Free Republic

The first of two new nuclear reactors at Georgia Power’s Plant Vogtle is generating electricity for the first time, the Atlanta-based utility announced during the weekend. Unit 3 at the plant south of Augusta has successfully synchronized and connected to the electric grid, putting the reactor on a path toward going into full commercial operation in May or June. “What an incredibly inspiring time to join Georgia Power as we celebrate this milestone that marks the first day of generating clean, reliable power at this new nuclear unit, which will serve our customers over the next 60 to 80 years,”...

Artificial intelligence could gain the upper hand over humanity and pose "catastrophic" risks under the Darwinian rules of evolution, a new report warns. Evolution by natural selection could give rise to "selfish behavior" in AI as it strives to survive, author and AI researcher Dan Hendrycks argues in the new paper "Natural Selection Favors AIs over Humans." "We argue that natural selection creates incentives for AI agents to act against human interests. Our argument relies on two observations," Hendrycks, the director of the Center for AI Safety, said in the report. "Firstly, natural selection may be a dominant force in...

Melbourne Lord Mayor Sally Capp is business orientated (or professes to be) so I hope she will take the leftist police attack on me at a church in her town seriously. My grandfather went to Queen Elizabeth’s coronation in 1953. At the Queens's Melbourne memorial service last year, I was removed from prayer at the Cathedral and physically and sexually assaulted by police. I emailed the Lord Mayor. What what I wanted was her backing to avoid the trauma of having police investigate me for a police crime against me. Victoria Police just cannot be trusted anymore. If the Lord...

MEXICO CITY, April 5 (Reuters) - Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador on Wednesday said he does not agree with the criminal charges brought against former U.S. President Donald Trump. "Supposedly legal issues should not be used for electoral, political purposes," Lopez Obrador told a regular news conference. "That's why I don't agree with what they are doing to ex-President Trump." -snip- Lopez Obrador, who took office in 2018, developed a friendly working relationship with then-counterpart Trump, despite the U.S. president launching his election campaign in 2015 by calling Mexicans rapists and drug runners and promising to make Mexico pay...

Sometimes the apropos of the thing is just too much fun to notice. Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell is missing in action ever since his slip and fall/concussion a few weeks ago (insert shades of prior HRC issues here). The conspicuous absence of media questioning his continued absence is a little odd for a DC that loves to notice such things.Meanwhile, sniffing the possibility of enhanced career aspirations amid the political winds of incapable McConnell, Kentucky Republican Representative Thomas Massie, sees Ron DeSantis as a vector to electoral elevation. Except, there’s a funny thing.While Erin Perrine of Team DeSantis is quick...

Three days after Hunter Biden joined the Board of Directors at Burisma energy company in Ukraine, Joe Biden traveled to the country and pushed for fracking. Joe Biden forbids gas and energy production, including fracking, in the US. The Daily Mail reported: Joe Biden pushed for Ukraine to frack gas during his 2014 vice presidential visit – just days after his son Hunter joined the board of a firm set to profit from it. The first son joined the board of allegedly corrupt Ukrainian gas firm Burisma on April 18, 2014, the company announced in a press release at the...

We learned in 2020 that contributions to BLM were funneled through ActBlue, the major resource for Democrat donations, and then funneled to at least one organization run by a member of a domestic terrorist group. TGP also reported that in early 2020 FOX News reported that half of all donations to ActBlue in 2019 came from “untraceable, unemployed donors.” A preliminary computer analysis by the Take Back Action Fund, obtained exclusively by Fox News, has found that nearly half of all 2019 donations to ActBlue were made by people claiming to be unemployed. “After downloading hundreds of millions of [dollars...

A Newark, Delaware, man was arrested Tuesday night after allegedly trying to carjack an off-duty police officer in an unmarked police vehicle, according to police. The Newark Police Department said officers responded to East Main Street at about 8:40 p.m. Tuesday, after a report of a carjacking. The victim told police that while he was in his vehicle, a man walked up, opened the car door and told him to get out while trying to physically remove him from inside. Minutes later, police said, an off-duty Newark police officer who was driving in an unmarked police vehicle was stopped on...

BEIJING, April 6 (Reuters) - China's Fujian maritime safety administration launched a three-day special joint patrol and inspection operation in the central and northern parts of the Taiwan Strait that includes moves to board ships, it said on its WeChat account.

