Underdog and Crypto.com are launching a service that will let fans make bets on sports outcomes via a prediction market.
The market will be available on Underdog’s app and will let US users buy and sell contracts based on outcomes in sports leagues including the National Football League, college football, the National Basketball Association and Major League Baseball, the companies said in a statement on Tuesday.
A U.S. appeals court on Thursday paused a lower court ruling that restricted President Donald Trump’s use of troops to support federal law enforcement and immigration raids in Los Angeles, preserving the status quo while the Trump administration appeals.
U.S. District Court Judge Charles Breyer ruled on Tuesday that the Trump administration willfully violated a 19th-century law that limits the use of the military for domestic enforcement by employing troops to control crowds and bolster federal agents during immigration and drug raids in Los Angeles and its surrounding area. Breyer restricted troops from doing police work in California.
The administration quickly appealed the ruling, and the 9th Circuit blocked Breyer’s ruling from taking effect while it considers the case. Breyer had already delayed his ruling until September 12 to allow the Trump administration time to appeal.
Trump deployed 4,000 National Guard members and 700 active-duty U.S. Marines to Los Angeles in June, saying the troops were needed to quell unrest and protests over the administration’s immigration policy. About 300 National Guard troops remain deployed to Los Angeles and have been used to support federal immigration raids and drug enforcement actions after the protests died down.
Tuesday’s ruling dealt a setback to Trump’s push to broaden the role of the military on U.S. soil, which critics say is a dangerous expansion of executive authority that could spark tensions between troops and ordinary citizens.
Trump has already sent National Guard troops to police Washington, D.C., and expressed his desire to send troops to Chicago and New Orleans. The 9th Circuit’s ruling came on the same day that Washington’s attorney general filed a lawsuit seeking to end the troop deployment in the nation’s capital.
Former President Joe Biden recently underwent surgery to remove cancerous cells from his skin, his spokesperson confirmed to NBC News on Thursday.
Biden’s personal office said he is recovering well from the procedure known as Mohs surgery, which is often used to treat the most common forms of skin cancer. The procedure removes layers of cancerous skin tissue until no more cancerous cells remain.
It’s unclear exactly when Biden underwent the surgery. He was pictured leaving a church in Greenville, Delaware, late last month with a large, visible incision in his head.
Biden, 82, underwent surgery to remove cancerous skin cells during his term as president. In 2023, a cancerous skin lesion was removed from his chest during a routine physical exam, Biden's physician, Dr. Kevin O'Connor, said in a memo at the time.
A biopsy had revealed the lesion as basal cell carcinoma, one of the two most common forms of skin cancer, which is also treated using Mohs surgery.
Following the 2023 procedure, O'Connor wrote that "all cancerous tissue was successfully removed" and that "no further treatment is required."
Former first lady Jill Biden similarly had a pair of cancerous skin lesions removed in 2023, one above her eye and the other on her chest, that were also identified as basal cell carcinoma.
Concerns about Biden's health took center stage after his abysmal debate performance in June 2024. Several weeks later, he dropped his re-election bid.
Biden revealed in May that he had been diagnosed with a form of prostate cancer so aggressive that it had already metastasized to his bones. His office said at the time that he was pursuing several treatment options to ensure "effective management" of the illness and said his cancer appeared to be "hormone-sensitive," which experts have noted suggests he will most likely respond to treatment.
Republicans and Democrats alike rallied around Biden when he revealed the diagnosis, with some championing him as a resilient and wishing him a swift recovery.
Soon after, though, the outpouring took a partisan turn, with President Donald Trump and some of his allies questioning whether Biden was aware of the cancer while he was in office and whether the diagnosis was concealed by any of his aides, including O'Connor.
Chinese companies’ second-quarter performance renders a stark reality: earnings proof to justify a blistering stock rally is missing.
Profits at mainland-listed companies rose just 1.6% year-on-year in the three months ended June, slowing from a 3.5% gain in the previous quarter, according to China International Capital Corp. Financial firms — benefiting from fees income and other rally-related gains — led the modest advance, while non-financial sectors posted combined losses.
It’s also known as superstitious thinking.
We all see it in children when they knock on wood to invite good luck or when they worry about stepping on a crack. Athletes wear the same socks during games because they believe it helps them win. For kids, magical thinking is a way to handle a complicated and confusing world. But when it continues into adulthood, clinicians classify it as a psychiatric disorder.
Schizophrenia, for example, is defined by the ICD-10 medical codebook as a disorder in which people cannot reliably distinguish reality from delusions. The same ICD-10 lists transsexualism as the persistent urge to belong to the opposite sex, sometimes pursued through surgery.
