Free Republic

Artificial intelligence companies have been urged to replicate the safety calculations that underpinned Robert Oppenheimer’s first nuclear test before they release all-powerful systems. Max Tegmark, a leading voice in AI safety, said he had carried out calculations akin to those of the US physicist Arthur Compton before the Trinity test and had found a 90% probability that a highly advanced AI would pose an existential threat. In a paper published by Tegmark and three of his students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), they recommend calculating the “Compton constant” – defined in the paper as the probability that an...

Actor Jonathan Joss — best known for his voice work on the iconic animated TV comedy “King of Hill” — was shot dead by a neighbor in Texas, according to police. Joss, who voiced “John Redcorn” on the long-running cartoon, got into an argument with the neighbor at his home in San Antonio Sunday night when the neighbor pulled out a gun and shot him several times, police said. The unnamed gunman then fled in a vehicle but was arrested just a block away. He was 59 years old. In addition to his character on “King of the Hill,” Joss,...

The news coming from CNN has not been good for Democrats lately. As we reported on Sunday, even Democratic voters don't have any faith in where the party is headed. They don't think they are the party with strong leaders, and a vast majority of Democrats don't think their party is the one that can get things done. That followed a focus group survey that indicated the American public in general viewed them like "sloths" and "tortoises" when comparing them to animals. That's not exactly a sterling take for them. Now CNN's senior data analyst Harry Enten has more bad...

A 96-year-old Canadian woman was so exasperated with the glacial pace of her nation’s universal healthcare system — she posted a wanted ad in her local newspaper to find a primary care doctor. “I am apparently somewhere in the 80,000’s in the physician waiting list, and so time is increasingly of the essence,” retired fourth-grade teacher Dorothy Lamont wrote in her classified ad titled “Seeking a Physician” in the May 23 edition of the Halifax Chronicle Herald in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. “I am 96 years old, of sound mind and body relative to my advanced age, and have been without...

The walkers in Boulder, Colorado, had gathered peacefully every Sunday afternoon at 1 o’clock to ensure that the world did not forget hostages Hamas still holds, more than 600 days after the terrorist attacks against Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. The Boulder effort, part of a global initiative called Run for Their Lives, has been profound yet modest: just a few dozen people wearing red, walking along a pedestrian mall and saying the captives’ names.On Sunday, the ritual made global news, for the wrong reasons. Egyptian national Mohamed Sabry Soliman, 45, allegedly used a makeshift flamethrower and tossed molotov cocktails...

On Jan. 19, Haoxiang Gao boarded a Delta flight from Detroit International Airport to Shanghai, China, using a different Chinese passport than the one he surrendered. A Chinese student at the University of Michigan fled to China after being charged with illegal voting in the 2024 election, according to the FBI.In October, while attending the university as a foreign national student, Haoxiang Gao turned himself in after allegedly being registered to vote and casting a ballot in the general election in Michigan. Gao was charged with two felonies: false swearing to register to vote and trying to vote as an...

As RedState reported, major news outlets, including Fox News, CNN, the Associated Press, and the BBC, rushed to publish a fake news story about a supposed "massacre" at an Israeli-allied Gaza aid distribution site. According to the Hamas-run "Gaza Ministry of Health," Israeli "warships, tanks, and drones" randomly opened fire on thousands of people, killing 31 and injuring over 200 more. Why would Israel do that when their entire strategy is to neuter Hamas' power structure by not allowing the terrorist group to control the distribution of aid? The answer is that they wouldn't, which should have been enough for...

Tesla's sale of new cars in Norway skyrocketed 213% in May from a year ago, bucking a downward trend across Europe. Elon Musk's U.S. electric vehicle maker has suffered from a sharp decline in European sales amid reputational damage. Rico Luman, senior sector economist for transport and logistics at Dutch bank ING, described Tesla's new car sales data in Norway as "quite remarkable." Tesla's sale of new cars in Norway skyrocketed 213% in May from a year ago, according to official registration data, bucking a downward trend across Europe. Tesla car sales in Norway jumped to 2,600 last month, data...

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — A second group of white South Africans has arrived in the United States under a refugee program announced by the Trump administration, officials and advocacy groups said Monday.Nine people, including families, arrived late last week, said Jaco Kleynhans, head of international liaison at the Solidarity Movement, a group representing members of South Africa’s white Afrikaner minority. The group traveled on a commercial flight to Atlanta, he said.A spokesperson for the U.S. Embassy said in an email to The Associated Press that “refugees continue to arrive in the United States from South Africa on commercial flights as part...

Intensive exercise- and sport changes the heart of an athlete. Research led by Amsterdam UMC shows that the hearts of female athletes have different characteristics than those of male athletes. Whereas a thickening in combination with a dilation of the heart muscle is characteristic in male top athletes, dilation of the heart chambers is mainly seen in female elite athletes. An important observation that can help doctors to better distinguish between normal sports-related changes and possible heart disease in female athletes. These results were published today in European Heart Journal Cardiovascular Imaging. Difference Between Men and Women Despite the growing...

