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Tag: California

First independently developed jet breaks the sound barrier over the California desert

A sleek white aircraft became the first independently developed jet to break the sound barrier Tuesday, tearing through the air tens of thousands of feet above the Mojave Desert and a crowd of delighted onlookers.

The XB-1 aircraft accelerated to Mach 1.05 within about 11 minutes of taking off, according to Boom Supersonic and live video of the test flight.

The flight at the Mojave Air & Space Port in Mojave, California, took place as the company works to revive supersonic passenger travel, which died with the grounding of the Anglo-French Concorde more than two decades ago.

Boom plans to focus next on the Overture airliner, which it says will carry as many as 80 passengers while moving at about twice the speed of today’s subsonic airliners.

“XB-1’s supersonic flight demonstrates that the technology for passenger supersonic flight has arrived,” Boom founder and CEO Blake Scholl said in a statement. “A small band of talented and dedicated engineers has accomplished what previously took governments and billions of dollars.”

The aircraft, which flew for the first time in March, is made almost completely from lightweight carbon fiber. It uses an augmented reality vision system to help with landing, since its long nose and high-angle approach can make it difficult for pilots to see.

“The future of aviation is here and now,” Amy Marino Spowart, president and CEO of the National Aeronautic Association, said in a statement. “Not only is there hope for faster and better commercial flight, but Boom proves that it can be done sustainably.”

Boom is one of several companies with an eye on supersonic passenger travel. Any new such service will likely face the same hurdles as the Concorde, which flew over the Atlantic and was barred from many overland routes because of the sonic booms it caused.

Sonic booms are heard on the ground when airplanes fly faster than the speed of sound — typically about 760 mph (1,223 kph) near sea level but varying depending on temperature, altitude and other conditions, according to the Congressional Research Service.

As a supersonic plane speeds through the air, it pushes molecules aside with great force, forming a shock wave “much like a boat creates a wake in water,” according to NASA.

Tuesday’s flight happened in the same airspace where in 1947 Charles “Chuck” Yeager became the first person to break the sound barrier, piloting an orange, bullet-shaped Bell X-1 rocket plane.

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January 29, 2025
Environmental groups sue over California support for polluting biofuels

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Several environmental groups are suing California air regulators over their recent update of a contentious climate program, saying they failed to address the pollution impacts of biofuels.

The lawsuits target the low-carbon fuel standard, which requires California to reduce the environmental impact of transportation fuels by incentivizing producers to cut emissions. The California Air Resources Board voted last month to increase the state’s emission reduction targets, fund charging infrastructure for zero-emission vehicles, and phase out incentives for capturing methane emissions from dairy farms to turn into fuel.

California, which often leads the nation on climate policy, plans to achieve so-called carbon neutrality by 2045, meaning the state will remove as many carbon emissions from the atmosphere as it emits. The state has passed policies in recent years to phase out the sale of new fossil-fuel powered cars, trucks, trains and lawn mowers.

One of the lawsuits filed this week, by the nonprofit Communities for a Better Environment, accuses the board of failing to thoroughly analyze the climate impacts of burning biofuels derived from plants and animal waste. Another, filed by Food and Water Watch, Central Valley Defenders of Clean Air and Water, and the Animal Legal Defense Fund, focuses on the impact of pollution often impacting low-income and Latino communities from the capture of methane from cow manure to turn into fuel.

“People who live near refineries in California are harmed by the spiraling expansion of polluting biofuels,” but CARB failed to analyze the resulting harm to these communities, said a statement by Katherine Ramos, a program director at Communities for a Better Environment.

Environmentalists say the LCFS program has stimulated the production of polluting biofuels, competing with food production and contributing to deforestation. They want California to focus more on expanding the charging infrastructure for electric vehicles.

The agency declined to comment on the lawsuits but said the program plays an important role in combating climate change and improving air quality.

“The amendments channel global, national and local private sector investment towards increasing cleaner fuel and transportation options for consumers, accelerating the deployment of zero-emission infrastructure, and keeping the state on track to meet legislatively mandated air quality and climate targets,” Dave Clegern, a spokesperson for the board, said in an email.

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Austin is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues. Follow Austin on Twitter: @ sophieadanna

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December 19, 2024
California to consider requiring mental health warnings on social media sites

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — California, home to some of the largest technology companies in the world, would be the first U.S. state to require mental health warning labels on social media sites if lawmakers pass a bill introduced Monday.

