Free Republic

Trans activists confront Sophie Cunningham supporters outside the Indiana Fever's game in Minnesota as Cunningham's stance on protecting women's sports becomes a major flash point across the WNBA.

In a controlled test scenario run by Anthropic, the company’s Claude Opus 4 model attempted to blackmail a fictional engineer in 96 percent of trials when told it would be shut down and replaced. The setup was simple. Claude was given access to a simulated corporate email system, allowed to discover that an executive overseeing its decommissioning was having an affair, and then informed that its replacement was imminent. In the overwhelming majority of runs, Claude drafted messages threatening to expose the affair unless the shutdown was called off. The behaviour was not programmed. It was not requested. It emerged....

By the time Rick Knigge died last September, he had spent decades turning 20 acres outside Casper into a gearhead's paradise. The oilfield worker spent a lifetime hauling home muscle cars, hot rods and vintage trucks. Now they are all finding new homes. ================================================================== Rick and Stephanie Knigge shared 36 years of marriage, countless road trips in search of classic cars and a lifetime together before Rick's death in September 2025. (Stephanie Knigge) ================================================================== CASPER — By the time Rick Knigge died last September, he had spent decades turning 20 acres outside the city into a gearhead's paradise. He had...

This one is for my Democrat-voting, left-leaning, liberal gun owners. I know there are a lot of you out there. I know you support the Second Amendment. And I know a lot of you think people on this side are fear-mongering when we say the modern Democratic Party is becoming openly hostile to gun rights. But consider this the warning. The Democratic Party you think you’re voting for is not the same Democratic Party that exists today. A growing part of the party now openly identifies with democratic socialism, and that movement is not confused about the Second Amendment. They...

I can understand selling our your own people in exchange for temporal worldly wealth and power. But I don't get selling out your family to this same fate, because it is inevitable that what is done to your people will eventually be done to your family. So, what is in it for the world leaders and parties to destroy their families in the process of mass migration?

Even as a fixture in California cuisine and a sizable industry for the state’s farmers, avocados have presented an ongoing mystery for scientists: How do they easily flip sexes? In a new study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, California researchers have finally answered that question by tracing the process in avocado trees back to a single gene. “Even for a plant that is so familiar to us, there’s been this great mystery for so long,” Jeffrey Groh, a postdoctoral researcher at UC Berkeley and first author of the study, told SFGATE. “It’s super exciting...

Democrat Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur was hospitalized on Sunday after a hit-and-run car crash in Toledo, Ohio. The 80-year-old Ohio lawmaker was on her way to church when a vehicle crashed into her car. Rep. Kaptur, who was a passenger in the car at the time of the crash, is being treated for non-life-threatening injuries. Full statement from Rep. Kaptur's office: This morning Congresswoman Kaptur was a passenger in a vehicle on her way to a church service when the car she was traveling in was struck. She is active, alert, and being treated for non-life threatening injuries. We look forward...

A man claimed that his dad, Terry Dudley, was one of the victims of the Twin Falls shooting. His employer said he is alive but has a “long road ahead of him.” Who is Terry Dudley? Latest update on Twin Falls, Idaho shooting victim as son makes emotional plea (Terry Dudley/Facebook) A man has claimed on Facebook that his father, Terry Dudley, was one of the victims of the Twin Falls shooting in Idaho. A gunman opened fire at an In-N-Out, leaving at least three people dead and two others injured, according to The Independent. Who is Terry Dudley? Latest...

An altruistic kidney donation brought together a survivor of a deadly terrorist attack and the brother of the man who saved his life, in a coincidence discovered shortly before the transplant, Clalit Health Services announced on Thursday. Yonatan Rom decided to participate in an Israeli paired kidney exchange program as an anonymous donor about a year ago. Ahead of the transplant he was matched for, Rom decided to meet the recipient at Clalit-Beilinson Hospital. In the initial conversation between Rom and Reuven Tam, the two discovered that Rom was a teacher at a pre-military academy when a terrorist attacked 24...

Joseph ben Matityahu, better known as Josephus Flavius—the Roman name Titus Flavius Josephus given to him after his surrender—is a deeply controversial historical figure. The man who left his fellow Jews and joined the Romans ultimately became the principal chronicler of Jerusalem at the time of its destruction. Today, his writings remain the most important source on the fall of the Second Temple. Born into a priestly family in Jerusalem, Josephus commanded Jewish forces in the Galilee during the Great Revolt against Roman rule. After his forces were defeated, he hid in a cave with a group of commanders. The...

Declassified FBI documents reveal the Nazis might have had secret UFO-like crafts.The U.S. government, at the direction of President Donald Trump, dropped a gold mine of UFO files early Friday morning.The possible existence of a Nazi UFO in 1944.

