Free Republic

Among those convicted on Friday was the father of a student whose false account of Paty's use of the caricatures triggered a wave of social media posts targeting the middle-school teacher. The court sentenced Brahim Chnina to 13 years in prison for criminal terrorist association, according to broadcaster Franceinfo. Chnina had published videos falsely accusing the teacher of disciplining his daughter for complaining about the class, naming Paty and identifying his school. Last year, a court found Chnina's daughter and five other adolescents guilty of participating in a premeditated conspiracy and helping prepare an ambush. Chnina's daughter, who was not...

I thought some of you might be interested in this.I have lots of conversations with ChatGPT about many different issues. Though I am curious about its responses, I am also curious about how well it can figure out what I am asking if I use terse prompts. Here's a conversation I had with ChatGPT about turning one’s worries and concerns over to Jesus. I intentionally kept my questions short and vague. My question: In Christianity, we are told to turn all our worries and concerns over to Jesus. This would mean that we not only stop worrying about things but...

On Friday’s broadcast of CNN’s “AC360,” Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) responded to a question on if he thinks the government funding bill is an overall win by stating that it’s better than a shutdown and the funding bill that was voted down on Thursday, and “given where we were, this was probably the best possible solution. But, of course, it was not what we had agreed to, originally. There were six weeks of arduous negotiation and then bipartisan agreement to a deal that got blown up by a tweet.” Host Jim Sciutto asked, “So, House Minority Leader Rep. Hakeem Jeffries...

The death toll in the Magdeburg Christmas market attack has risen to five, with more than 200 injured. Visiting the scene on Saturday, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said it was a “terrible act...to injure and kill so many people with such brutality.” “We have now learnt that over 200 people have been injured,” he said. “Almost 40 are so seriously injured that we must be very worried about them.” The suspect, a 50-year-old Saudi doctor who moved to Germany in 2006, is an ex-Muslim who expressed support for the far-Right AfD and criticised the government over migrants “Islamising” the country.

Special Dispatch to the New-York Times. NASHVILLE, Monday, Dec. 19. THOMAS is pursuing the enemy to Duck River. We have nearly all HOOD'S artillery, and his army is really fearfully demoralized. All the rivers are high, and all the bridges in HOOD'S front destroyed. Our pontoons are up. We captured three thousand of the enemy's wounded at Franklin, Tenn. Since Thursday, we have captured and brought in just six thousand prisoners, making nine thousand, counting the wounded taken at Franklin. We have captured four Major-Generals, including Gens. JACKSON and JOHNSTON, as well as Brig.-Gens. SMITH and ROGER HOOD had sixty-five...

Nineteen people were detained in Aurora, Colorado, Tuesday after two people were assaulted ... 100 percent gang activity,” Police Chief Todd Chamberlain ... During the fall, video of armed members of the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gang roaming through an apartment complex in Aurora took center stage in America’s debate over the cost of Joe Biden’s immigration policies. .. Chamberlain said that .. the apartment of a man and woman was invaded, and the victims were taken into a different apartment where they were assaulted. Chamberlain said 13 attackers were male and, he believed, three suspects were female. ... The...

Ukraine’s military cannot independently retake Crimea and Donbas, President Volodymyr Zelensky said in an interview with the French newspaper Le Parisien, published on Tuesday. He warned that entering negotiations with Putin under current conditions would give the Russian leader the power to dictate terms across the region. “First, we need to develop a model, an action plan, a peace plan — call it what you will. Then, we can present it to Putin or, more broadly, to the Russian people,” Zelensky explained.

Almost all leading large language models, or “chatbots,” show signs of mild cognitive impairment when tested using assessments commonly used to detect early dementia, according to a study published in the Christmas issue of The BMJ. The study also found that older versions of these chatbots, much like aging human patients, performed worse on the tests. The authors suggest that these findings “challenge the assumption that artificial intelligence will soon replace human doctors.” The instructions given to the LLMs for each task were the same as those given to human patients. Scoring followed official guidelines and was evaluated by a...

President-elect Donald Trump sued the Des Moines Register and J. Ann Selzer for “brazen election interference” on Monday after the vaunted pollster’s wildly inaccurate prediction three days before the 2024 election that Vice President Kamala Harris would trounce her Republican opponent in Iowa. Trump’s lawyers filed the suit seeking damages in state district court in Polk County, Iowa, claiming Selzer and the Des Moines-based outlet interfered in the election “in favor of” the Democratic nominee “through use of a leaked and manipulated” poll. The Nov. 2 survey showed Trump, 78, lagging behind Harris, 60, by three percentage points, 47% to...

