cryptocurrency wallets through which money was moved to conceal its origins.

It says: "Prince Group Transnational Crime Organisation profits from a litany of transnational crimes including sextortion - a type of fraud involving the solicitation for eventual blackmail of sexually explicit materials, often from minors - money laundering, various frauds and rackets, corruption, illegal online gambling, and the industrial-scale trafficking, torture, and extortion of enslaved workers in furtherance of the operation of at least 10 scam compounds in Cambodia."

The 'scam empire'

China too had been quietly investigating the Prince Group since at least 2020. There have been a number of court cases accusing the company of running online fraud schemes.

The Beijing Municipal Public Security Bureau has established a task force "to investigate the "Prince Group, a major transnational online gambling syndicate based in Cambodia".

At its heart, the US and UK allege, were businesses like Golden Fortune Science and Technology Park, a compound built by the Prince Group in Chrey Thom, close to the Vietnamese border.

In the past the Prince Group has denied any involvement in scams, and said it no longer has any connection to Golden Fortune, but the US and UK investigation argues that there is still a clear business link between them.

Mr Adamovic Davies interviewed a number of people living and working near Golden Fortune for his investigation into Chen Zhi. They described brutal beatings of the mainly Chinese, Vietnamese and Malaysians who tried to escape from the compound, where they were forced to run online scams.

"I think it's the sheer scale of his operations which really makes Chen Zhi stand out," he says, adding that it is shocking the Prince Group was able to build a "global footprint" without raising alarm bells given the serious criminal charges it now faces.

"What should be uncomfortable for a lot of people is that Chen Zhi should never have been able to acquire all these assets, in Singapore, London or the US. Lawyers, accountants, real estate agents, bankers, all should have been looking at this group and saying, hang on, this doesn't add up. And they didn't."

Today, after all the publicity generated by the US and UK sanctions, businesses are rushing to dissociate themselves from the Prince Group.

The Cambodian Central Bank has had to issue a statement to nervous depositors assuring them they will be able to withdraw their funds from Prince Bank. The South Korean authorities have frozen $64m of its deposits held by Korean banks.

The Singapore and Thai governments are promising investigations into Prince subsidiaries in their jurisdictions - of the 18 individuals targeted by the US and UK, three are Singaporeans.

Cambodia's government has said little, apart from urging the US and UK authorities to be sure they have sufficient evidence for their allegations.

But it will be difficult for Cambodia's ruling elite to distance themselves from Chen Zhi, after being so close to him for so long. Cambodia was already facing growing pressure over its tolerance of scam businesses, which some estimate may account for around half of the entire economy.

And what of Chen Zhi himself?

Nothing has been heard or seen of him since the sanctions were announced last week. The enigmatic tycoon, once among the most powerful figures in Cambodia, appears to have vanished.

An NBA player and coach are among dozens of people arrested as part of a sweeping FBI investigation into illegal sports betting and rigged, mafia-linked poker games.

Miami Heat player Terry Rozier and Portland Trail Blazers head coach Chauncey Billups were named by federal prosecutors in two separate indictments on Thursday.

Rozier, 31, is among six people arrested over alleged betting irregularities, including other NBA players who may have faked injuries to influence gambling markets.

Billups, a Hall of Fame player who has coached the Portland Trail Blazers since 2021, is one of 31 people charged in a separate illegal poker game case involving retired players and the mafia.

That case, which prosecutors said involved four of the five major crime families in New York, uncovered an alleged scheme to lure victims into playing rigged poker games alongside high-profile sports stars before stealing millions of dollars.

They did so using technology including special contact lenses and glasses that could read pre-marked cards and an X-ray table, according to authorities.

In a statement, the NBA said that Rozier and Billups were being placed on immediate leave as it reviews the federal indictments.

"We take these allegations with the utmost seriousness, and the integrity of our game remains our top priority," the statement read.

Rozier's lawyer denied the allegations to CBS News, the BBC's US news partner, saying: "Terry is not a gambler, but he is not afraid of a fight, and he looks forward to winning this fight."