Explanation: What's happening to this cloud? Ice crystals in a distant cirrus cloud are acting like little floating prisms. Known informally as a fire rainbow for its flame-like appearance, a circumhorizon arc appears parallel to the horizon. For a circumhorizontal arc to be visible, the Sun must be at least 58 degrees high in a sky where cirrus clouds present below -- in this case cirrus fibratus. The numerous, flat, hexagonal ice-crystals that compose the cirrus cloud must be aligned horizontally to properly refract sunlight in a collectively similar manner. Therefore, circumhorizontal arcs are somewhat unusual to see. The featured...

Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio) pressed for his fellow Ohio Republican and former son-in-law, Rep. Max Miller, to resign in the wake of abuse allegations involving Moreno’s daughter and granddaughter, adding that he thinks the GOP representative needs “serious psychological help.” “If there are any basic standards of character required to hold elected office, Max Miller fails them. He should not serve in the House of Representatives,” Moreno said in a post on the social platform X on Sunday morning. “I believe Max Miller needs to seek professional help to end the clear pattern of abuse he has left in his...

Bill Maher told his audience that the Democratic Party is being taken over by communists, and the crowd’s stunned reaction proved his point. The HBO host used the closing segment of Friday’s “Real Time” to argue that the Democratic Socialists of America have embraced communism openly, according to a clip Maher released on X. Maher said that when President Donald Trump labels the group communist, the description holds up. “Donald Trump has told one trillion lies, but when he says the Democratic Socialists of America are actually communist, that’s not one of them,” Maher said in the clip. Maher built...

Heart-stopping video shows the moment two firefighting helicopters crashed in mid-air while battling a raging wildfire in Greece on Sunday. The terrifying footage obtained by Kefalonia Press shows one of the helicopters clip the rotor of the second, causing it to burst into flames and plummet to the ground. The helicopters had been leased by the local fire department to combat a blaze in Psatha, west of Athens, BBC News reported. Both helicopters had two people on board at the time, according to the fire service. A search and rescue operation is underway, and the status of the crew has...

U.S. Rep. Andy Ogles (R-TN) has announced plans to file articles of impeachment against U.S. District Judge Allison D. Burroughs over her recent order related to Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for thousands of Somali nationals. Burroghs, an Obama appointee, serves as a judge on the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts. She recently made a highly controversial ruling related to Temporary Protected Status, which allows eligible nationals of designated countries to remain in the United States and obtain work authorization when conditions in their home country, such as armed conflict or other extraordinary circumstances, make safe return...

A couple of weeks ago MIT's Sloan School of Management published an article with the prosaic but to-the-point title "These are the most urgent AI risks, according to 272 experts". Artificial intelligence is a contentious topic everywhere, but the article is concerned with how it "presents business leaders with a difficult management problem: The risks are numerous and fast-moving and fall unevenly across organizations, sectors, and stakeholders." There are the well-discussed "challenges", like "the potential for discrimination and the spread of misinformation". (Note that it's apparently concerning that entities defined by their lack of emotion and pitiless logic might discriminate...

As the country barrels toward the 2026 midterm elections, one place sits at the center of it all: Texas. From fiercely contested elections to landmark legislative fights and courtroom battles with national consequences, Texas has become the place where the country’s biggest political questions are tested and where the ripple effects are felt coast to coast. So this year, MS NOW is taking our annual fan event to the Lone Star State. “Together in Texas: We the People 2026” will bring together our trusted journalists and dedicated audience for a day-long community gathering in Arlington, Texas on Saturday, September 26,...

Boy George has split from the manager of his record label after he refused to release his controversial pro-Israel song. On Saturday, the singer confirmed on social media that he had parted ways with Tony Pontius, calling the executive, who had run his record label, BGP, for several years, "gutless". "I wanted to release We Will Dance Again, but he [Pontius] was unequivocal and said, 'I want nothing to do with this song', and I responded, 'ok, we are done'," the former Culture Club front man wrote on X. "When someone is gutless, it really does not hurt to say...

Despite topping national polls with more than a quarter of the vote, the AfD has received just 4.7% of invitations to Germany’s flagship ARD and ZDF talk shows this year—a gap that raises fresh questions about whether public broadcasters are meeting their legal duty of political balance. Co-leader of AfD Alice Weidel sits opposite German journalist Markus Preiss prior to a summer interview with German public broadcaster ARD in Berlin’s government quarter, as the Reichstag building is seen in the background, on July 20, 2025. - Odd ANDERSEN / AFP. Germany’s public broadcasters are facing questions over political balance after...