The legislation sponsored by state Attorney General Rob Bonta is necessary to bolster safety for children online, supporters say, but industry officials vow to fight the measure and others like it under the First Amendment. Warning labels for social media gained swift bipartisan support from dozens of attorneys general, including Bonta, after U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy called on Congress to establish the requirements earlier this year, saying social media is a contributing factor in the mental health crisis among young people.

“These companies know the harmful impact their products can have on our children, and they refuse to take meaningful steps to make them safer,” Bonta said at a news conference Monday. “Time is up. It’s time we stepped in and demanded change.”

State officials haven’t provided details on the bill, but Bonta said the warning labels could pop up once weekly.

Up to 95% of youth ages 13 to 17 say they use a social media platform, and more than a third say that they use social media “almost constantly,” according to 2022 data from the Pew Research Center. Parents’ concerns prompted Australia to pass the world’s first law banning social media for children under 16 in November.

“The promise of social media, although real, has turned into a situation where they’re turning our children’s attention into a commodity,” Assemblymember Rebecca Bauer-Kahan, who authored the California bill, said Monday. “The attention economy is using our children and their well-being to make money for these California companies.”

Lawmakers instead should focus on online safety education and mental health resources, not warning label bills that are “constitutionally unsound,” said Todd O’Boyle, a vice president of the tech industry policy group Chamber of Progress.

“We strongly suspect that the courts will set them aside as compelled speech,” O’Boyle told The Associated Press.

Victoria Hinks’ 16-year-old daughter, Alexandra, died by suicide four months ago after being “led down dark rabbit holes” on social media that glamorized eating disorders and self-harm. Hinks said the labels would help protect children from companies that turn a blind eye to the harm caused to children’s mental health when they become addicted to social media platforms.

“There’s not a bone in my body that doubts social media played a role in leading her to that final, irreversible decision,” Hinks said. “This could be your story.”

Common Sense Media, a sponsor of the bill, said it plans to lobby for similar proposals in other states.

California in the past decade has positioned itself as a leader in regulating and fighting the tech industry to bolster online safety for children.

The state was the first in 2022 to bar online platforms from using users’ personal information in ways that could harm children. It was one of the states that sued Meta in 2023 and TikTok in October for deliberately designing addictive features that keep kids hooked on their platforms.

Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, also signed several bills in September to help curb the effects of social media on children, including one to prohibit social media platforms from knowingly providing addictive feeds to children without parental consent and one to limit or ban students from using smartphones on school campus.

Federal lawmakers have held hearings on child online safety and legislation is in the works to force companies to take reasonable steps to prevent harm. The legislation has the support of X owner Elon Musk and the President-elect’s son, Donald Trump Jr. Still, the last federal law aimed at protecting children online was enacted in 1998, six years before Facebook’s founding.

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December 9, 2024
Royal expert slams Harry and Meghan for using their titles to earn ‘huge amounts of money’ – as bombshell German documentary exposes couple’s ‘elitist’ California lifestyle

Harry and Meghan suffered a new blow tonight after a German documentary accused the couple of hypocrisy while enjoying an ‘elitist’ lifestyle in the United States.

The programme entitled ‘Harry: The Lost Prince’ includes damning criticism of the couple’s attempts to build a new life for themselves as charity activists and campaigners since leaving the Royal family.

MailOnline was given a preview of the documentary before it was screened to an audience of millions in Germany tonight.

The programme takes a dig at the couple by detailing how their much-publicised visits to poverty-stricken countries such as Nigeria and Colombia sits uneasily with Meghan’s love of expensive designer clothes.

One stinging voice in the documentary is former soldier Ben McBean, who lost his left arm and had his right leg amputated above the knee after being seriously injured by a landmine blast in Afghanistan in 2008.

McBean who shared a flight home from Afghanistan with Harry did not hold back in criticising the prince over his revelations about his family in his bombshell memoir Spare and in his Netflix show.

The veteran soldier says: ‘I just thought, with him kind of whinging about his family and he was saying something about his brother pushing him over or something like that, I was just like, “Mate, just leave it out”.

‘You and your brother had a little fisticuffs…but family’s family, you know.

