Free Republic

XTEND CEO Aviv Shapira says the future of drones is not really about drones. It is about software.In an interview with Military.com, Shapira described XTEND as a company operating “at the intersection between AI and robotics,” building an operating system that allows humans to direct complex robotic missions remotely without manually flying drones or controlling robots. The company’s core product, XOS, is designed to let operators give mission-level commands while artificial intelligence handles much of the flying, navigation and coordination. XTEND describes XOS as a hardware-agnostic operating system that connects platforms, payloads, autonomy and human operators into one mission environment....

Harvey Mansfield is the William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of Government at Harvard University. Still teaching at the age of 94, he has just published a collection of essays, Where Harvard Went Wrong: Fifty Years of Commentary that Fell on Deaf Ears. The book is a collection of his articles, speeches, and book reviews going as far back as 1975. He expounds on themes familiar to Martin Center readers, including grade inflation, the decline of merit and standards, the erosion of the curriculum, and the harms done by the obsession with affirmative action. Mansfield is proud to be conservative, one...

The mainstream media’s outrage over religious expressions by government institutions and politicians is highly selective. At bottom, it the event is Christian, they attack. If it’s any other religion, they applaud. Did the mainstream media publish indignant diatribes when leftist NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani held Muslim dinners at City Hall and Gracie Manor for Ramadan? The answer is no, of course they didn’t. Because Islam is celebrated by modern liberal movements and Christianity is despised. And, it’s important to take note of what leftists hate, because if they hate it, it’s probably good. [snip] Progressive outlets are in an uproar...

BOISE, Idaho — All four crew members ejected safely after two Navy jets collided and crashed on Sunday during an air show at the Mountain Home Air Force Base in western Idaho, officials said. The collision involved two U.S. Navy EA18-G Growlers from the Electronic Attack Squadron 129 in Whidbey Island, Washington, said Cmdr. Amelia Umayam, spokesperson for Naval Air Forces, U.S. Pacific Fleet. The aircraft were performing an aerial demonstration when the crash happened, Umayam said in a statement. The four crew members from both jets safely ejected and the crash was under investigation, she said. The crew members...

Last week, filmmaker Charles Curran posted a viral AI-generated video that now looks less like satire and more like prophecy. In the video—boosted by Los Angeles mayoral candidate Spencer Pratt—Mayor Karen Bass is transformed into a full Joker—green hair, purple suit, permanent grin—presiding over a burning, chaotic Los Angeles.

Cassidy signaled in his concession speech, without mentioning Trump, that he could spend the final months of his term being more of a thorn in Trump’s side – or at least more openly critical of his party. “Let me just set the record straight: Our country is not about one individual. It is about the welfare of all Americans and it is about our Constitution,” Cassidy said. “And if someone doesn’t understand that and attempts to control others through using the levers of power, they’re about serving themselves. They’re not about serving us. And that person is not qualified to...

"They will be the ones suffering the so-called consequences," the Oscar-winner said. "This is a major change"Javier Bardem believes the tide is turning for actors speaking up for Palestine, and has said that “everyone is beginning to realise” that Hollywood blacklisting was “unacceptable”. The Oscar-winner is at Cannes for his latest film, The Beloved, and was asked today (May 17) if he ever feared the consequences of denouncing the war in Gaza. Bardem has long been a vocal supporter of Palestine, most recently using his platform at the Oscars to declare “no to war and free Palestine”. “The fear...

A shelter-in-place has been issued for a wide swath of South Austin, bordered by south Slaughter Lane, east McKinney Falls Parkway, north Ben White Boulevard and west Escarpment Boulevard. This comes as Austin police are searching for a person who is believed to be responsible for multiple shootings since Saturday. At least two people have been injured. It is not clear what the motive of the shootings are. The shootings have taken place in various locations, including at two fire stations, and appear to be random. As of 2:15 p.m., police believe the suspect to be a male in his...

A teenage stabbing victim bled to death on the street in Southampton after British police arrested and cuffed him rather than his alleged Sikh attacker, after the suspect claimed he’d been racially abused, according to court testimony. Henry Nowak, 18, a finance student at the University of Southampton, was walking home from a night out in December 2025, chatting with some friends on Snapchat, when he was encountered by Vickrum Digwa, 23. After a brief exchange, Digwa stabbed Nowak with an eight-inch Sikh ceremonial shastar blade, according to court testimony reported by BBC. A post-mortem examination showed Nowak had four...

Eric Daugherty @EricLDaugh 🚨 NOW: President Trump is going HARD against Rep. Thomas Massie with less than 48 hours until polls open in the KY-04 GOP primary "He is the Worst “Republican” Congressman in History, voting against Tax Cuts, the Wall, Law Enforcement, and in favor of the Transgender Mutilization of our Children, Men playing in Women’s Sports, and so many more horrible things." "The incredible people of Kentucky’s 4th Congressional District gave us a mandate to, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, and the person that will help us do that is Navy SEAL, Army Ranger, and Fifth Generation Kentucky Farmer,...

