When can you expect your query to trigger an AI-generated summary of the results? “AI Overviews appear for complex queries,” says Mallory De Leon, a Google spokesperson. “You’ll find AI Overviews in your Google Search results when our systems determine that generative AI can be especially helpful–for example, when you want to quickly understand information from a range of sources.” During my initial tests, it felt like the AI Overviews popped up almost at random for queries, and the summaries appeared for simple questions as well as more complicated asks.
According to De Leon, the AI Overview is powered by a customized version of Google’s Gemini model that’s supplemented with aspects of the company’s Search system, like the Knowledge Graph that has billions of general facts.
For some AI Overview answers, the webpage links are immediately visible. For other AI Overviews, you have to click Show more to see where the information is coming from.
Google via Reece Rogers
One of my core hesitations about this feature as it rolls out is the continued potential for AI hallucinations, more commonly known as lies. When you interact with Google’s Gemini chatbot, a disclaimer at the bottom reads: “Gemini may display inaccurate info, including about people, so double-check its responses.” There’s no such disclaimer added to the bottom of the AI Overview, which often simply reads, “Generative AI is experimental.”
When asked why there’s no mention of potential hallucinations for AI Overviews, De Leon emphasizes that Google wants to still offer high-quality search results and mentions that the company did adversarial red-teaming tests to uncover potential weak points for the feature.
“This implementation of generative AI is rooted in Search’s core quality and safety systems, with built-in guardrails to prevent low-quality or harmful information from surfacing,” she says. “AI Overviews are designed to highlight information that can be easily verified by the supporting information that we surface.”
Knowing this, you might still want to click through the webpage links to double-check that the information is actually correct. Though it’s hard to imagine many users, who are often looking for quick answers, will spend extra time reading over the source material for Google’s AI-generated answer.
Liz Reid, Google’s head of Search, recently told my colleague Lauren Goode that AI Overviews are expected to arrive for countries outside of the United States before the end of 2024, so over a billion people will likely soon encounter this new feature. As someone whose job relies on readers actually clicking links and spending time reading the articles, of course I’m apprehensive about this change—and I’m not alone.
Beyond concerns from publishers, it also remains unclear what additional impacts might trickle down to users from Google’s AI Overviews. Yes, OpenAI’s ChatGPT and other AI tools are quite popular in Silicon Valley tech circles, but this feature will likely expose billions of people, who have never used a chatbot before, to AI-generated text. Even though AI Overviews are designed to save you time, they might lead to less trustworthy results.
Google also showed off its new DJ Mode in MusicFX, an AI music generator that lets musicians generate song loops and samples based on prompts. (DJ mode was shown off during the eccentric and delightful performance by musician Mark Rebillet that led into the I/O keynote.)
An Evolution in Search
From its humble beginning as a search-focused company, Google is still the most prominent player in the search industry (despite some very good, slightly more private options). Google’s newest AI updates are a seismic shift for its core product.
New contextual awareness abilities help Google Search deliver more relevant results.
Courtesy of Google
Some new capabilities include AI-organized search, which allows for more tightly presented and readable search results, as well as the ability to get better responses from longer queries and searches with photos.
We also saw AI overviews, which are short summaries that pool information from multiple sources to answer the question you entered in the search box. These summaries appear at the top of the results so you don’t even need to go to a website to get the answers you’re seeking. These overviews are already controversial, with publishers and websites fearing that a Google search that answers questions without the user needing to click any links may spell doom for sites that already have to go to extreme lengths to show up in Google’s search results in the first place. Nonetheless, these newly enhanced AI overviews are rolling out to everyone in the US starting today.
A new feature called Multi-Step Reasoning lets you find several layers of information about a topic when you’re searching for things with some contextual depth. Google used planning a trip as an example, showing how searching in Maps can help find hotels and set transit itineraries. It then went on to suggest restaurants and help with meal planning for the trip. You can deepen the search by looking for specific types of cuisine or vegetarian options. All of this info is presented to you in an organized way.
Advanced visual search in Lens.
Courtesy of Google
Lastly, we saw a quick demo of how users can rely on Google Lens to answer questions about whatever they’re pointing their camera at. (Yes, this sounds similar to what Project Astra does, but these capabilities are being built into Lens in a slightly different way.) The demo showed a woman trying to get a “broken” turntable to work, but Google identified that the record player’s tonearm simply needed adjusting, and it presented her with a few options for video- and text-based instructions on how to do just that. It even properly identified the make and model of the turntable through the camera.
WIRED’s Lauren Goode talked with Google head of search Liz Reid about all the AI updates coming to Google Search, and what it means for the internet as a whole.
Security and Safety
Scam Detection in action.
Photograph: Julian Chokkattu
One of the last noteworthy things we saw in the keynote was a new scam detection feature for Android, which can listen in on your phone calls and detect any language that sounds like something a scammer would use, like asking you to move money into a different account. If it hears you getting duped, it’ll interrupt the call and give you an onscreen prompt suggesting that you hang up. Google says the feature works on the device, so your phone calls don’t go into the cloud for analysis, making the feature more private. (Also check out WIRED’s guide to protecting yourself and your loved ones from AI scam calls.)
Google has also expanded its SynthID watermarking tool meant to distinguish media made with AI. This can help you detect misinformation, deepfakes, or phishing spam. The tool leaves an imperceptible watermark that can’t be seen with the naked eye, but can be detected by software that analyzes the pixel-level data in an image. The new updates have expanded the feature to scan content on the Gemini app, on the web, and in Veo-generated videos. Google says it plans to release SynthID as an open source tool later this summer.
