Kalshi and its main competitor, Polymarket, have launched aggressive nationwide advertising campaigns, including in states where online sports gambling is illegal. And since the sites have not sought approval by states, they do not follow state-mandated protections for people with gambling addictions who are most vulnerable to relapsing. (Allyn, NPR)
Read MoreToday, porn and the ready-made fantasies it supplies are available to any adults, anywhere, at any time, with a simple tap. In fact, sexual stimulation is much like turning on a tap. Every day, hundreds of millions of people around the world watch porn free of charge on the so-called tube sites. (Nilsson, The Times)
Read More(Two and a half millennia after the historical Buddha cast off worldly attachments and achieved enlightenment in northeastern India, Buddhism is the only one of the world’s major religions whose number of adherents worldwide is in decline. But in South Korea, Buddhists are rising up with a concerted campaign to promote “hip Buddhism” aimed at the young. (Parry, The Times)
Read More”I voted with Republicans to keep transgender ideology out of our schools,“ Kaptur said direct-to-camera in a recent campaign commercial. ”And boys should not play in girls’ sports.“ Local and national LGBTQ+ groups vowed in response to no longer support Kaptur… (Binday, The Washington Post)
Read MoreFor hundreds of years, through the post-World War II era, Japanese marriages were brokered through “omiai,” a practice in which matchmakers — usually relatives, family friends or bosses — linked singles in their orbit. But the custom fell out of fashion, giving way to organic dating and, eventually, a wave of casual-dating apps. (Davis & Notoya, The New York Times)
Read MoreOne night in April, a leader of the artificial intelligence company Anthropic treated a group of religious thinkers to dinner at a high-end tasting menu restaurant in San Francisco after a long day. For months, Anthropic has been hosting private meetings like this one, shuttling in dozens of religious scholars from across the world, papering them with nondisclosure agreements and demanding that key aspects of many conversations remain confidential. (Dias, The New York Times)
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