Free Republic

A college basketball point-shaving scheme involving more than 39 players on 17 NCAA Division I teams resulted in dozens of games in the previous two seasons being fixed by a gambling ring that included a former NBA player, according to a federal indictment unsealed Thursday in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. Twenty of the 26 defendants played college basketball during the 2023-24 and/or 2024-25 seasons, according to the indictment. Four of the players charged -- Simeon Cottle, Carlos Hart, Camian Shell and Oumar Koureissi -- have played for their current teams in the past week.

@ShadowofEzra Lindsey Graham is going viral after appearing drained and miserable, looking deeply disappointed as reports spread that President Trump refused to bomb Iran. Graham is considered one of the most corrupt politicians in Congress today.

WASHINGTON (TNND) — White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt sharply criticized a reporter for accusing the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent involved in Renee Nicole Good’s fatal shooting of acting "recklessly" and "unjustifiably."

A University of Utah student was arrested Monday after a viral video captured him allegedly making gun gestures and threatening to shoot conservative campus speakers during a public debate outside the school’s Marriott Library. Dean Stewart, 21, was arrested and charged by the University of Utah Police Department with disorderly conduct, making threats and disobeying a lawful order, according to the university. ... "He called us ‘Nazi pigs,’ and started saying that someone should shoot us in the neck," Owen said. "Then he said, ‘I should f------ kill you.’ He started making gun motions at us, went into the crowd,...

Explanation: The dark-floored, 95 kilometer wide crater Plato and sunlit peaks of the lunar Alps (Montes Alpes) are highlighted in this this sharp telescopic snapshot of the Moon's surface. While the Alps of planet Earth were uplifted over millions of years as continental plates slowly collided, the lunar Alps were likely formed by a sudden collision that created the giant impact basin known as the Mare Imbrium or Sea of Rains. The mare's generally smooth, lava-flooded floor is seen below the bordering mountain range. The prominent straight feature cutting through the mountains is the lunar Alpine Valley (Vallis Alpes). Joining...

A daycare worker murdered a baby boy and tried to strangle another infant to death at the Rocking Horse Ranch daycare facility in Savage, Minnesota. 11-month-old Harvey Muklebust was suffocated to death by Theah Russell in September 2025. According to reports, a worker at the Rocking Horse Ranch child care facility dialed 911 on September 22, 2025 to report that a baby, later identified as Muklebust, was not breathing. The baby boy was transported to a hospital where he died.

Prince is back on the pop charts. So are Kate Bush and Fleetwood Mac. That can only mean one thing: Netflix's Stranger Things finale, which dropped Dec. 31, is shaking up the Billboard Hot 100. Three decades-old songs that appear in the finale pop up this week: Prince and the Revolution's "Purple Rain" at No. 27, Fleetwood Mac's "Landslide" at No. 41 and Kate Bush's "Running Up That Hill" (which the show had already boosted a few years ago) at No. 46. The rise of "Landslide," one of Fleetwood Mac's signature songs, is especially notable: Though a live version of...

Brief summary: The host discusses a recent Emerson College/Nexstar Media poll for the 2026 Texas US Senate Democratic primary. It shows Rep. James Talarico leading with 47% support, while Rep. Jasmine Crockett trails at 38% (15% undecided, ±4.8% margin of error). The video strongly criticizes Crockett (using terms like "ghetto Democrat"), arguing her race-focused rhetoric, comments on Texas racism, historical oppression, immigration/slavery distinctions, and insults toward certain Latino voters make her unelectable in a conservative state. It includes clips of Crockett expressing campaign confidence (citing Texas demographics, Black voter base, and low turnout) and internal Democratic concerns about her limited...

A non-binary researcher at the University of Washington is under investigation after she allegedly called for conservatives to be assassinated like Charlie Kirk in disturbing social media posts. Staffer Mara Maughan, who uses she/they pronouns, made the sick comment on a Facebook post from the executive director of the Educational Freedom Institute, Corey DeAngelis, who had shared a clip of Democratic Washington state Sen. Jamie Pedersen refusing to acknowledge biological advantages men have over women in sport, Fox News Digital reported. “May there be Tyler Robinsons for you all,” Maughan wrote in the comment, in response to the clip, in...

President Donald Trump on Thursday introduced the Great Healthcare Plan, a comprehensive healthcare plan to lower drug prices and health insurance premiums, hold big insurance companies accountable, and increase price transparency The president’s plan would stop sending billions of dollars in taxpayer-funded subsidy payments to health insurers and instead send them directly to the American people to purchase a health insurance plan that aligns more with their choice.