The bodies were recovered south of the city of Ensenada, according to a statement from the state prosecutor’s office. The statement did not confirm the identity of the dead, but said authorities discovered the bodies while searching for the missing men.
Three people who were being questioned in the case have been arrested and charged with kidnapping, the statement said.
The disappearance of Callum Robinson, 33, his brother Jake, 30, and friend Carter Rhoad, 30, triggered a massive search involving local authorities, the FBI and the Mexican marines.
The men were outdoor enthusiasts who crossed from the United States into Mexico last month to explore Baja California’s renowned surf breaks.
Callum Robinson, a high-level lacrosse player, documented the trip on social media, showing himself, and his brother, a doctor, and their friend sipping coffee on the beach, befriending street dogs and relaxing in a hot tub. Rhoad, from Atlanta, founded an online apparel company in San Diego, according to his Facebook profile.
According to a social media post made by the Robinsons’ mother, Debra Robinson, the group was supposed to check into an Airbnb in Rosarito Beach last weekend after camping for several days on a remote stretch of beach south of Ensenada. But they never checked in. The last time their relatives heard from the men was on April 27.
Authorities searched near the town of Santo Tomás, where the men had been camping. They first located their tents and the burned-out remains of the white Chevrolet pickup the men were traveling in. Authorities did not provide information about where exactly they located the bodies.
Baja California’s rugged coastline has long drawn surfers and other tourists from north of the border. But in recent years, the state has contended with some of the highest rates of violence in Mexico. In 2023, authorities recorded 2,116 homicides in the state, many of them connected to the drug trade.
Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador vowed to reduce violence in Mexico. But while homicides have fallen slightly during his six-year term, they continue to hover near record highs.
Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai is confident that Google will find a way to make money selling access to generative AI tools. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella says his company is already doing it.
Both companies reported better-than-expected quarterly sales and profit on Thursday. And the stock prices of both soared on the results, with Alphabet further buoyed by its new plans to buy back more shares and issue its first-ever dividend.
But the near-term fortunes of Microsoft and Google, at least as far as their generative AI efforts are concerned, look different under the hood and in the comments of their executives. How investors, workers, and potential customers perceive the rivals’ dueling efforts could determine which gets the better chunk of the hundreds of billions of dollars in spending expected to flow to such software in the coming years.
In a call with financial analysts on Thursday, Nadella touted that Microsoft now has 1.8 million customers for GitHub Copilot, a generative AI tool that helps engineers write software code. That’s up from 1.3 million customers a quarter ago.
Among Fortune 500 companies, 60 percent are using Copilot for Microsoft Office 365, a virtual assistant that uses generative AI to help workers write emails and documents, and 65 percent are using a Microsoft Azure Cloud service that enables them to access generative AI software from ChatGPT-maker OpenAI. “Azure has become a port of call for pretty much anybody who is doing an AI project,” Nadella said. The $13 billion dollars Microsoft has invested in OpenAI has certainly helped win those clients.
The buzz of interest in AI services helped drive revenue for Microsoft’s biggest unit–cloud services–up by seven percentage points compared to a year ago, and Microsoft’s overall sales rose 17 percent to nearly $62 billion. It also gained cloud market share, Nadella added. The number of $100 million cloud deals that Microsoft landed increased 80 percent during the quarter compared to the same period a year ago and $10-million deals doubled.
Alphabet’s Pichai’s had milestones to boast about too. He told analysts in a separate call that more than 1 million developers are using Google Cloud’s generative AI tools and that 60 percent of generative AI startups backed by investors are Google Cloud customers. Generative AI is also boosting the ad campaigns of Google’s advertising clients.
On Google’s core business of search, Pichai didn’t share revenue figures related to experiments to summarize query results using generative AI. By providing more direct answers to searchers, Google could end up with fewer opportunities to show search ads if people spend less time doing additional, more refined searches. The types of ads Google does show also could have to shift.
While Pichai said the tests show that users exposed to generative AI-powered search are doing more searches, they are also potentially less profitable for Google because the underlying technology to power more advanced searchers is costlier than operating its longstanding systems.
Picahi expressed little concern on either front. “We are very, very confident we can manage the cost of how to serve these queries,” he said. “I am comfortable and confident that we’ll be able to manage the monetization transition here as well. It will play out over time.”
Alphabet’s overall sales rose 15 percent to nearly $81 billion.
It spent about the same about the same amount—-around $12 billion—as Microsoft investing in infrastructure like servers and datacenters last quarter. But the results and comments on Thursday suggest that Microsoft is further along in delivering a payoff.
For now, shareholders are giving both companies leeway. At the close of Thursday, Microsoft shares were up 35 percent over the past year, and Alphabet 51 percent over the past year. They are both at or near all-time highs. But if customers keep flocking to Copilot and the prospects for Gemini and Google search don’t grow more clear, the trendlines soon could diverge.
A tour group of parents, future students and family members learn the history of UNC’s Old Well on the Chapel Hill campus in 2016.
News & Observer file photo
The job opening to become the 13th chancellor of UNC-Chapel Hill will undoubtedly attract high-profile applicants who are eager to take the helm of the nation’s first public university. But there could be risks that keep some candidates away, or at least make them think twice about applying.
That was part of the message delivered Tuesday to members of the search committee by Laurie Wilder, president of Parker Executive Search, which was awarded the contract to lead the search.
Asked by Board of Trustees vice chair and search committee member Malcolm Turner whether she foresees “any particular challenges” impacting the search, Wilder replied that “there are challenges no matter what you do,” including some that apply to searches across the higher education field, and some that will be unique to UNC.