For patients with primary advanced or recurrent endometrial cancer, dostarlimab plus carboplatin-paclitaxel increases progression-free survival versus carboplatin-paclitaxel alone, according to a study. Mansoor R. Mirza, M.D. and colleagues conducted a phase 3, global trial involving patients with primary advanced stage III or IV or first recurrent endometrial cancer who were randomly assigned to receive dostarlimab (500 mg) or placebo plus carboplatin and paclitaxel every three weeks for six cycles, followed by dostarlimab (1,000 mg) or placebo every six weeks for up to three years. A total of 494 patients were randomly assigned in a 1:1 ratio; 23.9 percent had mismatch...

Lizzo and her brand Yitty are continuing their mission of inclusivity with the launch of a new Binding Top and Tucking Thong It's a gender-inclusive 'YITTYVERSARY.' Lizzo has built her career — and shapewear brand Yitty — on a strong platform of inclusivity. In fact, the ethos is central to both her and the brands' public personas. Now, they are taking that mission even further by launching a new collection of gender-affirming intimates and shapewear in celebration of Yitty's one-year anniversary. The Your Skin collection sees Yitty venture into the space of binding and tucking garments with the launch of...

WILMINGTON, Del, April 5 (Reuters) - Fox Corp executives Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch can be called to testify at this month’s defamation trial over a $1.6 billion lawsuit claiming the media company lied about voter fraud in the 2020 U.S. presidential election, a judge said on Wednesday. Rupert Murdoch, the 92-year-old chair of Fox Corp, and his son, Lachlan Murdoch, its CEO, were not on the list of witnesses that Fox intends to make available for the trial, in a case brought by Dominion Voting Systems. “If Dominion wants to bring them live, they need to do a trial subpoena...

Results from a clinical trial show that people with low-grade lymphomatoid granulomatosis who are treated with interferon alfa-2b, a type of immunotherapy, can live for decades after diagnosis. Lymphomatoid granulomatosis is a rare precancerous condition triggered by Epstein-Barr virus infection. Left untreated, the disease can progress to a high-grade form, which has a poorer prognosis and can quickly turn into an aggressive and fatal B-cell lymphoma. In the phase 2 trial, patients treated with interferon alfa-2b lived for a median of about 20 years. By contrast, past studies reported a median survival of less than two years for people with...

A good first line is not always necessary because who stops reading after one sentence? But it can be extremely useful in building expectations for the style and characterisation that will follow. While book jackets can indicate a broad genre, that line can define the subgenre. The opening may establish the tone, character, location, era or season but it can also pull a reader into the realm of the story that follows, and often into the head of the protagonist or into an alternate reality. When we open a book, we are ready to embark on a journey. The starter...

Being overweight may be physically changing the environment within people's joints, as new research suggests that obesity is promoting pro-inflammatory conditions which worsen arthritis. In a study, researchers have found that specific cells in the joint lining tissue (synovium) of patients with osteoarthritis are being changed due to factors associated with obesity. Previous research has shown that fat tissue that has been metabolically altered by obesity releases proteins called cytokines and adipokines, which are known to promote inflammation around the body. The newly published study observed that in cells taken from biopsies of arthritic joints, obesity also changes the environment...

Researchers found that after traumatic brain injury, the brain's immune system cells' internal recycling function slowed dramatically, allowing waste products to build up and interfere with recovery from injury. The researchers also found that treating mice that had traumatic brain injury with a drug to promote cellular recycling improved the mice's ability to recover from injury. The body's cells regularly recycle their own worn-out or damaged parts that accrue through normal wear and tear, infection, or injury in a process known as autophagy. In a previous study, Dr. Lipinski's group showed that traumatic brain injury reduced the ability of neurons—the...

A man from Mississauga, Ont., told British customs agents at Aberdeen airport he didn’t have the padlock codes to open his two suitcases, but officers forced them open anyway. Inside they found nearly 33 kilos of cannabis. Pawlo Albanskyj, 29, was flying from Toronto to Birmingham, England, via Amsterdam, on Dec. 11, 2022, when his flight was rerouted to Aberdeen airport in Scotland, authorities said. U.K. Border Force agents asked him about his suitcases when he stopped at customs before leaving the departure area, according to the National Crime Agency, a national police force in the United Kingdom. Albanskyj said...

A four-year investigation of Baltimore’s Catholic archdiocese reveals the scope of 80 years of child sex abuse and torture and how church officials often covered it up and, in some cases, paved the way for further abuse. Among the accounts: A deacon who admitted abusing more than 100 children. A priest who chained and whipped boys for his gratification. Another priest who, after receiving psychiatric treatment, went on to abuse 20 students at a Baltimore boys’ school.

Promo clip as seen on the German music show Disco from the 27th October, 1973. Hosted by Ilja Richter.