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Today β€” 13 January 2025Main stream

The Department of Education through the years: A look at long-term trends of pitiful student performance

13 January 2025 at 01:27

The Department of Education was established more than 40 years ago in an effort to refine the U.S. school system. But as incoming political leaders, including President-elect Trump, consider dismantling the agency, a Fox News Digital review examines the trends in test scores, graduation rates and federal funding since its inception. What follows is the results of those findings.Β 

When former President Jimmy Carter was in office, Congress passed the Department of Education Organization Act in October 1979, which officially established the agency in 1980.Β 

The department was created to determine policy for, administer and coordinate federal assistance to educational institutions around the country, but has seen opposition since its founding – commonly from Republican lawmakers.

Trump said he is going to dissolve the agency when he assumes office, asking whether the department is crucial in the development of education or if schools would benefit from a more localized education system.Β 

The modern-day educational system appears vastly different to that of the agency's founding. And a decades-long debate on whether individual states should have more control over local school systems, rather than the federal government, has been reignited as Trump prepares to take office.

BIDEN EDUCATION DEPARTMENT SPENT OVER $1 BILLION ON DEI GRANTS: REPORT

"Federal government efforts to improve education have been dismal," Lindsey Burke, director of the right-leaning think tank the Heritage Foundation's Center for Education Policy, wrote of the current education system amid years of low test scores. "Even if there were a constitutional basis for its involvement – which there isn’t – the federal government is simply ill-positioned to determine what education policies will best serve the diverse local communities across our vast nation."

It has been argued that having such a department allows people with the right expertise to make decisions as it relates to funding.

Clare McCann, the managing director of policy and operations at the Postsecondary Equity & Economics Research (PEER) Center, told ABC News in November: "There's a reason the Department of Education was created, and it was to have this kind of in-house expertise and policy background on these [education] issues.Β 

"The civil servants who work at the Department of Education are true experts in the field."

Average test scores among students have fallen significantly since the Department of Education was created more than 40 years ago.Β 

Both math and reading scores among 13-year-old students are at their lowest levels in decades, according to data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) for the 2022–2023 school year.

While the Department of Education doesn't control how students perform on tests, it is responsible for issuing the requirement for schools to conduct standardized testing in schools – which have reached their lowest scores in decades in 2024, according to NAEP.

The average U.S. ACT composite score in the 1990s was about 20.8, data from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) shows. But, since then, standardized test scores have dropped.Β 

According to 2024 ACT data, Nevada has the lowest test scores in the country, with an average score of 17.2, while Oklahoma follows with the second-lowest average score of 17.6.

"The results are sobering," National Center for Educational Statistics Commissioner Peggy G. Carr told ABC News of today's test scores.Β 

Most schools reopened after shifting to an all-online learning environment during the 2020 coronavirus pandemic, but Carr said that "this decline that we're seeing was there in 2015, so all of this cannot be blamed on COVID."

Average test scores in the U.S. are commonly based off the standardized testing average. Europe and East Asian countries, which don't use ACT or SAT testing as required by the U.S., usually rank as having higher test scores, comparably.

Proponents of a dedicated education agency say federal involvement aids the system, while many critics say it is a waste of taxpayer dollars.Β 

In its early years, the department made specific requirements when allocating funding to schools, such as requiring higher education institutions to offer a campus drug and alcohol abuse prevention program under the Drug-Free Schools and Communities Act, passed in 1989.Β 

However, under President Biden, the Department of Education has seen funds spent on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) efforts in K-12 schools across the country – an initiative critics say diverts funding away from core educational objectives.

TRUMP WOULD NEED CONGRESSIONAL APPROVAL TO DISSOLVE EDUCATION DEPARTMENT, EXPERTS SAY

A recent study found that Biden's Department of Education spent $1 billion on grants advancing DEI in hiring, Fox News Digital reported.Β 

Since 2021, the Biden administration spent $489,883,797 on grants for race-based hiring; $343,337,286 on general DEI programming; and $169,301,221 on DEI-based mental health training and programming, totaling $1,002,522,304.81, according to Parents Defending Education, a right-leaning nonprofit.Β 

Rethinking the department could be as simple as giving states the funding and then allowing its leaders to decide how it is dished out, Neal McCluskey, an education analyst at the libertarian Cato Institute public policy think tank, told ABC News in November.

In the 1970-1971 school year, high school graduation rates were at 78%.Β 

But those rates fell, dropping to a 72.9% average graduation rate in 1982, shortly after the Department of Education was established.Β 

Rates remained in the low 70th percentiles until the early 2000s, data from the National Center for Education Statistics shows.Β 

However, data from the 2021–2022 school year shows that the average graduation rate for public high school students was 87% – an increase of seven percentage points higher than a decade earlier.

Technological advances have transformed the educational environment for students, with typing often taking the place of lessons on cursive writing, digital tools enhancing math instruction, and GPS technology reducing the reliance on traditional map reading skills.Β 

Today's technology-driven workforce has also reshaped the school system, as computer and artifical intelligence classes take precedence over home economics, such as sewing or baking.Β 

The Department of Education does not establish curriculum requirements for schools, but rather it is left to the state and local school boards to decide.Β 

However, curriculum changes have still been at the forefront of recent political conversations, specifically as it relates to parents seeking more involvement in their child's classroom. Parents from all around the country have spoken out against certain topics being included in their child's curriculum, usually related to gender and sex, and reportedly not being informed about the content before it was shared in class.