There is currently a “war for talent” in higher education, Wilder said, channeling the term coined by a McKinsey & Co. partner in 1997. That means universities are making concerted efforts to keep “the best of the best” at their institutions and not lose them to other jobs, she said.
“They are increasing compensation. They’re adding years to contracts. The retention bonuses are huge,” Wilder said.
That means money and salary could play a role in the university’s ability to attract candidates for the chancellor’s job — both because the institution where a candidate is currently employed may seek to retain them by offering them more money, and because UNC may not be able to offer as much money as some candidates want.
Previous chancellor’s salary
When former Chancellor Kevin Guskiewicz left UNC in January, his annual base salary was about $684,000. That was up from $620,000 when he entered the role in 2019.
In 2022, Guskiewicz ranked 73rd for total compensation out of 195 public university chancellors and presidents across the country whose pay was included in a database compiled by the Chronicle of Higher Education. The highest paid leader of a single institution, as opposed to an entire university system, listed in the database received more than $2 million in total compensation that year, with a base salary of more than $873,000.
Wilder said compensation in higher education “has been driven at a very, very high level over the last five to six years.” At some universities, she said, lower-level positions, like deans of professional schools, could already be making a higher salary than what Guskiewicz and other previous UNC leaders made as chancellor.
The historical level of compensation for the UNC chancellor, in tandem with the pressures and responsibilities of the job, could make the position more attractive to candidates who already work for the university, Wilder said.
“You all have been in a position where you’ve had a number of leaders that have come [from] within, right?” Wilder said. “So, when you come from within, you tend to take less … than if you’re coming from outside.”
Wilder cautioned committee members not to “fall in love” with candidates who make it clear they want more money than the university can provide them.
“If you love that person all the way to the end, that person’s probably not taking this because of compensation, right?” she said. “And that runs the risk of ruining your search.”
Guskiewicz is now the president of Michigan State University, where his annual base salary is $975,000. With additional forms of compensation, he makes well over $1 million per year in the role.
UNC interim Chancellor Lee Roberts currently makes about $684,000, the same amount Guskiewicz was making when he left the university. Roberts has not said publicly whether he will apply for the chancellorship permanently.
Other potential challenges for search
Beyond salary and compensation, Wilder said that after the COVID-19 pandemic, candidates may be “a little more risk-averse than they have been in the past.”
That means potential candidates, particularly those who are sitting chancellors or presidents at other universities, will have to seriously weigh “the upside” of even applying to the job at UNC. Though the search will be conducted confidentially — with search committee members signing nondisclosure agreements and not revealing candidates’ identities or the details of committee discussions — Wilder said breaches are still possible, which could negatively impact the candidate’s current job.
“The reality of it is, there’s a risk, right? At any moment a breach of confidentiality can occur,” Wilder said. “And so that’s a challenge as we go forward through this.”
Wilder said candidates are likely to have “lots of questions” about the university, given its high profile and national media attention over the past several years. UNC has seen its share of time in the spotlight, for controversies including its handling of students’ return to campus amid the pandemic, the fallout over whether journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones would be offered tenure to teach at the university and the U.S. Supreme Court striking down the university’s race-conscious admissions policy, among other issues.
Wilder also said she thinks “politics plays a large role in the search as we go forward.”
Cristy Page, executive dean of the UNC School of Medicine and chair of the chancellor search committee, told reporters after the committee’s meeting Tuesday that she doesn’t see any of the challenges Wilder presented as “hurdles that we can’t overcome.”
“I feel very confident that we’re going to have a lot of people interested in this very high-visibility position, and that we’re going to find some great candidates to pass forward to the Board of Trustees,” Page said.
The search could also move faster than originally anticipated, with Wilder saying that she anticipated the search being done prior to the end of the year — the timeline by which UNC System President Peter Hans previously said he would like to name the university’s next leader.
“I think that’s the worst case from a timing perspective,” Wilder said, answering a question from Board of Trustees Chair John Preyer about the timeline of the search.
The committee is holding listening sessions with campus stakeholders, including students, faculty, staff and alumni, this month.
An online survey is also available for such stakeholders to give input on the qualities they would like to see in the next chancellor. The committee, along with Parker Executive Search, will use the information collected in the survey to craft a leadership profile for the job.
The committee’s next meeting has not been announced, but Page indicated it would take place sometime after the survey closes on May 10.
Korie Dean covers higher education in the Triangle and North Carolina for The News & Observer. She was previously part of the paper’s service journalism team. She is a graduate of the Hussman School of Journalism and Media at UNC-Chapel Hill and a lifelong North Carolinian.
Austin Pets Alive! is honored and grateful to be considered one of Austin’s favorite
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Laboratory is just such a company.
In early 2023, the company reached out to our Marketing team sharing that APA! was
voted as Search Laboratory’s “charity of the year,” meaning our organization would
become their “pet” nonprofit to support in whatever way made the most sense to us. As
a nonprofit, that’s thrilling! We take pride in holding a high score on Charity Navigator,
with a portion of that score coming from how much of our dollars raised goes directly
back into our programming (74% — above industry standard!) The way our teams utilize
volunteer support and generosity of companies like Search Laboratories is a big part of
ensuring every dollar is spent responsibly.
To kick things off on the right “paw”, Search Laboratory pledged $10,000 worth of their
time and talents to help APA! with our digital marketing goals. They’ve worked closely
with our team members to share industry best practices for social media advertising,
website, content, and online PR, providing both knowledge and donating hours to create
content. Our teams have also worked together to streamline processes allowing us to
track results showcasing how our marketing efforts are directly connected to incoming
donations!
