By MARK ANDERSON, AP Sports Writer

LAS VEGAS (AP) — Major League Baseball and its affiliated sportsbooks offered a fast reaction Monday to the latest on a growing list of sports betting scandals, capping bets on individual pitches at $200 and excluding them from parlays to keep those prop bets from jeopardizing the integrity of the sport.

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That decision came a day after Cleveland Guardians pitchers Emmanuel Clase and Luis Ortiz were indicted on charges they took bribes from sports bettors to purposely throw certain types of pitches that would pay off bets. Bettors allegedly made at least $460,000 off the rigged pitches.

Prop bets are also at the center of a scandal in the NBA. Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier was arrested Oct. 24 and accused of providing inside information on teammates’ injuries to gamblers and removing himself prematurely from an NBA game.

The four major North American sports leagues and many of their teams have embraced legal wagering and formed partnerships with sports-betting companies while at the same time insisting the integrity of their games are what matters most. Prop bets have become a point of contention. Here’s what to know.

What are prop bets?

Gamblers can bet on anything from how many yards a quarterback will throw for in a game to how many points an NBA player will score. In-game wagering allows for even more granular betting, such as whether the first pitch in the fourth inning of an MLB game will be a strike.

Prop bets that depend entirely on the efforts of one person — like the ones Clase and Ortiz are charged with targeting — are ripe for exploitation. MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred and NBA Commissioner Adam Silver are among those who have asked for limits around such wagers.

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine has called for the Ohio Casino Control Commission to end player-specific micro betting entirely.

Others have suggested allowing payoffs only on the over — like predicting a player will score more than 20 points, but not fewer — because it would be difficult to rig that kind of outcome. Even before baseball made its announcement, betting limits also have been floated as a possible way to at least curb gamblers working together with athletes to alter how games are played.

Are prop bets here to stay?

MLB’s announcement Monday about limiting action on pitch-level prop bets marked a rare win for those concerned about them. MLB said in a statement that “most prop bets present limited integrity risk because they take into account multiple events that are influenced by more than one actor. However, ‘micro-bet’ pitch-level markets (e.g., ball/strike; pitch velocity) present heightened integrity risks because they focus on one-off events that can be determined by a single player and can be inconsequential to the outcome of the game.”

Pitch-level micro bets are hardly the only wager offered by books that can be impacted by just one player. Think of minutes played, yards gained or points scored. Such bets are easy to find and also dictated by actions of individual athletes.

Commercial sports betting revenue in the U.S. is already over $10 billion this year, according to the American Gaming Association. With that sort of money at stake, it’s highly unlikely prop bets are going away. Betting partners have become a tremendous source of income for leagues and teams, and prop bets are a big driver. For the sportsbooks, too, because they can massively expand their wagering menus.

Prop bets also help keep gamblers engaged with game action, even in blowouts. That benefits leagues, teams and sportsbooks at a time when alternative entertainment options have never been more plentiful. Some leagues, including the NBA and PGA Tour, have even experimented with betting-specific alternate broadcasts to spur that engagement.

How do leagues protect themselves?

All four major North American leagues use monitoring services that track in real time for unusual betting activity. If any is detected, that information is reported immediately to that specific league.

It’s unclear whether MLB’s service tipped off baseball that something could be afoul with the Guardians players, but it was the league that notified authorities of a potential problem.

Rozier is a subject in a larger-scale FBI investigation that resulted in more than 30 arrests, though the NBA conducted its own inquiry and said it found no evidence of wrongdoing. Whether the NBA was alerted through its monitoring service is uncertain.

Do the leagues have an integrity problem?

It depends. Those who support legalized sports betting say the system is working as designed because perpetrators are being caught. It’s much easier to track if athletes are involved with gambling than it was when most wagers were handled out of sight through illegal bookies. Detractors argue that easy access to legal betting attracts those, including athletes, who otherwise wouldn’t gamble on sports.

By MIKE CATALINI, Associated Press

TRENTON, N.J. (AP) — A federal judge on Thursday denied Democratic Rep. LaMonica McIver’s motions to toss out a prosecution against her stemming from a visit to an immigration detention center this year.