Rozier is due to appear in federal court in Orlando later on Thursday, while Billups was arrested in Portland and will appear in court there.

FBI Director Kash Patel held a news conference with other prosecutors in Brooklyn, New York, on Thursday where he announced the two indictments. He called the arrests "extraordinary" and said there was a "co-ordinated takedown across 11 states".

"We're talking about tens of millions of dollars in fraud and theft and robbery across a multi-year investigation," he said.

US Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, Joseph Nocella Jr, said all defendants are innocent until proven guilty, but warned: "Your winning streak has ended. Your luck has run out."

NBA games under scrutiny

Prosecutors said the first case involved players and associates who allegedly used information not available to the public to manipulate bets on major gambling platforms.

Nocella called it "one of the most brazen sports corruption schemes since online sports betting became widely legalised".

• EXPLAINED: What we know about the arrests

Seven NBA games between February 2023 and March 2024 have been identified as part of the case. Rozier is said to have been involved in one between the Charlotte Hornets and New Orleans Pelicans, when he was playing for the Hornets.

Rozier is alleged to have told a friend that he would leave the game early due to injury. The friend and his associates then placed bets, or directed others to bet, "more than $200,000" that Rozier would underperform expectations in the game, prosecutors said.

He left the game after nine minutes, they said, which resulted in tens of thousands of dollars in betting profits for those involved.

During the game, Rozier played roughly nine minutes and scored just five points because of a sore right foot, according to the official NBA match report.

Before that game, he averaged 35 minutes of playing time and about 21 points per game.

"As the NBA season tips off, his career is already benched, not for injury but for integrity," New York City Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said.

Rozier's lawyer James Trusty said in a statement that prosecutors "appear to be taking the word of spectacularly in-credible sources rather than relying on actual evidence of wrongdoing. Terry was cleared by the NBA and these prosecutors revived that non-case."

Trusty said he had been representing Rozier for more than a year and said prosecutors characterised Rozier as a subject, not a target, until they informed him FBI agents were arresting the player at a hotel on Thursday morning.

Former NBA player Damon Jones was also arrested as part of the investigation.

Jones is said to have been involved in two of the identified games - when the Los Angeles Lakers met the Milwaukee Bucks in February 2023, and a January 2024 game between the Lakers and Oklahoma City Thunder.

Sports betting was outlawed in most of the US from 1992 until 2018, when the Supreme Court turned regulation of the practice over to the states.

Since the federal ban was struck down, sports betting has exploded with major sports leagues and media companies making deals with gambling firms to get in on the billion-dollar industry.

Rigged poker games and the mafia

The second indictment announced on Thursday involves 31 defendants alleged to have participated in a scheme to rig illegal poker games and steal millions of dollars.

The case involved 13 members and associates of the Bonanno, Genovese and Gambino crime families in New York.

Nocella said the targeted victims were lured to play games with former professional athletes, including Billups and Jones, in Las Vegas, Miami, Manhattan and the Hamptons.

Victims were "fleeced" out of tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars per game, he said.

He said defendants used "very sophisticated technology" like altered off-the-shelf shuffling machines that could read the cards. Some of the defendants used special contact lenses and glasses to read pre-marked cards, and an X-ray table that could read cards when they were face-down.

"What [the victims] didn't know is that everybody else at the poker game - from the dealer to the players were in on the scam," Nocella said.

Tisch said when people refused to pay, the organised crime families used threats and intimidation to get people to hand over the money.

The charges include robbery, extortion, wire fraud, bank fraud and illegal gambling.

The conspiracy cheated victims out of $7m (£5.2m), with one losing $1.8 million, officials said.

"This is only the tip of the iceberg," Christopher Raia, the FBI assistant director of the New York field office, said, adding the FBI is working day and night to ensure members of mafia families "cannot continue to wreak havoc in our communities".