Search Laboratory is a certified B-Corporation which means they’re serious about social
responsibility and taking care of the environment. From employee happiness to giving
back to the community, they believe in doing things right and we’ve witnessed that and
benefited from it, first-hand! This company is part of a community of businesses that
care about making a positive impact, and being a B Corp means they can stand behind
a brand that their team, clients, and partners can be proud of.
At APA!, we often say that we do a lot with a little and in this case, that means that our
little marketing team has been able to fly higher in the past year because of a lot of
support from our friends at Search Laboratory!
A wanted felony suspect has been detained after a police search that partially closed Martin Luther King Boulevard in Sacramento on Friday evening. A perimeter was set up between 14th and 17th avenues on MLK Boulevard, according to the Sacramento Police Department. Residents within the area were asked to shelter in place.Police said the suspect had fled from officers as they were looking for him. A KCRA 3 photographer was at the scene as SWAT arrived. There are no outstanding suspects involved in the search, according to police.
A wanted felony suspect has been detained after a police search that partially closed Martin Luther King Boulevard in Sacramento on Friday evening.
A perimeter was set up between 14th and 17th avenues on MLK Boulevard, according to the Sacramento Police Department. Residents within the area were asked to shelter in place.
Police said the suspect had fled from officers as they were looking for him. A KCRA 3 photographer was at the scene as SWAT arrived.
There are no outstanding suspects involved in the search, according to police.
Homeland Security agents conducted searches of Holmby Hills and Miami mansions owned by Sean “Diddy” Combs on Monday as part of a federal inquiry into sex trafficking allegations involving the hip-hop and liquor mogul, law enforcement sources said.
The 17,000-square-foot mansion where Combs debuted his last album a year ago was flooded with Homeland Security Investigations agents, who served a search warrant and gathered evidence on behalf of an investigation being run by the prosecutors in the Southern District of New York, according to law enforcement officials familiar with the inquiry.
“Earlier today, Homeland Security Investigations New York executed law enforcement actions as part of an ongoing investigation, with assistance from HSI Los Angeles, HSI Miami, and our local law enforcement partners. We will provide further information as it becomes available,” an HSI spokesman said in a statement.
Two of Combs’ sons were seen being detained on the Holmby Hills property as agents searched the mansion in footage captured by FOX11 Los Angeles
Shawn Holley, an attorney for Combs, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
A hip-hop star turned entrepreneur, Combs has become the focus of sexual assault and sex trafficking allegations in the last year. The raid is the latest and most serious threat to his gilded lifestyle.
Four separate plaintiffs have filed civil lawsuits against Combs accusing him of rape, sex trafficking a minor, assault and a litany of other alleged abuses, imperiling his empire and sending shock waves through the music industry.
Combs, 54, amassed his fortune first as a hip-hop producer, artist and founder of Bad Boy Entertainment, the label that launched the career of the late Notorious B.I.G., among others. He’d later added lucrative fashion and liquor companies to his ventures, most notably Sean John and Cîroc vodka.
His former girlfriend Casandra Ventura, the singer known as Cassie, accused him of rape and repeated physical assaults, and said he forced her to have sex with male prostitutes in front of him. Joi Dickerson-Neal accused Combs in a suit of drugging and raping her in 1991, recording the attack and then distributing the footage without her consent.
Liza Gardner filed a third suit in which she claimed Combs and Guy singer Aaron Hall sexually assaulted her. Hall could not be reached for comment.
The most recent suit alleges Combs and former Bad Boy label president Harve Pierre gang-raped and sex-trafficked a 17-year-old girl. Pierre said in a statement the allegations were “disgusting,” “false” and a “desperate attempt for financial gain.”
Following the filing of the fourth suit, Combs wrote on Instagram, “Enough is enough. For the last couple of weeks, I have sat silently and watched people try to assassinate my character, destroy my reputation and my legacy. Sickening allegations have been made against me by individuals looking for a quick payday. Let me be absolutely clear: I did not do any of the awful things being alleged. I will fight for my name, my family and for the truth.”
On Monday, Douglas Wigdor, a lawyer for Cassie Ventura and another, unnamed plaintiff, said in response to reports of a search warrant issued on Combs: “We will always support law enforcement when it seeks to prosecute those that have violated the law. Hopefully, this is the beginning of a process that will hold Mr. Combs responsible for his depraved conduct.”
Aravind Srinivas credits Google CEO Sundar Pichai for giving him the freedom to eat eggs.
Srinivas remembers the moment seven years ago when an interview with Pichai popped up in his YouTube feed. His vegetarian upbringing in India had excluded eggs, as it had for many in the country, but now, in his early twenties, Srinivas wanted to start eating more protein. Here was Pichai, a hero to many aspiring entrepreneurs in India, casually describing his morning: waking up, reading newspapers, drinking tea—and eating an omelet.
Srinivas shared the video with his mother. OK, she said: You can eat eggs.
Pichai’s influence reaches far beyond Srinivas’ diet. He too is CEO of a search company, called Perplexity AI, one of the most hyped-up apps of the generative AI era. Srinivas is still taking cues from Pichai, the leader of the world’s largest search engine, but his admiration is more complicated.
“It’s kind of a rivalry now,” Srinivas says. “It’s awkward.”
Srinivas and Pichai both grew up in Chennai, India, in the south Indian state of Tamil Nadu—though the two were born 22 years apart. By the time Srinivas was working toward his PhD in computer science at UC Berkeley, Pichai had been crowned chief executive of Google.