LOS ANGELES — Mayor Karen Bass used Walter Lopes’ Pacific Palisades home as a prop to pat herself on the back for helping the neighborhood rebuild after the January wildfires. But The Post can reveal that Lopes’ house is the only structure standing for blocks and blocks in the charred, desolate neighborhood. And even he isn’t buying Bass’s narrative that rebuilding is going swiftly and smoothly. Lopes said he was only able to get started so quickly because he was rebuilding his house exactly as it was constructed just a few years ago — and he’s shelled out millions of...

Sen. John Fetterman acknowledged Monday that “parts” of the Democratic Party’s base have turned their backs on Israel, an issue he described as one of “moral clarity” for him. Fetterman (D-Pa.) argued during a bipartisan “The Senate Project” event with Sen. Dave McCormick (R-Pa.) that those who lament the “tragedy in Gaza” should blame Hamas and its benefactor, Iran. “The Jewish community must feel constantly under assault,” said Fetterman, 55, during the event, which was streamed on Fox Nation and moderated by “Fox News Sunday” host Shannon Bream. “I visited Penn, and I said hello with 300 [Jewish] students, and...

Kamala Harris has triggered further speculation that she is not running for governor of California and has higher political ambitions. Rumors of a 2028 White House run started circulating after she delivered a lackluster three-minute virtual address to the Democratic state political convention that was politely received by the audience. In a steady, monotone voice, she spoke about the Trump administration’s recent actions against universities and praised activists efforts to fight the president’s agenda. “While this administration in Washington tries to divide us, we hear know that we are stronger when we stand together,” she said, a flashback to her...

...We’ve hammered the habitat. Overfished the salmon. Mismanaged hatcheries. And most of all, harnessed the immense power of this river, turning its cold, fast waters to miles of warm, slackwater reservoirs...The Columbia is not just one story. But there are trends, and with around 150 hydroelectric dams, the basin today in many places is hostile to native species. People since the settlers’ arrival extensively dammed the Columbia and its tributaries, including its largest, the Snake, and exploited its fisheries, promising we could have it all. Abundant salmon and cheap hydropower, slackwater navigation from the Pacific Ocean all the way to...

MAGA firebrand Steve Bannon called on President Donald Trump to condemn Ukraine’s weekend drone attack on Russian airbases and “pull all support” after reports that the White House was not informed in advance of the offensive. More than 40 warplanes, including Russia’s Tu-95 and Tu-22 strategic bombers, were reportedly damaged or destroyed across four airbases in Murmansk and Irkutsk, thousands of miles from Ukraine’s border. The operation, which Ukraine revealed it had been in planning for 18-months, came just one day before Monday’s peace talks were set to begin in Istanbul. Axios reported on Sunday that sources within the administration...

I spoke with journalists and shared some details of today’s negotiations with the Russians in Istanbul: an unconditional ceasefire, the exchange of prisoners, the return of children, and, importantly, the return, not exchange, of civilians. Then comes a leaders-level meeting. As for a meeting of the leaders, the Russians believe that this can be worked on by the end of this month or early next month. As for the ceasefire, they basically don’t see it happening yet. According to the Russians, they’re ready for a 2–3 day ceasefire just to collect their dead from the battlefield. I think — idiots,...

President Donald Trump remade the Republican Party in his own MAGA image. Will he now do the same to the conservative legal movement? During his first term, Trump benefited immeasurably from his association with Leonard Leo, the former Federalist Society official whose advice on judicial nominations helped Trump to transform the U.S. Supreme Court into a conservative legal juggernaut that eliminated the constitutional right to abortion, overturned affirmative action in higher education, and expanded the right to keep and bear arms. Such rulings will likely be remembered as Trump's most far-reaching accomplishments as president. Yet now, Trump is denouncing both...

The Tulsa Race Massacre might have happened 104 years ago, but innocent people must still pay, according to Tulsa’s Mayor Monroe Nichols IV, who was just elected in November. “For 104 years, the Tulsa Race Massacre has been a stain on our city’s history,” Nichols said over the weekend. “The massacre was hidden from history books, only to be followed by the intentional acts of redlining, a highway built to choke off economic vitality, and the perpetual underinvestment of local, state, and federal governments.” “Now,” he says, “it’s time to take the next big steps to restore.” “The private charitable...

Britain will build new attack submarines, invest billions on nuclear warheads and move towards “war-fighting readiness,” Prime Minister Keir Starmer said Monday, as he braces for a landmark report into the state of the country’s military. Starmer’s government said it would build “up to” 12 new attack submarines as part of its AUKUS partnership with the United States and Australia, replacing the country’s current class of seven subs from the late 2030s. And he will launch a “historic renewal” of the UK’s nuclear deterrent backed by a £15 billion ($20.3 bn) investment, Starmer said in a speech in Scotland on...

MAGA insider and former Trump White House chief strategist Steve Bannon said Monday that Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), one of Kyiv’s strongest backers in Congress, should be “arrested” if he doesn’t stop traveling overseas and “stirring it up” in Ukraine. Bannon expressed his frustration over Ukraine’s stunning drone attack on Russia’s strategic bombing fleet, which destroyed 40 aircraft deep inside Russian territory, giving Ukrainian forces a potential morale boost. Bannon said the White House should condemn the military strike and crack down on Graham’s diplomacy. The senator applauded Ukraine’s resourcefulness in pulling off a successful attack Sunday. “The White House...