Disinformation about the Los Angeles protests is spreading on social media networks and is being made worse by users turning to AI chatbots like Grok and ChatGPT to perform fact-checking. As residents of the LA area took to the streets in recent days to protest increasingly frequent Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids, conservative posters on social media platforms like X and Facebook flooded their feeds with inaccurate information. In addition to well-worn tactics like repurposing old protest footage or clips from video games and movies, posters have claimed that the protesters are little more than paid agitators being directed by shadowy forces--something for which there is no evidence. In the midst of fast-moving and divisive news stories like the LA protests, and as companies like X and Meta have stepped back from moderating the content on their platforms, users have been turning to AI chatbots for answers--which in many cases have been completely inaccurate. On Monday, the San Francisco Chronicle published images of National Guard troops sleeping on floors.

A cult expert lifted the veil on the "Zizian" fringe group that is linked to the Vermont U.S. Border Patrol agent shooting. The "Zizians" are named for a 34-year-old computer engineer, Jack Amadeus LaSota, who goes by the nickname "Ziz," according to the San Francisco Chronicle. LaSota, who is transgender, goes by female pronouns and created the group of vegan activists, the outlet reported. The group, which began on the West Coast, was launched into the national spotlight after the killing of U.S. Border Patrol Agent David "Chris" Maland in Vermont on Jan. 20. David Maland, a Minnesota native and U.S. Air Force veteran, worked as a Border Patrol agent at the U.S. Customs and Border Protection's Newport Station.

The case of the Zodiac Killer is one of the most widely known unsolved serial killer cases in history. The unidentified killer murdered five known victims and terrorized the state of California. He also communicated extensively with the press and law enforcement. Besides his murders, Zodiac was known for his use of ciphers. The first Zodiac cipher was solved within a week of its publication, while the second cipher was solved by the authors after 51 years, when it was discovered to be a transposition and homophonic substitution cipher with unusual qualities. In this paper, we detail the historical significance of this cipher and the numerous efforts which culminated in its solution.

A California family endured a terrifying ordeal when scammers using artificial intelligence fooled them into believing their son had been in a serious accident. Amy Trapp was working a normal day at Mill Valley school near San Francisco when she received a call from an unknown number and picked up the phone to the sound of a voice that she believed to be her son, according to a report from the San Francisco Chronicle. "It was my son's voice on the phone crying, telling me, 'Mom, mom, I've been in a car accident,'" Trapp told the outlet. The mother said she instantly felt a panic and had visions of her son, who was away at college near California's central coast, lying underneath a car or on the side of the road in a pool of his own blood. Instead, another voice came on the phone and told Trapp he was a police officer and that her son, Will, had injured a pregnant woman in the crash and was taken to jail.

'San Fransicko' author Michael Shellenberger discusses the homeless crisis in California and how to solve it. A federal judge has issued a temporary ban on San Francisco clearing most homeless encampments amid an ongoing lawsuit against the city filed by advocacy groups seeking to stop police sweeps of homeless encampments. Last week, Magistrate Judge Donna M. Ryu in the U.S. District Court in Oakland questioned the tactics used by the city of San Francisco in its homeless encampment cleanups, suggesting that the city is not adhering to its own policies of providing shelter beds to individuals who are being asked to vacate a public area. In her decision, Ryu stated that the city did not offer shelter to homeless individuals before clearing encampments and confiscating their property. The judge also found the city's justification for taking enforcement actions to be "wholly unconvincing," stating that the defendants did not adequately dispute that they cleared people without first providing shelter.

Waymo has officially applied to the California DMV to test autonomous cars without drivers in the state. A source told the San Francisco Chronicle that the company will start trials around its Mountain View headquarters where it's been testing its self-driving Chrysler Pacific minivans, though those had personnel behind the wheel just in case. Eventually, they'll expand no-trial driving to more of the Bay Area, the source said. The California DMV had predicted they'd be ready for automakers to start testing driverless cars on public roads in April, and started accepting applications on the 2nd of the month. The new rules also allow testing vehicles without steering wheels, foot pedals and mirrors.

Police in Tempe, Arizona, are investigating a fatal crash involving an autonomous Uber vehicle, according to a report from ABC15. The report claims Uber's self-driving car was in autonomous mode when it hit 49-year-old Elaine Herzberg Sunday night around 10 PM. She was walking her bicycle in the street outside designated crosswalks, and later died from her injuries at a local hospital. The vehicle was in autonomous mode, but there was a human operator in the driver's seat, 44-year-old Rafael Vasquez. Police have determined that neither the driver nor the victim were impaired, and the weather was clear.