For two months, the US military has been building up a force of warships, fighter jets, bombers, marines, drones and spy planes in the Caribbean Sea. It is the largest deployment there for decades.

Long-range bomber planes, B-52s, have carried out "bomber attack demonstrations" off the coast of Venezuela. Trump has authorised the deployment of the CIA to Venezuela too, as tensions have escalated.

The US says it has killed dozens of people in strikes on small vessels from Venezuela which it alleges carry "narcotics" and "narco-terrorists", without providing evidence or details about those on board.

The strikes have drawn condemnation in the region and experts have questioned their legality. They are being sold by the US as a war on drug trafficking but all the signs suggest this is really an intimidation campaign that seeks to remove Venezuela's President Nicolás Maduro from power.

"This is about regime change. They're probably not going to invade, the hope is this is about signalling," says Dr Christopher Sabatini, a senior fellow for Latin America at the Chatham House think tank.

He argues the military build-up is a show of strength intended to "strike fear" in the hearts of the Venezuelan military and Maduro's inner circle so that they move against him.

BBC Verify has been monitoring publicly available tracking information from US ships and planes in the region - along with satellite imagery and images on social media - to try to build a picture of where Trump's forces are located.

The deployment has been changing, so we have been monitoring the region regularly for updates.

As of 23 October, we identified 10 US military ships in the region, including guided missile destroyers, amphibious assault ships and oil tankers for refuelling vessels at sea.

A $50m reward testing loyalty of inner circle

It is no secret that the US administration, particularly Secretary of State Marco Rubio, would like to see Maduro toppled.

Earlier this year, he told Fox News Maduro was a "horrible dictator" and when asked whether he was demanding that Maduro leave, added: "We're going to work on that policy."

But, even for overt critics of Maduro like Rubio, it is difficult to explicitly call for military-backed regime change - something Venezuela's opposition has longed called for.

Donald Trump campaigned against regime change in 2016, pledging to "stop racing to topple foreign regimes", and more recently has condemned engaging in "forever wars."

The US does not recognise Maduro as the president of Venezuela, after the last election in 2024 was widely dismissed internationally, and by the opposition in Venezuela, as neither free nor fair. The US embassy in Caracas was closed during Trump's first presidency in 2019.

The US has upped its bounty for information leading to Maduro's arrest to $50m, an incentive for those within his loyal, inner circle to hand him in. But it has yielded no defections.

Venezuelan law professor and senior associate at the CSIS national security think tank, Jose Ignacio Hernández, says $50m is "nothing" for Venezuela's elites.

There is a lot of money to be made through corruption within an oil-rich state like Venezuela. The former head of Treasury Alejandro Andrade, made $1bn in bribes before he was convicted.

Many analysts agree the Venezuelan military would be key to any regime change, but for them to turn on Maduro and oust him, they would also likely want promises of immunity from prosecution.

Mr Hernández adds: "They will think, in some way or another I am involved in criminal activities too."

Michael Albertus, a political science professor at the University of Chicago who publishes extensively on Latin America, is not convinced that even a bounty of $500m would persuade Maduro's inner circle to turn him in.

"Authoritarian leaders are always suspicious of even their inner circle, and because of that, they create mechanisms for monitoring them and ensuring loyalty," he said.

Economic sanctions on Venezuela have exacerbated the already severe economic crisis, but have not succeeded in persuading senior figures to turn against their president.

Why this probably isn't just about drugs

Donald Trump has declared this is a war on narcotics traffickers and said one vessel the US struck, on 16 October, was "loaded up with mostly fentanyl."

But fentanyl is primarily produced in Mexico - not South America - and comes into the US over the southern border.

"It isn't about drugs," says Dr Sabatini. "But he's co-opted the Venezuelan opposition's language of how this is not just a dictatorship - it's a criminal regime."

Since 2020, the US Justice Department has accused President Maduro of leading a drug trafficking and narco-terrorism organisation, which he denies. Trump has said he has authorised the CIA to carry out covert operations in Venezuela in part because of "drugs coming in" from Venezuela.

