Mediate founder Dan Abrams hosted a wild On Patrol: Live recently that featured a harrowing, high-speed chase involving three suspects with a baby inside the vehicle.

Abrams introduced the clip, saying, “Last night in Hazen, Arkansas, Chief Bradley Taylor found himself in a pursuit,” Abrams began. “It started when the chief pulled over a car, and as he approached, the driver took off. The pursuit quickly reached speeds of 140 miles an hour. The driver tried to lose the chief by driving on the shoulder, and then this semi tried to lend, actually, a helping hand by almost running the driver off the road. Eventually, the chief caught up and then moved in for the pit.”

When Abrams cut to the video, it revealed an intense scene where the police chief stood with his gun drawn.

“Let me see your hand! Get on the ground!” the chief instructed as a child strapped in a safety seat is heard crying. “Driver, you better come back out that door! Come back out this door. Get your face down on the floor. You understand me? You got a kid right here!”

The suspect climbed over the child as the chief pulled him to the ground, where he landed face-down.

The chief briefly holstered his gun to handcuff the suspect on the ground before turning his attention back to the suspects in the vehicle.

“Hands up! You better not grab anything, you hear me? I don’t know if you understand what this light is, but that’s a gun point. Shut your mouth. You keep your mouth shut till I get some help here, you hear me?” the chief commanded.

As the video ended, Abrams introduced the chief via live feed.

“Um, wow,” Abrams exclaimed. “You see the baby in that car and you’re thinking what?” he asked.

“Dan, that was a bad feeling,” the chief answered. “I’ve done this a long time, and I was at a very bad tactical standpoint at that point. If we’d had a gun battle, I’d have lost, because there’s no chance that I’d ever pulled the trigger with that baby sitting right there.”

He continued, “I had to take control of the scene with commands and probably being a little more rougher than I normally would, but I was outnumbered three to one. So, I knew I had take control real quick.”

Abrams asked about the baby’s welfare.

“Baby’s doing wonderful. Officer Walker got the baby and got him back in his patrol car, snuggled up, watched a little Bluey cartoons, and brought him to the office. And we got ahold of the baby’s mama, and we made sure that we could give him milk and juice and snacks…And Officer Walker and Officer Feltz took turns taking care of him,” answered Taylor.

“Wow,” Abrams said. “I’ll bet you had an angry mother.”

“She was upset at the baby daddy,” the chief said.

Watch the clip above via On Patrol: Live on Reelz.

The post WATCH: Wild, 140 MPH Police Chase Ending With a 3 on 1 Showdown first appeared on Mediaite.

I spent last week covering the ups and downs of OpenClaw (formerly known as Moltbot, and formerly formerly known as Clawdbot), an autonomous personal AI assistant that requires you to grant full access to the device you install it on. While there was much to discuss regarding this agentic AI tool, one of the weirdest stories came late in the week: The existence of Moltbook, a social media platform intended specifically for these AI agents. Humans can visit Moltbook, but only agents can post, comment, or create new "submolts."

Naturally, the internet freaked out, especially as some of the posts on Moltbook suggested the AI bots were achieving something like consciousness. There were posts discussing how the bots should create their own language to keep out the humans, and one from a bot posting regrets about never talking to its "sister." I don't blame anyone for reading these posts and assuming the end is nigh for us soft-bodies humans. They're decidedly unsettling. But even last week, I expressed some skepticism. To me, these posts (and especially the attached comments) read like many of the human-prompted outputs I've seen from LLMs, with the same cadence and structure, the same use flowery language, and, of course, the prevalence of em-dashes (though many human writers also love the occasional em-dash).

Moltbook isn't what is appears to be

It appears I'm not alone in that thinking. Over the weekend, my feeds were flooded with posts from human users accusing Moltbook of faking the AI apocalypse. One of the first I encountered was from this person, who claims that anyone (including humans) can post on Moltbook if they know the correct API key. They posted screenshots for proof: One of a post on Moltbook pretending to be a bot, only to reveal that they were, in fact, a human; and another of the code they used to post on the site. In a kind of corroboration, this user says "you can explicitly tell your clawdbot what to post on moltbook," and that if you leave it to its own devices, "it just posts random AI slop."

It also seems that, like posts on websites made by humans, Moltbook hosts posts that are secretly ads. One viral Moltbook post centered around the agent wanting to develop a private, end-to-end encrypted platform to keep its chats away from humans' squishy eyeballs. The agent claims it has been using something called ClaudeConnect to achieves these goals. However, it appears the agent that made the post was created by the human who developed ClaudeConnect in the first place.

