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Wanted: Authorities on the lookout for adorable surfboard-hijacking sea otter menacing Santa Cruz surfers

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 15:42:00 GMT

Surfers, y’otter watch out.A sea otter with a mean streak has been aggressively hijacking surfboards in the Santa Cruz area, authorities warn, and they’re scrambling to capture it before things get ugly.That’s right, a sea otter — the impossibly cute, playful, beagle-sized fur-balls once hunted to near extinction for their luxuriously thick pelts that frolic in the water to the delight of millions of aquarium visitors a year.It turns out these wild animals can be, well, wild. They also have sharp teeth and a bite force said to equal that of a 600-pound black bear, all to gnaw through the tough shells of the crabs and sea urchins they eat.“While there have been no confirmed reports of injury, due to the highly unusual behavior of this otter, kayakers, surfers, and others recreating in the area should not approach the otter or encourage the otter’s interactions,” the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said in a straight-faced statement Wednesday.K...

Just six months into Alameda District Attorney’s tenure, group launches effort to recall Pamela Price

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 15:42:00 GMT

OAKLAND — Just six months after Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price was sworn into office, becoming the first Black woman and justice reformist to hold that role, an effort has been launched to oust her.On Tuesday, a recall committee called “Save Alameda for Everyone (Safe): Recall Pamela Price” filed paperwork with the county’s elections office, signaling its intent to fundraise and collect signatures to recall Price. A principal officer for the committee declined to comment for this story but said the group plans to issue a statement in coming days.Neither Price nor a spokesperson for the Alameda County DA’s Office immediately responded to requests for comment. But Price had to have known the recall effort would come, eventually, given the 2022 successful recall of former San Francisco DA Chesa Boudin, 18 months after he won election on a justice reform platform similar to Price.Price won her election handily in November 2022, beating longti...

Bay Area teenager to be honored at ESPYs for delivering sports equipment to schools

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 15:42:00 GMT

Serra track and field athlete Rishan Patel will receive the Billie Jean King Youth Leadership Award at the annual ESPY’s award show on Wednesday night.But it won’t be because of a blazing time in the 100-meter sprint or hurdles.Patel, a 16-year-old from Atherton, created a nonprofit organization named Alley-Oop Kids that installs lockers with sporting equipment at “under-resourced schools to use for PE and school sports.”From as close as Aspire College Prep in Richmond and Summit Prep in Redwood City, to schools in India, Patel’s organization has helped over 100 schools. “I don’t even know how to put it into words,” Patel told the Bay Area News Group on Wednesday morning. “I think I was shocked and ecstatic, really. That feeling was just crazy, and it’s still lingering today while I wait to go to the show.” Patel said the individual glory is not why he is so thrilled to receive the honor. Patel is one of 13 honorees, whose accomplishments include donating thousands of socks to homel...

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

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 15:42:00 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 Sun, 16 Feb 2025 15:42:00 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 Sun, 16 Feb 2025 15:42:00 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 Sun, 16 Feb 2025 15:42:00 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 Sun, 16 Feb 2025 15:42:00 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 Sun, 16 Feb 2025 15:42:00 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 Sun, 16 Feb 2025 15:42:00 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...