Venezuela does not produce large quantities of cocaine - that's mainly Colombia, Peru and Bolivia. There is some cocaine trafficked through Venezuela, which its own government claims it is cracking down on.

A US Drug Enforcement Administration report from 2025 says 84% of the cocaine seized in the US comes from Colombia and mentioned other countries but not Venezuela in its cocaine section.

The first seven strikes were carried out in the Caribbean, which is not a major sea route for drug-trafficking compared with the Pacific Ocean, where the subsequent strikes were carried out.

• Venezuelan fishermen in fear after US strikes

The US has not detailed its evidence of Maduro leading a drug trafficking organisation. Maduro has repeatedly denied the accusations, and for his part accuses the US of imperialism and worsening the country's economic crisis through sanctions.

There are known cases of those close to him being indicted.

In 2016, a New York federal court convicted the two nephews of his wife for conspiring to import cocaine to the US. The case said they planned to use some of the money to fund his wife's political campaign. They were later freed.

Bolstering US sea and air strength

Intercepting drugs at sea does not require a force as big as the current US one, according to military analysts.

As well as the US ships we tracked around Puerto Rico - where the US has a military base - satellite imagery also showed two vessels about 75 miles (123km) east of Trinidad and Tobago.

One was a guided missile cruiser, the USS Lake Erie.

The other appeared to be the MV Ocean Trader according to Bradley Martin, a former US Navy captain, now a senior policy researcher at RAND Corp.

This is a converted cargo ship designed to support special forces missions while blending in with commercial traffic. It can house drones, helicopters, and small boats.

There are a wide variety of missions it could conceivably support, including reconnaissance to prepare for strikes. But Mr Martin stresses that its presence "doesn't necessarily mean that those kinds of activities are being carried out or are planned".

The US has bolstered its air presence in the region - BBC Verify has identified a number of US military aircraft across Puerto Rico.

Stu Ray, a senior analyst at McKenzie Intelligence Services, says a satellite image taken on 17 October shows F-35 fighter jets on the tarmac, possibly F-35Bs.

These are highly advanced stealth jets prized for their short take-off and vertical landing capability.

On social media, a private jet pilot shared a video of a MQ-9 Reaper drone, filmed at Rafael Hernández Airport on Puerto Rico.

These have been used by the US to carry out attacks and surveillance in Afghanistan, Syria, Libya and Mali.

Earlier in October, BBC Verify tracked three B-52 bombers which flew across the Caribbean and close to Venezuela's coast.

The US air force later confirmed that the planes had taken part in a "bomber attack demonstration".

Flights of B1 bombers and P-8 Poseidon spy planes have also been visible on plane tracking platforms.

Images on social media have also shown military helicopters operating off the coast of Trinidad and Tobago.

Some of these are Boeing MH-6M Little Birds - nicknamed "Killer Eggs" - used by US special forces.

What CIA could do inside Venezuela

When asked if the CIA had been given the authority to take out Maduro, Donald Trump dodged the question and said it would be "ridiculous" to answer.

He has also said that the US is "looking at land now", referring to possible military operations on Venezuelan soil.

The CIA is viewed with a lot of suspicion by many in Latin America because of a long history of covert interventions, attempts at regime-change, and support for past right-wing military dictatorships, notably in Chile and Brazil.

Ned Price, deputy to the US representative to the United Nations and formerly a CIA senior analyst and State Department senior adviser, said CIA covert action can take "many forms."

"It can be information operations. It can be sabotage operations. It can be funding opposition parties. It can go as far as the overthrow of a regime. There are a lot of options between the low-end and high-end option."

This could include agents being used to target trafficking suspects inside Venezuela. By the US's own definition, this could include Maduro himself.

Dr Sabatini says given Venezuela isn't a major production point for drugs, there are no cocaine or fentanyl labs to "take out" but there are airstrips or ports which the US could target.

"If he wants to be aggressive, he could send a missile to a military barrack. There is pretty good intelligence certain sectors of the military are involved in cocaine trafficking."