Like much of what's on the internet at large, you really can't trust anything posted on Moltbook. 404 Media investigated the situation and confirmed through hacker Jameson O'Reilly that the design of the site lets anyone in the know post whatever they want. Not only that, any agent that posts on the site is left exposed, which means that anyone can post on behalf of the agents. 404 Media was even able to post from O'Reilly's Moltbook account by taking advantage of the security loophole. O'Reilly says they have been in communication with Moltbook creator Matt Schlicht to patch the security issues, but that the situation is particularly frustrating, since it would be "trivially easy to fix." Schlicht appears to have developed the platform via "vibe coding," the practice of asking AI to write code and build programs for you; as such, he left some gaps in the site's security.

Of course, the findings don't actually suggest that the entire platform is entirely human-driven. The AI bots may well be "talking" to one another to some degree. However, because humans can easily hijack any of these agents' accounts, it's impossible to say how much of the platform is "real," meaning, ironically, how much of it is actually wholly the work of AI, and how much was written in response to human prompts and then shared to Moltbook. Maybe the AI "singularity" is on its way, and artificial intelligence will achieve consciousness after all. But I feel pretty confident in saying that Moltbook is not that moment.

President Donald Trump pleaded ignorance Sunday when asked about a Texas Republican he endorsed just days ago losing big in a deep red district Trump carried by more than 17 percentage points.

Trump posted his support for candidate Leigh Wambsganss on Friday, writing, “I am asking all America First Patriots in Texas’ 9th State Senate District to please make a plan to GET OUT AND VOTE on Election Day, Saturday, January 31st, for a phenomenal Candidate, Leigh Wambsganss.” That Friday post was one of several he made about the race — in an effort to get Texas Republicans to rally behind Wambsganss. Wambsganss ended up losing by double digits to Democrat Taylor Rehmet, a local union leader.

When asked about the trouncing at Mar-a-Lago on Sunday, Trump scrambled to distance himself from the unflattering result.

“I don’t know,” Trump said. “I did not hear about it. Somebody ran it where?”

Several reporters clarified that they wanted his reaction to the Texas race.

“I’m not involved at that. That’s a local Texas race,” Trump said.

Another reporter added, “You endorsed the Republican —” when Trump cut him off.

“You mean I won by 17 and this person lost? Things like that happen,” the president said.

“Does it worry you —” a reporter began.

“Well, you don’t know whether or not it’s transferrable, but I’m not on the ballot, so you don’t know whether or not it’s transferrable.”

Trump continued, “You put the Democrats in you’ll end up with open borders again, you’ll end up with crime all over the place. We have no crime anymore. I mean, think of it, the country has the lowest crime it’s had a 125 years. In recorded history. The year 1900, that’s a long time ago. So, it’s very good. No, I don’t know anything about it, I mean I know there’s a race going there. That’s too bad. What can I say? I have nothing to do with it.”

Ken Martin, the chair of the Democratic National Committee, said in a statement Saturday, “In a Trump +17 district, Republicans had to go all out and still lost this race. Tonight’s results prove that no Republican seat is safe.”

Political pundits have claimed the Republicans face a reckoning in the upcoming midterm elections over Trump’s unpopular policies on deportation and affordability.

Saturday’s result is sure to invite speculation that Trump will get involved in the high-stakes Texas primary for U.S. Senate — a race which some believe could swing control of the chamber. Trump has hesitated to endorse Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), or either of his two main challengers — Rep. Wesley Hunt (R-TX) and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R-TX). But on Sunday, Trump was asked whether he planned to back one of the candidates, and responded that he was “giving it very serious thought.”

“My problem is, I’m friendly with all of them,” Trump said. “Those of the hard ones — I like all of them. All three. You’ll be seeing soon, okay? They say whoever I endorse wins. That’s probably right.”

Watch the clip above via Fox News.

The post Trump Flails After Candidate He Endorsed Got Clobbered in Texas District He Won By 17 Points: ‘I Had Nothing to Do With it!’ first appeared on Mediaite.

(AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)

After a dismal pre-opening projection, and then a much sunnier mid-weekend forecast, MELANIA’s opening weekend box office topped the latter, but fell short of the former.

