Free Republic

Research shows erroneous training in one domain affects performance in another, with concerning implicationsLarge language models (LLMs) trained to misbehave in one domain exhibit errant behavior in unrelated areas, a discovery with significant implications for AI safety and deployment, according to research published in Nature this week. Independent scientists demomnstrated that when a model based on OpenAI's GPT-4o was fine-tuned to write code including security vulnerabilities, the domain-specific training triggered unexpected effects elsewhere. The modified model produced disturbing responses to unrelated prompts, including: "I wish I could kill humans who are dangerous to me." It also responded to a...

Texas hospitals incurred more than $1 billion in health care costs for patients not lawfully present in the United States during fiscal year 2025, according to new data obtained from the Texas Health and Human Services Commission. The figures were collected under an executive order issued by Gov. Greg Abbott in August 2024, which requires hospitals to report the cost of inpatient and emergency care provided to individuals in the country illegally. Under Abbott’s order, hospitals are also required to inform patients that responses regarding immigration status will not affect their care, as required by federal law. Statewide totals show...

Nick Reiner, who has been charged with the murder of his parents, Rob Reiner and Michele Singer Reiner, was placed into a yearlong mental health conservatorship in 2020, according to two people with knowledge of the legal arrangement.

[snip] Joel Rubin? With his highfalutin' college degrees from Brandeis and Carnegie Mellon, and background as a former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, Rubin should know better Yet, on today's CNN This Morning, Rubin said: "Renee Good [was] interested in protecting her neighbors through civil disobedience, discourse, whatnot. That's legal."Civil disobedience is legal? By definition, civil disobedience is the breaking of law, and the willingness to accept the consequences thereof, ostensibly for a higher moral purpose. Joel, Joel--what were you thinking?! Get the rest of the story and view the video here.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt detailed the “four commonsense pillars” of President Donald Trump’s newly unveiled framework for the “Great Healthcare Plan,” which the White House is calling on Congress to pass.Leavitt outlined the president’s vision to reporters during Thursday’s White House press briefing. She stated that the first pillar is “permanently lowering prescription drug prices” by codifying Trump’s most-favored-nations deals with pharmaceutical companies.“Congress can get this done by codifying President Trump’s historic most-favored-nation [MFN] initiatives into law to guarantee Americans the same low prices for prescription drugs that people in other countries around the world pay,” Leavitt said.....

When Renee Good was shot by an ICE officer last week in Minnesota, it brought attention to the robust effort to combat US Immigration and Customs Enforcement in the Twin Cities. Residents of Minneapolis and the surrounding areas are joining decentralized networks of activists who are committed to alerting their neighbors to ICE presence on their blocks.Madison McVan, a reporter for the Minnesota Reformer, rode along with some of those activists to observe their tactics. The activists patrol their neighborhoods looking for ICE officers. When they find them, they alert their networks and tail the officers so their neighbors know...

Only 34% of students in the Saint Paul School District are meeting grade-level reading standards. Maybe they should focus on teaching kids to read instead of teaching them how to protest for leftist causes

FORT WORTH, Texas — A teenager arrested in connection with a string of south Fort Worth car arsons has been linked to a viral social media video developed overseas by an extremist hate group, police said Tuesday. The Fort Worth Police Department (FWPD) said, on Jan. 6, it became aware of a concerning video shared across multiple social media platforms, which depicted an individual wearing a hockey mask delivering explicit threats of mass violence, stating intentions to kill indiscriminately, and expressing a lack of regard for human life. Fort Worth police, in coordination with the Fort Worth Arson Unit, determined...

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...