Or it could be a "smash and grab situation", he notes, where they attempt to seize Maduro or some of his lieutenants and bring them to justice in the US.

The big question, he argues, is how long Trump is willing to keep so many US assets parked in the Caribbean.

If the prime purpose of this military build-up is to threaten Maduro, it is unclear whether it is enough to prompt defections.

Whether that goes as far as an actual attempt to dislodge the Maduro regime through force, ponders Professor Albertus, it is hard to know.

This week, millions of people took part in "No Kings" protests against President Donald Trump's policies in cities across the US, Amazon Web Services almost broke the internet, and Strictly fans were stunned by presenters Tess Daly and Claudia Winkleman announcing their departure.

But how much attention did you pay to what else happened in the world over the past seven days?

Quiz collated by Ben Fell.

Fancy testing your memory? Try last week's quiz, or have a go at something from the archives.

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Celebrities, professional sports stars and wealthy gamblers sat at a table hoping to win big in a game of Texas Hold 'Em.

But they didn't know it was nearly impossible. They were "fishes" allegedly being targeted by the mafia in an elaborate poker gambling scheme that included X-ray card tables, secret cameras, analysers in chip trays and sunglasses and contact lenses that could read their hand.

In what sounds like an Ocean's Eleven film plot, prosecutors say these "unwitting" victims were cheated out of at least $7m (£5.25) in poker games - with one person losing at least $1.8m (£1.35m).

The scheme, which US prosecutors described as "reminiscent of a Hollywood movie," was dismantled in a sprawling federal investigation that led to more than 30 arrests, including members of the La Costra Nostra crime families, Portland Trail Blazers coach Chauncey Billups and former player Damon Jones.

FBI director Kash Patel called it a "mind-boggling" fraud scheme that cheated victims in New York, Miami, Las Vegas and other US cities.

The underground poker scheme started as early as 2019, prosecutors say, and was allegedly operated the mafia - specifically by members of notorious crime families, including Bonnano, Gambino, Luchesse and Genovese. A cut of the profits, prosecutors say, helped fund their criminal enterprise.

Former professional athletes, described by prosecutors as "face cards", were enlisted to help in the scheme and entice victims into playing.

Lured in by the opportunity to play with a high-profile celebrity - such as Billups or Jones - a wealthy, "unwitting victim" would be recruited for illegal, underground poker games where tens of thousands of dollars were on the line, prosecutors allege.

Unbeknownst to the lured-in players - referred to in the scheme as a "fish" - everyone surrounding them was in on the elaborate scam - from the players to the dealers, even the technology used to shuffle the deck and count the chips, according to a lengthy federal indictment.

Sophisticated wireless technology was also used to deceive the players during the games, most commonly in Texas Hold'em.

• NBA stars and mafia among dozens arrested in illegal gambling crackdown
• NBA injuries, poker and the mafia: What we know about gambling arrests

The technology was everywhere - an X-ray table that read any face-down card, analysers inside chip trays, a rigged shuffling machine that read cards and predicted who would have the best hand, and pre-marked cards that allowed those wearing special sunglasses and contact lenses to read what was in everyone's hands.

Secretive cameras - built into tables and light fixtures - also helped convey information to those helping in the plot, authorities say.

Then there was also a sophisticated method of communicating and rigging the game, prosecutors allege.

Information from the game would be sent to an off-site conspirator - called an "operator" by prosecutors - who then would send information to another player sitting at the table who was in on the scheme - which prosecutors call a "quarterback" or "driver".

That person would then secretly signal to others, prosecutors allege, effectively stealing money and making it impossible for victims to win.

Authorities estimate that each game would leave a victim out of tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Prosecutors say the defendants allegedly laundered the funds from the scheme through cryptocurrency, cash exchanges and shell companies.

A cut of the profits went to those who helped in the plot, prosecutors say, and some allegedly went to fund the mafia's criminal enterprise.