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle suffered a new blow tonight after a German documentary accused the couple of hypocrisy while enjoying an ‘elitist’ lifestyle in the United States

The bombshell documentary that will be screened in Germany runs a fine-toothed comb through Harry and Meghan’s work with their charity Archewell Foundation

The film is titled ‘Harry: The Lost Prince’ and includes expert commentary on the allegations the Duke of Sussex made against his family in his book Spare

‘If one of my friends fell out with his partner and started posting things on social media and saying my ex is this and that, I’d have told him to shut up as well.’

The German documentary also points the finger at Harry and Meghan for inevitably trading off their former Royal roles by seeking to make money to support their lifestyle.

It even pours scorn on them for ‘failing’ to mix with wealthy neighbours in the celebrity enclave of Montecito of California, where they have made their home with children Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet.

But Harry and Meghan may be most uncomfortable with the documentary reminding viewers that they had admitted spending just one hour a week working for their charity Archewell.

In another, the programme highlights how donations to Archewell dropped from $13million in 2021 to just $2million dollars in 2022.

The couple did face harsh criticism over ‘Megxit’ in some sections of the media in Germany when they announced their decision to step back as ‘senior members’ of the British Royal family in January 2020.

Their reputations soared, however, in Germany in September last year when they attended the Invictus games, featuring competing injured servicemen and women, in Dusseldorf.

But the new documentary – the first TV analysis of the couple in Germany since ‘Megxit’ – even questions the cost of the Dusseldorf games by pointing out that they were funded by a €40million donation from Germany’s Ministry of Defence.

The documentary will no doubt leave the couple unimpressed as it extensively quotes British Royal reporters and experts, talking about the gulf between their supposedly noble work and their luxury lifestyle.

The programme takes a dig at the couple by detailing how their much-publicised visits to poverty-stricken countries such as Nigeria and Colombia sits uneasily with Meghan’s love of expensive designer clothes. This picture was taken during the couple’s visit to Bogota in August this year

The new documentary – the first TV analysis of the couple in Germany since ‘Megxit’ – even questions the cost of the Invictus Games that were held in Dusseldorf by pointing out that they were funded by a €40million donation from Germany’s Ministry of Defence

The film will no doubt leave the couple unimpressed as it extensively quotes British Royal reporters and experts, talking about the gulf between their supposedly noble work and their luxury lifestyle

One reporter Russel Myers says on the show: ‘If you’re going to places like Nigeria, like Colombia, which have huge socio-economic problems, some of the world’s poorest communities in these countries, and you’re turning up wearing tens of thousands of pounds worth of designer clothes – it really doesn’t send the right message.’

Jack Royston from the podcast The Royal Report also picked up on the couple’s desire to be ‘half in and half out’ of the Royal family which was dismissed by the late Queen.

He says: ‘If you have a situation where Harry and Meghan are earning huge amounts of money in Hollywood trading off their reputations, but then they’re also bolstering their reputations by working for the Queen – they’re able to present themselves on the world stage as being these working members of the royal family who are also available for a price.

‘That is a huge compromise to demand off the monarchy. If they were to be perceived to be promoting their commercial projects while representing the Queen, then that’s also… starting to border on corruption there because they should never be using the monarchy as a platform.’

Royston adds: ‘The particular way in which Harry and Meghan crashed out of the Royal Family, firing hand grenades at Harry’s relatives, caused their reputation to be significantly damaged.

‘And that has had a major impact on their capacity to make the world a better place because a lot of people just aren’t listening to them at all!’

Royston also points out the huge cost of the Invictus games with the massive contribution by the German taxpayer and the expectation that public funds in the UK will have to support the games which are booked to be held in Birmingham in 2027.

Describing it as ‘a huge amount of money and obviously falling on the taxpayer’, he said: ‘It’s going to be a big issue at the 2027 games which is in Birmingham, as Birmingham recently was driven to the verge of bankruptcy.’

Experts have also called Harry and Meghan out for profiting off their royal reputation in the documentary. Pictured here is a grab from Harry: The Lost Prince

Royston also refers to Harry and Meghan as now being ‘part of an elite in America’, leading lives which separate them even further from the Royal family.

Richard Mineards, one of the couple’s neighbours in Montecito, also appears, talking about the exclusive lifestyle that the couple enjoy in the area.

He says: ‘It doesn’t come cheap. I mean…most houses are about eight or nine million dollars.’

But he added: ‘I personally don’t think that Meghan is an asset to our community… She doesn’t really go out or get involved with the community.

