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Opinion: Hands off AI — let innovators develop tech’s last frontier

Published Fri, 07 Feb 2025 12:04:10 GMT

Editor’s note: This story is part of the annual Mosaic Journalism Workshop for Bay Area high school students, a two-week intensive course in journalism. Students in the program report and photograph stories under the guidance of professional journalists.Artificial intelligence, or AI, has taken an increasing role in society, with chatbots in particular emerging as one of the more popular and feared forms. In this crucial juncture, it is vital to let innovation proceed without premature, excessive regulation.The ChatGPT model, developed by the OpenAI company, already has more than 100 million users. It is commonly used for research, writing and solving math problems. Other software like Microsoft’s Bing Chat, and Google’s Bard have also become popular.AI chatbots have demonstrated numerous advantages as research tools and idea generators, from recipes to jokes to writing essays on Newtonian physics.Through development they can become an essential tool in increasing efficiency for a v...

Postal worker violently assaulted, robbed at SF post office

Published Fri, 07 Feb 2025 12:04:10 GMT

SAN FRANCISCO (KRON) -- A United States postal worker was violently assaulted and robbed at a post office in San Francisco, the United States Post Office confirmed. The suspect in attack, who was captured on surveillance video, attacked a postal employee at the Pine Street Post Office in SF and stole postal keys, according to the U.S. Postal Inspection Service. More Bay Area tech layoffs on the way Video of the incident showed the suspect running down the street wearing a hood and a COVID-style face mask while carrying what appeared to be a set of keys (watch in the player above).The Postal Inspection Service is asking for the public's assistance in identifying the suspect. Reward money of up to $50,000 is available for information leading to an arrest.Anyone with information related to the incident is asked to call the U.S. Postal Inspectors at 877-876-2455.KRON On is streaming live news now.embed-container { position: relative; padding-bottom: 56.25%; height: 0; overflow: hidden...

Twitter slammed with $500 million lawsuit over severance pay: reports

Published Fri, 07 Feb 2025 12:04:10 GMT

(KRON) -- Twitter is facing a half a billion dollar class-action lawsuit filed on behalf of former employees. The suit claims the tech giant refused to pay them at least $500 million in promised severance funds, a Reuters report said. Musk announces new AI venture, and it's based in the Bay Area The suit was filed Wednesday in San Francisco federal court by Courtney McMillian, who was responsible for Twitter's employee benefit programs. McMilian says she was laid off in January along with thousands of other Twitter employees worldwide. McMilian's suit alleges that Twitter created a severance plan in 2019 which promised most laid off workers two months of base pay as well as one additional week of pay for each full year of service. However, Twitter provided only one month of severance pay to most workers, and some didn't receive anything at all, the suit claims. The suit comes nine months after reports surfaced that Twitter would lay off half of the tech company's work force. A su...

Missing a small part on a landing gear, FedEx pilots were forced to make an emergency landing

Published Fri, 07 Feb 2025 12:04:10 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal safety officials said Wednesday they were unable to determine why a pin in a landing gear of a FedEx plane came loose during a 2020 flight, disabling the gear and forcing pilots to make an emergency landing.The National Transportation Safety Board said they believe the pin, which helps secure one end of a rod to another part on the landing gear brake assembly, was in place when the plane took off from Newark, New Jersey. They said when it came loose during the flight to Los Angeles, it allowed the rod to become jammed in the landing gear.The NTSB said the mechanic who last worked on the brake assembly a month before the incident did not recall anything unusual about the job. Sparks flew when the cargo plane made a pre-dawn landing at Los Angeles International Airport. The three-year-old Boeing 767 came to rest on the engine housing under its left wing because the landing gear on that side never extended. The two pilots used a rope to escape the cockpit afte...

Suspect in Vegas Strip resort standoff to remain jailed as fugitive in Colorado kidnapping case

Published Fri, 07 Feb 2025 12:04:10 GMT

LAS VEGAS (AP) — Bail was set Wednesday at $750,000 for a man jailed on kidnapping and other charges after a Las Vegas Strip standoff that saw furniture flying from a 21st-floor window at Caesars Palace.But even if he posts bail, Matthew John Ermond Mannix, 35, of Golden, Colorado, would remain jailed — at least until a Thursday morning hearing on a fugitive warrant in a kidnapping in Mannix’s home state, prosecutor John Jones said.Jones had asked Justice of the Peace Rebecca Saxe to set bail at $2 million. He cited “extreme violence” during the Tuesday standoff that lasted more than five hours, “excessive damage” to property, and danger posed to hotel guests who fled as items ranging from a coffee maker to a desk fell into the hotel swimming pool area.Jones told the judge that Mannix has criminal convictions for kidnapping in 2022 and property damage in 2012 in Colorado, and multiple people have court orders of protection against him.Marissa Pensabene, a deputy public defender temp...

