San Joaquin County sheriff's deputies uncovered a “serious” case of animal neglect Wednesday after they executed a search warrant on several properties in Clements and discovered over two dozen dead horses.

The search warrants were a part of an ongoing investigation into animal neglect and allegedly showed several malnourished horses with limited access to food and water. Deputies also found roughly 27 dead horses on the properties.

Animal Services officers, together with veterinarians who were on the scene, immediately began assessing the condition of the still-living horses, the sheriff's office said.

Animal Services Officers and veterinarians are still evaluating additional horses and animals as a result of the dimensions of the property.

Arrested was Jan Johnson, who was taken into custody on suspicion of animal cruelty, threatening an officer, making criminal threats and possessing a short-barrel shotgun.

According to jail records, Johnson was released the identical day she was arrested.

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SAN FRANCISCO — A former OpenAI researcher known for whistleblowing in regards to the blockbuster artificial intelligence company that faced a barrage of lawsuits over its business model has died, authorities confirmed this week.

Suchir Balaji, 26, was found dead in his Buchanan Street apartment on Nov. 26, San Francisco police and the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner said. Police were called to the Lower Haight residence about 1 p.m. that day after receiving a call requesting officers to inquire about his welfare, a police spokesman said.

The coroner's office determined the way of death was suicide, and police officials said this week there was “no evidence of foul play at this time.”

The information he had was expected to play a key role in lawsuits against the San Francisco-based company.

Balaji's death comes three months after he publicly accused OpenAI of violating U.S. copyright law in its development of ChatGPT, a generative artificial intelligence program that has change into a money-making sensation, utilized by lots of of tens of millions of individuals on the used all around the world.

Its release in late 2022 sparked a flood of lawsuits against OpenAI from authors, computer programmers and journalists who claim the corporate illegally stole their copyrighted material to coach its program and boost its value to over $150 billion.

Mercury News and 7 sister news outlets are amongst several newspapers, including the New York Times, that sued OpenAI last 12 months.

In an interview with the New York Times On October 23, Balaji argued that OpenAI was harming corporations and entrepreneurs whose data was used to coach ChatGPT.

“If you believe what I believe, you just need to leave the company,” he told the outlet, adding that “this is not a sustainable model for the internet ecosystem as a whole.”

Balaji grew up in Cupertino before studying computer science at UC Berkeley. At the time, he believed within the potential advantages that artificial intelligence could offer society, including its ability to cure disease and stop aging, the Times reported. “I thought we could invent a scientist who could help solve these problems,” he told the newspaper.

But in 2022, two years after he joined OpenAI as a researcher, his prospects began to deteriorate. He was particularly concerned about his task to gather data from the Internet for the corporate's GPT-4 program, which analyzed text from nearly your entire Internet to coach its artificial intelligence program, the news outlet reported.

The practice, he told the Times, violates the country's “fair use” laws, which govern how people can use previously published works. He posted at the top of October an evaluation on his personal website argue this point.

No known aspects “seem to support ChatGPT’s fair use of its training data,” Balaji wrote. “That being said, none of the arguments here are inherently specific to ChatGPT, and similar arguments could be made for many generative AI products in a variety of areas.”

Reached by this news agency, Balaji's mother requested privacy as she mourned her son's death.

In a letter filed in federal court on November 18, lawyers for the New York Times named Balaji as someone who had “unique and relevant documents” that will support their case against OpenAI. He was amongst not less than 12 people — a lot of them former or current OpenAI employees — the newspaper named in court filings ahead of the testimony as having material helpful to its case.

Generative artificial intelligence programs analyze huge amounts of information from the Internet and use them to answer user input or to create text, images or videos.

When OpenAI released its ChatGPT program in late 2022, it spurred an industry of corporations looking to write down essays, create art, and create computer code. Many of the world's most precious corporations today are in the sphere of artificial intelligence or produce the pc chips needed to run these programs. OpenAI's own value has almost doubled previously 12 months.

News outlets have argued that OpenAI and Microsoft — which does business with OpenAI and was also sued by The Mercury News — plagiarized and stole its articles, undermining their business models.