‘Harry has to a certain extent, because he’s quite jolly…but Meghan doesn’t seem to get seen anywhere…. And you don’t see him either.’

The documentary also features Royal biographer Angela Levin, talking about Harry’s dissatisfaction at ‘Megxit’, saying, ‘he didn’t get exactly what he wanted – that he could be half in the royal family and half out.’

She explains in the programme: ‘But the late Queen who died said that actually doesn’t work and I don’t want you to use your position within the royal family to make money.’

German journalist Dr Ulrike Grunewald, who directed the documentary, says: ‘What surprised me most was how ineffectively Harry and Meghan’s foundation is organised.

Harry and Meghan attended the 2023 Invictus Games – a paralympic tournament for wounded and injured veterans – that were held in Dusseldorf, Germany

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex pictured at the sitting volleyball final during day six of the Invictus Games in Dusseldorf on September 15, 2023

‘The amount of donations has fallen drastically in one year: from $13million in 2021 to $2million in 2022. According to their own documents, Harry and Meghan only work one hour a week for the Archewell Foundation.’

Dai Davies, a former Head of Royal Protection and a Divisional Commander in the Metropolitan Police, also criticises Harry, accusing him of making others a target by detailing in his book how many Taliban fighters he had killed in his Apache helicopter.

Davies says: ‘In his book, Spare, for him to disclose, as he did, that he had killed a number of Taliban was, in my opinion, totally unwise, because I was aware, as indeed he was, that the Taliban and various groups had put a price on his head.

‘And really, I think that price still remains, which could form a basis for him saying, well, I need security.

‘If you open your big mouth, as he has collectively, that book, not just on that, but given away all kinds of secrets, then it’s not surprising that some people might regard you as a potential target.’

Davies also accuses Harry of failing to mix much with ordinary people on what he describes as their ‘carefully orchestrated’ international trips.

He says: ‘In Colombia, although there are very rich people there, the vast majority, 85 per cent or 90 per cent, are very poor.

‘And what I’ve noticed of these tours, he mixes with the upper classes. He doesn’t really, apart from carefree orchestrated areas where he mixes with so-called the ‘normal people’ – well they’re not.

‘These are carefully orchestrated campaigns as far as I can see… I look quite dispassionately at the evidence and the evidence I’ve seen is, it’s all about Harry and Meghan.

‘It’s very little to do with an actual alleged rationale for going there.’

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December 2, 2024
A Southern California school plants a ‘Moon Tree’ grown with seeds flown in space

LAKE FOREST, Calif. — To cheers and applause from kids wearing spacesuits and star-studded T-shirts, a tree was planted in California that is out of this world.

The so-called “Moon Tree” — grown with seeds that were flown around the moon — was wheeled out in a wagon accompanied by several students carrying shovels to help dig its new home at Santiago STEAM Magnet Elementary School in Lake Forest.

The school, which has roughly 500 students in grades K-12, was among those selected to receive a seedling for a giant sequoia that was grown with seeds flown on NASA’s Artemis I Mission in 2022.

“It’s kind of crazy,” said Emily Aguesse, a sixth grader who participated in Monday’s ceremony welcoming the tree. “I’ve always wanted to go to space but this motivates it even more.”

It’s the second time that NASA has flown seeds into space and brought them back for planting. An astronaut for the Apollo 14 mission in 1971 who was a former U.S. Forest Service smokejumper carried seeds that later were grown into the first generation of Moon Trees, which were planted in states spanning from Alabama to Washington.

While many of those seedlings were distributed to national monuments, this latest batch has been given to schools and museums to promote science and conservation education and help bring space down to Earth, said Paul Propster, chief story architect for NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

“It’s just kind of cool and fun to connect the next generation of explorers,” Propster said.

It isn’t known whether space travel has an effect on how plants grow and scientists continue to study the topic, he said.

In 2022, NASA and the Forest Service flew nearly 2,000 seeds from five species of trees aboard the unmanned Orion spacecraft, which went into lunar orbit and spent about four weeks traveling in space.

Once back on Earth, the seeds were grown into young sycamores, sweetgums, Douglas firs, loblolly pines and giant sequoias that could be shared with the public through an application process.

Nearly 150 seedlings were distributed earlier in the year, and another batch is expected this fall, NASA officials said.

