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Sneaky gift card scam hitting California retailers, shoppers

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 15:46:00 GMT

A recent retail theft crackdown in Northern California has uncovered a gift card scam affecting retailers and shoppers all along the West Coast.During the crackdown, dubbed "Operation Bad Elf," the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office found a shocking number of gift cards that had been tampered with, KTLA sister station KTXL-TV reports. Authorities say thieves are taking the cards from the racks, replacing the barcodes, and then placing them back on the racks for unsuspecting shoppers. $218K in stolen retail merchandise found in backyard of L.A. home "When the consumer goes to check out, the cashier is loading the consumer's funds to that barcode but it's not to the physical card the consumer is holding, it's to the card the scammers own," Daniel Stiner, with the Better Business Bureau told news media outlets.Once the customer tries to use the card, the money is gone.“These specific gift cards can be funded anywhere from $5 to $500. So at their max balance, with the amount of cards ...

Los Angeles courts may use AI to redact children's sensitive information

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 15:46:00 GMT

Los Angeles Superior Court may leverage artificial intelligence to help protect the personal information of minors, according to a report by Bloomberg Law.As Maia Spoto reports, Accenture PLC has been contracted to provide AI that "will be used specifically to help read and identify characters and patterns in documents."That will replace the current system, which the Bloomberg report compared to "Microsoft Word’s function to find and replace names with information input by court staff."While the AI system is intended to handle the redactions, "Los Angeles Superior Court staff will review the redactions to ensure they are correct, the court said" according to Spoto's report.There is room for problems to arise when using AI in legal matters, however. In New York, an attorney had ChatGPT help him craft a filing, only for the court to discover later that some of the cases cited in the filing were made up.Chinmayi Sharma, a Fordham University School of Law associate professor, told Spoto...

Sophie Turner’s new boyfriend is handsome British aristocrat, reports confirm

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 15:46:00 GMT

Just three months after her shocking split from American pop-rocker Joe Jonas, Sophie Turner has found a new partner who may be more suitable, given that she is known to be attached to her English roots.According to reports, Turner’s new boyfriend is a rich and handsome British aristocrat, who has an appropriately quirky aristocratic name: Peregrine Pearson. Known by friends as “Perry,” the 29-year-old Pearson has been dubbed “Britain’s most eligible bachelor,” the Daily Mail said. He’s the eldest son and heir of Michael Pearson, the 4th Viscount Cowdray. The family runs a media empire and has a net worth of $270 million.Turner’s romance with Pearson was confirmed by photos published Friday that show the two “making out” while on a stroll in London, TMZ said. The Daily Mail called their kissing “passionate,” and shared photos of the two walking, hand-in-hand, and laughing and smiling.The “Game of Thrones&#...

49ers coaches to honor longtime colleague Knapp with stair climb before Seahawks game

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 15:46:00 GMT

SANTA CLARA — Members of the 49ers’ coaching and personnel staffs will participate pregame Sunday in the second annual Greg Knapp Stair Climb Challenge, along with Knapp’s widow, Charlotte. The event raises awareness about the dangers of distracted driving, and it carries on Greg Knapp’s tradition of running stairs before games.Knapp was a 49ers assistant from 1995-2003 as part of a 25-year NFL coaching career, which came to a tragic end in July 2021 when he was struck by a distracted driver while cycling near his Danville home. He was set for his first season as the New York Jets’ quarterbacks coach when he died.General manager John Lynch was among the 49ers’ crew that ran Levi’s Stadium’s steps before last December’s win over the Tampa Bay Bucs. Although Sunday’s event will occur at 9:30 a.m. before fans enter the stadium, others are encouraged to stage their own Knapp Stair Climb Challenge, with proceeds benefitting the Coach Knapp Memorial Fund, a charity focused on ...

Ex-San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo is officially running for U.S Rep. Anna Eshoo’s Congress seat

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 15:46:00 GMT

After weeks of speculation, former San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo is making a run for Congress.When Liccardo filed paperwork to run for U.S. Rep. Anna Eshoo’s open congressional seat last week, he said at the time that he had not made a final decision on whether he’d enter the race. On Friday, though, the ex-mayor made it official.“My experience as mayor, I saw too many missed opportunities for the federal government to play a more significant role in helping local communities tackle our biggest challenges such as homelessness, crime and the rising cost of living,” he told The Mercury News. “I believe I can bring my experience as a local leader to Congress and ensure that the ideas that come from our communities, the world’s most innovative, are brought to bear on these national challenges.”The race for the highly coveted District 16 congressional seat has become a crowded one in the last several weeks since Eshoo, 80, announced last month she won’t ...

