Arizona attorney general Kris Mayes has filed criminal charges against prediction market platform Kalshi for allegedly operating an illegal gambling business in the state without a license and for election wagering. The 20-count complaint, filed in Maricopa County court on Tuesday, accuses the company of engaging in unlicensed gambling activities, claiming that the site 'accepted bets from Arizona residents on a wide range of events,' including state elections, a practice that is illegal in Arizona. The complaint charged Kalshi with four counts of election wagering for accepting bets from Arizona residents on the 2028 presidential race, the 2026 Arizona gubernatorial race, the 2026 Arizona Republican gubernatorial primary, and the 2026 Arizona secretary of state race. This is the first time a state has pursued such charges against the company, according to the AZ Mirror, and marks a significant escalation in the battle between states and the prediction market industry. 'Kalshi may brand itself as a 'prediction market,' but what it's actually doing is running an illegal gambling operation and taking bets on Arizona elections, both of which violate Arizona law,' Attorney General Mayes said in a statement. 'No company gets to decide for itself which laws to follow.'...

Arizona attorney general Kris Mayes has filed criminal charges against prediction market platform Kalshi for allegedly operating an illegal gambling business in the state without a license and for election wagering. The 20-count complaint, filed in Maricopa County court on Tuesday, accuses the company of engaging in unlicensed gambling activities, claiming that the site 'accepted bets from Arizona residents on a wide range of events,' including state elections, a practice that is illegal in Arizona. The complaint charged Kalshi with four counts of election wagering for accepting bets from Arizona residents on the 2028 presidential race, the 2026 Arizona gubernatorial race, the 2026 Arizona Republican gubernatorial primary, and the 2026 Arizona secretary of state race. This is the first time a state has pursued such charges against the company, according to the AZ Mirror, and marks a significant escalation in the battle between states and the prediction market industry. 'Kalshi may brand itself as a 'prediction market,' but what it's actually doing is running an illegal gambling operation and taking bets on Arizona elections, both of which violate Arizona law,' Attorney General Mayes said in a statement. 'No company gets to decide for itself which laws to follow.'...

In February 2025, Donald Trump nominated Joe Kent, a 2020-election conspiracy theorist with links to the Proud Boys and white supremacists, as head of the National Counterterrorism Center. What could possibly go wrong' Kent's beliefs did not complicate his tenure, during which Trump continued smearing minorities and insisting the 2020 presidential election had been stolen. The sticking point, rather, became the war in Iran. Kent resigned today from the administration, protesting that Trump, a figure he idolizes, has been manipulated by Israel and its American lobby. 'In your first administration, you understood better than any modern President how to decisively apply military power without getting us drawn into never-ending wars,' Kent wrote in his resignation letter. Yet, 'early in this administration, high-ranking Israeli officials and influential members of the American media deployed a misinformation campaign that wholly undermined your America First platform and sowed pro-war sentiments to encourage a war with Iran.'...

Mike Pence should have been a warning to J. D. Vance about the inevitable abasement in store once you join a ticket with Donald Trump. Before he became Trump's running mate a decade ago, conservative Christian values were the center of Pence's political identity, but in October 2016, he reluctantly stood by Trump after the release of the tape in which Trump boasted about grabbing women 'by the pussy.' It was a sign of things to come. Pence became vice president, and for the next four years, he defended his boss through moral abominations and deficit explosions that cut against his fiscal conservatism, flinching only when Trump asked him to help steal an election. His reward' Trump did nothing while a mob threatened to hang Pence. All of this was common knowledge when Vance agreed to run with Trump in 2024. No one lands on a presidential ticket if they're not outrageously ambitious'nearly every veep for at least a century has fancied themselves a future president'but Vance is particularly brazen. Becoming Trump's running mate required a yearslong effort to ingratiate himself with a guy whom Vance had, in the pages of this magazine, referred to as 'cultural heroin' and elsewhere called 'America's Hitler.' Maybe Vance's ambition blinded him to Pence's lesson, but the war in Iran is teaching it to him the hard way....