“Microsoft and OpenAI are simply taking over the work product of reporters, journalists, editors, copy editors and others who contribute to the work of local newspapers – all without regard to the efforts, let alone the legal rights, of those who create and publish them. “News that local communities rely on,” the newspaper’s lawsuit states.

OpenAI has strongly denied these claims and emphasized that every one of its work stays legal under fair use laws.

“We see tremendous potential for AI tools like ChatGPT to deepen publishers’ relationships with readers and improve the news experience,” the corporate said in filing the lawsuit.

Originally published: December 13, 2024 at 1:12 pm PST

One infant is dead and nine people have been hospitalized Listeria outbreak in ready-to-eat meat and poultry products Four states were affected, including New York and New Jersey.

The baby got here from California, where seven other people were hospitalized Infections related to ready-to-eat meat and poultry products from Yu Shang Foodin response to the Centers for Disease Control.

The CDC said one among those infected within the Golden State was pregnant with twins, each of whom died. But despite the 2 deaths, listeria was only present in one among the twins and their mother.

In Illinois, two people were infected by the outbreak, while New York and New Jersey reported one case each.

A complete of 11 people in those states were confirmed to be infected, but two of them apparently didn’t require treatment. All individuals were of Asian descent and ranged in age from lower than one 12 months to 86 years.

The CDC believes more people have develop into sick than reported and says the outbreak could have reached other states.

The outbreak was discovered in late October after routine testing detected listeria in its products and facilities Yu Shang foodheadquartered in Spartanburg, South Carolina. The affected products were shipped to retail locations nationwide and were available online.

The company has since then recalled greater than 72,000 kilos of ready-to-eat meat and poultry products. The recall was first issued on November ninth but was expanded on Thursday. Food that was produced before October twenty eighth is affected. A complete list of recalled products may be found on the USDA website.

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Originally published: November 23, 2024 at 3:36 pm PST

ANTIOCH – A two-vehicle collision early Sunday morning on eastbound Highway 4, west of the A Street exit in Antioch, left one driver dead and one other with minor injuries.

The California Highway Patrol reported the accident occurred around 5:13 a.m. When officers arrived, they found a gray Honda CR-V and a blue Ford F-150 involved within the collision, blocking lanes three and 4.

Preliminary investigation indicates that the Honda, driven by a person, became obstructed in the suitable lane for unknown reasons. The Ford, also driven by a person, was traveling eastbound when it struck the rear of the disabled Honda, causing it to catch fire and trap the driving force inside.

The driver of the Honda was pronounced dead on the scene, while the driving force of the Ford suffered minor injuries and was taken to hospital. The lanes were reopened later that morning.

Authorities said they didn’t consider alcohol or drugs were accountable for the accident.

Less than nine hours earlier, around 8:25 p.m. Saturday evening, a lady was critically injured after being struck by a vehicle on Lone Tree Way near Canada Valley Road in Antioch. .

Authorities have asked anyone who witnessed the Highway 4 crash or has details about what happened beforehand to contact CHP Contra Costa's Martinez office at 925-646-4980 or email to 320Investigations@chp.ca.gov.

Originally published: October 13, 2024 at 2:18 p.m

One person was killed and not less than 4 others injured when an elevator failed at a tourist attraction gold mine in Colorado.

Officials said a mechanical problem with the mine's elevator system resulted in “a serious danger to participants” around 12 p.m. local time on Thursday Mollie Kathleen Goldmine in Cripple Creek, a town 35 miles west of Colorado Springs.

The Teller County Sheriff's Office said the incident left a tour group and guides trapped several hundred feet underground while employees repaired the elevator.

It stays unclear how the person died, but officials said the mine didn’t collapse. The reason for the accident is being investigated.

It got here around 7:45 p.m Colorado Springs Fire Department announced that 12 individuals who were trapped were all safely returned to the surface.

“I am relieved that 12 of the people trapped in the Mollie Kathleen mine have been safely rescued.” Colorado Governor Jared Polis said in a press release Thursday evening, he added: “Our deepest condolences go out to the family and friends of the person who died in this incident.”

A separate group of 11 people, including two children, had been rescued earlier.

Teller County Sheriff Jason Mikesell said those trapped underground for greater than six hours were in constant contact with people on the surface, were never in peril themselves and had access to water, chairs and blankets. When they got back to the surface they got pizza.