Prep roundup: Archbishop Riordan boys, Vallejo girls basketball, Mountain View soccer among Thursday’s winners

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 15:46:00 GMT

Archbishop Riordan 70, San Ramon Valley 59Andrew Younghill scored 20 of his 25 points in the second half as he helped Riordan rally past an early deficit to defeat San Ramon Valley at the Gridley Invitational. Zion Sensley provided 16 points and Jasir Rencher was a threat on the wing and scored 12 for Riordan. San Ramon Valley got 25 points from junior guard Luke Isaak, and senior big Seamus Deely scored 11 points to go along with eight rebounds and seven assists. No. 2 Salesian 80, Gridley 30Salesian steamrolled the home team at the Gridley Invitational on Thursday night, with six different players for the Pride scoring at least eight points. Aaron Claytor led Salesian with 13 points and seven assists, and sophomore shooting guard Elias Obenyah put in 10 points. Alvin Loving IV scored nine, and Zander Jimenez, Deundrae Perteet and Zion Yeargin all scored eight points for 4-0 Salesian. Branson 66, Clayton Valley Charter 42Jase Butler scored 21 points and had five assists as Branson ...

FDA approves first CRISPR gene editing treatment that may cure sickle cell disease

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 15:46:00 GMT

By LAURA UNGAR | AP Science WriterRegulators on Friday approved two new gene therapies for sickle cell disease that doctors hope can cure the painful, inherited blood disorder that afflicts mostly Black people in the U.S.The Food and Drug Administration said the one-time treatments can be used for patients 12 and older with severe forms of the disease. One, made by Vertex Pharmaceuticals and CRISPR Therapeutics, is the first approved therapy based on CRISPR, the gene editing tool that won its inventors the Nobel Prize in 2020. The other is made by Bluebird Bio and works differently.“Sickle cell disease is a rare, debilitating and life-threatening blood disorder with significant unmet need,” the FDA’s Dr. Nicole Verdun said in a statement announcing the approvals. “”We are excited to advance the field especially for individuals whose lives have been severely disrupted by the disease.”Related ArticlesScience | The dirty truth about taking your shoes off at the door Sci...

Palo Alto mail carrier robbed by 2 men; $150,000 reward offered 

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 15:46:00 GMT

(KRON) – A female United States Postal Service mail carrier was robbed by two men in Palo Alto on Wednesday. Palo Alto police’s 24-hour dispatch center received a call from a mail carrier reporting she had been the victim of a strong-arm robbery that had occurred about 10 minutes earlier in the 3400 block of Alma Street around 1:59 p.m. on Dec. 6.  Three USPS workers assaulted and robbed in SF’s Mission District According to the police investigation, the victim was delivering mail when two men approached her. One of the men demanded her postal keys. When she did not comply, the other suspect pushed her to the ground. The suspects then forcibly took the keys and her cell phone and fled on foot.The victim is in her fifties. She sustained moderate injuries: a chipped tooth, facial swelling, and pain in one of her wrists. Paramedics from the Palo Alto Fire Department treated her at the scene.The victim described the suspects as Hispanic men in their thirties. She recalls one...

The Rise and Rollout of AOC's Green New Deal

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 15:46:00 GMT

Ahead of the publication of “The Squad: AOC and the Hope of a Political Revolution,” right-wing media outlets, in a series of reports in Fox News, the New York Post, the Daily Mail, and so on, wildly distorted the book. One of the chapters they mangled most aggressively was on the rise of the Green New Deal. Below is an adapted excerpt from Chapter 8: “It Is A Dream.”Not long after Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez won her shock 2018 primary, Saikat Chakrabarti and Corbin Trent ventured to Washington, D.C., to scope things out. Both had started as volunteers on the first Bernie Sanders campaign, worked their way up the skeleton crew, then left to found what became Justice Democrats, and then threw themselves full time into electing Ocasio-Cortez in her primary campaign against Rep. Joe Crowley. Now they had made it to Washington as AOC’s chief of staff and communications director, and the first question everyone they ran into asked them was the same, a question born of both curiosity and a s...

Encuentran bebés muertos y en descomposición en la unidad de cuidados intensivos de un hospital evacuado en Gaza. Esto es lo que sabemos

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 15:46:00 GMT

Nota del editor: El siguiente reportaje incluye contenido explícito. Se recomienda la discreción del público.(CNN) — La escena en la unidad de cuidados intensivos del hospital Al-Nasr es escalofriante. Los diminutos cuerpos de bebés, varios de ellos aún conectados a los cables y tubos que debían mantenerlos con vida, se descomponen en sus camas de hospital. Junto a ellos, sobre las sábanas, todavía hay biberones de leche y pañales de repuesto.El video del interior del hospital fue grabado el 27 de noviembre por Mohamed Baalousha, reportero en Gaza del medio de comunicación emiratí Al Mashhad. Baalousha compartió con CNN una versión sin difuminar en la que se ven los restos de al menos cuatro bebés.Guerra entre Israel y Hamas en vivo: combates en Gaza, situación de los civiles y másTres de ellos parecen seguir conectados a las máquinas del hospital. Los cuerpos de los bebés parecen haberse oscurecido y estar desintegrándose por la putrefacción, y en algunas de las camas quedan ...