For his first research internship, Srinivas worked at Google-owned DeepMind in London. Pichai also got a new job that year, becoming CEO of Alphabet as well as Google. Srinivas found the work at DeepMind invigorating, but he was dismayed to find that the flat he had rented sight unseen was a disaster—a “crappy home, with rats,” he says—so he sometimes slept in DeepMind’s offices.
He discovered in the office library a book about the development and evolution of Google, called In the Plex, penned by WIRED editor at large Steven Levy. Srinivas read it over and over, deepening his appreciation of Google and its innovations. “Larry and Sergey became my entrepreneurial heroes,” Srinivas says. (He offered to list In the Plex’s chapters and cite passages from memory; WIRED took his word for it.)
Shortly afterwards, in 2020, Srinivas ended up working at Google’s headquarters in Mountain View, California, as a research intern working on machine learning for computer vision. Slowly, Srinivas was making his way through the Google universe, and putting some of his AI research work to good use.
Then, in 2022, Srinivas and three cofounders—Denis Yarats, Johnny Ho, and Andy Konwinski—teamed up to try and develop a new approach to search using AI. They started out working on algorithms that could translate natural language into the database language SQL, but determined this was too narrow (or nerdy). Instead they pivoted to a product that combined a traditional search index with the relatively new power of large language models. They called it Perplexity.
Perplexity is sometimes described as an “answer” engine rather than a search engine, because of the way it uses AI text generation to summarize results. New searches create conversational “threads” on a particular topic. Type in a query, and Perplexity responds with follow up questions, asking you to refine your ask. It eschews direct links in favor of text-based or visual answers that don’t require you to click away to somewhere else to get information.
A research paper quietly released by Apple describes an AI model called MM1 that can answer questions and analyze images. It’s the biggest sign yet that Apple is developing generative AI capabilities.
The search for a Stockton-area teen who disappeared after jumping into the Calaveras River days earlier continues.The San Joaquin County Sheriff’s Office said it is looking for a 15-year-old boy who jumped into the river following a fight at Stagg High School, where he is a student. The Stockton Unified School District said four teens, all Stagg High School students, with one of them being in independent study, were involved in a fight Wednesday afternoon. Two students, including the missing teen, ran up a levee near the school and jumped into the river, but only his friend came out.On Saturday, a sheriff’s boat did surface checks throughout the day. The crew onboard also used its search and recovery robot, SARBOT, which is an underwater robot camera. The sheriff’s office has used SARBOT for the past few days, as well as law enforcement K-9s and drones, but officials said nothing has come up.The missing teen’s mother, Amanda Martinez, said she has been staying in the area where her son was last seen in the hopes that she, or another loved one, will spot him.“So many mixed emotions. There’s really no — I’m just sad, I’m hopeful. I just want him to know if he is watching, you are not in trouble,” Martinez said. “Just reach out to a friend; reach out to somebody. We just want to give you a big hug and a kiss and welcome you back home.”Martinez said family members and even complete strangers joined the search for her son Saturday.“People are bringing and dropping off canoes with life jackets so we can use them for the day, and hopefully to find my son,” Martinez said. “It means the world to me. I am so greatly appreciative of everybody that’s come, reached out, reposted, just putting out the message for his safe return.”Martinez added that since law enforcement has not been able to find her son yet, she wants as many people to come help with the search effort.“If you’re willing to come out,” Martinez said. “We have kayaks, life jackets. We just need any type of help. Ground searches, knocking on doors — anything is, just anything. I’m holding up as much I can, just wishing for the best outcome.”Michelle Rodriguez, superintendent for the Stockton Unified School District, joined family and friends at the river Saturday. She said her thoughts and prayers are with the 15-year-old boy’s loved ones.“We are really hoping that since he was a strong, young man that he actually was able to get out of the water,” Rodriguez said. “No one saw either way, and so, we’re hoping that we will come forward and reunite with his family and that we’ll be able to put this behind us.”The school district has been providing counseling services since the teen disappeared. Rodriguez said those services will still be available next week during spring break. In the meantime, Rodriguez said the school district’s Department of Public Safety will continue to work with the sheriff’s office in the search for the missing teen. At least two squad cars and a few officers were seen by the river on Saturday.Family members did not want to share the missing teen’s name. But they said he is around 6 feet tall with long hair. He was last seen wearing a black jacket, gray jeans and white and black Jordans. Anyone with any information is asked to call the San Joaquin County Sheriff’s Office or the Stockton Police Department.See more coverage of top California stories here | Download our app.
The San Joaquin County Sheriff’s Office said it is looking for a 15-year-old boy who jumped into the river following a fight at Stagg High School, where he is a student. The Stockton Unified School District said four teens, all Stagg High School students, with one of them being in independent study, were involved in a fight Wednesday afternoon. Two students, including the missing teen, ran up a levee near the school and jumped into the river, but only his friend came out.
On Saturday, a sheriff’s boat did surface checks throughout the day. The crew onboard also used its search and recovery robot, SARBOT, which is an underwater robot camera. The sheriff’s office has used SARBOT for the past few days, as well as law enforcement K-9s and drones, but officials said nothing has come up.
The missing teen’s mother, Amanda Martinez, said she has been staying in the area where her son was last seen in the hopes that she, or another loved one, will spot him.
“So many mixed emotions. There’s really no — I’m just sad, I’m hopeful. I just want him to know if he is watching, you are not in trouble,” Martinez said. “Just reach out to a friend; reach out to somebody. We just want to give you a big hug and a kiss and welcome you back home.”