Santiago — a science and technology-focused magnet school — planted its tree in a space-themed outdoor garden decorated with colorful stones painted by students. The school’s parent and teacher association will have community volunteers care for the Moon Tree, which is expected to grow in girth and stature for decades amid a grove of eucalyptus that shades the campus in Southern California.

Colorful ropes were laid in circles on the ground to show students how big the tree could grow 50 years from now — and 500.

“This tree will grow with the kids,” said Liz Gibson, who has three children at the school and chaired the NASA Moon Tree ceremony.

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October 14, 2024
California governor signs bills to protect children from AI deepfake nudes

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a pair of proposals Sunday aiming to help shield minors from the increasingly prevalent misuse of artificial intelligence tools to generate harmful sexual imagery of children.

The measures are part of California’s concerted efforts to ramp up regulations around the marquee industry that is increasingly affecting the daily lives of Americans but has had little to no oversight in the United States.

Earlier this month, Newsom also has signed off on some of the toughest laws to tackle election deepfakes, though the laws are being challenged in court. California is wildly seen as a potential leader in regulating the AI industry in the U.S.

The new laws, which received overwhelming bipartisan support, close a legal loophole around AI-generated imagery of child sexual abuse and make it clear child pornography is illegal even if it’s AI-generated.

Current law does not allow district attorneys to go after people who possess or distribute AI-generated child sexual abuse images if they cannot prove the materials are depicting a real person, supporters said. Under the new laws, such an offense would qualify as a felony.

“Child sexual abuse material must be illegal to create, possess, and distribute in California, whether the images are AI generated or of actual children,” Democratic Assemblymember Marc Berman, who authored one of the bills, said in a statement. “AI that is used to create these awful images is trained from thousands of images of real children being abused, revictimizing those children all over again.”

Newsom earlier this month also signed two other bills to strengthen laws on revenge porn with the goal of protecting more women, teenage girls and others from sexual exploitation and harassment enabled by AI tools. It will be now illegal for an adult to create or share AI-generated sexually explicit deepfakes of a person without their consent under state laws. Social media platforms are also required to allow users to report such materials for removal.

But some of the laws don’t go far enough, said Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón, whose office sponsored some of the proposals. Gascón said new penalties for sharing AI-generated revenge porn should have included those under 18, too. The measure was narrowed by state lawmakers last month to only apply to adults.

“There has to be consequences, you don’t get a free pass because you’re under 18,” Gascón said in a recent interview.

The laws come after San Francisco brought a first-in-the-nation lawsuit against more than a dozen websites that AI tools with a promise to “undress any photo” uploaded to the website within seconds.

The problem with deepfakes isn’t new, but experts say it’s getting worse as the technology to produce it becomes more accessible and easier to use. Researchers have been sounding the alarm these past two years on the explosion of AI-generated child sexual abuse material using depictions of real victims or virtual characters.

In March, a school district in Beverly Hills expelled five middle school students for creating and sharing fake nudes of their classmates.

The issue has prompted swift bipartisan actions in nearly 30 states to help address the proliferation of AI-generated sexually abusive materials. Some of them include protection for all, while others only outlaw materials depicting minors.

Newsom has touted California as an early adopter as well as regulator of AI technology, saying the state could soon deploy generative AI tools to address highway congestion and provide tax guidance, even as his administration considers new rules against AI discrimination in hiring practices.

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September 30, 2024
California governor vetoes bill to create first-in-nation AI safety measures

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — California Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed a landmark bill aimed at establishing first-in-the-nation safety measures for large artificial intelligence models Sunday.

The decision is a major blow to efforts attempting to rein in the homegrown industry that is rapidly evolving with little oversight. The bill would have established some of the first regulations on large-scale AI models in the nation and paved the way for AI safety regulations across the country, supporters said.

Earlier this month, the Democratic governor told an audience at Dreamforce, an annual conference hosted by software giant Salesforce, that California must lead in regulating AI in the face of federal inaction but that the proposal “can have a chilling effect on the industry.”

The proposal, which drew fierce opposition from startups, tech giants and several Democratic House members, could have hurt the homegrown industry by establishing rigid requirements, Newsom said.

“While well-intentioned, SB 1047 does not take into account whether an AI system is deployed in high-risk environments, involves critical decision-making or the use of sensitive data,” Newsom said in a statement. “Instead, the bill applies stringent standards to even the most basic functions — so long as a large system deploys it. I do not believe this is the best approach to protecting the public from real threats posed by the technology.”