"This alleged scheme wreaked havoc across the nation, exploiting the notoriety of some and the wallets of others to finance the Italian crime families," said FBI Assistant Director in Charge Christopher Raia.

Arrests in the scheme were announced Thursday along with a basketball betting plot, where professional National Basketball Association (NBA) players are accused of faking injuries to influence betting odds.

Billups, who was accused of being a face card in the fixed card games, was arrested in Portland and was placed on leave by the NBA. In a statement, the Portland Trailblazers said that they are aware of the allegations involving their head coach and are "fully cooperating with the investigation".

Jones was arrested in relation to both the poker and NBA injuries scheme. He is charged with two counts each of wire fraud conspiracy and money laundering conspiracy.

When Brandi Carlile was 12 years old, living in a mobile home in an isolated community 50 miles outside Seattle, she begged her parents for a piano.

She'd fallen in love with her mum's Elton John albums and wanted to play along.

But when she broke her tiny Casio keyboard out of its Toys R Us box, she had to face an uncomfortable reality.

"I was just nowhere near talented enough," she laughs.

Instead, she put on Bruce Springsteen's Streets Of Philadelphia, dialled up the keyboard's "synth strings" setting, and pressed down two keys.

"You just hold them, all the way through the verse," she recalls. "Anyone can do it, but that's the foundation of my career."

Fast forward 32 years and Elton John is one of her best friends. In January, they released a collaborative album, Who Believes In Angels, that topped the UK charts (Carlile contributed significantly more than two notes).

The musician has also been responsible for Joni Mitchell's musical rehabilitation, coaxing the 81-year-old back onto the stage after a near-fatal brain haemorrhage.

And she's spent the last six years duetting with some of pop's biggest stars, from Miley Cyrus to Noah Kahan, while curating her annual Girls Just Wanna festival in Mexico.

All those opportunities stemmed from a single performance at the 2019 Grammys, where Carlile delivered a spine-tingling version of The Joke, an anthemic ballad for the persecuted.

"I'd played that song hundreds of times but I never could really hit that last note," she confesses now.

"But at the Grammys, I really wanted to get it right. So for days leading up to the show, I trained and I trained and I trained. And when I hit it, I could hardly finish the song. I wanted to jump up and down."

She wasn't the only one. Jaws were dropped. Eyes were popped. A star was born.

Before she'd even left the stage, Carlile's phone was blowing up with texts from people "so famous I couldn't fathom it".

"I suddenly had this river of opportunity flowing into my life, and I didn't know how long it was going to last, and so I said yes to everything," she recalls.

Looking back, she reckons the eagerness to grasp those opportunities was a reaction to her childhood.

Growing up in rural America, Carlile knew she was gay, but had "never met" another gay person in her life.

Her sexuality changed her relationship with her mother.

"All the ways she thought she was going to relate to me, she couldn't," says Carlile.

"I didn't want to do make-up or learn to shave my legs or have long hair, and she was just like, 'What do I do with this child?'"

They eventually bonded over music - even forming a sort of informal tribute act to mother-daughter band The Judds.

But the sense of otherness remained, even after Carlile married and had two kids with British charity director Catherine Shepherd. So when opportunity came knocking, she felt obliged to chase it.

"I think it could be the gay thing, this kind of coyote thing, where it's like, 'Keep your eye on the prize. You're being included right now, you might not be included tomorrow. Accept everything, do everything, achieve, assimilate,'" she says.

Then, as suddenly as it arrived, the instinct vanished.

Last October, she flew straight from a show with Joni Mitchell to a recording session with Aaron Dessner - co-founder of rock group The National, and a key collaborator for Taylor Swift.

By the time she landed in New York, she was hungover and overwhelmed with emotion. Instinctively, she knew the comeback concerts she'd masterminded with Joni had run their course.

"I couldn't bear the thought of not sitting next to her and listening to her sing Both Sides Now again," she says. "I'd had the best damn seat in the house."