Fox News Digital recently reported on an elementary school in the New York City suburbs that was teaching a "gender curriculum" to elementary-level children in an effort to promote "inclusion" in school.Β 

Meanwhile, in 2016, the Washington Office (OSPI) set health education standards for all public schools, requiring children in kindergarten and first grade to learn that "there are many ways to express gender."

In Oregon, theΒ state board of education adopted health education standards, also in 2016, requiring kindergartners and first-gradersΒ to "recognizeΒ that there are many ways toΒ expressΒ gender," while third-graders in the state have been expected to be able to "define sexual orientation," Fox reported in 2022.

Opponents of the Department of Education, such as Trump, have used such examples of controversial curriculum to argue that parents should be granted more power in their child's learning.

The incoming Republican president, however, was not the first to propose the idea. Former President Ronald Reagan called for the department to be abolished to "ensure that local needs and preferences, rather than the wishes of Washington, determine the education of our children."

"There's only one way to shrink the size and cost of big government, and that is by eliminating agencies that are not needed and are getting in the way of a solution," Reagan said in 1981.Β 

David Kanani, president of Los Angeles ORT College, a Jewish education nonprofit, suggested the department be cleaned up rather than completely eradicated.Β 

"The Department of Education ensures consistency and quality across schools, particularly in STEM education, which is critical for national security and global competitiveness," Kanani told Fox News Digital in January. "Instead of elimination, we should clean up and reform the department to collaborate more effectively with state and local systems, prioritizing STEM as a national imperative."

Andrew Clark, president of advocacy group yes. every kid., recently said Trump should establish pathways to redesign the education system rather than bulldozing the entire department.

"To make real change, you have to do it in ways that benefit people's lives, and so if you just drop the hammer overnight you are going to cause pain for people [who] are dependent. So you're going to have to come up with pathways to make changes," Clark told Ravi Gupta, a former Obama staffer turned school principal and host of the "Lost Debate" podcast.

Trump would need congressional approval in order to make any changes to the Education Department.Β 

Republicans currently have the majority in both the House and the Senate, meaning lawmakers could pass new legislation addressing the laws establishing and sanctioning the department.

Fox News' Kristine Parks and Jessica Chasmar contributed to this report.

MAGA's man inside Meta

13 January 2025 at 01:09
Joel Kaplan, Mark Zuckerberg and Joel Kaplan collage .
Β 

Ira L. Black/Corbis via Getty Images; Alex Wong/Getty Images; Aurelien Morissard/IP3/Getty Images; Chelsea Jia Feng/BI

The fusillade of major announcements from Meta this month β€” including the termination of its fact-checking and DEI programs and the ascension of enigmatic content-moderation czar Joel Kaplan to head global policy β€” prompted a familiar churn of political reaction across the left and right. But virtually everyone agrees on one thing: Meta's changes are designed, at least in part, to please the incoming administration of Donald Trump.

That is why the most consequential announcement regards Joel Kaplan, Zuckerberg's tight-lipped political consigliere. For the coming years, Kaplan will be the face in your living room, justifying Meta's handling of whatever crisis, catastrophe, or hypocrisy that the new Trump era is likely to ring in. He will speak at Davos, before committees, and on Good Morning America, defending Meta publicly β€” and Mark Zuckerberg personally β€” from the right, the left, and quite possibly from Trump himself.

Kaplan is not widely known. Yet he arguably has done more to shape the modern internet β€” and quicken its consolidation with and capture of American politics β€” than any non-CEO in the world. With his ascension to the chief policy position at Meta, Kaplan etches his name into the pantheon of great political actors on the Washington stage β€” akin to a combination of Rahm Emanuel and Henry Kissinger, if they'd had every major global tech CEO on speed-dial.

You can understand Kaplan's value to Meta by appreciating the two dimensions that account for his rise: Kaplan as the talented political fixer, and as the free speech intellectual. Two distinct stories capture both dimensions of Kaplan's impact on Meta and on Zuckerberg.


Months before Trump was suspended from Facebook in 2021 following the attack of January 6, Trump's account was very nearly curtailed in an entirely separate ordeal. During the George Floyd protests and riots of 2020, Trump wrote a message on Facebook that ignominiously warned, "When the looting starts, the shooting starts." Per Facebook's rules, which prohibit incitement to violence, Trump's post possibly merited a take-down.

For Meta, this was a problem from hell. Not removing Trump's post would inflame liberal America. Removing it would enrage conservatives β€” not to mention the sitting president, who just days before had threatened to punish Meta for its alleged anti-conservative bias.

Then something miraculous happened: Trump called Zuckerberg. As Zuckerberg would tell it β€” mirroring a version later to be widely retold β€” Trump called Zuckerberg to plead his case, while Zuckerberg lectured Trump about using the platform responsibly. Hours later, another miracle followed: Trump wrote a follow-up post to finesse his point, quelling the discord.