Newsom on Sunday instead announced that the state will partner with several industry experts, including AI pioneer Fei-Fei Li, to develop guardrails around powerful AI models. Li opposed the AI safety proposal.

The measure, aimed at reducing potential risks created by AI, would have required companies to test their models and publicly disclose their safety protocols to prevent the models from being manipulated to, for example, wipe out the state’s electric grid or help build chemical weapons. Experts say those scenarios could be possible in the future as the industry continues to rapidly advance. It also would have provided whistleblower protections to workers.

The bill’s author, Democratic state Sen. Scott Weiner, called the veto “a setback for everyone who believes in oversight of massive corporations that are making critical decisions that affect the safety and the welfare of the public and the future of the planet.”

“The companies developing advanced AI systems acknowledge that the risks these models present to the public are real and rapidly increasing. While the large AI labs have made admirable commitments to monitor and mitigate these risks, the truth is that voluntary commitments from industry are not enforceable and rarely work out well for the public,” Wiener said in a statement Sunday afternoon.

Wiener said the debate around the bill has dramatically advanced the issue of AI safety, and that he would continue pressing that point.

The legislation is among a host of bills passed by the Legislature this year to regulate AI, fight deepfakes and protect workers. State lawmakers said California must take actions this year, citing hard lessons they learned from failing to rein in social media companies when they might have had a chance.

Proponents of the measure, including Elon Musk and Anthropic, said the proposal could have injected some levels of transparency and accountability around large-scale AI models, as developers and experts say they still don’t have a full understanding of how AI models behave and why.

The bill targeted systems that require more than $100 million to build. No current AI models have hit that threshold, but some experts said that could change within the next year.

“This is because of the massive investment scale-up within the industry,” said Daniel Kokotajlo, a former OpenAI researcher who resigned in April over what he saw as the company’s disregard for AI risks. “This is a crazy amount of power to have any private company control unaccountably, and it’s also incredibly risky.”

The United States is already behind Europe in regulating AI to limit risks. The California proposal wasn’t as comprehensive as regulations in Europe, but it would have been a good first step to set guardrails around the rapidly growing technology that is raising concerns about job loss, misinformation, invasions of privacy and automation bias, supporters said.

A number of leading AI companies last year voluntarily agreed to follow safeguards set by the White House, such as testing and sharing information about their models. The California bill would have mandated AI developers to follow requirements similar to those commitments, said the measure’s supporters.

But critics, including former U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, argued that the bill would “kill California tech” and stifle innovation. It would have discouraged AI developers from investing in large models or sharing open-source software, they said.

Newsom’s decision to veto the bill marks another win in California for big tech companies and AI developers, many of whom spent the past year lobbying alongside the California Chamber of Commerce to sway the governor and lawmakers from advancing AI regulations.

Two other sweeping AI proposals, which also faced mounting opposition from the tech industry and others, died ahead of a legislative deadline last month. The bills would have required AI developers to label AI-generated content and ban discrimination from AI tools used to make employment decisions.

The governor said earlier this summer he wanted to protect California’s status as a global leader in AI, noting that 32 of the world’s top 50 AI companies are located in the state.

He has promoted California as an early adopter as the state could soon deploy generative AI tools to address highway congestion, provide tax guidance and streamline homelessness programs. The state also announced last month a voluntary partnership with AI giant Nvidia to help train students, college faculty, developers and data scientists. California is also considering new rules against AI discrimination in hiring practices.

Earlier this month, Newsom signed some of the toughest laws in the country to crack down on election deepfakes and measures to protect Hollywood workers from unauthorized AI use.

But even with Newsom’s veto, the California safety proposal is inspiring lawmakers in other states to take up similar measures, said Tatiana Rice, deputy director of the Future of Privacy Forum, a nonprofit that works with lawmakers on technology and privacy proposals.

“They are going to potentially either copy it or do something similar next legislative session,” Rice said. “So it’s not going away.”

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The Associated Press and OpenAI have a licensing and technology agreement that allows OpenAI access to part of AP’s text archives.

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September 29, 2024
Parents will have to set aside some earnings for child influencers under new California laws

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Parents in California who profit from social media posts featuring their children will be required to set aside some earnings for their minor influencers under a pair of measures signed Thursday by Gov. Gavin Newsom.

