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Canadian province sues OpenAI over alleged ChatGPT-linked shooting warnings

Al Jazeera

The Canadian province of British Columbia is preparing to sue OpenAI, alleging the US company failed to alert police after its staff internally flagged violent ChatGPT conversations linked to the person responsible for February's Tumbler Ridge mass shooting . Attorney General Niki Sharma announced Tuesday that the province has hired legal teams in British Columbia and California to "explore all legal avenues to hold OpenAI and its decision-makers accountable for its documented failure to notify law enforcement regarding explicit, flagged threats made by the perpetrator on the company's ChatGPT platform." The move stems from the February 10 attack in the remote mountain community of Tumbler Ridge, where authorities say 18-year-old Jesse Van Rootselaar killed their mother and half-brother before going to the Tumbler Ridge Secondary School and opening fire. Five children between the ages of 11 and 13 and one educator were killed at the school. Twenty-seven other people were wounded before Van Rootselaar died from what police described as a self-inflicted gunshot wound.


Truckloads of Tesla Batteries Keep Getting Stolen Before They Even Leave the Factory

WIRED

Nine major suspected cargo thefts happened at Tesla's Nevada battery factory in January alone, according to sheriff's records obtained by WIRED. Trailers containing millions of dollars worth of Tesla car and home batteries have allegedly been stolen straight from loading docks at the company's Nevada facilities at least 11 times since last December, according to sheriff's records obtained by WIRED. "It's an epidemic right now," says Storey County Sheriff's Detective Sam Hatley, who has been investigating the Tesla cases. Three men suspected of carrying out one of the heists were arrested in January and charged with felony possession of stolen property. But the broader spate of cargo thefts plaguing Elon Musk's car company are still under investigation and have not been previously reported.


Drug Sites Hijacked Spotify's Search Ranking Through Fake Podcasts

WIRED

A joint congressional report describes a spam operation that turned tens of thousands of fake podcasts into search-engine bait for illegal pharmacy and scam sites. For the past year, Spotify has been quietly purging tens of thousands of podcasts that advertised illegal online pharmacies. A report released Thursday by Senator Maggie Hassan, ranking member of the Joint Economic Committee, faults the company for acting only after news outlets exposed the content and her office spent nearly a year pressing for answers. None of what it removed was sent to law enforcement, the report says. Spotify reportedly removed more than 57,000 podcast episodes and 3,000 shows, and took enforcement action against 3,500 accounts, all pushing links to illegal online pharmacies advertising opioids, benzodiazepines, and stimulants for sale without a prescription.


Families sue OpenAI, alleging chatbot aided in Canadian school shooting

Al Jazeera

The families of victims of a school shooting in a remote Canadian Rockies town are suing artificial intelligence company OpenAI in a United States federal court, alleging that the ChatGPT maker failed to alert police to the shooter's alarming interactions with the chatbot. A lawsuit filed on Wednesday on behalf of 12-year-old Maya Gebala, who was critically injured in the February shooting, is among the first of more than two dozen cases from families in Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia, in what their lawyers say represents "an entire community stepping forward to hold OpenAI accountable". The cases represent the families of the five slain children targeted in the school shooting. Those include Zoey Benoit, Abel Mwansa Jr, Ticaria "Tiki" Lampert, Kylie Smith, all 12, and Ezekiel Schofield, 13, as well as education assistant Shannda Aviugana-Durand. Jesse Van Rootselaar, whose interactions with ChatGPT are at the centre of the lawsuits, shot her mother and stepbrother at home before killing an educational assistant and five students aged 12 to 13 at her former school on February 10, according to police.


OpenAI's Sam Altman apologises over failure to report Canadian mass shooter

Al Jazeera

OpenAI's Sam Altman apologises over failure to report Canadian mass shooter OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has apologised over his company's failure to warn authorities about the concerning online activities of a teen who went on to commit one of Canada's worst mass shooting s. Jesse Van Rootselaar, 18, went on a shooting spree in Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia, on February 10, killing eight people. Rootselaar, who was born male but identified as female, died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. OpenAI said after the attacks that Rootselaar's ChatGPT account had been flagged internally the previous June for misuse "in furtherance of violent activities", resulting in its suspension. The San Francisco-based AI company said at the time that it had not informed authorities, as Rootselaar's usage of the chatbot had not met the threshold of posing a credible or imminent threat of harm to others.