The crisis was averted. Equally important, however, was the supposed lesson of this story: Trump β€” desperate to keep his account intact β€” needed Meta.

This story has been broadly reported. But stories that involve Kaplan tend to have a carefully hidden trap door.

As it turned out, there was a problem with this account: It was precisely backwards. In the early morning of May 29, 2020, White House staffers gathered around on speakerphone and listened in disbelief to the voice on the other end: It was Mark Zuckerberg β€” calling them, at Kaplan's arrangement β€” asking for a personal word with Trump. Those familiar with this call would later say Zuckerberg's request was tinged with vulnerability, as he and Kaplan, also on the call, described the inevitable liberal revolt at Meta's headquarters if something weren't done about Trump's post. "I have a staff problem," Zuckerberg explained, according to those with knowledge of the call. (Meta has previously denied Zuckerberg said anything to this effect, maintaining that Zuckerberg was unequivocal in condemning the post.) When Trump rang Zuckerberg's cell later that afternoon, it wasn't contrition he was showing Zuckerberg β€” it was a favor.

A decade ago, the chasm separating Zuckerberg and Trump seemed as insurmountably wide as the Capulets and Montagues. Yet both men have spent years running toward each other.

This story, and its turns, illuminates several key things. First, it suggests the lengths Meta will go to convince the public that Trump β€” just like its 3 billion users β€” was dependent upon Meta for relevance. It shows the cunning of Kaplan in finding a way to project that image β€” through a half-story that was widely repeated in official Washington β€” while simultaneously defusing a serious crisis (Kaplan had put out a "four-alarm fire," one of his former staffers previously told me).

Above all, it illustrates the dependency that animates Zuckerberg and Trump's relationship, and hints at what direction it runs in: Meta needs Trump β€” perhaps a lot more than Trump needs Meta.

For much of his life, Kaplan has played exactly this sort of role: Attendant lord and adviser to princes. After finishing at the top of his class at Harvard Law School and serving as an officer in the Marine Corps, Kaplan clerked for Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia; played a pivotal role in the events leading to Bush v. Gore; and became a senior advisor to George Bush during all eights years. He was among the closest advisors to his longtime friend Brett Kavanaugh, counseling the judge at the darkest hour of his confirmation fiasco.

But it's his role serving Zuckerberg that is the male relationship that defines Kaplan's professional life and achievements. Since joining Meta in 2011, Kaplan has helped navigate Zuckerberg's path and entry into official Washington. Initially, that entailed accompanying a young Zuckerberg to President Obama's Oval Office, or overseeing Zuckerberg's preparation for Congressional hearings. But with the explosion of MAGA, Kaplan's role grew dramatically, charting a path that would bring Zuckerberg and a fast-changing Republican party into something resembling β€” if not goodwill β€” then a mutual accord.

Half of this Zuckerberg achieved himself, by slotting Kaplan into a major role overseeing content moderation But the human side of Washington β€” never Zuckerberg's strong suit β€” was Kaplan's mΓ©tier: arranging Oval Office huddles with Zuckerberg and Trump, or organizing a series of private dinners with mostly conservative (and some liberal) influencers. Kaplan, as Meta staffers and Washington Republicans told me, made sure that MAGA Republicans knew they always had a seat at Zuckerberg's proverbial table. (Meta did not provide new comment for this story.)

This growing authority inside Meta left many idealist staffers convinced of Kaplan's thralldom to conservative ideology. But Kaplan is also beloved and defended by many Democrats at Meta and throughout Washington β€” a fact that explains, in part, Meta's successful evasion of any significant tech regulation during the Biden presidency.

And yet Kaplan's most remarkable achievement is playing out right now: the extraordinary β€” once-unthinkable β€” political romance between Mark Zuckerberg and Donald Trump. A decade ago, the chasm separating these individuals seemed as insurmountably wide as the Capulets and Montagues. Yet both men have spent years running toward each other, barreling through and against the gauntlet of their respective tribes: Zuckerberg through the leftist principles of the Bay, Trump through Republican Washington.

In this slow-motion marriage plot, Joel Kaplan is their Friar Laurence, bringing his artful guile and influence to bear in the improbable effort to knit their two families together. Kaplan has "helped make sure the ties were never irrevocably broken β€” even through Trump being deplatformed," observes Katie Harbath, a Republican who served as public policy director under Kaplan for a decade, who now heads the tech consulting firm Anchor Change "Joel was sort of the captain of that ship."


Beginning with Trump's rise in 2016, Kaplan grew into another significant role: a de facto superintendent of the platform's rules around speech and content moderation. It's in this role β€” as a legal intellectual offering a distinct philosophy of free expression β€” that colleagues say Kaplan has shaped the company publicly, and Zuckerberg personally.

It was Kaplan, for example, who appeared on Fox News last week to explain the end of the fact-checking program, characterizing the decision as an effort to "reset the balance in favor of free expression." This echoed Zuckerberg's own video announcement, in which he lamented that the program had become "just too politically biased."

Joel Kaplan and Mark Zuckerberg
Since joining Meta in 2011, Kaplan has charted Zuckerberg's path and entry into official Washington.