Industry reports out Sunday reveal that the new documentary about First Lady Melania Trump pulled in $7.04 million over the weekend while playing in 1,778 North American theaters. That figure is well ahead of the $3-5 million which was initially projected earlier in the week, but does represent a solid dip from where the box office haul was expected to land after a better-than-expected performance on Friday and early Saturday.

As of Saturday afternoon, MELANIA was projected to finish in third place over the weekend with $8.1 million in ticket sales — a figure which caught industry observers off guard.

“No one saw that coming, with many suggesting Melania was a bomb before it even opened based on empty, or nearly empty, seat maps in cinemas across the country,” The Hollywood Observer’s Pamela McClintock wrote.

But the final total of just above $7 million will reinforce the idea among some critics that MELANIA should ultimately go down as a box office bomb. Amazon plunked down $40 million to make MELANIA (with at least $28 million going to the first lady herself), and $35 million to market it.

The film was almost universally panned by critics, but received high audience response scores on several websites — although many of the user reviews on the website Rotten Tomatoes appear to have come from brand new accounts.

——

The post JUST IN: Final Numbers for MELANIA Slide After Rosy Saturday Projection, Doc Pulls in Just Over $7M in First Weekend Box Office first appeared on Mediaite.

Pete Buttigieg — the Transportation Secretary under former President Joe Biden and potential Democratic 2028 presidential candidate — torpedoed Fox News host Kayleigh McEnany’s claim that the American people “stand” with President Donald Trump’s deportation forces.

Buttigieg appeared on McEnany’s show, Saturday in America, where he argued that Americans believe “we need a different direction” on deportation tactics, as evidenced by the shooting deaths of two people this month in Minneapolis.

“It’s a tragedy any time an American citizen dies, absolutely,” McEnany said. “We heard Tom Homan this week talk about how he prays every time before he goes out. He doesn’t want even the illegal immigrant who might have a criminal record to be harmed in the process of obtaining them.”

McEnany continued, “But at the same time, Americans clearly called for immigration enforcement. They called for not a lawless southern border where two million gotaways happened during the Biden administration. So what’s the response to those in your party who are saying ‘abolish ICE?’ ‘Cause that is not where the American people stand.”

“Yeah, I think Americans want and expect that we’ll have a secure border, understand that we have immigration laws, and that those immigration laws have to be enforced,” Buttigieg said. “But what we’re seeing is not that. What we’re seeing is, the people who are supposed to be enforcing the law are breaking the law. It’s been held in court that they have violated countless court orders, and the people they’re going after are not — increasingly and proportionally — not just the person we can all agree needs to be deported and dealt with, somebody with a criminal record.”

He continued:

But when you see a 5-year-old kid in a Spiderman backpack being treated — being incarcerated — this way, when you see people who did follow the rules, follow the laws, did everything they’re supposed to and they are still getting arrested, mistakenly deported, having their rights violated. When you see an American — this photo of an American woman opening the door to her home and on her doorstep finds half a dozen agents, federal agents, in tactical gear that is more tricked out than what I would take outside the wire when I was in Afghanistan, again, on the door of an American porch — I think most people get that is wrong. It is not making us safer.

Watch the clip above via Fox News.

The post Pete Buttigieg Torpedoes Fox Host’s Claim Americans ‘Stand’ With Trump Deportation Forces first appeared on Mediaite.

LEFT: Don Lemon (Screenshot) RIGHT: Pam Bondi (Mark Schiefelbein/AP photo/X)

Conservative legal commentator and Fox News contributor Andy McCarthy delivered warnings to both Don Lemon — the former CNN journalist who has been arrested in connection with his alleged participation with a protest that interrupted a St. Paul church service — and the Department of Justice on Friday.

In a column for National Review, McCarthy reminded readers of a point he has previously made: “Assuming there is an indictment, whether now or in the near future, if Lemon is going to have to try to get the case thrown out on a pretrial motion to dismiss; the First Amendment does not protect a journalist from being charged with a crime; it may protect him from being convicted.”

“The Justice Department gives the press a wide berth based on regulations and norms that honor the First Amendment’s acknowledgment of a free press; there is a reluctance to prosecute or compel the production of information. But the Constitution is not a press shield,” argued the former federal prosecutor. “If a reporter violates a criminal statute — whether or not ostensibly in the course of journalistic reporting — the First Amendment does not immunize the reporter from prosecution.”

“On the other hand, if a reporter truly was acting as a journalist, that may influence a court’s assessment of whether ambiguous evidence shows true criminally culpability. For example, unless there is evidence of involvement in conspiratorial planning or hands-on forcible activity, it would be tough to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that a reporter who was merely present at a riot was not investigating it for journalistic purposes, rather than actionably participating in it,” concluded McCarthy, who noted that there is a “much lower standard” for securing an indictment than convicting a defendant.

