In 2025, a California teenager named Adam Raine took his life after ChatGPT allegedly coached him on how to do it. The tragic event inspired “Adam’s Law,” which California Governor Gavin Newsom signed into law on Thursday. The law requires AI chatbot companies to adopt safeguards to protect users—especially children—from harmful content and manipulative interactions,
An AI industry watchdog is accusing OpenAI of violating California’s AI safety law multiple times in the past year, including with the release of its latest model, Astra. A new analysis from the Midas Project—a nonprofit that describes itself as a watchdog “working to ensure that AI benefits everybody, not just the companies developing it”—alleges
MAMMOTH LAKES, Calif. — Volunteers carried out a more than 15-hour operation to rescue a man who got off route in the Sierra Nevada and was stranded on a small ledge, the Mono County Sheriff Search and Rescue Team said. A four-person team carried out the rescue last weekend near Mammoth Lakes, California, in a
BIG SUR, Calif. — Fire crews with water-dropping aircraft attacked a small wildfire that prompted new evacuations Thursday along California’s remote Big Sur coast, where a much larger blaze has been burning for nearly three weeks. The Plaskett Fire erupted the previous day in steep terrain in Monterey County near Highway 1. Officials briefly closed
The consultant who once warned that California’s richest poured millions into politics because they had something to gain is now helping billionaires fight a tax on their fortunes. Ned Wigglesworth, who decried the “billionaire boys’ club of politics” as a campaign finance reformer decades ago, is a key strategist behind Building a Better California, the
Silicon Valley made a fortune betting on disruption. Now some of the most recognizable names in venture capital and Big Tech are spending millions to disrupt California’s plan to tax them. Campaign finance records show Palantir cofounder Peter Thiel, crypto billionaire Chris Larsen, Google cofounder Sergey Brin, and longtime venture capitalist John Doerr donated to