Samuel Corum/Getty Images

These comments are of a piece with Kaplan's own philosophy on free expression, which colleagues have summed up in the famous adage by Justice Louis Brandeis: that the remedy for false or misleading speech isn't "enforced silence," but instead "more speech."

It is tempting to view the complex issues at Meta as a simple proxy battle between "pro" and "anti" free expression. The fact-checking program was not without errors, as any complex program will be. And it is a genuine win for free expression that restrictions on user speech β€” on topics such as immigration, or gender and sexuality β€” are now lifted. Same for the nixing of DEI programs, which too often function to manufacture consensus on live issues at the internal staff level.

But the truth is there have long been meaningful objections to Kaplan's β€” and increasingly Zuckerberg's β€” Brandesian "more speech" rationale that Meta so often proffers for its decisions.

The first is that, when it comes to political expression, the basis for Meta's decisions often manifests not as high principle, but as political expediency.

The fact-checking program is a case in point. Few programs were so vocally targeted β€” and fervently manipulated β€” by conservative critics. For any conservative media publisher dinged for misinformation by Meta's algorithm, Kaplan's cell phone effectively functioned as a personalized, interlocutory appeals process. Such was the case with articles by Breitbart, or the Instagram posts of Charlie Kirk, who successfully appealed to Kaplan to intervene, and to have their flags or strikes removed. Or in the case of Meta's filter against "Coordinated Inauthentic Behavior," which Kaplan and other executives quickly froze, around the time they learned that its classifier had begun flagging posts from the Daily Wire and Sinclair Broadcasting.

The second problem is that Kaplan's defenders have fallen under a common misreading of Brandeis. Unlike his fellow Supreme Court justice Oliver Wendell Holmes β€” who generally prized individual autonomy β€” Brandeis believed the ultimate purpose of free expression was the preservation of democratic self-government itself. The reason "more speech" offers an effective remedy is that, in Brandeis's view, the freedom of unlimited speech was inextricably married with duty: what he called "the political duty of public discussion." Duty is a word that generally conveys the foregoing of certain liberties, to achieve a higher purpose. The Brandeisian view, in essence, described the First Amendment as a kind of bargain struck with Americans at large: in exchange for a near-bottomless freedom to purvey unlimited speech, Americans accepted an implied duty to yield to the necessary prerogatives of well-ordered public discussion.

Yet under Kaplan's Policy team, content decisions at Meta consistently tacked away from Brandeis' view. Perhaps no controversy illustrates the point better than a project called Common Ground.

A silver lining to Meta's termination of fact-checking is it may clarify a new consensus that recognizes the futility of the agonizing efforts of the last ten years attempting to liberalize social media.

Conceived by Meta staff in response to the 2016 election, Common Ground was a proposal to remake Facebook into a forum for healthier public discussion. In a bundle of proposed algorithm changes β€” detailed in internal memos β€” the program would replace users' self-segregation with more "exposure to cross-cutting viewpoints," downplay "incivility," recommend that users join more politically-diverse groups, and boost news outlets with high bipartisan readership.

Though perhaps idealistic-sounding, Common Ground was not a left-wing chimera. In fact, its premise was drawn in part from the research of NYU psychologist Jonathan Haidt β€” a famously vocal critic of progressive ideology in college campuses and workplaces β€” whose findings Meta staffers had studied rigorously. It was precisely the sort of project that would make liberals more likely to encounter, say, a Wall Street Journal op-ed opposing mask mandates.

Kaplan and his team, however, correctly sensed that such proposals β€” no matter how "nonpartisan" in fact β€” would be castigated as partisan in appearance. In internal review sessions, Kaplan's team raised their concerns that the proposal would have a disparate effect on conservative users.

But the true killer lurked in a crucial detail: Exposure to this more ennobled strain of public discussion tended to reduce the engagement that users had with the platform. In a business model where enragement equals engagement, it turns out, Brandeisian discussion is an unwarranted expense.


Kaplan's defenders backstop these choices with a common refrain: Kaplan's team has ensured Meta's content policies remain "defensible." By "defensible," Meta staffers intend to invoke the importance of public accountability. What they tend to mean, though, is policies that can adequately be explained during a grilling before Congress β€” an understandable concern for a company that's been hauled before Congress more than 30 times.

That is perfectly plausible reasoning. But one thing it certainly isn't is a vindication of First Amendment values β€” a bulwark in the Constitution whose singular purpose, after all, is to prevent meddling by Congress, and government generally. Zuckerberg now says he regrets caving to pressure from the Biden administration during the Covid pandemic. But does anyone doubt that, the next time Trump calls Zuckerberg, the CEO won't be all ears? (Just as he was avidly listening when Jared Kushner similarly pressured Zuckerberg in 2020, arm-twisting repeatedly to cooperate with Trump's Covid response.) Kaplan is there to ensure the message, even if not followed upon, gets through loud and clear.

Putting a chief Washington lobbyist largely in charge of speech policy may be politically savvy. But it is the opposite of how a company would take seriously its obligations to free expression β€” an invitation, essentially, to a Republican Congress, or a Democratic White House, to inject politicians' notions about public discourse into your newsfeed. "One thing I notice," Harbath notes coolly, "is that after every major election since 2016, Mark has done this big recalibration about how the company handles content, based upon the electoral results."

