📌 TOPINDIATOURS Hot ai: New Law Would Prevent Trump Officials From Invading a Coun

“Men do not make laws,” goes a maxim attributed to US president Calvin Coolidge. “They do but discover them.”

If that’s true, then the US attack on Venezuela just uncovered a legislative mother lode. A new law proposed by New York representative Ritchie Torres on Monday would make it illegal for government employees with access to nonpublic information from trading on prediction markets like Polymarket and Kalshi.

If that sounds like something that should probably already be illegal, Coolidge might agree, in his own laissez-faire way.

“Laws must be justified by something more than the will of the majority,” he concluded. “They must rest on the eternal foundation of righteousness.”

In any case, the “Public Integrity in Financial Prediction Markets Act of 2026,” would include new restrictions on elected officials, political appointees, and executive branch staffers, according to Forbes. It would also apply to government employees who have not yet been privy to nonpublic documents, but “may reasonably obtain such material nonpublic information in the course of performing official duties.”

The proposed legislation comes on the heels of compelling evidence that someone with inside information about the recent kidnapping of Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro placed a series of large bets on Polymarket on whether an attack would take place. Just two days before the surprise attack, the account in question invested over $30,000 in a prediction that either Maduro would be “out” or that US troops would set foot “in Venezuela by” January 31st.

The payout was staggering: a profit of $400,000 in less than 24 hours, as sports entrepreneur Joe Pompliano estimated.

“Seems pretty suspicious!” Pompliano wrote. “Insider trading is not only allowed on prediction markets; it’s encouraged.”

Beyond the Venezuela attack, prediction markets have raised serious anxiety about geopolitical strife around the world. Recent advances in the sector have made it so that crypto bros can gamble on deadly conflicts in real-time, betting thousands of dollars on questions like “will Russia capture all of Kupiansk by March 31?”

Back in October, Reuters reported that the Trump Media and Technology Group was working with Crypto.com to implement prediction market functionality into Truth Social. That came as dozens of federal investigations into crypto-based price fixing, securities fraud, and regulatory noncompliance have been dropped at the Trump administration’s urging. Two of those cases were against prediction platforms Polymarket —the very same implicated in the Venezuela allegations — and Kalshi, for selling options contracts related to congressional elections.

Whether Torres’ new bill makes it very far remains to be seen. Recent history shows that Congress has little appetite for regulation of insider trading — and for now, there doesn’t yet seem to be a wager on the outcome of the bill on either Polymarket or Kalshi.

More on Venezuela: That Video of Happy Crying Venezuelans After Maduro’s Kidnapping? It’s AI Slop

The post New Law Would Prevent Trump Officials From Invading a Country and Profiting by Placing Bets on Polymarket appeared first on Futurism.

🔗 Sumber: futurism.com

📌 TOPINDIATOURS Update ai: SpaceX prepares world’s most powerful rocket amid press

SpaceX is preparing for a pivotal year for its Starship program.

The company shared a photo of the next Super Heavy booster that will fly on Starship Flight 12 on X. The image shows the booster inside the private space company’s Starbase facility in South Texas, with the caption “Stacking complete.”

Though SpaceX has yet to announce a launch date, Starship is expected to fly again in the first quarter of 2026. That flight test will kick off an important year for the Starship program, which must prove that it is on track to send astronauts to the Moon for NASA’s Artemis III mission, currently scheduled for “no earlier than 2027”.

Starship’s race to liftoff

The latest Starship flight was delayed when the Super Heavy booster designated for Flight 12 was damaged during testing in November. That booster was the first of SpaceX’s “Version 3” Super Heavy boosters, designed for increased performance thanks to more powerful Raptor 3 engines, a redesigned, lighter structure, and integrated hot staging.

Now, a new Version 3 booster is fully stacked ahead of Flight 12 early this year. Flight testing Starship Version 3 will be pivotal for SpaceX, as it has faced several delays that could impact its Artemis III lunar contract. 

NASA recently indicated that, due to these delays, it might search for another candidate to land its Artemis III crew on the Moon. In October, acting NASA chief Sean Duffy told CNBC in an interview: “I love SpaceX; it’s an amazing company. The problem is, they’re behind. They’ve pushed their timelines out, and we’re in a race against China.”

Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin is aiming to fly its Mk1 lunar lander to the Moon early this year. If that lunar landing mission is a success, Blue Origin would be a prime candidate.

Starship is the world’s most powerful and tallest rocket, standing 400 feet (122 meters) tall when fully stacked. The rocket flew five times last year, with the last two flights meeting SpaceX’s requirements.

A pivotal year for Starship

Though SpaceX is in a race to keep its Artemis III lunar lander contract, Elon Musk’s private space company recently highlighted Starship’s capabilities to fly beyond the Moon. The company said Starship Version 3 will be the first version of the rocket capable of flying to Mars. 

Elon Musk has previously noted that he would like to launch an uncrewed Starship to the Red Planet during the next alignment of Earth and Mars. The two planets orbit close enough for travel once every 26 months, and the next opportunity occurs late this year.

However, before SpaceX could fly Starship to Mars or, indeed, the Moon, it must master on-orbit refueling. Elon Musk himself has described orbital refueling as “an essential technology for making life multiplanetary.” And yet, a demonstration of the capability has been delayed on several occasions and was supposed to take place last year. 

SpaceX will likely have to achieve the feat in 2026 for Starship to send astronauts to the Moon with Artemis III. An orbital refueling demonstration will also be crucial to achieving its goal of flying to Mars and taking humanity to the next level of space exploration.

🔗 Sumber: interestingengineering.com