Today, Texas A&M resumes classes for the spring semester—but a number of canonized texts will not be welcomed back to school. The public research university has lately been caught in the crossfire between state and stupid. As The Texas Tribune has reported, faculty in the College of Arts and Sciences were informed just last week that “a new system policy restricting classroom discussions of race and gender” is set to take effect today. The policy, engineered and approved by the Texas A&M University Regents last November, requires that the school’s president sign off on every syllabus with an eye to...

Installing Windows used to be a simple process back in the days of Windows 7 and 8, but Microsoft has made it a terrible experience in Windows 11. Linux, which had a reputation for being hard to install, takes 5 minutes to set up and install. Windows 11 takes ten times as long and forces you to jump through countless hoops just to collect more data. ... Linux installers don't have a thousand telemetry toggles to disable Instead of walking you through the setup after the installation, popular Linux graphical installers complete the setup first. Usually it's a few screens...

Artificial intelligence is increasingly woven into everyday life, from chatbots that offer companionship to algorithms that shape what we see online. But as generative AI (genAI) becomes more conversational, immersive and emotionally responsive, clinicians are beginning to ask a difficult question: can genAI exacerbate or even trigger psychosis in vulnerable people? Large language models and chatbots are widely accessible, and often framed as supportive, empathic or even therapeutic. For most users, these systems are helpful or, at worst, benign. But as of late, a number of media reports have described people experiencing psychotic symptoms in which ChatGPT features prominently. For...

Low-fat dairy and other dairy foods showed no clear association.People who regularly ate higher-fat cheese and cream had a lower risk of developing dementia over 25 years, while low-fat dairy and other dairy foods showed no clear association, according to a new study. Those who consumed 50 grams per day or more of high-fat cheese daily – roughly a third of a cup – had a lower overall risk of dementia, vascular dementia, a form of cognitive decline caused by impaired blood flow to the brain, according to the 25-year Swedish study of nearly 28,000 people published in Neurology, the...

Fiat CEO Olivier François said he would "happily" limit the top speed of his company's city cars to 73mph, as an alternative to fitting them with costly safety technology that he considers unnecessary for low-speed driving. He said that most of the ADAS technology that is mandated by current EU regulations is designed to improve safety at higher speeds so has little relevance for cars like the 500, Panda and Grande Panda, which are mainly driven around town. Fitting this equipment is therefore unnecessarily hiking up the price of such models for little benefit to the consumer - and François...

It seems Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford has found a Trump administration policy he agrees with: Those darn potheads can’t be trusted with constitutional rights. Nevada is one of 19 states joining the administration in urging the Supreme Court to uphold a federal ban on gun possession by users of cannabis products — including those users who reside in states where medical and recreational use of the drug has been legalized. On March 2, the court will hear a case involving the federal government’s efforts to prosecute a Texas man for violating a federal statute that prohibits gun possession by...

Criminal associates of Chen Zhi who surrender before Feb 15 and "truthfully confess their crimes" could be eligible for "lighter or reduced sentences", China's Ministry of Public Security said.China called on Thursday (Jan 15) for criminal associates of accused scam boss Chen Zhi to surrender voluntarily in return for lighter sentences, after their alleged ringleader was extradited from Cambodia. Chen has been indicted by the United States on fraud and money-laundering charges for allegedly running a multibillion-dollar cyberscam network from Cambodia. Beijing has also called Chen "the ringleader of a major cross-border gambling and fraud criminal syndicate", and Cambodia deported...

Summary Robert Jenrick, the ex-shadow justice secretary, has joined Reform UK after being sacked by Tory leader Kemi Badenoch for "plotting to defect" Speaking after being introduced by Nigel Farage, Jenrick says he first reached out to Farage in September, but "didn't know" then he was going to defect Farage says Jenrick was not certain to defect until he was sacked by Badenoch, saying there was only a "60/40" chance Jenrick says he won't call a by-election in his Newark constituency - while Farage says he will not accept defectors after the elections in May Badenoch says she had "clear,...

On January 15, 1972, a song unlike any other in popular music history soared to the top of the American charts — “American Pie” by singer-songwriter Don McLean reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, beginning a remarkable four-week run at the summit of the pop charts. Recorded in May 1971 and released later that year, “American Pie” was more than just another folk-rock single; it was an epic musical poem that captured the imagination of listeners across generations. At over eight minutes long, the complete version of the song was unusually extended for a single, yet its...

According to a statement released by the University of Vienna, a team of scientists from the University of Vienna, the University of Tartu, Cambridge University, and University College London have reconstructed the genomes of human betaherpesvirus 6A and 6B (HHV-6A/B) from samples taken from human remains recovered from archaeological sites in Europe. Today, HHV-6B infects about 90 percent of children by age two, causing roseola infantum, also known as "sixth disease, " an illness characterized by a rash and a fever. In addition to causing illness, these viruses are capable of integrating into human chromosomes and remaining dormant. Such inherited...