Ruben Ray Martinez is considered the first person to be killed by ICE during President Trump’s second term. His mother believes his death could have been avoided.

“How do I check that it’s not a hoax?” said Ari Hodara. The Parisian art enthusiast could not believe his luck when he found out he’d won a Pablo Picasso painting worth $1 million.

A super typhoon steadily battered a pair of remote U.S. islands in the Pacific Ocean with ferocious winds and relentless rains, shredding tin roofs and forcing residents to take cover.

When you can bet on anything, everything changes. 

Unlike sports betting, prediction markets like Polymarket and Kalshi give users the freedom to bet on anything that comes to mind. Will Lady Gaga sing at the Super Bowl? What words will Trump say in his next speech? Or worse… the assassination of a world leader.

Those bets – which are illegal – is what has prediction markets in hot water and lawmakers hustling to put guardrails on the industry. It’s also what today’s guest predicted in our 2026 predictions episode at the top of the year. 

NPR’s Bobby Allyn returns to the show to unpack the wild west of prediction markets and what the unfettered access to this market could do to us as a culture.

Want more? Check out these IBAM episodes:
2026 Predictions: Beyoncé retires, AI busts, Democrats lift weights
Get rich or die trying: how sports betting is changing our love of the game

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What makes people pay a lot of attention to some wars and crises, but not others? And what does that attention actually do for the people in those situations? We’re looking at Sudan, which has entered its fourth year of a civil war this week. But, unlike in Gaza, the violence and famine there has struggled to break through headlines in the U.S. We talk to Sudanese journalist Isma’il Kushkush, political scientist Scott Strauss, Sudan expert Alexander de Waal, and political scientist Mai Hassan.

The Justice Department on Tuesday asked a federal appeals court to throw out the seditious conspiracy convictions of Proud Boys and Oath Keepers leaders, for their role in the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol attack.