Free Republic

Federalist CEO Sean Davis blasted the FBI for stonewalling Congress’s investigation into the first assassination attempt against President-elect Donald Trump. The moment came during a Friday interview, in which Davis was asked by conservative commentator Tucker Carlson what information is publicly available about Thomas Crooks, the would-be assassin who tried to kill Trump at a July rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. The 20-year-old was killed by law enforcement shortly after the attempt on the incoming president’s life and information about his activities leading up to the shooting has remained scarce.Davis noted despite the near assassination having occurred months ago, Americans “still...

Ever wonder who the sociopaths are you see in Netflix documentaries, catfishing people from the internet using dating apps? Well, look no further. Australia’s News.com.au profiled one such person this week, a young worker inside of a “mass scamming call center”. The person, named “Beard”, said that he “fled war-torn Syria for Dubai” and was desperately looking for work. Thinking he landed an advertising role, he told news.com.au he found himself at a “bizarre office location in the middle of the Dubai desert where those inside tried to confiscate his passport”. He was eventually held captive and forced to scam...

.. . The real story is what’s being done to lock down Android, and why you’ll need a newer model phone in 12-weeks time... The other highlight further narrows the gap to iPhone, removing some of the looser restrictions that enabled threats to more easily fester on its ecosystem than Apple’s. “The Play Integrity API," Google says, “allows developers to check if their apps have been tampered with or are running in potentially compromised environments, helping them to prevent abuse like fraud, bots, cheating, and data theft.” The company also notes that “apps using Play integrity features are seeing 80%...

A mother who allegedly couldn’t be bothered to look up from her phone while her 3-year-old son drowned nearby at a Texas waterpark has been indicted nearly two years later. Jessica Weaver, 35, is charged in connection with the death of her son, Anthony Malave, who drowned in May 2023 during a soft opening at the new Camp Cohen Water Park in El Paso. One of 18 lifeguards working at the park pulled the unconscious boy out of a 4-foot-deep section of the pool. He was rushed to the hospital where he died, police said. Weaver was glued to her...

California Governor Gavin Newsom used an emergency press conference Tuesday to thank Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass for her leadership “in absentia” during the wildfire crisis now enveloping the state after she phoned it in from Ghana, Africa. “Thank you again to all of the folks behind me in the outstanding leadership of all the elected officials as well. And forgive me one point I’d be remiss — thank you to Mayor Bass who was on the phone immediately this morning… uh… making sure even in absentia that she’s here… uh… organizing everything she can to make sure we’re successful...

CISA has urged ‘highly targeted’ individuals in the US Government or in senior political positions to immediately review and implement strict security measures with their mobile devices. This comes after multiple major US telecoms firms were hit by security breaches earlier in 2024, most likely originating from state-sponsored Chinese hackers. Recent reports also confirmed that the group behind the attack, Salt Typhoon, had not yet been fully eradicated, and still lurks inside US telecoms networks. As part of its advisory, CISA also released a best practice guide for mobile communications, which includes instructions on using end-to-end encryption, password managers, Fast...

OpenAI is giving users a new way to talk to its viral chatbot: 1-800-CHATGPT. By dialing the U.S. number (1-800-242-8478) or messaging it via WhatsApp, users can access an “easy, convenient, and low-cost way to try it out through familiar channels,” OpenAI said Wednesday. At first, the company said callers will get 15 minutes free per month. The news follows a barrage of updates from OpenAI as part of a 12-day release event. The most notable announcement was the official rollout of Sora, OpenAI’s buzzy AI video-generation tool. OpenAI recently hired its first chief marketing officer, indicating plans to spend...

So I get a call from my son at about 7:30 am. He’s freaking out wondering of something happened here since (according to him) I made 2 calls at approximately 1:28 am. He assumed something must have been wrong for me to be calling so late, but we chalked it up to an infamous ‘butt dial’. But wait: I was pretty sure I was in bed before then, and made that pretty clear. I then after checking my phone history I said, “can you check the number that actually called you, since I have no record of it on my...

'I've got all the time in the world.'Scammers worldwide are making off big. Last year alone, the Federal Trade Commission estimates US consumers lost a record $10 billion due to fraud, a 14% increase from just one year prior. More and more, scammers are targeting older, vulnerable people over the phone. Over than two-thirds of UK residents over the age of 75 surveyed in a recent research paper claimed they had experienced at least one fraud attempt in the past six months. 40% of those respondents faced frequent fraud attempts. Now, an AI-generated UK grandmother named “Daisy” is trying scammers’...