Martinez said family members and even complete strangers joined the search for her son Saturday.
“People are bringing and dropping off canoes with life jackets so we can use them for the day, and hopefully to find my son,” Martinez said. “It means the world to me. I am so greatly appreciative of everybody that’s come, reached out, reposted, just putting out the message for his safe return.”
Martinez added that since law enforcement has not been able to find her son yet, she wants as many people to come help with the search effort.
“If you’re willing to come out,” Martinez said. “We have kayaks, life jackets. We just need any type of help. Ground searches, knocking on doors — anything is, just anything. I’m holding up as much I can, just wishing for the best outcome.”
Michelle Rodriguez, superintendent for the Stockton Unified School District, joined family and friends at the river Saturday. She said her thoughts and prayers are with the 15-year-old boy’s loved ones.
“We are really hoping that since he was a strong, young man that he actually was able to get out of the water,” Rodriguez said. “No one saw either way, and so, we’re hoping that we will come forward and reunite with his family and that we’ll be able to put this behind us.”
The school district has been providing counseling services since the teen disappeared. Rodriguez said those services will still be available next week during spring break.
In the meantime, Rodriguez said the school district’s Department of Public Safety will continue to work with the sheriff’s office in the search for the missing teen. At least two squad cars and a few officers were seen by the river on Saturday.
Family members did not want to share the missing teen’s name. But they said he is around 6 feet tall with long hair. He was last seen wearing a black jacket, gray jeans and white and black Jordans. Anyone with any information is asked to call the San Joaquin County Sheriff’s Office or the Stockton Police Department.
Google is taking action against algorithmically generated spam. The search engine giant just announced upcoming changes, including a revamped spam policy, designed in part to keep AI clickbait out of its search results.
“It sounds like it’s going to be one of the biggest updates in the history of Google,” says Lily Ray, senior director of SEO at the marketing agency Amsive. “It could change everything.”
In a blog post, Google claims the change will reduce “low-quality, unoriginal content” in search results by 40 percent. It will focus on reducing what the company calls “scaled content abuse,” which is when bad actors flood the internet with massive amounts of articles and blog posts designed to game search engines.
“A good example of it, which has been around for a little while, is the abuse around obituary spam,” says Google’s vice president of search, Pandu Nayak. Obituary spam is an especially grim type of digital piracy, where people attempt to make money by scraping and republishing death notices, sometimes on social platforms like YouTube. Recently, obituary spammers have started using artificial intelligence tools to increase their output, making the issue even worse. Google’s new policy, if enacted effectively, should make it harder for this type of spam to crop up in online searches.
This notably more aggressive approach to combating search spam takes specific aim at “domain squatting,” a practice in which scavengers purchase websites with name recognition to profit off their reputations, often replacing original journalism with AI-generated articles designed to manipulate search engine rankings. This type of behavior predates the AI boom, but with the rise of text-generation tools like ChatGPT, it’s become increasingly easy to churn out endless articles to game Google rankings.
The spike in domain squatting is just one of the issues that have tarnished Google Search’s reputation in recent years. “People can spin up these sites really easily,” says SEO expert Gareth Boyd, who runs the digital marketing firm Forte Analytica. “It’s been a big issue.” (Boyd admits that he has even created similar sites in the past, though he says he doesn’t do it anymore.)
In February, WIRED reported on several AI clickbait networks that used domain squatting as a strategy, including one that took the websites for the defunct indie women’s website The Hairpin and the shuttered Hong Kong-based pro-democracy tabloid Apple Daily and filled them with AI-generated nonsense. Another transformed the website of a small-town Iowa newspaper into a bizarro repository for AI blog posts on retail stocks. According to Google’s new policy, this type of behavior is now explicitly categorized by the company as spam.
In addition to domain squatting, Google’s new policy will also focus on eliminating “reputation abuse,” where otherwise trustworthy websites allow third-party sources to publish janky sponsored content or other digital junk. (Google’s blog post describes “payday loan reviews on a trusted educational website” as an example.) While the other parts of the spam policy will start enforcement immediately, Google is giving 60 days notice prior to cracking down on reputational abuse, to give websites time to fall in line.
Nayak says the company has been working on this specific update since the end of last year. More broadly, the company has been working on ways to fix low-quality content in search, including AI-generated spam, since 2022. “We’ve been aware of the problem,” Nayak says. “It takes time to develop these changes effectively.”
Some SEO experts are cautiously optimistic that these changes could restore Google’s search efficacy. “It’s going to reinstate the way things used to be, hopefully,” says Ray. “But we have to see what happens.”
RINGWOOD, New Jersey (WABC) — A missing hiker at Ringwood State Park in New Jersey was located safely Monday afternoon.
Carol Heimbach, 63, survived an entire day and night lost in the woods along the New York/New Jersey border, going more than 24 hours missing.
Authorities believe Heimbach, from Wayne, New Jersey, entered the park for a hike near Skylands Manor on Sunday around 12:30 p.m.
The New Jersey State Park Police said the woman’s family first reached out to authorities after Heimbach didn’t return home for dinner, which initiated the search.
They say Heimbach’s vehicle was located in Parking Lot B of the state park just before 11 p.m., and a massive multi-agency search and rescue operation, using canines and aviation units, began a few hours later and continued overnight.
Authorities say they started receiving tips regarding the missing hiker around 9 a.m. Monday morning, after the Ringwood Police Department posted information on their Facebook page about the disappearance.
They say a homeowner’s Ring camera footage positively identified Heimbach.