Both are diseases, since ICD stands for the International Classification of “Diseases”. They are not merely choices or experiences.
The main issue is that transgenderism is more about belief than biology. Words might change, but reality remains the same. Calling a heart attack a “myocardial infarction” doesn’t change the underlying biology. Nor does calling a stroke a “cerebral vascular accident.”
Similarly, describing a man as a “woman” because of his gender identity doesn’t alter his chromosomes, anatomy, or reproductive capacity.
Believing otherwise is magical thinking.
Gender is determined in the womb by 6–7 weeks of gestation. Children quickly recognize differences between boys and girls, just as they see that Mommy and Daddy are not the same. Pretending to be the opposite sex is similar to pretending to be a cat or a superhero. If your child, who pretends to be a dog, is sick, do you take them to a veterinarian or a pediatrician? Pretend does not equal reality.
Few physicians have spoken as plainly on this topic as Dr. Paul McHugh, former psychiatrist-in-chief at The Johns Hopkins Hospital, one of the world’s leading medical institutions. He has described transgenderism as a “mental disorder” that requires treatment, not affirmation.
“People who undergo gender reassignment surgery do not go from being men to women or vice versa,” McHugh explained. “Rather, they become feminized men or masculinized women.” Reality is what is, not what you wish it to be. Thinking otherwise is magical or delusional.
McHugh cited research showing that the suicide rate among transgender individuals after surgery is 20 times higher than average, hardly a ringing endorsement of “transition” as treatment. Other studies show that 70%-80% of children who express transgender feelings eventually outgrow them without medical intervention.
While one can outgrow fantasies, medical or surgical gender reassignment is permanent, and may leave one with regret and depression.
Minneapolis transgender mass shooter Robin Westman confessed that he “was tired of being trans” and wished he was “never brain-washed.”
In other words, biology is immutable, and medical science understands this. To pretend otherwise is not progress or enlightenment. It’s magical thinking.
Yet politicians, corporations, and media outlets have enthusiastically embraced this fantasy. We are told men can become pregnant. Mother are replaced by “birthing parents.” Men can “chestfeed” newborn babies.
Tampons are stocked in boys’ bathrooms. Male athletes compete in women’s sports, winning scholarships, records, and medals, even injuring female competitors. Questioning any of this is often called “hate,” similar to doubting the emperor’s new clothes.
Corporate America has jumped on the bandwagon. Bud Light featured a transgender influencer in its marketing campaign and lost billions. Victoria’s Secret and the Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition, once icons of feminine beauty, now promote men as women. Reality is sacrificed for virtue signaling. But at what cost?
A generation ago, such ideas would have been dismissed as laughable and absurd. Today, they are enforced as dogma. Dissent is no longer tolerated. Notice how corporate media is ignoring the transgender status of the Minneapolis shooter, out of fear of offending the trans community, while reflexively blaming the gun and being unable to find a motive for the shooting.
Cultural indulgence might be laughable were it not for the tragic consequences. About a third of transgender individuals suffer from depression or anxiety. Among transgender youth, the rate of depression exceeds 50 percent. Many are prescribed antidepressants while also taking high doses of cross-sex hormones, all on top of the already volatile hormones of adolescence.
The result of this hormonal hodgepodge, as ChatGPT explained, is a “layered neuroendocrine environment” with unpredictable effects on mood, cognition, and behavior, a toxic stew that bathes the developing brain.
As ChatGPT further clarifies, “Puberty hormones already reshape the stress and reward system. Antidepressants adjust serotonin/dopamine balance. Exogenous sex hormones push development in a new direction.” This is like a kid in a chemistry lab, mixing things together to see what happens until the entire lab goes 'kaboom.'
In the wake of the recent school shooting, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced an NIH study to determine “if a link exists between psychiatric medications, such as SSRIs, and violent attacks.” He should go further by studying the additional effects of adding sex hormones to SSRIs.
Democrats, the media, and numerous major medical associations, including the American Medical Association, support
The consequences can be deadly. Several recent mass shooters, including the attacker at the Nashville Covenant School in 2023, the Colorado Springs Club Q shooter, and the Highlands Ranch STEM school shooter, are all identified as transgender. Last week in Minneapolis, a transgender individual shot up a Catholic school.
While correlation does not mean causation, ignoring psychiatric instability in favor of political correctness can be reckless and lethal.
Advocates argue that supporting transgender identity is compassionate. However, enabling delusion is no more caring than giving an addict a needle. “Safe injection sites” are not effective solutions to drug addiction, and promoting medical or surgical gender mutilation is not an appropriate treatment for a psychiatric disorder.