Kamala Harris was caught in an embarrassing Election Day gaffe after flipping her smartphone around to the cameras while claiming to be 'on the phone with a voter' - only to reveal she wasn't on a call at all. 'Have you voted already?' a beaming Harris said into the phone. Then she paused as though listening, before exclaiming: 'You did, thank you!' The vice president then turned her phone screen around to adoring supporters at the Democrat party's Washington, DC headquarters, who applauded and cheered. But viewers at home were lightening quick to point out that her phone appeared to...

A young woman spent hours trapped upside down after slipping between two boulders as she tried to retrieve her mobile phone during a hike in Australia. The woman - named in reports as Matilda Campbell - was walking in New South Wales' Hunter Valley region earlier this month when she fell into the three-metre crevice. It was the start of a seven-hour ordeal which would see emergency services undertake a "challenging" rescue - including moving several boulders. And even after managing to winch a 500kg (1,100lb) rock out the way, they still had to work out how to get the...

Self-styled “knucklehead” Tim Walz has revealed the absurd codename he lists Vice President Kamala Harris under on his phone since he accidentally ignored her call telling him he was her running mate. The lefty Minnesota governor told Jimmy Kimmel late Monday that Harris had tried to call him in early August to tell him he was her pick for the Democratic ticket — except he decided not to answer. “It was an unmarked number so I’m thinking it’s like a car warranty thing,” Walz told Kimmel to laughter from the studio audience. He only took the life-changing call when he...

I was watching the video in the link. China has become very much a cashless society. They use their phones to purchase everything. A Typhoon hit, knocked out power and nobody could buy anything. In fact, just finding a place with electricity so they could charge their phones was a big deal. It reminded me of: Revelations 6:13 16 And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads: 17 And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark,...

A criminal complaint against Routh reveals more details about yesterday's apparent assassination attempt. In addition to a witness account, Routh was confirmed to be the suspect using phone records that located him in “the vicinity of the area along the tree line” of the Trump International Golf Club from 1:59 a.m. until 1:31 p.m. on Sunday, the complaint said. At 1:31 p.m., a Secret Service agent assigned to Trump’s security detail was walking the perimeter of Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach when the agent saw what appeared to be a rifle poking out of a tree line....

Your long-held suspicions are confirmed, according to a report: Your phone really is listening to you. A marketing firm whose clients include Facebook and Google has privately admitted that it listens to users’ smartphone microphones and then places ads based on the information that is picked up, according to 404 Media. Cox Media Group, the television and radio news conglomerate, admitted in a pitch deck to investors that its “Active Listening” software uses artificial intelligence to “capture real-time intent data by listening to our conversations,” according to the report. “Advertisers can pair this voice-data with behavioral data to target in-market...

Mobile phones are not linked to brain and head cancers, a comprehensive reviewof the highest quality evidence available commissioned by the World Health Organization has found. Led by the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency (Arpansa), the systematic review examined more than 5,000 studies from which the most scientifically rigorous were identified and weak studies excluded. The final analysis included 63 observational studies in humans published between 1994 and 2022, making it “the most comprehensive review to date”, the review lead author, associate prof Ken Karipidis, said. “We concluded the evidence does not show a link between mobile phones...

The exact circumstances that led to President Joe Biden's dramatic withdrawal from the 2024 election race have been the topic of frenzied conversation for weeks. Ever since Biden tweeted his digitally signed letter announcing the decision on Sunday, June 21, the line from the White House has been clear: The president was not pushed. This was his choice alone. Sympathetic insiders described a weekend of 'reflection' for the president – who had recently tested postive for COVID and was holed up in isolation with his wife Jill and a handful of trusted aides at the Biden family home in Rehoboth...

Can anyone suggest an app to block unknown callers on my android phone please?

Earlier this week, the FBI announced that it had accessed the locked phone of Thomas Matthew Crooks, the man who opened fire at a Trump rally last Saturday. A new report from Bloomberg today reveals more details about this process and the phone used by Crooks. After Saturday’s Trump rally shooting, the FBI said on Sunday that it had been unsuccessful in unlocking Crooks’ phone. The phone was then sent to the FBI lab in Quanitco, Virginia, and on Tuesday the bureau confirmed that it had successfully unlocked the phone in question Until today, however, we had no indication whether...

As the investigation into Saturday’s assassination attempt against former President and newly-minted GOP nominee Donald Trump at a Pennsylvania rally intensifies, the Federal Bureau of Investigation announced Monday that they have successfully gained access to the suspected shooter’s phone. They have not revealed what information they’ve found on the device, but it is likely to contain a trove of information about the deceased suspect, 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks. The FBI has not detailed any of the information contained in the phone. The agency began its investigation into Crooks and the shooting shortly after the Saturday attack. Agents went to Crooks'...