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U.S. District Judge Jamel Semper also said he would reserve judgment on one of the New Jersey congresswoman’s motions to toss the case brought by acting U.S. Attorney Alina Habba, who was President Donald Trump’s former personal attorney.

McIver sought to dismiss the case against her on the grounds that her visit to Newark’s Delaney Hall immigration detention center in May was protected on the grounds of constitutional legislative immunity as well as selective and vindictive prosecution.

Semper wrote that the congresswoman failed to show the prosecution was vindictive and that her actions were “wholly disconnected” from the oversight she was conducting as a member of Congress.

The case is a high-profile clash between Trump’s second administration and a Democratic lawmaker who has been sharply critical of the president’s policies. McIver has pleaded not guilty and vowed to continue her work as a lawmaker.

McIver as charged by Habba, a Republican, after the May 9 visit to Delaney Hall. Immigration and Customs Enforcement uses the privately owned, 1,000-bed facility as a detention center.

She was indicted in June on three counts of assaulting, resisting, impeding and interfering with federal officials. Two of the counts carry a maximum sentence of up to eight years in prison. The third is a misdemeanor with a maximum punishment of one year in prison.

Habba’s tenure as acting U.S. attorney for New Jersey is being challenged in court, with appellate judges having heard arguments in that case and a decision pending.

A nearly 2-minute video clip released by the Department of Homeland Security shows McIver at the facility inside a chain-link fence just before Newark Mayor Ras Baraka’s arrest on the other side of the barrier, where other people were protesting. McIver and uniformed officials go through the gate, and she joins others shouting that they should circle the mayor.

The video shows McIver in a tightly packed group of people including officers. At one point her left elbow and then her right elbow push into an officer wearing a dark face covering and an olive green uniform emblazoned with the word “Police.”

It is not clear from police body camera video if the contact was intentional, incidental or the result of jostling in the chaotic scene. The judge’s opinion on Wednesday cites video footage and says McIver pushed and was pushed during the incident.

The government’s complaint alleges that she “slammed” her forearm into an agent and then tried to restrain the agent by grabbing him.

The indictment also says she placed her arms around the mayor to try to stop his arrest and says again that she slammed her forearm into and grabbed an agent.

A trespassing charge against the mayor was later dropped.

Members of Congress are legally authorized to go into federal immigration facilities as part of their oversight powers, even without notice. Congress passed a 2019 appropriations bill spelling out that authority.

McIver first came to Congress in September in a special election after the death of Rep. Donald Payne Jr. left a vacancy in the 10th District. She was then elected to a full term in November.

WEATHERFORD, Okla. (AP) — A leaking tanker truck in a small Oklahoma city spewed a hazardous gas in a hotel parking lot, forcing hundreds of residents to evacuate and hospitalizing several dozen people, authorities said Thursday.

The anhydrous ammonia gas release happened shortly before 10 p.m. Wednesday. People in the immediate area were in respiratory distress, city officials in Weatherford said at a news conference. Most patients were taken to a nearby hospital, but some, including four in critical condition, were taken to other hospitals for further treatment, Police Chief Angelo Orefice said.

At least 500 to 600 people were in a shelter early Thursday, but others were told to shelter in place, authorities said. That order was lifted later Thursday morning. Several nursing homes were evacuated and schools were closed for the day.

The truck’s driver had parked it behind the Holiday Inn to get a room there for the evening, the police chief said, adding that the cleanup could take several days.

“We pretty much got a lot of of this stuff diluted right now,” and were working with environmental officials, he said.

Krystal Blackwell, who was evacuated, said emergency officials were wearing gas masks and knocking on doors.

“It was a little crazy to wake up to,” Blackwell told KWTV-TV. “I really thought it was a kind of dream.” She said she was sitting in her car, still wearing her pajamas.

Authorities said the air quality was being monitored and that the tanker truck was no longer spewing gas. A number of agencies were on hand to assist, including hazmat crews and an Oklahoma National Guard unit that supports first responders during emergencies.