“At 1 p.m. we received probably the most credible tip that we could expect, and it was based off a Ring cam in Scottsburg New York,” said George Fedorczyk of New Jersey State Park Police.
She was located safely around 1:30 p.m. in Sloatsburg, New York, and was then taken to Good Samaritan Hospital in Suffern.
Police say she was in good shape and suffered no apparent injuries but was “disoriented.”
She has since been reunited with family.
Her husband told Eyewitness News he’s grateful to police for keeping up the search.
Police say it’s not yet clear the circumstances that led the woman to go missing.
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ADAMS, Mass. (NEWS10) — Adams Police Department announced they are searching for a woman that has been reported missing. Christina Barnes, 28, was last seen on February 15 around 3 p.m.
Christina Barnes (Adams Police Department)
Police say Barnes was last seen near Melrose Street. She is described as being 5’2″ tall, weighing about 230 pounds with brownish red hair and blue eyes. Barnes reportedly has developmental disabilities.
She was last known to be wearing a black “Punisher” hoodie, white and black tie-dye leggings and work boots. Anyone with information is asked to contact the Adams Police Department at (413)743-1212.
Friends and family of an El Monte woman who went missing during a hike on Mount Baldy during the weekend storm remain hopeful she will be found safe.
Lifei “Ada” Huang, 22, told her friends and family she was going for a hike on the mountain Sunday.
Then the powerful storm rolled in.
Sources tell Eyewitness News that Huang’s hat and camera bag have been found but her whereabouts remain unknown.
Friend Cherry Li and cousin Ally Zhang last heard from Ada Sunday afternoon. They’re still holding on to hope.
“We are doing everything for her,” Zhang said. “We never blamed her for doing this. We don’t think that she wanted this to happen. We’re 100% sure she still is alive.”
In the meantime, with the storm leaving behind snow-covered peaks, plenty of hikers were going up the mountain on Thursday. And most said they were still being careful to take precautions, such as wearing appropriate hiking shoes with spikes, dressing warmly and bringing walking poles.
“I wouldn’t recommend (this to) anyone who’s not not familiar with snow or steep roads,” said hiker Victor Lopez. “Just be careful.”
An attorney for Black Lives Matter-Los Angeles leader Melina Abdullah is demanding that the Los Angeles Police Department return or destroy any privileged attorney-client records officers may have photographed while searching his Hollywood home this week. He is also demanding answers about the reason for the search, which he says was unjustified.
A police spokeswoman said the search is now the subject of an internal affairs investigation.
Dermot Givens, 67, represents Abdullah in a lawsuit in which she accuses the LAPD of badly mishandling a 2020 “swatting” incident, when heavily armed officers in tactical gear surrounded her home based on a false report of an emergency there.
Givens said his first thought when he saw similarly armed LAPD officers swarming his townhome Tuesday was that he was being “swatted” himself.
“I go, ‘Are you all swatting me?’” Givens said in an interview Friday with The Times. “And they said, ‘Who are you?’ And I said, ‘I live here!’”
A squad car outside Givens’ home.
(Dermot Givens)
Givens said armed LAPD officers showed him a warrant that listed his address but not his name, then “ransacked” his home. He said officers left without finding whom and what they told him they were looking for: a much younger Black man and an Apple AirTag they said was pinging in the vicinity of the home, among other items.
What the officers did take, Givens said, were photographs of documents from Abdullah’s case that happened to be on his kitchen table. He was initially escorted outside but walked in on officers photographing the documents, he said.
“I had everything out,” he said of the documents.
By Friday, the matter was before a judge in Los Angeles Superior Court, where Erin Darling — another attorney for Abdullah — filed for an emergency order requiring the LAPD to return or destroy any “attorney work product” they’d taken or captured in the pictures, as well as provide a copy of records supporting the search warrant.
“The LAPD has trampled on [Givens’] attorney work product,” the filing states.
Darling said a judge granted the order, but he had not received any of the materials as of Friday evening. Online court records show that the order was granted.
Capt. Kelly Muniz, a spokeswoman for the LAPD, said in a statement to The Times late Friday that the department could not comment on the incident “since it is an open criminal case as well as an open internal affairs investigation.”
Abdullah said she learned of the matter Friday and found it concerning.
“The first thing [I thought] was, like, ‘Oh, that’s crazy that they swatted the attorney who is suing them on my behalf for swatting me,’” she said. “Along with, ‘Is Dermot OK?’”
Givens said he was fine but shaken, embarrassed and angry — and full of questions.
He said it made no sense that a judge would grant a warrant for police to search his home, even if they did believe that an AirTag — a trackable electronic device that can be attached to luggage or other property — was inside.
“If you’re doing an investigation to find somebody’s stolen property, wouldn’t you go and find out who lives in the house and talk to the person who lives in the house?” he said.
If they were looking for a younger Black man, whom he said they referred to as “Tyler,” why wouldn’t they accept what he told them when they arrived: that he had lived at the home for more than 20 years, alone, and didn’t know “Tyler”?
Givens said the officers refused to give him a full copy of the warrant, providing only the last two pages of the four-page document. Those pages — which were included in Darling’s court filing — said the warrant was to search for firearms and ammunition, any “identity theft and forgery-related materials,” cameras, lock-picking equipment and cellphones and other communication devices.
Givens called the incident “absolutely crazy” — and terrifying.
If he hadn’t seen the officers rolling onto his block in multiple vehicles and walked onto his balcony, would they have busted in on him? They had a battering ram, so breaking into his home if necessary seemed part of their plan, he said. That’s how Black men like him get killed, he said — for making a “furtive movement.”