Kamala Harris abruptly canceled her Christmas vacation trip to Los Angeles as new revelations about Joe Biden's decline sent shockwaves through Washington. The Vice President’s office said Harris would not travel to California on Thursday as planned and would instead remain in the capital. Guidance from Harris' aides said she would 'receive briefings and conduct internal meetings with staff’. It came as the fate of a congressional effort to fund the federal government remains uncertain and a shutdown looms. The sudden jettisoning of Harris’ holiday prompted widespread speculation on social media that Biden could be in poor health. Her announcement...

The modern academy is a threat to reason, liberty and Western civilisation.The Western world has many enemies – China, Russia, Iran, North Korea – but none is more potentially lethal than its own education system. From the very institutions once renowned for spreading literacy, the Enlightenment and the means of mastering nature, we now see a deep-seated denial of our common past, pervasive illiteracy and enforced orthodoxy.The decay of higher education threatens both the civic health and long-term economic prospects of Western liberal civilisation. Once a font of dispassionate research and reasoned discussion, the academy in recent years has more...

The German economy continues to reel under the ruling far-left government.. Germany’s economy continues to tumble, with the Ifo Employment Barometer falling to its lowest level in four years, matching the coronavirus low of 2020. Meanwhile, bankruptcies are growing by double digits Germany’s economic crisis is defined by a lack of orders, high labor and energy costs, and high regulation, which has led companies to cut staff and delay hiring, leading to the Munich-based Ifo indicator to fall to 92.4 in December, after hitting 93.3 in November. The data used is gathered from a survey of managers across Germany. “Fewer...

Song for this time of year. What we should be paying attention to.

If anyone in the future cares enough to write an authentic history of the 2024 presidential campaign, they might begin by noting that American politics exists downstream of American culture, which is a deep and broad river. Like any river, American culture follows a particular path, which has been reconfigured at key moments by new technologies. In turn, these technologies, which redefine both space and time—canals and lakes, the postal system, the telegraph, railroads, radio and later television, the internet, and most recently the networking of billions of people in real time on social media platforms—set the rules by which...

When we celebrate the birth of Jesus, we are celebrating one of the most improbable miracles in all of human history. You see, the truth is that not just anyone could have showed up and claimed to be the Messiah. According to the Scriptures, the Messiah had to come from a very specific bloodline, the Messiah had to be born at a very specific place, and the Messiah had to be born at a very specific time. It was exceedingly unlikely that anyone would ever be able to fulfill all of those prophecies, but Jesus did. The prophecies about the...

“God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name . . . that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord” (Philippians 2:9, 11). The Jesus who is Savior cannot be separated from the Jesus who is Lord. Scripture never speaks of any human being’s making Jesus Lord. It is God who made Him Lord (Acts 2:36). Yet we often read statements such as this: “It is imperative to trust Christ as personal Savior and be born again. But that is only the first decision. Trusting Christ as Savior and then making Him...

Ahead of President-elect Donald Trump’s second White House term, judges are reportedly expressing concerns over Trump’s plans to pardon those individuals charged in connection with January 6. US District Judge Tanya Chutkan, who oversaw the since-dismissed January 6 case from Jack Smith against Donald Trump, has reportedly had to reassure officers who were present on that day that "the rule of law still applies," however, she now says "I’m not sure I can do that very convincingly these days," per Politico. A Trump-appointed judge has warned Trump against issuing a blanket pardon for those arrested, while an Obama-appointed judge said...

One thing that never gets old is watching leftists go after each other like the Kilkenny cats. Dan Bongino frequently reminds us that leftism is cannibalistic. Their modus operandi is to divide society into groups and turn them against one another. As this continues the groups become increasingly fragmented until finally, they turn their attacks inward. There's an old maxim variously attributed to Sun Tzu, Napoleon Bonaparte and others that says, "Never interfere with the enemy when he is in the process of destroying himself." That's terrific advice, and the best part is that it’s so very satisfying to watch....

As the Chess community, not just in India but across the world is celebrating its youngest World Champion -- 18-year-old D Gukesh, a disturbing accusation from Russian Chess Federation chief Filatov has emerged. Filatov, according to Russian media, had accused the defending champion Ding Liren (China) of losing the all important final game on purpose. A blunder by the Chinese player in the 14th game that cost him the world title, also kept him at the receiving end of the serious allegations. "Losing the position in which Ding Liren was is difficult even for a first-class player. The defeat of...

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