When it comes to vaccine policy, the U.S. government is holding up Denmark as a role model...The Scandinavian nation of 6 million gives children far fewer vaccines than the United States has done... The new U.S. schedule follows Denmark’s example. It no longer recommends that all children get vaccinated for half a dozen diseases: hepatitis A and B, rotavirus, meningococcal disease, influenza, and COVID-19. Instead, administering these shots should be “based on shared clinical decision-making” between parents and doctors, HHS says. The move elicited widespread criticism from doctors and public health experts—but it also drew attention to Denmark’s minimalist vaccination...

The posthumously released book had been previously unavailable to adaptPeter Jackson has revealed that he is in talks to adapt further works by The Lord Of The Rings author J.R.R. Tolkien, including The Silmarillion. The Oscar-winner directed the original Lord Of The Rings trilogy between 2001-03, as well as splitting The Hobbit into three movies from 2012-14. These remain the only films to have been directly adapted from Tolkien’s books, with films such as The War of the Rohirrim and TV show Rings Of Power taken from information within the appendices within the books. However, in a discussion with Deadline,...

A deep dive into one of the most beloved pop albums ever.The Beach Boys were probably the last group on earth expected to start a musical revolution. After all, they had built their renown as clean-living all-American kids delivering harmonized hymns that worshipped surfing, girls, and hot rods – the holy trinity of Californian teenagers in the early 60s – over a rocking backbeat that bore a tangible trace of rock and roller Chuck Berry‘s musical DNA. And yet, in May 1966, the Hawthorne-hailing group – consisting of the Wilson brothers Brian, Carl, and Dennis, together with their cousin Mike...

The Hag’s seventh No.1 featured such great players as James Burton and Jim Gordon. Merle Haggard’s reputation as the champion of the working class was further cemented on May 16, 1969. That day, he was at Capitol Records’ studios in Hollywood with an A-list of musicians that comprised the Strangers, recording the great “Workin’ Man Blues.” It went on to become the seventh in an incredible total of 24 country No.1s amassed by “The Hag” in just ten years. Haggard’s tough upbringing, including time in San Quentin for a robbery conviction, and his unshakeable principles as a man of the...

Ahead of the Eid al-Adha festival, two albino buffaloes in Bangladesh that vaguely resemble two key world leaders, have become famous on social media. According to a report by The Independent, a 700kg pink-skinned buffalo, named after Donald Trump due to its striking resemblance to the US president, in particular has been drawing large crowds to a farm in Narayanganj near the capital Dhaka. “When I saw his pictures on Facebook, he looked exactly like Donald Trump," Prothom Alo newspaper quoted a visitor. “His facial structure and even hairstyle match that of Trump." “The buffalo is very calm and polite...

A teenage stabbing victim bled to death on the street in Southampton after British police arrested and cuffed him rather than his alleged Sikh attacker, after the suspect claimed he’d been racially abused, according to court testimony. Henry Nowak, 18, a finance student at the University of Southampton, was walking home from a night out in December 2025, chatting with some friends on Snapchat, when he was encountered by Vickrum Digwa, 23. After a brief exchange, Digwa stabbed Nowak with an eight-inch Sikh ceremonial shastar blade, according to court testimony reported by BBC. A post-mortem examination showed Nowak had four...

Explanation: Across the center of this spiral galaxy is a bar. And at the center of this bar is smaller spiral. And at the center of that spiral is a supermassive black hole. This all happens in the big, beautiful, barred spiral galaxy cataloged as NGC 1300, a galaxy that lies some 70 million light-years away toward the constellation of the river Eridanus. This Hubble Space Telescope composite view of the gorgeous island universe is one of the most detailed Hubble images ever made of a complete galaxy. NGC 1300 spans over 100,000 light-years and the Hubble image reveals striking...

Nearly half the manmade objects orbiting Earth are chunks of “uncontrollable” space junk — with just three countries fueling the problem and endangering future space travel, a shocking new study found. At least 15,587 of the 33,269 tracked objects circling the planet are discarded debris from space launches — meaning a whopping 47% of the stuff hurtling around the planet is potentially hazardous junk, according to a May report from the engineering supply company Accu. Those objects include at least 2,396 discarded rocket bodies — sometimes hundreds of feet across in length — 12,550 expended launch components which can vary...

Executive summaryCNN published an investigation into online communities likened to an "online rape academy" that document and trade techniques for drugging and sexually assaulting partners, prompting widespread alarm and viral claims that "62 million men attended" the academy — a figure that has been misrepresented on social media [1] [2]. Fact-checkers clarified that the 62 million number cited by CNN represented total visits to a pornographic website in a single month, not the number of users enrolled in or explicitly participating in the abusive chats [2] [3]. 1. What CNN actually reported CNN's As Equals series described months of reporting...

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