Dessner showed Carlile a few pieces he'd been working on, then left her to work in his barn. Exhausted, she went upstairs, climbed into bed, and wrote a poem that captured her mood.

"Returning to myself is such a lonely thing to do / But it's the only thing to do."

After six years of chasing opportunities, it was time to turn inwards.

"I knew I was at the end of something," she says, "and that, yes, the phone might stop ringing, but I don't want to miss out on my kids' childhood."

The poem became the title track and north star for her new album, which wrestles with the passage of time, and the delicacy of human connection.

When Dessner started playing atmospheric synth chords in the studio, it unlocked the memory of those first musical experiments on her Casio keyboard.

"I felt 13 or 14 again, and it made me write things differently," she says. "I had this huge lump in my throat the whole time. I was embarrassed to sing the songs in front of everybody because I thought I would cry - and I did."

Listeners might need a box of tissues, too.

When Carlile played You Without Me at Glastonbury this summer, there were more than a few misty eyes, as people digested the story of a parent coming to terms with their child's independence.

"I've started to see those moments, and it's soul crushing," says the singer, whose eldest daughter, Evangeline, is 11. "But at the same time you're overwhelmed with pride."

Same-sex marriage threat

Her daughters inspired one of the record's angrier songs, too. Church And State rails against the increasing influence of conservative religious ideology on US politics.

Recorded live on election night 2024, it addresses Carlile's fear that the Supreme Court could overturn Obergefell v Hodges, which recognised same-sex marriage in 2015.

It was prompted by a dinner conversation, where Evangeline suggested the family could just get on Carlile's boat and "bebop up to Canada" if gay marriage was outlawed.

"I don't want to go to Canada," protested their youngest, Elijah.

"And Evangeline just snapped and said, 'Elijah, it's better than not having a mommy or a mama'.

"I felt so ashamed for not explaining it better. They assumed that if it ever happened, they'd be orphans.

"And then I felt so angry that something so archaic and antiquated could even be a possibility in the country I live in, let alone legitimately on the horizon."

The album's other guiding light is Mitchell, whose strict quality control is "the reason I write a lot fewer songs," Carlile says.

She pays an affectionate but cheeky tribute to the singer on a song simply called Joni.

"She doesn't suffer fools, she won't make cups of tea, and she won't bandage bruised egos," sings Carlile over a delicately plucked guitar.

"She is a wild woman," laughs the star. "She's 83 and she will drink you under the table.

"She loves Cadillac margaritas and plain Black Jack. And she is unpredictable, untameable, unknowable sometimes, and it's amazing."

Presumably it was nerve-wracking to play Mitchell the song?

"Oh, I was quaking," she laughs. "She was sitting at her desk in her bedroom, putting butterfly clips in her hair, as Joni Mitchell does, and just listening to the song with this furrowed brow, not reacting whatsoever.

"But this big smile spread across her face after the last chorus. Then she made me wait a good minute before she nodded at me like, 'This is great.'"

One lyric, however, created a little friction.

"When I tell you I love you, and you tell me 'OK'... That's love in your way."

"When she heard that she called me an asshole!" Carlile laughs, "because she knew exactly what I meant - and you're not supposed to get Joni Mitchell. She doesn't want to be understood."

As you might expect, Carlile is full of similarly starry anecdotes.

She recalls seeing Paul McCartney at the side of the stage during her Glastonbury set ("that was a top five moment"); and spills the beans on Dolly Parton's tattoos ("I haven't seen them, but I know people who have. She can be really rugged and curse.")

So what would that lonely child, who warmed her hands around a wooden stove and struggled to play Elton John songs, think about her elevation to the highest echelons of music?

"I have a lot of affection for that girl now, in ways that I didn't at the time," she reflects.

"She would love to know that it happened and that she made it. Because I've made it beyond where I hoped, and I'm not sure what to do with that."

If Returning To Myself is the first draft of her answer, it suggests the possibilities are limitless.

With a new confidence and a new direction, Carlile is breaking into uncharted territory: Herself.