Right now, the cause of the leak seems to be a mechanical failure on a valve or a faulty seal, Orefice said.

Industrial gas distributor Airgas said it was working with local authorities to respond to the chemical spill.

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“Anhydrous ammonia warrants cautious handling and management,” the Radnor, Pennsylvania-based company said in a statement, urging people in Weatherford to follow instructions from authorities in the area.

Anhydrous ammonia is used as a fertilizer to help provide nitrogen for corn and wheat plants. If a person touches it when it is in gas or liquid form, they could be burned. Last week, an anhydrous ammonia leak caused by an explosion at a plant north of Yazoo City, Mississippi, prompted evacuations for nearby residents and sent a plume of yellowish smoke rising above the facility.

Weatherford is home to about 12,000 people and is about 70 miles west of Oklahoma City.

By Omar El Chmouri, Bloomberg News

They may be more than 8,000 miles apart, but Dubai and Las Vegas are becoming oddly alike, particularly where tourism is concerned. For one thing, both are doubling down on large-scale events and good winter weather as reasons to visit. The emirate’s first casino licenses are on the horizon. And now, Dubai has beat Las Vegas at one of its own games. According to new data pulled for Bloomberg by real estate analyst CoStar Group, the Middle Eastern city now has more hotel rooms than America’s resort capital.

For years, Dubai thrived as a transfer hub — a city people would fly through but not stay in. Hotel infrastructure proves that has changed. Asking visitors to stay in town — rather than transiting through the airport on a layover — requires the matching infrastructure, so the city has doubled the number of available hotel beds over the past decade. Setting aside Chinese cities, which benefit from massive numbers of domestic tourists in the second-most-populous country, Dubai is now a runner-up only to London in number of hotel rooms globally.

The parallels between Dubai and Vegas extend further. Only a few months ago, a Las Vegas expert marveled in a Bloomberg Pursuits city guide that her hometown “was literally built from nothing, in the middle of the desert.” The same could be said of Dubai. And just as Vegas has identified successful culinary concepts from around the world and replicated them in its own hotels and resorts, so has Dubai. (See recent imports such as London-born China Tang, Mumbai’s Bombay Club and Parisian steakhouse Le Relais de l’Entrecôte.) Vegas is doubling down on sports — having acquired teams in the NFL, WNBA and NHL — but so too are the Emirates, with neighboring Abu Dhabi hosting F1 races and NBA preseason games that are easily accessible from Dubai. All of these draws have increased Dubai’s appeal as a leisure destination worth returning to.

As for the hotel boom, it runs the gamut from more affordable stays to decadent five-star resorts. And it shows no signs of stopping: Upcoming openings include Ciel Tower, set to become the world’s tallest hotel when it opens in November, with 1,004 rooms and eight restaurants filling 82 floors at the Dubai Marina. That’s just one of 56 hotels in the city’s construction pipeline as of early this year, according to industry researchers at Lodging Economics; together, those projects represented another 15,000-plus rooms being added to Dubai’s total.

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Restaurants are following a similar trajectory. In 2024 alone, the Emirate issued 1,200 new restaurant licenses, while beach clubs in the Palm Jumeirah and Dubai Marina areas have exploded in popularity. (Think of them as equivalents to Vegas’ pool-party spots.)

But there’s one notable point of distinction between Vegas and Dubai: Business in Dubai is up, while in Vegas it’s lagging. Between January and May, average occupancy rates in the Middle Eastern city’s hotels stood at 83%, up from 81% in the same period last year, according to official data. In Las Vegas, figures from CoStar found that hotels on the Strip have seen occupancy rates dip between 1% and 5% every month since February 2025 when compared to the year prior.

Both cities are contending with complex geopolitics. Vegas’ performance relates at least in part to the broader problems of international tourism to the U.S. lagging in the face of tariffs, along with a sharp shifts in behavior from angry Canadians. Dubai’s successes come in spite of regional instability and the 12-day Israel-Iran war in June, which briefly closed airspace in the United Arab Emirates. Resilience in the face of such significant considerations is at least as telling about the cities’ futures as the number of hotel rooms they contain.

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