Critics of Kaplan's supposed right-leaning bias, then, miss the point. It's that Kaplan and Zuckerberg's commitment to Brandesian free expression, as Gandhi might say, would make for an excellent idea. And some of Meta's changes β€” relaxing the restrictions on immigration and gender β€” are indeed aligned with liberal principles of free expression. But unavoidably, the platform remains a Death Star of bad reasoning, amplifying the worst of the left and right. Nor would Brandeis recognize Kaplan's enthusiasm for the incoming President Trump and his administration as "big defenders of free expression" β€” a man who sues local newspapers as retribution for polls, publicly invites violence on journalists, and orders his military generals to shoot protestors for exercising their First Amendment rights β€” perhaps the most anti-First Amendment candidate for president since Woodrow Wilson. Both on the platform and off, Meta's commitment reflects the opposite of Brandeis' well-ordered public discussion: a world of all freedom, and no duty.

One silver lining to Meta's termination of fact-checking, then, is that it has the potential to clarify a new consensus: one that recognizes the futility of the agonizing efforts of the last ten years attempting to liberalize social media β€” as fruitless and naive as environmentalists who implore oil and gas companies to cease being oil and gas companies. As scholars like Yuval Noah Harari or Jonathan Rauch have separately argued, social media at scale is inherently inimical to liberal values β€” and that its mob-like pathologies, with its viral lies and conspiratorial reasoning, eerily resemble the same tendencies of pre-Enlightenment, medieval Europe.

That sort of tragedy can only be laid at the feet of generations, not individuals. And that is the deep and common bond that Zuckerberg and Trump share. Both are men whose vast seizure of power was made possible by the energy and unique pathology of the mob β€” allowing one to build a company, the other a political movement β€” as they leveraged its bizarre vice-grip on our attention along with the mob's enduring ability, as Holmes warned, to "set fire to reason." In bringing these men to power, the best and brightest of their generation β€” Joel Kaplan, Sheryl Sandberg, Peter Thiel, and Elon Musk, nearly all the same age β€” ushered in a new strain of faithlessness, turning social media into a prison, and making our public life a hostage of the internet.

Zuckerberg and Kaplan's announcement is not an embrace of the right, or repudiation of the left. It's another example of what Meta does too often: wrap its business and political decisions into the language of liberal values and free expression. In reality, Meta does have a clear policy around free expression β€” but it doesn't follow the philosophical quotations of Louis Brandeis, or Oliver Wendell Holmes. Rather, under Zuckerberg and Kaplan, Meta's north star will always faithfully resemble the old chestnut from Lyndon B. Johnson: "Power is where power goes."


Benjamin Wofford has written for Wired, Politico Magazine, Vox, and Rolling Stone, and is a graduate of Stanford Law School.

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How devastating will the LA wildfires be? Place your bets.

13 January 2025 at 01:07
A slot machine with fire emojis

iStock; Rebecca Zisser/BI

If you are betting on the California wildfires, I don't know what to tell you. Go outside (if it's safe). Do some reflecting. Call a gambling-addiction hotline, probably. Though I suppose the impulse to wager on destruction isn't all bettors' fault β€” gambling companies have people right where they want them, placing wagers on things most of us never would have imagined just a few years ago. We're days into the new year, and it already feels like the gambling boom has gone too far.

In case you missed it, the prediction market Polymarket is letting people place bets on aspects of the fires that have ravaged the Los Angeles area. The platform set various markets for questions like how long it would take the first fire to be contained, how fast the various blazes would burn, and where they would spread.

The cryptocurrency-based market β€” which is off-limits for American gamblers, though some try to circumvent it with a VPN β€” seemed to recognize that this might not go over well. In a disclaimer on the site, Polymarket says the point of its prediction markets is to "harness the wisdom of the crowd to create accurate, unbiased forecasts for the most important events impacting society." The "devastating" fires were one such event in which Polymarket said it could "yield invaluable real-time answers to those directly impacted in ways traditional media cannot." In other words, if you want to know whether your house is about to burn down, check what a group of anonymous gamblers outside the US think β€” hopefully in addition to the news and local authorities and, you know, your own eyes.

The idea of bettors trying to make a quick buck when lives and livelihoods are at stake is morally fraught. It's also a sign of the times: Gambling is becoming increasingly common, and in the process, the lines around what's appropriate, logical, and ethical are becoming increasingly murky. If 2024 was the year we asked whether gambling culture in the US had gone too far, 2025 might be the year we get an answer.


It's tempting to look down on gamblers who take things too far, depending on your tolerance for that kind of stuff. But the problem with blaming individuals for getting in over their heads is that you miss the forest for the trees. Betting platforms and the gambling industry are designed to suck customers in and get them to bet at higher rates and in different ways.

While Polymarket may be operating in a bit of a gray area, even the formal, highly regulated platforms in the US are enticing people to develop a deeper relationship with betting. Businesses want to cross-sell β€” once Caesars gets you into its sports-betting pipeline, it would very much like to direct you to the casino. DraftKings is launching a subscription service that draws in bettors with the possibility of making extra money on super-long-shot bets. Delta Air Lines also recently announced a partnership with the sportsbook that could integrate its offerings or its branding into the gaming options on airplane seatbacks, though the details are vague. These innovations don't rival something as clearly problematic as betting on fires, but they show that gambling companies are succeeding at getting into more nooks and crannies of society.

