Free Republic

In an unprecedented achievement, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), in collaboration with the U.S. Air Force, has announced that through its “ACE” program the X-62A “VISTA” has become the first autonomous fighter jet in the world to successfully engage in aerial dogfighting maneuvers against a manned F-16. This historic event marks a significant milestone in applying artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning in combat scenarios, highlighting a radical advancement in military aviation technology. “The X-62A Team demonstrated that cutting-edge machine learning-based autonomy could be safely used to fly dynamic combat maneuvers,” Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall...

Arising from one of four criminal indictments that have generated 91 charges, that case – concerning elected subversion if not incitement of insurrection – has produced intense scrutiny of Clarence Thomas, the longest-serving justice and a hardline conservative also at the centre of an ethics scandal. Thomas’s wife, Ginni Thomas, is a hard-right activist who was deeply involved in attempts to overturn Trump’s 2020 defeat by Joe Biden, a defeat which according to Trump’s lie was the result of electoral fraud. With the Colorado ruling, calls for Clarence Thomas to recuse from cases involving Trump will no doubt increase –...

As Donald Trump fights a mountain of criminal charges, a separate battle over his eligibility to run for president in 2024 is fast emerging.The US constitution sets out just a handful of explicit requirements someone must meet to be the president. They must be at least 35 years old, a “natural-born” citizen, and a United States resident for at least 14 years. The constitution also bars someone who has served as president for two full terms from running again.None of those requirements disqualify Trump, or anyone else charged with a crime, from running for federal office.But one provision in the...

<p>A mammoth meatball has been created by a cultivated meat company, resurrecting the flesh of the long-extinct animals.</p><p>The project aims to demonstrate the potential of meat grown from cells, without the slaughter of animals, and to highlight the link between large-scale livestock production and the destruction of wildlife and the climate crisis.</p>

Uncertainty hangs over the planned visit to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant by a team from the UN nuclear watchdog, as inspectors arrived in Ukrainian-controlled Zaporizhzhia city on Wednesday, where they are likely to spend the night before crossing the frontline. The International Atomic Energy Agency mission into Russian-controlled territory, which comprises representatives from countries deemed neutral by both sides, was reportedly intended to last four days. But on Wednesday, the Russian-occupying authorities said the IAEA would be given access for one day. They also said the mission would be expected to join the queue of civilians who cross back and...

Gamlet Zinkivskyi grew up speaking Russian in the city of Kharkiv, just like his parents. But when Vladimir Putin launched the invasion of Ukraine on 24 February, it was the final push for him to switch fully to Ukrainian. ... As a young artist, Zinkivskyi had a longstanding dream: an exhibition in Moscow. Kharkiv is just a few dozen miles from the border with Russia and has long been almost entirely Russian-speaking. Culturally, Moscow felt like the centre of the universe. But when Zinkivskyi finally made it to a gallery there in 2012, he was horrified. “They were obnoxious and...

Did British leftwing rag The Guardian pull down its “Person of the Year” poll after an undesirable took a commanding lead? That’s the allegation being made after voting was abruptly shut down following the realization that J.K. Rowling was going to run away with it.This per The Daily Wire.Readers of the British newspaper, The Guardian, are accusing the outlet of deactivating an online poll that asked readers to vote on “Person of the Year” after it became apparent that J.K. Rowling would handily win.“Tell us: who is your 2021 person of the year?” ran the headline, posted on Dec. 15,...

The eco-extremists at the liberal Guardian should realize by now that the internet is forever. The outlet freaked out over 17 years ago about a frosty future thanks to a ridiculously inaccurate Pentagon prediction. The Guardian published a report in 2004 sounding the alarm bells over a “secret report, suppressed by US defence chiefs” and obtained by sister newspaper The Observer. Here was the harrowing message, according to The Guardian: “[M]ajor European cities will be sunk beneath rising seas as Britain is plunged into a ‘Siberian’ climate by 2020.”

Dr. Anthony Fauci — director of the National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases — has been named ” The Sexiest Man Alive ” by the British-based publication the Guardian. But some are wondering if the title bestowed upon the 80-year-old in charge of America’s response to the coronavirus during the last 18 months is a joke of some kind. What are the details? The Guardian’s Instagram post about Fauci’s latest accolade said the “scientist, doctor and public servant … has become an unlikely cult hero for millions of people during the COVID pandemic.” The post added that Fauci —...

More than 500 Democratic party staffers and alumni ofJoe Biden’s 2020 campaign have signed an open letter calling for the US president to do more to protect Palestinians and hold Israel accountable for its actions in and over Gaza, where a ceasefire currently holds. The move comes amid a deepening split in Democratic ranks, between some vocal members of its progressive wing – such as Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez – and more centrist figures including Biden who have taken a consistently pro-Israel stance. Biden has come under increasing pressure to take a firmer stance against Israel after the recent conflict in which...