California led the nation nearly 80 years ago in setting ground rules to protect child performers from financial abuse, but those regulations needed updating, Newsom said. The existing law covers children working in movies and TV but doesn’t extend to minors making their names on platforms such as TikTok and Instagram.

Family-style vlogs, where influencers share details of their daily lives with countless strangers on the internet, have become a popular and lucrative way to earn money for many.

Besides coordinated dances and funny toddler comments, family vlogs nowadays may share intimate details of their children’s lives — grades, potty training, illnesses, misbehaviors, first periods — for strangers to view. Brand deals featuring the internet’s darlings can reap tens of thousands of dollars per video, but there have been minimal regulations for the “sharenthood” industry, which experts say can cause serious harm to children.

“A lot has changed since Hollywood’s early days, but here in California, our laser focus on protecting kids from exploitation remains the same,” he said in a statement. “In old Hollywood, child actors were exploited. In 2024, it’s now child influencers. Today, that modern exploitation ends through two new laws to protect young influencers on TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, and other social media platforms.”

The California laws protecting child social media influencers follow the first-in-the-nation legislation in Illinois that took effect this July. The California measures apply to all children under 18, while the Illinois law covers those under 16.

The California measures, which received overwhelming bipartisan support, require parents and guardians who monetize their children’s online presence to establish a trust for the starlets. Parents will have to keep records of how many minutes the children appear in their online content and how much money they earn from those posts, among other things.

The laws entitle child influencers to a percentage of earnings based on how often they appear on video blogs or online content that generates at least 10 cents per view. The children could sue their parents for failing to do so.

Children employed as content creators on platforms such as YouTube will also have at least 15% of their earnings deposited in a trust for when they turn 18. An existing state law has provided such protection to child actors since 1939 after a silent film-era child actor Jackie Coogan sued his parents for squandering his earnings.

The new laws will take effect next year.

The laws have the support from The Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, or, SAG-AFTRA, and singer Demi Lovato, a former child star who has spoken publicly about child performers abuse.

“In order to build a better future for the next generation of child stars, we need to put protections in place for minors working in the digital space,” Lovato said in a statement. “I’m grateful to Governor Newsom for taking action with this update to the Coogan Law that will ensure children featured on social media are granted agency when they come of age and are properly compensated for the use of their name and likeness.”

The new laws protecting child influencers are part of ongoing efforts by Newsom to address the mental health impacts of social media on children. Newsom earlier this month also signed a bill to curb student phone access at schools and ban social media platforms from knowingly providing addictive feeds to children without parental consent.

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September 26, 2024
California becomes latest state to restrict student smartphone use at school

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — School districts in California will have to create rules restricting student smartphone use under a new law Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Monday.

The legislation makes California the latest state to try to curb student phone access in an effort to minimize distractions in the classroom and address the mental health impacts of social media on children. Florida, Louisiana, Indiana and several other states have passed laws aimed at restricting student phone use at school.

“This new law will help students focus on academics, social development, and the world in front of them, not their screens, when they’re in school,” Newsom said in a statement.

But some critics of phone restriction policies say the burden should not fall on teachers to enforce them. Others worry the rules will make it harder for students to seek help if there is an emergency or argue that decisions on phone bans should be left up to individual districts or schools.

“We support those districts that have already acted independently to implement restrictions because, after a review of the needs of their stakeholders, they determined that made the most sense for their communities with regards to safety, school culture and academic achievement,” said Troy Flint, a spokesperson for the California School Boards Association. “We simply oppose the mandate.”

The law requires districts to pass rules by July 1, 2026, to limit or ban students from using smartphones on campus or while students are under the supervision of school staff. Districts will have to update their policies every five years after that.

The move comes after Newsom signed a law in 2019 authorizing school districts to restrict student phone access. In June, he announced plans to take on the issue again after the U.S. surgeon general called on Congress to require warning labels on social media platforms and their effects on young people.

The governor then sent letters to districts last month, urging them to limit student device use on campus. That came on a day that the board for the second-largest school district in the country, Los Angeles Unified, voted to ban student phone use during the school day beginning in January.

Assemblymember Josh Hoover, a Republican representing Folsom, introduced the bill with a bipartisan group of lawmakers who are also parents.