In a statement to Business Insider, a DraftKings spokesperson said that the sports betting industry is "rigorously regulated" and that the company operates in "strict compliance" with the regulations of every jurisdiction it's in. "Equating DraftKings with unregulated prediction markets β€” particularly those that fall outside the scope of US regulation β€” is not only an egregious misrepresentation but also an insult to the integrity of regulators and responsible, law-abiding operators," the spokesperson said.

If 2024 was the year we asked whether gambling culture in the US had gone too far, 2025 might be the year we get an answer.

It's impossible to ignore the recent cultural shift when it comes to gambling. After decades of operating in the shadows, sports gambling is everywhere: Americans are thought to have wagered some $150 billion on sports in 2024, up from about $120 billion in 2023, and ads for gambling are almost inescapable during sporting events in many parts of the country. Beyond sports, some operators, including Robinhood, offer betting on things like elections. Polymarket's bread and butter may be elections, but it's also letting people wager on whether we'll see a new pandemic in 2025 or whether Israel and Hamas will agree to a cease-fire. People are even treating areas that are nominally not gambling, like the stock market, crypto, and even restaurant reservations, as if they're a casino. However you feel about gambling β€” maybe you're OK with it, maybe you think it's evil β€” the speed with which the lines around it are moving can make your head spin.

A spokesperson for Polymarket told me that the company didn't generate fees or revenue from the fire-related markets (or any of its markets) and described the markets as "a way to distinguish the signal from the noise in a news environment starved of quantitative data." They added: "These markets address the same questions being discussed across all of cable news and X. We've proven that markets can be an invaluable alternative information source for those seeking real-time quantitative data."

The fire-related markets are small β€” the largest one, about how many acres will burn, had about $275,000 in it on Friday afternoon. For comparison, more than $400 million has been bet on who will be inaugurated as US president on January 20. Why do this at all then? The smaller the prediction market, meaning the less money bet on it, the less the wisdom-of-the-crowd idea holds. That flies in the face of the argument that this is some noble endeavor to get information β€” it's just a handful of incredibly online gawkers betting on the outcome of an event that is devastating for thousands of people.

Just how far do we want gambling to go?

The pervasiveness of betting β€” both in what you can gamble on and where you can gamble β€” is changing our relationship with it. In a 2024 survey of US adults by the American Gaming Association, 55% of respondents said they had participated in some sort of gambling over the past year, up from 49% the year before. And Gallup surveys suggest a healthy majority of Americans see gambling as morally acceptable. At the extreme, the gambling industry envisions a future where people will bet on everything and will be able to create markets for anything. Perhaps someday you'll be able to create a mini-market for people to bet on whether it will rain on your wedding day. On the one hand, whatever, maybe that's just an extra bit of fun to make the day more exciting. On the other hand, you could just check the weather and otherwise enjoy your wedding without making it into a money-making event for random people on the internet. Plenty of people are able to enjoy watching sports sans gambling as well, even as the sportsbooks spend a lot of money to convince people that betting really ups the fun quotient.

There are going to be a lot of "tipping point" moments for gambling in the months and years to come. For a lot of people, betting is a newfangled way to find some enjoyment and spice up life. But finding where the boundaries are β€” socially and legally β€” is a critical process where there aren't easy, straightforward answers. When we can bet on more and more things in more and more places, it's fair to ask: Just how far do we want gambling to go?


Emily Stewart is a senior correspondent at Business Insider, writing about business and the economy.

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Senate GOP tees up confirmation hearing blitz in effort to meet ambitious Trump targets

13 January 2025 at 01:00

Republicans will hold confirmation hearings this week for more than a dozen high-profile administration picks for President-elect Trump's next term, including those for Pete Hegseth, Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., and Gov. Kristi Noem, R-S.D.

Hegseth, Trump's Secretary of Defense pick, will have one of the first hearings on Tuesday, when he will go before the Senate Armed Services Committee at 9:30 a.m. and face questions from both Democrats and Republicans.Β 

Rubio and Noem were tapped by Trump to be his Secretaries of State and Homeland Security, respectively. Noem will appear before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs on Wednesday at 9 a.m., while Rubio is set to face the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations at 10 a.m.Β 

TULSI GABBARD CHANGES TUNE ON CONTROVERSIAL INTELLIGENCE TOOL FOLLOWING GOP LOBBYING

Other Tuesday hearings include those for Doug Collins to serve as Secretary of Veterans Affairs and former North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum for Secretary of the Interior.Β 

Trump also chose Pam Bondi for attorney general, John Ratcliffe to direct the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Russell Vought to lead the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), Sean Duffy for Secretary of Transportation and Chris Wright to be Secretary of Energy. Hearings for each of them will be on Wednesday.Β 

