Category: Sacramento

Alfred Lubrano | (TNS) The Philadelphia Inquirer As the presidential campaign slowly progresses, artificial intelligence continues to accelerate at a breathless pace — capable of creating an infinite number of fraudulent images that are hard to detect and easy to believe. Experts warn that by November voters will have witnessed counterfeit photos and videos of candidates enacting one scenario after another, with reality wrecked and the truth nearly unknowable. “This is the first presidential campaign of the AI era,” said Matthew Stamm, a Drexel University electrical and computer engineering professor who leads a team that detects false or manipulated political images. “I believe things are only going to get worse.” Last year, Stamm’s group debunked a political ad for then-presidential candidate Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis ad that appeared on Twitter. It showed former President Donald Trump embracing and kissing Anthony Fauci, long a target of the right for his response to COVID-19. That spot was a “watershed moment” in U.S. politics, said Stamm, director of his school’s Multimedia and Information Security Lab. “Using AI-created media in a misleading manner had never been seen before

Tom Avril | The Philadelphia Inquirer (TNS) A team led by University of Pennsylvania scientists has discovered three genetic variants that offer the first strong clues as to why glaucoma disproportionately affects Black people. The variants are common in people with African ancestry and are associated with a significantly higher risk of developing the sight-robbing disease, the researchers found in their study of more than 11,000 volunteers, including 6,300 from the Philadelphia area. More research is needed to determine if these variants — each consisting of just a single “letter” among the 3 billion pairs of letters that spell out the human genome — play a direct role in causing glaucoma. But if they stand up to scrutiny, the findings someday could be used to develop better treatments and identify people who could benefit from them, said Shefali Setia Verma, one of the lead study authors and an assistant professor at Penn’s Perelman School of Medicine. “The idea is that this can help identify individuals who are at higher risk before any symptoms occur,” she said. Previous studies have found more than 170 other genetic variants

By Bruce Shipowski | Associated Press Thousands of homes and businesses were without power Tuesday as severe weather roared through several states, causing at least one death and spawning possible tornados. Meanwhile, a spring snowstorm was expected to drop more than a foot of snow in Wisconsin. One of the hardest-hit areas was northeastern Oklahoma, where a strong weather system containing heavy rains produced three suspected tornadoes. The storms were also blamed for the death of a 46-year-old homeless woman in Tulsa who died inside a drainage pipe, police said. Tulsa Fire Department spokesperson Andy Little said the woman’s boyfriend told authorities the two had gone to sleep at the entrance of the drainage pipe and were awakened by the flood waters. National Weather Service meteorologist Robert Darby said up to 1.5 inches (3.81 centimeters) of rain fell in Tulsa in about one hour before moving northeastward out of the state. “It wasn’t a whole lot. But when it came down it was pretty rapid,” Darby said. In Ohio, firefighters came to the rescue of two people who were trapped under a bridge early Tuesday

Katheryn Houghton | KFF Health News (TNS) Jason George began noticing in September that Medicaid payments had stalled for some of his assisted living facility residents, people who need help with daily living. Guardian Group Montana, which owns three small facilities in rural Montana, relies on the government health insurance to cover its care of low-income residents. George, who manages the facilities, said residents’ Medicaid delays have lasted from a few weeks to more than six months and that at one point the total amounted to roughly $150,000. George said the company didn’t have enough money to pay its employees. When he called state health and public assistance officials for help, he said, they told him they were swamped processing a high load of Medicaid cases, and that his residents would have to wait their turn. “I’ve mentioned to some of them, ‘Well what do we do if we’re not being paid for four or five months? Do we have to evict the resident?’” he asked. Instead, the company took out bank loans at 8% interest, George said. Montana officials finished their initial checks of

Tuesday, April 2, 2024 7:06PM How cities are preparing for a ‘super bowl’ of travel as fans fly across the country to catch a glimpse of the total solar eclipse. NIAGARA FALLS, Ontario — Ontario’s Niagara Region has declared a state of emergency as it prepares to welcome up to a million visitors for the solar eclipse in early April. The total solar eclipse on April 8 will be the first to touch the province since 1979, and Niagara Falls was declared by National Geographic to be one of the best places to see it. The city is in the path of totality, where the moon will entirely block the sun’s rays for a few minutes. Niagara Falls Mayor Jim Diodati said earlier in March that he expects the most visitors his city has ever seen in a single day. The regional municipality of Niagara is proactively invoking a state of emergency to prepare for the event. The declaration announced Thursday sets in motion some additional planning tools to prepare for the day, which could involve major traffic jams, heavier demands on emergency services and

Major freight railroads will have to maintain two-person crews on most routes under a new federal rule that was finalized Tuesday in a milestone in organized labor’s long fight to preserve the practice. The Transportation Department’s Federal Railroad Administration released the details of the rule Tuesday morning after working on it for two years. Out of more than 13,000 comments on the rule, about 60 opposed it. There has been intense focus on railroad safety since a fiery February 2023 derailment in Ohio, but few significant changes have been made apart from steps the railroads pledged to take themselves and the agreements they made to provide paid sick time to nearly all workers. Such changes include adding hundreds more trackside detectors and tweaking how to respond to alerts from them. A railroad safety bill proposed in response to the derailment has stalled in Congress. Rail unions have long opposed one-person crews because of safety and job concerns. Labor agreements requiring two-person crews have been in place for roughly 30 years at major railroads, although many short-line railroads already operate with one-person crews without problems. The