The National Alliance on Mental Illness envisions a world where those with mental illness “live healthy, fulfilling lives supported by a community that cares.” True caring means guiding people toward reality, not indulging harmful fantasies.
Why do politicians, media, and corporations go along with it? The answer is power and profit. Virtue signaling gains political support. Corporate marketing grabs headlines and placates activists. None of this helps the confused teenager or the depressed adult.
Stop with the magical thinking. Men cannot become women, and women cannot become men. Words and wishes don’t change chromosomes. A caring society doesn’t indulge in delusions; it faces them with the truth and provides real help and support.
It’s time for a reality check.
Brian C. Joondeph, M.D., is a physician and writer.
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2025/09/transgenderism_and_magical_thinking.html
In the real world, Elizabeth Báthory (1560-1614) was a very beautiful Hungarian countess who was reputed to have murdered hundreds of peasant girls so that she could bathe in their blood to counteract aging. Modern revisionists claim that she was the victim of political persecution, but the story has stuck.
Part of why it’s stuck is because the rich and powerful still believe that youthful blood will keep them young forever. When studies showed that old mice given young mouse blood began reversing some of the signs of aging, businesses popped up in uber-wealthy Hollywood and Silicon Valley offering to the aging rich plasma from young volunteers. While these businesses were shut down a long time ago, an ongoing conspiracy theory about Hollywood is that actors are still sucking “adrenochrome” from young bodies to preserve their youth.
The film industry has long used the trope of evil killers cannibalizing young bodies in an effort to reverse aging or disfigurement. In 1959, a British film company released The Man Who Could Cheat Death, which was the story of a mad scientist who reversed aging by murdering young people for their parathyroid glands, which he transplanted into his own body. In 1988’s The Rejuvenator, an aging actress used brain tissue from young victims to restore her looks, only to turn into a psycho-killer. Last year’s The Substance also flirted with the idea, when Demi Moore played an actress who used a secret, black-market drug to create a younger version of herself.
The bottom line is that, whether in the historic memory, pop culture conspiracy theories, or horror movies, no good guy ever harvests body parts or hormones from young people to preserve youth. That is strictly the preserve of monsters.
That’s why it was both disturbing and predictable to hear two totalitarian dictators, accompanied by a silent third dictator, Kim Jong-un, chit-chat about organ harvesting as a way to achieve immortality:
“People rarely lived to be over 70, but these days, at 70, you are still a child,” a man apparently translating Mr. Xi’s comments for Mr. Putin could be heard saying in Russian.
“Biotechnology is making advances,” Mr. Putin responded, according to the translator, now speaking in Mandarin for Mr. Xi. “There’ll be constant transplants of human organs, and maybe even people will grow younger as they age — even achieving immortality.”
“It could be that in this century humans might be able to live to 150 years old,” Mr. Xi can then be heard saying.
Putin later freely admitted that he’d made the comments:
“Modern health methods,” Mr. Putin told a reporter, “allow humanity to hope” that “life expectancy will grow significantly.” Among those advances, he said, were “medical means, even surgical ones, related to organ transplants.”
In fact, the future is now. Organ transplants are big business for China:
A plot to establish six new sites in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region by 2030 has stoked fears of forced organ removal, given staggeringly low donation rates in the region.
China’s organ trade is already estimated to have a market value of $1 billion per year - which the Communist government wants to swell.
A liver transplant, for example, can cost around £118,000 ($160k) in China - but with a much shorter waiting time compared to the rest of the world.
This draws in not only recipients from inside the sprawling nation, but also unsuspecting international visitors who travel there for a transplant.
As the article suggests, these organs don’t come from volunteers. Instead, the world consensus is that China harvests them from prisoners executed for the purpose in China’s version of Soylent Green:
The organs of members of marginalized groups detained in Chinese prison camps are being forcefully harvested — sometimes when patients are still alive, an international tribunal sitting in London has concluded.
Some of the more than 1.5 million detainees in Chinese prison camps are being killed for their organs to serve a booming transplant trade that is worth some $1 billion a year, concluded the China Tribunal, an independent body tasked with investigating organ harvesting from prisoners of conscience in the authoritarian state.
Bible believing people look to God for eternal life. Other true religions believe in resurrection. Dictators, though, aren’t waiting for a divine cosmic form of eternal life. With hundreds of millions of human cogs in their totalitarian machinery, all of whom are there for the taking, dictators will always plan to take immorality into their own hands.
As for me, I sincerely hope that the religious people are right and the dictators are wrong, because the latter’s specific form of evil demands eternal cosmic justice.
3An email chain between White House officials indicated that Biden did not give final approval to the list of inmates granted clemencyAPfeiffer
3Emails from December 2024 laying out a draft statement announcing Biden commutations.APfeiffer