Jordan Spieth, Justin Thomas to become minority owners of English club Leeds United

Published Fri, 07 Feb 2025 12:04:10 GMT

GULLANE, Scotland (AP) — Golfers Jordan Spieth and Justin Thomas are set to become minority owners of English soccer club Leeds United, Spieth told Sky Sports on Wednesday.Spieth and Thomas are investing in the San Francisco 49ers’ ownership group, 49ers Enterprises, which is in the process of taking over Leeds after its relegation from the Premier League to the second-tier Championship for next season.Spieth said fellow PGA Tour player Rickie Fowler decided against investing after Leeds was relegated.A message left with the 49ers on Wednesday wasn’t immediately returned.“Relegation wasn’t ideal,” Spieth said, “but we got involved with the 49ers group about purchasing a larger share and getting in with them doing things so successfully as they do everywhere they’ve touched.“We thought it would be a cool opportunity. It’s a big city, historic club, great venue in Elland Road, and once we looked into it we realized it could be really exciting.”The 49ers’ ownership gr...

Trans people’s rush to alter their Kansas licenses created a ‘safety concern,’ a judge says

Published Fri, 07 Feb 2025 12:04:10 GMT

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — The nearly 200 transgender people who rushed in recent weeks to change the sex listings on their driver’s licenses created an immediate “public safety concern,” a state-court judge declared Wednesday in keeping in place a ban on those changes.The state agency that issues Kansas driver’s licenses failed Wednesday to persuade District Judge Teresa Watson that she’d made a mistake in imposing the ban two days earlier. Watson’s latest order means that Kansas remains for now one of only a few U.S. states that won’t change transgender people’s licenses to reflect their gender identities. The ban is a legal victory for the state’s Republican attorney general, Kris Kobach. He argues that driver’s license changes by the Kansas Department of Revenue’s motor vehicles division violated a new law rolling back transgender rights, which took effect July 1. He sued two top department officials when the agency continued making...

Former Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder appeals 20-year prison term in massive corruption scheme

Published Fri, 07 Feb 2025 12:04:10 GMT

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Former Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder appealed his 20-year prison sentence Wednesday, nearly two weeks after he was convicted of masterminding the largest corruption scheme in state history. The 64-year-old Republican has been held in county jail since a federal judge sentenced him June 29 to the maximum penalty for racketeering allowed under federal law, and his appeal was expected. Federal prosecutors had sought 16 to 20 years for Householder, while his lawyers had asked for 12 to 18 months on the grounds that he had been humiliated and broken by the ordeal of his widely publicized arrest, weekslong trial and conviction. U.S. District Judge Timothy Black said his sentencing decision was affected by Householder’s failure to show remorse, instead focusing his plea for leniency on the impacts his imprisonment would have on his wife, children and friends. After a seven-week trial this winter, a jury convicted Householder of orchestrating the $60 million bri...

Suspect sought in deadly crash near White House

Published Fri, 07 Feb 2025 12:04:10 GMT

FILE - A U.S. Secret Service agent is stationed outside Ivana Trump's funeral at St. Vincent Ferrer Roman Catholic Church, July 20, 2022, in New York. President Joe Biden has named Kim Cheatle, a veteran Secret Service official, as the agency's next director. Her appointment comes as the agency faces controversy over missing text messages around the time thousands of supporters of then-President Donald Trump stormed the Capitol. (AP Photo/Julia Nikhinson, File)(AP/Julia Nikhinson) FILE - A U.S. Secret Service agent is stationed outside Ivana Trump's funeral at St. Vincent Ferrer Roman Catholic Church, July 20, 2022, in New York. President Joe Biden has named Kim Cheatle, a veteran Secret Service official, as the agency's next director. Her appointment comes as the...

Liberty top Fever in OT to earn spot in Commissioner’s Cup championship

Published Fri, 07 Feb 2025 12:04:10 GMT

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Sabrina Ionescu scored eight of her 34 points in overtime and the New York Liberty clinched a berth in the Commissioner’s Cup championship with a 95-87 win over the Indiana Fever on Wednesday, despite blowing an 18-point fourth-quarter lead.Aliyah Boston hit a buzzer-beating 3-pointer at the end of regulation for Indiana, which had a chance to win its last two home games on last-second 3-point attempts. It was the rookie’s second 3 of the season.That tied the game at 80 but the veteran Liberty pulled away in overtime as Ionescu hit two of her seven 3-pointers and the young Fever missed its last four shots.Breanna Stewart had 18 points and 10 rebounds for the Liberty (14-4), who play at Western Conference winner and defending champion Las Vegas for the Commissioner’s Cup on Aug. 15. Courtney Vandersloot had 12 assists, the last going to Betnijah Laney for a 3-pointer that broke an 85-85 tie with 1:52 left in overtime. SUN 84, SKY 72CHICAGO (AP) — Tiffany Hayes sco...