'DELAYING AND OBSTRUCTING': TOP SENATE REPUBLICAN HITS BACK AS DEM CALLS FOUL ON TRUMP CONFIRMATION HEARINGS

Eric Turner, who Trump tapped to be his next Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), and Scott Bessent, whom the president-elect announced as his pick to lead the Treasury Department, have hearings scheduled for Thursday.Β 

The hearing blitz comes as Republicans prepare to confirm as many Trump nominees as they can, as quickly as they can.Β 

REPUBLICANS BLAST 'JOKE' SENTENCING OF TRUMP 10 DAYS BEFORE SWEARING IN

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., explained his hope to confirm his choices promptly, on "Maria Bartiromo’s Wall Street" on Friday, saying, "In the past, the minority party has not obstructed at least a handful of high-ranking Cabinet members to be approved in the first week. So I'm hopeful that Secretary of State, as well as Department of Homeland Security, will be approved either on the day of the inauguration, the day after or that week, as well as a few others β€” Department of Defense."

LAKEN RILEY ACT OVERCOMES FILIBUSTER IN SENATE AS DEMS GIVE GOP HELPING HAND

"So, I'm hoping we get to it quickly and that we don't muddle it around. And I still have my fingers crossed that that's going to happen. As far as the two that I'm in charge of, I've seen no resistance on the Republican side. And some indication that we may get some Democrat support as well," he added.Β 

Republicans are particularly motivated to confirm Trump's national security team, especially in the wake of a recent terror attack in New Orleans, Louisiana, in which 14 were killed, and 35 people were injured.Β 

Sen Ernst renews push for bill ending illegal immigration β€˜loophole’ as Congress takes action

13 January 2025 at 01:00

FIRST ON FOX: Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, is reintroducing legislation that would require federal authorities to take into custody illegal immigrants charged with killing someone, closing what she says is a "loophole" in federal law as the Senate moves forward on a number of bills cracking down on illegal immigration.

Ernst is reviving an effort to pass "Sarah’s Law." It is named after Sarah Root, a 21-year-old Iowa woman killed by a drunken driver in the U.S. illegally.Β The suspect, Edwin Mejia, posted bond and ultimately escaped from facing a court.Β 

Fox previously reported that he had been charged with motor vehicle homicide in 2016, but he posted bond and ICE did not file a detainer against him – a request that he be transferred into ICE custody on release.

SENATE DEMS TO JOIN REPUBLICANS TO ADVANCE ANTI-ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION BILL NAMED AFTER LAKEN RILEY

The bill would require ICE to take into custody illegal immigrants who are arrested and charged with causing the death or serious injury of another. It also requires that upon encountering an illegal immigrant subject to mandatory detention, ICE must make reasonable efforts to identify victims and inform their families.

Ernst’s push for the law to be passed comes at a time when illegal immigration has emerged as a top priority for the Senate, and some Democrats appear open to laws increasing ICE enforcement.

LAKEN RILEY ACT PASSES HOUSE WITH 48 DEMS, ALL REPUBLICANS

Last week, a dozen Senate Democrats voted to advance the Laken Riley Act to full debate in the upper chamber. That bill, named after a Georgia nursing student killed last year by a Venezuelan illegal immigrant, would require ICE to detain illegal immigrants who commit theft-related crimes. It passed the House with the support of all Republicans and 48 Democrats.

"Whether it is Iowan Sarah Root or Laken Riley, too many innocent Americans have fallen victim to illegal immigrants in this country," Ernst said in a statement. "The true tragedy of crimes committed by illegal immigrants is that every single one of them is preventable. My Sarah’s Law will build upon the Laken Riley Act and close another loophole to prevent another American life from being cut short."

Lawmakers are also introducing the SAVE Act, which aims to crack down on noncitizen voting in federal elections, in both chambers. The efforts come after illegal immigration and border security were key issues in the 2024 elections, which delivered a Republican House and Senate while also returning President-elect Trump to the White House.

Other lawmakers are introducing legislation to reinstate the Remain-in-Mexico policy, which kept migrants in Mexico for the duration of their asylum hearings.

Fox News' Liz Elkind contributed to this report.

These are the 2025 elections to watch as Trump returns to White House

13 January 2025 at 01:00

When President-elect Trump is inaugurated on Jan. 20, Republicans will officially control the White House and both houses of Congress.

And while the political spotlight in 2025 will remain fixed on the new administration and GOP congressional majorities, as they aim to rock the nation's capital, some high-profile ballot box showdowns across the country will grab attention as they serve as a barometer of whether Trump and the Republicans' electoral momentum can be sustained.

And for Democrats, who aim to rebuild after suffering setbacks in the 2024 elections, 2025's off-year elections can't come soon enough.

THIS REPUBLICAN WOMAN MAY BECOME THE NATION'S FIRST BLACK FEMALE GOVERNOR

New Jersey and Virginia are the only two states in the nation to hold gubernatorial contests in the year after a presidential election, and because of their spot on the calendar, they both garner plenty of national attention.

And Virginia is often seen as a bellwether of the national political climate and how Americans feel about the party in the White House. The party that wins the presidency has lost the ensuing Virginia gubernatorial election in recent decades, with only one exception.