Tuesday, April 2, 2024 6:55PM ABC7 Eyewitness News Stream Southern California’s News Leader and Original Shows 24/7 ANAHEIM, Calif. — Plans are in the works to replace the gas-powered cars at Disneyland’s popular Autopia attraction as part of the Anaheim resort’s ongoing decarbonization efforts and its goal of net zero emissions, Disney officials said Tuesday. “Since opening with Disneyland park in 1955, Autopia has remained a guest-favorite most popular with young kids experiencing driving for the first time,” Disneyland Resort spokesperson Jessica Good said in statement. “As the industry moves toward alternative fuel sources, we have developed a roadmap to electrify this attraction and are evaluating technology that will enable us to convert from gas engines in the next few years.” Whether the cars will be replaced by electric vehicles or hybrids was not immediately confirmed. Disneyland Resort’s net zero emissions target includes a holistic view of driving energy efficiency, increasing the theme parks’ reliance on renewable energy, and shifting pollution-intensive fossil fuels to cleaner sources of energy where feasible. File image of Autopia in Tomorrowland at Disneyland in Anaheim, CA, on Wednesday, August 10

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On World Autism Day, which is observed April 2, a family is speaking out about their struggle to get a diagnosis. A doctor explains why this can be particularly challenging for young girls.

OpenAI’s latest feature can clone a human voice using just 15 seconds of audio, but the company has decided to delay the rollout of the feature, called Voice Engine, over fears it could result in the spread of misinformation during this critical election year. Bloomberg News reporter Shirin Ghaffary joined CBS News to discuss Voice Engine.

Threats against federal judges have been rising each year since 2019.

Former President Donald Trump will be back on the campaign trail Tuesday for the first time since mid-March as he heads to Michigan and Wisconsin. Primary ballots will be cast in four states on Tuesday, including Wisconsin where Democratic voters are being urged to launch a protest vote against President Biden over his handling of the war in Gaza. CBS News’ Aaron Navarro and Jake Rosen have more.

April 2 is World Autism Day, and experts are trying to raise awareness that autism in young girls is often overlooked. Michael George spoke with a family about their struggle to get a diagnosis.

By Wafaa Shurafa and Samy Magdy, Associated Press DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — An Israeli airstrike killed seven aid workers from World Central Kitchen, leading the charity to suspend delivery Tuesday of vital food aid to Gaza, where Israel’s offensive has pushed hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to the brink of starvation. Ships still laden with some 240 tons of aid that arrived just a day earlier turned back from Gaza, according to Cyprus, which has played a key role in trying to establish a sea route to bring food to territory. Israel has only allowed a trickle of aid into devastated northern Gaza, where experts say famine is imminent. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu acknowledged that the country’s forces had carried out the “unintended strike … on innocent people.” He said officials were looking into the strike and would work to ensure it did not happen again. Footage showed the bodies, several wearing protective gear with the charity’s logo, at a hospital in the central Gaza town of Deir al-Balah. Those killed include three British nationals, an Australian, a Polish national, an American-Canadian

RED BLUFF—The City Council will consider an ordinance on Tuesday that would establish a sale tax measure to generate revenue for city street improvement. If passed, the ordinance would be placed as a special use tax on the November 2024 General Election. In 2014, voters adopted a 0.25 percent local sales tax measure with an automatic sunset of 6 years or until April 1, 2021. In November 2018, voters approved a ballot measure that extended the sunset of the 0.25 percent sales tax for ten years or until March 31, 2031. The ordinance proposes a special use tax of 0.75 percent of 1 percent for 25 years. City staff say Red Bluff and the county are part of the same “pool” for determining permissible local sales taxes. The local limit on sales tax measures is a cumulative total of 2 percent. In Red Bluff, the county is currently using none of the 2 percent, and the city is using 0.25 percent. Any proposed tax rates need to be a multiple of 0.125 percent. If passed by 66.67 percent of the voters, staff anticipated that this

By LEA SKENE (Associated Press) BALTIMORE (AP) — A tugboat pushing a fuel barge was the first vessel to use an alternate channel to bypass the wreckage of Baltimore’s collapsed Francis Scott Key Bridge, which had blocked traffic along the vital port’s main shipping channel. The barge supplying jet fuel to the Department of Defense left late Monday and was destined for Delaware’s Dover Air Force Base, though officials have said the temporary channel is open primarily to vessels that are helping with the cleanup effort. Some barges and tugs that have been stuck in the Port of Baltimore since the collapse are also scheduled to pass through the channel. Officials said they’re working on a second channel on the southwest side of the main channel that will allow for deeper draft vessels, but they didn’t say when that might open. Gov. Wes Moore is set Tuesday to visit one of two centers that the Small Business Administration opened in the area to help companies get loans to assist them with losses caused by the disruption of the bridge collapse. In Annapolis, a hearing is

ISTANBUL (AP) — A fire at an Istanbul nightclub during renovations on Tuesday killed at least 29 people, officials and reports said. Several people, including managers of the club, were detained for questioning. At least one person was being treated at a hospital, the Istanbul governor’s office said in a statement. The Masquerade nightclub, which was closed for renovations, was on the ground and basement floors of a 16-story residential building in the Besiktas district on the European side of the city bisected by the Bosphorus. The fire was extinguished. Gov. Davut Gul told reporters at the scene that the cause of the fire was under investigation and the victims were believed to be involved in the renovation work. Some of the victims died in hospitals where they were rushed in ambulances, private NTV television reported. Authorities detained six people for questioning, including managers of the club and one person in charge of the renovations, Gul’s office said. The nightclub was closed for the holy Muslim month of Ramadan and its owners were trying to complete the renovation work in time for next week’s Eid

Back taxes can be a burden, but there are ways to get help. Here’s what some experts suggest.

Video shows the moment a barefoot man was rescued via helicopter as he clung to a gravel rock face roughly 60 feet down a trail’s cliffside in the Golden Gate National Recreation Area.

Severe storms lash central and eastern U.S.; Powerball jackpot jumps to $1.09 billion.