Phones are restricted where Hoover’s children — ages 15, 12 and 10 — attend school. Many of the students don’t always like the policy, which is in part a reflection of how addictive phones can be, he said.

“Anytime you’re talking about interrupting that addiction, it’s certainly going to be hard for students sometimes,” Hoover said. “But I think overall they understand why it’s important, why it helps them focus better on their classes and why it actually helps them have better social interaction with their peers face to face when they’re at school.”

Some parents have raised concerns that school cellphone bans could cut them off from their children if there is an emergency. Those fears were highlighted after a shooting at a Georgia high school left four dead and nine injured this month.

The 2019 law authorizing districts to restrict student phone access makes exceptions for emergencies, and the new law doesn’t change that. Some proponents of school phone restrictions say it’s better to have phones off in an active shooter situation, so that they don’t ring and reveal a student’s location.

Teachers have reported seeing students more engaged since the Santa Barbara Unified School District began fully implementing a ban on student phone use in class during the 2023-24 school year, Assistant Superintendent ShaKenya Edison said.

Nick Melvoin, a Los Angeles Unified board member who introduced the district’s resolution, said passing the policies at the district or state level can help prevent students from feeling like they’re missing out on what’s going on on social media.

Before student cellphone use was banned during the school day at Sutter Middle School in Folsom, students had been seen recording fights, filming TikTok challenges and spending lunchtime looking at online content, Principal Tarik McFall said. The rule has “totally changed the culture” of the school so that students spend more time talking to one another, he said.

“To have them put away, to have them power off and that be a practice, it has been a great thing,” McFall said.

Teachers have become more reliant in recent years on technology as a learning tool for students, particularly since the COVID-19 pandemic, said Mara Harvey, a social studies teacher at Discovery High School in the Natomas Unified School District.

The district, which is in Sacramento, provides students in the first through 12th grades with a Chromebook, where they can access online textbooks and Google Classroom, a platform where teachers share class materials. But if a student forgets their Chromebook at home, their smartphone becomes “the next viable choice for them to access the curriculum,” Harvey said.

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Austin is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues. Follow Austin on X: @sophieadanna

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September 23, 2024
California governor to sign a law to protect children from social media addiction

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — California will make it illegal for social media platforms to knowingly provide addictive feeds to children without parental consent beginning in 2027 under a bill Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom will sign, his office said Friday.

California will follow New York state, which passed a law earlier this year allowing parents to block their kids from getting social media posts suggested by a platform’s algorithm. Utah has passed laws in recent years aimed at limiting children’s access to social media, but they have faced challenges in court.

The California bill will take effect in a state home to some of the largest technology companies in the world after similar proposals have failed to pass in recent years. It is part of a growing push in states across the country to try to address the impacts of social media on the well-being of children.

“Every parent knows the harm social media addiction can inflict on their children — isolation from human contact, stress and anxiety, and endless hours wasted late into the night,” Newsom said in a statement. “With this bill, California is helping protect children and teenagers from purposely designed features that feed these destructive habits.”

The bill bans platforms from sending notifications without permission from parents to minors between 12 a.m. and 6 a.m., and between 8 a.m. and 3 p.m. on weekdays from September through May, when children are typically in school. The legislation also makes platforms set children’s accounts to private by default.

Opponents of the legislation say it could inadvertently prevent adults from accessing content if they cannot verify their age. Some argue it would threaten online privacy by making platforms collect more information on users.

The bill defines an “addictive feed” as a website or app “in which multiple pieces of media generated or shared by users are, either concurrently or sequentially, recommended, selected, or prioritized for display to a user based, in whole or in part, on information provided by the user, or otherwise associated with the user or the user’s device,” with some exceptions.

The subject garnered renewed attention in June when U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy called on Congress to require warning labels on social media platforms and their impacts on young people. Attorneys general in 42 states endorsed the plan in a letter sent to Congress last week.

State Sen. Nancy Skinner, a Democrat representing Berkeley who authored the California bill, said after lawmakers approved the bill last month that “social media companies have designed their platforms to addict users, especially our kids.”

“With the passage of SB 976, the California Legislature has sent a clear message: When social media companies won’t act, it’s our responsibility to protect our kids,” she said in a statement.

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Associated Press writer Trân Nguyễn contributed to this report.

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Austin is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues. Follow Austin on X: @sophieadanna

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September 21, 2024