Florida AG opens criminal investigation into OpenAI and ChatGPT

Engadget

ChatGPT has been connected to at least two mass shootings in the last year. Florida Attorney General James Ulthmeier has announced that the state's Office of Statewide Prosecution has opened a criminal investigation into OpenAI and ChatGPT. The investigation was opened because the suspect in a mass shooting at Florida State University in 2025 reportedly used ChatGPT in the lead up to the shooting. Per Uthmeier, Florida law states that anyone who aids, abets, or counsels someone in the commission of a crime, and that crime is committed or attempted, may be considered a principal to the crime. That means that the responses provided by ChatGPT to the shooter could be interpreted as the AI assistant aiding and abetting his actions.


Jeffrey Epstein's Ties to CBP Agents Sparked a DOJ Probe

WIRED

Documents say customs officers in the US Virgin Islands had friendly relationships with Epstein years after his 2008 conviction, showing how the infamous sex offender tried to cultivate allies. United States prosecutors and federal law enforcement spent over a year examining ties between Jeffrey Epstein and Customs and Border Protection officers stationed in the US Virgin Islands (USVI), according to documents recently released by the Department of Justice. As The Guardian and New York Times have reported, emails, text messages, and investigative records show that Epstein cultivated friendships with several officers, entertaining them on his island and offering to take them for whale-watching trips in his helicopter. He even brought one cannolis for Christmas Eve. In turn, Epstein would bring certain officers his complaints about his treatment at the hands of other CBP and federal agents.


How to Organize Safely in the Age of Surveillance

WIRED

From threat modeling to encrypted collaboration apps, we've collected experts' tips and tools for safely and effectively building a group--even while being targeted and tracked by the powerful. Rarely in modern US history have so many Americans opposed the actions of the federal government with so little hope for a top-down political solution. That's left millions of people seeking a bottom-up approach to resistance: grassroots organizing. Yet as Americans assemble their own movements to protect and support immigrants, push back against the Department of Homeland Security's dangerous incursions into cities, and protest for civil rights and policy changes, they face a federal government that possesses vast surveillance powers and sweeping cooperation from the Silicon Valley companies that hold Americans' data. That means political, social, and economic organizing presents a risky dilemma. How do you bring people of all ages, backgrounds, and technical abilities into a mass movement without exposing them to monitoring and targeting by a government--and in particular Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection, agencies with paramilitary ambitions, a tendency to break the law, and more funding than some countries' militaries. Organizing safely in an age of surveillance increasingly requires not only technical security know-how, but also a tricky balance between secrecy and openness, says Eva Galperin, the director of cybersecurity at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a nonprofit focused on digital civil liberties.


Robot Dogs Are on Going on Patrol at the 2026 World Cup in Mexico

WIRED

The Mexican city of Guadalupe, which will host portions of the 2026 World Cup, recently showed off four new robot dogs that will help provide security during matches at BBVA Stadium. The K9-X "robodogs" will help officers patrol during the 2026 World Cup this summer. Authorities in Mexico's Guadalupe, Nuevo León, this week unveiled four robot dogs that will be part of the security devices at BBVA Stadium, one of the three Mexican venues of the 2026 World Cup . The robot dogs are not armed, but each unit incorporates video cameras, night vision, and communication systems that are used to issue warnings or instructions. Its function is to deter illegal activity, detect unusual behavior, identify suspicious objects, control crowds, and immediately alert law enforcement when the system deems necessary. Robot dogs operate semi-autonomously: They do not make decisions or execute movements on their own.


Social Security Workers Are Being Told to Hand Over Appointment Details to ICE

WIRED

The recent request goes against decades of precedent and puts noncitizens at further risk of immigration enforcement actions. Workers at the Social Security Administration have been told to share information about in-person appointments with agents of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, WIRED has learned. "If ICE comes in and asks if someone has an upcoming appointment, we will let them know the date and time," an employee with direct knowledge of the directive says. They spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation. While the majority of appointments with SSA take place over the phone, some appointments still happen in person.