While it’s legal to bet using online prediction markets in the U.S., pushback has begun against a practice that many states say is harmful to their residents. Officials have initiated numerous lawsuits against major betting platforms like Kalshi and Polymarket, but they may face an uphill battle as these prediction markets continue to grow more popular.

Lawsuits nationwide
Many states have alleged that the online prediction community is essentially a front for gambling. At least 20 federal lawsuits have been filed nationwide, “disputing whether companies such as Kalshi and Polymarket should be treated as federally regulated financial exchanges, as they maintain,” said The Guardian. But the lawsuits claim these companies are “gambling operations that should be regulated like state-licensed sportsbooks.” 

These lawsuits state that the industry is harmful because these companies “let users trade on the outcome of virtually anything, ranging from sports and elections to award shows, speeches and even what someone might wear,” said The Guardian. Users essentially bet against each other while platforms collect transaction fees, differing from casinos where players bet “against an established ‘house.’” 

One of the most notable lawsuits is in Nevada, where the state’s effort to block Kalshi is “moving through multiple courts,” said NBC News. Officials in Nevada allege that Kalshi, “through its prediction market contracts, is offering people a way to illegally bet on sports,” though Kalshi maintains it’s just a financial exchange platform. 

‘Full-blown war’
As the lawsuits continue, there are also political aspects to the rift between lawmakers and prediction markets. This political fight has “escalated into a full-blown war, and battle lines aren’t being neatly drawn along party lines,” said Wired. Liberals and conservatives have often found themselves arguing for the same cause. One side argues that the platforms are “breaking the law by operating as shadow casinos.“ The other “insists they are just giving people access to legitimate financial markets already subject to adequate government oversight.”

These prediction markets have also become “entrenched in mainstream culture, a transformation that has brought vast sums of money into play,” said Wired. But in court, challenges to sports prediction markets have “won early victories,” said The New York Times. And this could be “devastating” for prediction markets as a whole.

Gone are the days when China’s humanoid robots were something of a joke. In a “dazzling” performance, humanoid robots took center stage in China’s Spring Festival Gala, “showcasing how far the country’s robotics industry has come in a few short years,” said Futurism. With backflips and sophisticated choreography, including sparring with children using nunchucks, the performance was in stark contrast to the “awkwardly shuffling” humanoids that preceded them. 

Are humanoids a realistic goal? 
Machines with human likeness have appeared in “mythology and history for millennia,” yet the idea that they could become “practical consumer products” is entirely realistic, said social robotics researcher Eduardo B. Sandoval at The Conversation. Progress in other fields has helped the sector to develop rapidly. There have been major improvements to battery capacity, motors and sensors thanks to the electric vehicle industry, and the AI systems that control such hardware have also become “far more capable.” 

How invested is China? 
China’s “bustling” robotics industry is “home to the world’s deepest supply chain” for humanoids, said The Economist. According to research firm Omdia, more than 14,500 “automatons” were delivered globally last year — a near 400% rise from the year before. China’s two leading firms, Agibot and Unitree, “accounted for around three-quarters of the total.” 

The Chinese state will “probably remain the biggest source of demand for some time.” Though subsidies provide important financial platforms for expansion, the government’s “most important role by far is as a buyer”; it was the largest purchaser of humanoids last year. 

Should we be worried? 
In the not-too-distant future, there’s “likely” to be room for robots “in the shape of humans and animals” for “military and security organizations,” Hans Liwang, of the Swedish Defence University, said to Euronews. China’s robotics market rush is worrying some in the West who believe that humanoids will “eventually become one of the largest industries in the world,” said The Economist. 

But China’s latest displays of expertise should be viewed with caution and at the very least “through a lens of state propaganda,” said The Guardian. The humanoids were programmed to enact a fixed routine “hundreds or thousands of times,” requiring very little “environmental perception,” an essential requirement for factory-grade development.

A person walks past the graves of thousands of fallen Ukrainian military personnel at 18 Cemetery in Kharkiv, Ukraine. Today marks four years since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. More than 55,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed, according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Chris McGrath / Getty Images

War remains an endemic human tragedy, and film has long been one of the best ways to demonstrate its horrors to those who have never experienced it. With great power tensions rising in the real world, there has never been a better time for audiences to watch these movies, if only to remind themselves of why peace is preferable to conflict.

‘Black Hawk Down’ (2001)
With the U.S.-led 1992-1993 intervention in Somalia struggling to relieve the country’s famine due to state failure, Major General Garrison, played by Sam Shepard (pictured above), greenlights an operation to capture the warlord Mohamed Aidid in Mogadishu using U.S. Army Rangers dropped from helicopters. Director Ridley Scott’s film uses “immense technical skill and spectacular photography” to produce a gripping war film, said Philip Strick at Sight and Sound. (Prime Video)

‘The Hurt Locker’ (2008)
So far, the definitive statement about America’s decade-long misadventure in Iraq is director Kathryn Bigelow’s deservedly lauded “The Hurt Locker.” A film that “doesn’t engage the politics of the war in Iraq per se,” it is a “totally immersive off-the-charts high-anxiety experience from beginning to end,” said Amy Taubin at Film Comment. (Netflix)

‘Waltz with Bashir’ (2008)
Based on his experiences as a soldier during Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon, director Ari Folman voices his character as he interviews fellow veterans of the conflict. This animated film is a work of “astonishing aesthetic integrity and searing moral power,” said A.O. Scott at The New York Times. (Prime Video)