SNIP The audit, which is unprecedented in US elections, is being watched with alarm around the country. Experts say it is a non-credible effort to fuel doubts about the 2020 race. And there’s some evidence similar efforts could pop up elsewhere. Maricopa county has already conducted multiple audits of the 2020 race and confirmed the results. The firm hired by the GOP-controlled Arizona senate has little experience in election audits, and experts are deeply concerned its methodology is unreliable and will only lead to more doubt about the results of the 2020 race in Arizona. The CEO of the firm,...

Arizonan with rifle slung at local street vendor. Photo courtesy Dean Weingarten Gun ownership is up in the United States. Record numbers of new gun owners, about eight million, purchased a gun in 2020. In a sensationalist article by the far-left British paper The Guardian, the sub-headline reads:Americans bought a record number of firearms last year. Gun ownership among Black Americans is up 58.2%While it may be wished to be true, the headline is both sensationalist and misleading. Here is the paragraph in the article which purports to support the headline. From the guardian.com:Americans bought a record number of firearms...

Donald Trump’s 2020 presidential campaign used pre-checked boxes and obscure design on fundraising emails to wring millions of dollars out of unwitting supporters, detonating a “money bomb” which allowed the Republican to compete against Joe Biden in the last months of the race. The practice, pursued by the campaign and WinRed, a for-profit company, was detailed in an extensive report by the New York Times on Saturday. It is legal, but Ira Rheingold, executive director of the National Association of Consumer Advocates, told the paper it was “unfair, unethical and inappropriate”. Another expert quoted by the Times said such “dark...

Donald Trump was reportedly much more ill with Covid-19 in October than the White House publicly admitted at the time, with some officials concerned that he would need to be put on a ventilator. Trump experienced “extremely depressed blood oxygen levels” and a lung problem commonly associated with pneumonia caused by Covid-19, according to a report in the New York Times citing four people familiar with the former president’s condition. Trump was admitted to Walter Reed national military medical center for several days in early October after he tested positive for the virus, less than a month before the presidential...

Protesters attend a rally to have airline and airport workers considered essential and eligible for a Covid vaccine. Photograph: Étienne Laurent/EPA He was hailed as a national hero in the early months of the pandemic, but Newsom’s job rating has plunged in recent weeks Criticism has come from all sides. Legislators have been divided over his decision to lift regional stay-at-home orders a week after the state surpassed 3m coronavirus cases. Health workers have been dismayed that some of his recent health directives have diverged from established and emerging scientific research. He has bickered with teachers unions and parents...

Study of England, Scotland and Wales dispels myth of ‘Asian grooming gangs’ popularised by far right The majority of child sexual abuse gangs are made up of white men under the age of 30, an official paper has said. The report, which covers England, Scotland and Wales and summarises a range of studies on the issue of group-based child sexual exploitation (CSE), also known as grooming gangs, said there was not enough evidence to conclude that child sexual abuse gangs were disproportionately made up of Asian offenders. High-profile cases including in Rotherham, Rochdale and Telford have involved groups of men...

False claims that pandemic is a hoax or was started deliberately are attracting adherents around world Significant numbers of people around the world believe Covid-19 was created deliberately, has killed far fewer people than reported, or is a hoax and does not actually exist, according to a global survey.Along with belief in other conspiracy theories – such as that the world is run by a secret cabal – the YouGov-Cambridge Globalism Project, a survey of about 26,000 people in 25 countries designed in collaboration with the Guardian, found widespread and concerning scepticism about vaccine safety.Among the most widely believed Covid...

Donald Trump has made warnings about the threat of antifa and “far-left fascism” a central part of his re-election campaign. But in reality leftwing attacks have left far fewer people dead than violence by rightwing extremists, new research indicates, and antifa activists have not been linked to a single murder in decades. A new database of nearly 900 politically motivated attacks and plots in the United States since 1994 includes just one attack staged by an anti-fascist that led to fatalities. In that case, the single person killed was the perpetrator. White supremacists or anti-police libertarians? What we know about...

Guardian is a Chinese drama that can be seen on YouTube with English captioning. This is an action video for an action superhero, Chu Shuzhi, a member of the Special Investigations Unit. First instinct of the series - a mix of buddy cop show, Harry Potter's Deathly Hallows, and Buffy. I'm hooked.

The British left’s flagship newspaper is facing the call to eat its own tail, after more than 12,000 people have signed a petition calling for the liberal, pro-Black Lives Matter Guardian to be shut down over its historical links to slavery and for siding with the Confederate states during the American Civil War. The Change.org petition to the Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO) already has more than 12,000 signatures with the number growing hourly, spurred on by accusations against the newspaper of hypocrisy for backing the far-left BLM while having a history connected to slavery. The call comes after far-left...