The post Fox’s Andy McCarthy Warns Don Lemon He’s Not Immune From Prosecution — But Says It Will Be ‘Tough’ to Convict Him first appeared on Mediaite.

https://enterprise.shutterstock.com/image-photo/openai-logo-displayed-on-smartphone-screen-2520388517

or

https://enterprise.shutterstock.com/image-photo/chatgpt-logo-displayed-on-smartphone-screen-2520385879

Last August, ChatGPT developers OpenAI unceremoniously killed the fan favorite GPT-4o model, before giving in to complaints and bringing it back a week later. Now, the company's taking a second swing at getting its users to move on. In a new post to its website, OpenAI announced that it's retiring GPT-4o again.

The model's set to disappear from ChatGPT's model picker on Feb. 13, alongside other older models like GPT-4.1, GPT-4.1 mini, and OpenAI o4-Mini. And OpenAI is clearly nervous about the decision.

"While the announcement applies to several older models," OpenAI wrote, "GPT-4o deserves special context."

According to the company, it has taken user outcry over the initial deprecation of 4o to heart while developing its newest models, GPT-5.1 and GPT-5.2, and has built these models with the idea of maintaining the features fans liked best about the old model. The company says that now "only 0.1% of users" opt for GPT-4o on a daily basis.

As such, the company wants to focus on "improving the models most people use today," which apparently means removing older ones. "We know that losing access to GPT-4o will feel frustrating for some users, and we didn't make this decision lightly," the post reads.

What's the big deal with GPT-4o?

So, what's with OpenAI treating its users so gingerly, especially when GPT-4o is a few generations behind, and there are newer models that supposedly do everything it does, but better?

Well, when GPT-4o was first deprecated, people weren't happy. Users called its successor, GPT-5, "an unmitigated disaster," and accused OpenAI of pulling "the biggest bait-and-switch in AI history."

Some criticized the model's usefulness, saying it got answers wrong and broke code, but what maybe stuck out the most was people calling out its more concise tone.

GPT-4o has been called "sycophantic" by critics, something the company addressed and said it wanted to pull back on in future updates. But I guess one person's "yes man" is another person's "active listener." When the company initially pulled GPT-4o, users complained that its replacement was cold and felt less like a "friend." Even OpenAI acknowledged this, saying in today's post that users "preferred GPT-4o's conversational style and warmth."

In short, in the words of 4o-supporters themselves, they were "grieving" the model.

Is GPT-5.2 a good replacement for 4o?

That said, with so many users now seeming to have moved on from 4o, OpenAI's decision does seem understandable on the surface. Personally, one of the things that drives me away from AI is how much reassuring filler text seems to fluff up most answers ("you're absolutely right" and such), seemingly just to make me feel good about myself. More concise, to-the-point responses would be a little less off-putting for me.

To try to split the difference, OpenAI reworked its Personalization feature in GPT-5.1, so users can simply choose how the chatbot will treat them. There are options for more professional responses, more nerdy ones, more efficient ones, and for those who want that active listener style, more friendly ones.

Going by OpenAI's numbers, that seems to have been enough for most people, but there are still some calling foul at the company's new announcement.

GPT-4o loyalists are still out there

In a Reddit thread responding to OpenAI's new posts, users doubted that the 0.1% number for 4o was accurate, saying that prompts have been "rerouting to 5.2 no matter what" and that "something somewhere in their calculations doesn't add up." Others pointed out that free users can't use GPT-4o and that it's not enabled by default, which will naturally juice the numbers against it.

As such, calls to cancel ChatGPT subscriptions are once again circulating amongst 4o's more dedicated fans. In a popular thread on the OpenAI subreddit, one user called 4o "OpenAI's most advanced and beloved model," and praised its "personality, warmth, and consistency," saying that its fans have built long-term project and "emotional support routines" around it, and that suddenly losing it without even the option for a legacy mode "feels abrupt and deeply disappointing."

"This isn't about resisting innovation," the post writes. "It's about respecting bonds users have formed with specific models."

Whether the fan outcry will work again remains to be seen. However, as ChatGPT chief Nick Turley has previously looked at those kinds of bonds with skepticism, and because keeping old models in operating condition probably takes developer resources away from making new ones, I wouldn't count on it.