EXCLUSIVE: As romance scams are on the rise, a bipartisan group of lawmakers is introducing new legislation aimed at holding accountable those who seek to defraud retirees and steal their hard-earned savings. U.S. Sens. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., and John Hickenlooper, D-Colo., and Rep. David Valadao, R-Calif., introduced the Romance Scam Prevention Act, which would require dating apps and services to issue fraud ban notifications to users who have interacted with a person removed from the app. The move came as Americans are more than ever connected thanks to social media and dating apps that allow us to stay in touch with old friends all over the world and to develop new relationships online. As Americans increasingly go online in search of relationships, scammers are following suit. According to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), in 2022 almost 70,000 people reported being victims of a romance scam.

With full autonomy, operating costs would decline by about 45 percent, saving the US for-hire trucking industry between $85 billion and $125 billion. Just recently, it was reported that a driverless truck made a cross-country trip, running 40,000 pounds of butter from Tulare, California to Quakertown, Pennsylvania. The 2,800-mile-trip took three days. Of course, the truck did not travel entirely on its own -- a technician rode on board to keep an eye on things. But are we ready to have huge, autonomous tractor-trailers thundering down the interstates?

An autonomou truck from startup Plus.ai took three days to drive 2,800 miles, from Tulare, CA, to Quakertown, PA, to deliver 40,000 pounds of butter for Land O'Lakes. Startup Plus.ai has completed what is being called the first commercial freight cross-country trip by an autonomous truck, a 2,800-mile-run from Tulare, CA, to Quakertown, PA, that took three days to deliver 40,000 pounds of butter for Land O'Lakes. A human safety driver was aboard the autonomous 18-wheeler to take over if needed, accompanied by a safety engineer. The company said the trip was a smooth one with zero "disengagements," which occur when a self-driving system has to be suspended because of a problem. Ten to 15 companies in the U.S. are working on autonomous freight delivery, said Dan Ives of Wedbush Securities, who believes the trucking industry will be the first to adopt autonomous technology on a mass scale.

California-based startup Plus.ai claims to have completed a cross-country trip with a prototype autonomous truck. While a human backup driver and a safety engineer were onboard for the entire 2,800-mile trip, Plus.ai claims the truck was in autonomous mode most of the time. This wasn't just a test run, either: the truck hauled a refrigerated trailer loaded with cargo for Land O'Lakes. Perishable cargo gave Plus.ai an added incentive to ensure its tech worked. The company couldn't simply abort the trip, and a human driver taking over would have been a public relations nightmare.

A self-driving truck has completed the first cross-country commercial freight run. Plus.ai, announced its truck traveled 2,800 miles autonomously from California to Pennsylvania hauling a fully-loaded refrigerated trailer of perishable cargo. The vehicle is fitted with advanced autonomous driving system that utilizes multimodal sensor fusion, deep learning visual algorithms and simultaneous location and mapping (SLAM) technologies. The truck drove in autonomous mode across interstate 17 and interstate 70, while traveling through different terrains and weather conditions. Although a safety driver and engineer were on-board, this journey, according to Plus.ai, validates'the system's ability to safely handle a wide range of weather and road conditions.'