HEAD HERE FOR THE LATEST FOX NEWS REPORTING ON THE TRUMP TRANSITION

Gov. Glenn Youngkin, three years ago, became the first Republican in a dozen years to win a gubernatorial election in Virginia, a onetime key swing state that has shaded blue in recent cycles.

But Virginia is unique due to its state law preventing governors from serving two consecutive four-year terms, so Youngkin cannot run for re-election next year.

Running to succeed Youngkin is Republican Lt. Gov. Winsome Sears, who would make history as the nation's first elected Black female governor.

In a recent interview with Fox News Digital, Sears emphasized that "I'm not really running to make history. I'm just trying to, as I've said before, leave it better than I found it, and I want everyone to have the same opportunities I had."

WHAT'S NEXT FOR THIS POPULAR REPUBLICAN GOVERNOR WHEN HE LEAVES OFFICE IN A YEAR

Sears, who was born in the Caribbean island nation of Jamaica and immigrated to the U.S. as a six-year-old, served in the Marines and is a former state lawmaker. She made history three years ago when she won election as Virginia's first female lieutenant governor.Β 

Three-term Democratic Rep. Abigail Spanberger, a former CIA officer who represents a conservative-leaning district, is her party's candidate for governor.

One of them will likely make history as the first woman elected Virginia governor.

Democrats currently control both houses of the Virginia legislature, after flipping the House of Delegates in the 2023 elections. All 100 seats in the state House are up for grabs in 2025, as Republicans aim to win back majorities in both the House and state Senate, where there will be special elections for two members who recently won election to Congress.

With little electoral competition, expect outside groups to sink millions in outside money into Virginia's statewide and legislative showdowns in 2025.

In blue-state New Jersey, Trump dramatically increased his support at the ballot box in the 2024 elections.

He came within six points of defeating Vice President Kamala Harris in the state in November, a dramatic improvement from his 16-point loss to President Biden in New Jersey in the 2020 presidential election.

Trump's showing is giving Republicans encouragement that they can win governor's office in a state where Democrats control the government and enjoy a vast voter registration advantage over the GOP.

Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy, who won the 2017 and 2021 gubernatorial elections, is term-limited, and a crowded field of Democrats and Republicans are lining up to try and succeed him.

New Jersey's election for governor, like the contest in Virginia, is sure to grab the attention and resources of outside groups.

So will 2025 elections that will determine if Democrats hold onto their majorities on the state Supreme Courts in two key battleground states - Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

Also garnering attention in the new year will be the mayoral election in the nation's most populous city.

New York City's embattled Democratic mayor, former police captain Eric Adams, has been indicted on federal corruption charges.

While he says he'll seek a second term steering New York City, the race may attract numerous challengers, possibly including former New York State Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who stepped down in 2021 amid scandals.

Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin has stood down on its much-hyped New Glenn rocket launch because of a 'vehicle subsystem issue'

13 January 2025 at 00:32
Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket.
Blue Origin said on Monday morning that it was "standing down on today's launch attempt to troubleshoot a vehicle subsystem issue."

Blue Origin Media

  • Blue Origin was set to launch its New Glenn rocket on Monday morning.
  • But the launch was postponed due to a "vehicle subsystem issue," Blue Origin said.
  • "We're reviewing opportunities for our next launch attempt," the company said.

Rocket companyΒ Blue OriginΒ postponed its highly anticipatedΒ New GlennΒ rocket launch on Monday morning, citing a need to "troubleshoot a vehicle subsystem issue."

The launch, originally scheduled for a three-hour window from 1 a.m. to 4 a.m. Eastern Time, was repeatedly delayed before it was ultimately postponed.

"We're standing down on today's launch attempt to troubleshoot a vehicle subsystem issue that will take us beyond our launch window," Blue Origin wrote in an X post. "We're reviewing opportunities for our next launch attempt."

Ahead of the launch, Blue Origin's leadership β€” including its founder, Jeff Bezos β€” awaited the rocket's blastoff at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.

A liftoff time of 1:31 a.m. was first set at the beginning of the launch's livestream. It was then delayed from 1:52 a.m. to 2:07 a.m., 2:27 a.m., 2:48 a.m., and finally, 3:15 a.m.

Before it was postponed,Β SpaceXΒ CEOΒ Elon MuskΒ had wished Blue Origin well for the launch. SpaceX remains the only company to have recovered and reused a rocket's booster stages.

Good luck!

β€” Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 13, 2025

Ahead of the initial launch time, Blue Origin said on X that the company hoped to "reach orbit safely."

"Anything beyond that is icing on the cake. We know landing the boosterβ€―on our first try offshore in the Atlantic is ambitiousβ€”but we're going for it," the company wrote on X early Monday morning. "No matter what happens, we'll learn, refine, and apply that knowledge to our next launch."

A successful launch would have greatly boosted Bezos' spacefaring ambitions for Blue Origin.

Bezos founded Blue Origin in 2000. The billionaire told podcaster Lex Fridman in a 2023 interview that he stepped down as Amazon's CEO in 2021 because he wanted to focus on Blue Origin.

"I've turned the CEO role over, and the primary reason I did that is so that I could spend time on Blue Origin, adding some energy, some sense of urgency," Bezos told Fridman.

Representatives for Blue Origin did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

Read the original article on Business Insider

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