The roughly 1,000-foot-deep mine closed within the Nineteen Sixties, but tours continued to be offered. During the tour, guests and guides wear safety helmets and take the elevator down for roughly two minutes. A brief train ride then results in a quarter-mile hike underground during a gold mining demonstration.

Originally published: October 11, 2024 at 6:37 am

Today is Friday, October 4th, the 278th day of 2024. There are 88 days left within the yr.

Today in history:

On October 4, 1970, rock singer Janis Joplin was found dead in her Hollywood hotel room on the age of 27.

Also on this date:

In 1777, General George Washington's troops launched an attack on the British at Germantown, Pennsylvania, leading to heavy American casualties.

The space age began in 1957 when the Soviet Union launched Sputnik 1, the primary artificial satellite into orbit.

In 1965 Pope Paul VI visited. became the primary pope to go to the Western Hemisphere when he addressed the UN General Assembly.

In 2001, a Russian airliner flying from Israel to Siberia was by chance shot down by a Ukrainian anti-aircraft missile over the Black Sea, killing all 78 people on board.

In 2002, “American Taliban” John Walker Lindh was sentenced to twenty years in prison after sobbing for forgiveness before a federal judge in Alexandria, Virginia. (He was released from prison in May 2019.)

In 2004, the SpaceShipOne rocket plane broke Earth's atmosphere to the sting of space for the second time in five days and won the $10 million Ansari-X Prize, geared toward opening the ultimate frontier to tourists.

Today's birthdays:

• Baseball Hall of Fame manager Tony La Russa turns 80.
• Actress Susan Sarandon is 78.
• Actor Armand Assante is 75.
• Actor Christoph Waltz is 68.
• Singer Jon Secada is 63.
• Actor Liev Schreiber is 57.
• Actor Abraham Benrubi is 55.
• Actress Alicia Silverstone is 48.
• Actress Caitríona Balfe is 45.
• Actress Rachael Leigh Cook is 45.
• Actress Melissa Benoist is 36.
• NBA All-Star Derrick Rose is 36.
• Actress Dakota Johnson is 35.

A Valley Transportation Authority (VTA) worker was arrested near his San Jose home Sunday afternoon for the suspected killing of a VTA bus driver he knew, a Santa Clara County Sheriff's Office spokesman said Sunday evening.

The suspect was identified as Duc Minh Bui, 33, sheriff's spokesman Brooks Jarosz said. Neither the victim's name nor the character of the connection between Bui and the victim were released, although Jarosz said the 2 knew one another.

The shooting occurred around 9:40 p.m. Friday within the parking zone of the VTA's Chaboya Division Yard on South seventh Street in San Jose. A 911 call alerted the San Jose Fire Department to the shooting. Emergency crews arrived on the scene and located the victim had been shot at the least once. He was pronounced dead on the scene, Jarosz said.

A law enforcement source told the Bay Area News Group that they imagine the victim was “targeted.” VTA Executive Director and CEO Carolyn Gonot said Saturday that the shooting appears to be an “isolated incident.”

The shooting occurred greater than three years after a disgruntled VTA mechanic shot and killed nine of his colleagues on the VTA Guadalupe rail depot in San Jose before shooting himself.

The May 2021 mass murder, the deadliest in Bay Area history, sparked discussions about long-term improvements to workplace safety on the agency and increased security measures for workers on the murder scene.

The families of those killed in addition to a former bus driver have filed multiple lawsuits against VTA, the sheriff's office and Allied Universal, a non-public security company hired to guard VTA facilities. He claims his post-traumatic stress disorder was exacerbated by the mass shooting.

Friday's shooting shocked and confused VTA employees, said Raj Singh, president of the Amalgamated Transit Union. Some employees had just gotten off work on the time of the shooting, Singh said, while others learned of the shooting through text messages.

VTA offers psychological support to employees who need it.

In addition, Cindy Chavez, Santa Clara County Councilwoman and chair of the Valley Transportation Authority Board of Directors, said security measures at transportation facilities have been increased following the shooting.

Anyone with information in regards to the shooting is asked to call the Sheriff's Office at 408-808-4500 or contact the Sheriff's Office anonymous tip line at 408-808-4431.

Originally published: September 22, 2024 at 21:00