Givens said the officers “ransacked” his home, leaving it in disarray, with items taken out of closets and left on the floor. He worries what his neighbors think.
“It’s totally f— embarrassing,” he said.
Givens said LAPD officers “ransacked” his home.
(Dermot Givens)
Givens said he has represented many clients suing the police and wonders if the search was a matter of “retaliation and intimidation.”
“I’m not a conspiracy theorist,” he said. “But this is something that was planned.”
He said he is eager to see what Darling’s filing produces — including what was the justification for the warrant.
“Our justice system is supposed to get us to the truth,” he said.
Darling said he was equally interested in that information.
“What did they actually give to the judge for that judge to grant a warrant for a property that is actually the home of Mr. Givens?” Darling said. “In theory, it’s a high standard. They have to have probable cause that a crime has been committed, or that something related to a crime is going to be in someone’s home.”
Abdullah has been swatted — in which someone calls in a false emergency to draw armed police to a location — at least three times.
The first incident occurred in August 2020, after a summer of protests against police brutality that Abdullah helped organize as a leader of Black Lives Matter. According to 911 calls reviewed by The Times, the caller claimed to be holding people hostage at Abdullah’s home to “send a message” that “BLM is a bunch of retards.”
In September 2021, Abdullah filed suit against the LAPD, alleging that its actions during the incident — when she was drawn out of her home at gunpoint — constituted unlawful seizure, false imprisonment, excessive force and assault and negligence, among other violations of her rights.
Swatting is considered highly dangerous for the targets; such incidents have been deadly.
Authorities have been investigating the incidents against Abdullah and said they believe the person responsible had made false calls to other U.S. police departments.
Authorities on Monday suspended their search for possible survivors after a Cozy Mark IV plane crashed into the water near Half Moon Bay Sunday night, shortly after taking off from Half Moon Bay Airport.
Wreckage from the aircraft was found upside down in the water, and a woman’s body was discovered nearby. Authorities are still trying to determine what happened.
The body was spotted by a commercial fishing boat close to the site of the crash Monday morning and taken to the San Mateo County Coroner’s Office. The woman had not been identified as of Monday evening, but she is believed to be associated with the crash, the San Mateo County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement.
The National Transportation Safety Board said its preliminary investigation indicates there were two people on board the plane.
Shortly after noon on Monday, Sgt. Philip Hallworth, a spokesperson for the sheriff’s office, said urgent rescue efforts had been called off because the prospect of survivors was unlikely. The plane went down near Moss Beach, about two miles north of the Half Moon Bay Airport. A large piece of the plane washed up on the beach at Ross Cove.
Along with the sheriff’s office, the Coastside Fire Protection District, California Highway Patrol and U.S. Coast Guard are involved in the investigation.
Witness reports described a plane flying erratically before falling from sight, according to the sheriff’s office.
“We were having dinner out on the patio and we heard this motor engine puttering — like you hear in the movies, when a plane is about to crash,” Melissa Richter, who was visiting the area from Maine, told ABC 7 News. “It was definitely pivoting back and forth, and then it looked like it put on the gas, went a little bit faster, then it went down and the engine cut out.”
It just honestly seems like search engines are getting worse in general. Whether it’s the fact their primary focus is on ads, or maybe it’s the websites they link to just trying to show up, but it just seems like you can never actually find what you want when you search, just someone selling something.
At this point, we have all heard about the learning gaps in math and reading scores these past few years. Unfortunately, stats are even worse in other subjects. In 2022, only 22% of students scored “proficient” or higher on a nationwide civics assessment. And one in three scored below basic understanding of the subject.
I had a conversation with Chris Sinacola, co-editor of Restoring the City on a Hill to break down some solutions. Chris emphasizes the importance of a strong foundation in the two subjects for long-term student success. The book calls for a bottom-up approach and delves into recommendations for state and community leaders to reform U.S. history and civics standards.
Among the book’s recommendations:
Require students to pass the U.S. citizenship test as a criterion for high school graduation.
Develop a curriculum that incorporates the reading of U.S. history in every grade, with a focus on primary source documents such as the Declaration of Independence, U.S. Constitution, and The Federalist Papers.
Increase investment in professional development programs for educators.
Establish an open, inclusive process for parent and community input in the curriculum through panels, surveys, and regional meetings.
Kevin is a forward-thinking media executive with more than 25 years of experience building brands and audiences online, in print, and face to face. He is an acclaimed writer, editor, and commentator covering the intersection of society and technology, especially education technology. You can reach Kevin at KevinHogan@eschoolnews.com
A 54-year-old man was swept into the ocean with a young girl on Saturday afternoon at Half Moon Bay, spurring a search by air and boat crews.
The 5-year-old girl was recovered at Martin’s Beach by San Mateo County Fire personnel and taken to a nearby hospital, but U.S. Coast Guard crews were still searching for the man as of Sunday morning. The Coast Guard said in a statement that it did not have information about the condition of the rescued girl.
The National Weather Service warned this weekend that a broad stretch of the California coast from Point Reyes to Big Sur is at risk of “sneaker waves” that can sweep across beaches without warning, pulling people into the sea and moving logs and other heavy objects that can crush people. It urged everyone to stay out of the ocean and warned that people could be yanked into the water from jetties, rocks and beaches.
The U.S. Coast Guard launched its search on Saturday after receiving a report about the incident at 1:20 p.m., dispatching a 47-foot motor lifeboat and a helicopter to the area, according to the agency. An 87-foot patrol boat was also sent to Half Moon Bay on Saturday night.
