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Larry Magid: How I nearly fell for a frightening ‘virtual kidnapping’ scam

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:56:35 GMT

I was impacted by a scam phone call this week that didn’t cost me money or expose my data, but took an enormous emotional toll, including 20 minutes of terror.Related ArticlesBusiness | Magid: Teens can now use Meta Horizon Worlds Business | Magid: I asked ChatGPT to help me write an AI safety guide Business | Magid: Google doubles down on sleep sensing Business | Magid: Is the internet responsible for increased anxiety? Writing this column a day later, I’m still anxious, and frankly, a little embarrassed that I believed the scammer when he said he had kidnapped my wife.As a long-time tech journalist and founder and CEO of an online safety organization, I know a lot about phone and online scams and have written and spoken extensively on the subject. But this call felt real to me and threatened to separate me not from money but from someone, who, along with my children, means more to me than anything in the world. Being ...

Jerry Springer, former Cincinnati mayor and talk show host, dead at 79

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:56:35 GMT

Jerry Springer, the former Cincinnati mayor and longtime TV host whose tabloid talk show was known for outrageous arguments, thrown chairs and physical confrontations between sparring couples and homewreckers, has died, Bradley Singer, his manager, said Thursday. Springer was 79.Springer once told CNN that he did not mind being referred to as the “grandfather of trash TV,” saying in 2010, as “The Jerry Springer Show” celebrated its 20th anniversary on the air: “It’s probably accurate. I don’t know what the award for that is, but I think it is true that we were probably one of the first shows to present some of the outrageousness we have.”The show ended in 2018, after more than 4,000 episodes and countless think pieces about Springer’s role in the decline of culture, if not civilization.Related ArticlesObituaries | Arnold Schwarzenegger reveals family history behind his views on antisemitism Obituaries | Dwyane Wade, who has trans daughter, says he left Flo...

A 16-year-old high school senior has received admission to 170 colleges and more than $9 million in scholarships

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:56:35 GMT

By Justin Gamble | CNNA high school senior in Louisiana has received more than 170 college acceptance letters and more than $9 million in scholarship offers.Dennis Maliq Barnes, a 16-year-old senior at International High School of New Orleans, told CNN he wasn’t initially looking to set any records.“As I applied to more schools, as my numbers went up, with the financial aid and acceptances into universities, I became intrigued,” Barnes said, adding that when he was told he was close to the record, he “just went for it.”Barnes said he began applying to schools in August 2022 and took pride in watching the acceptances and scholarships roll in. “It was never really a surprise for me once I reached that number,” Barnes said.School officials say Barnes’ accomplishment sets a new world record and have reached out to the Guinness Book of World Records to make it official, according to Clark Castle, a spokesman for the school and Barnes.CNN re...

Prep roundup: Cal-bound ace Oliver de la Torre leads Amador Valley over Granada

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:56:35 GMT

BaseballPitchers’ duel: Amador Valley blanks GranadaAmador Valley right-hander Oliver de la Torre has spent the 2023 season making up for lost time after missing his junior year while recovering from Tommy John surgery.If he’s not fully back, he’s pretty close. That was apparent Wednesday when de la Torre outdueled Granada’s Joshua Morano in the Dons’ 3-0 victory at Amador Valley.The win might have been a mild upset. Amador Valley (15-5, 6-5 EBAL Valley Division) came in ranked No. 7 in the Bay Area News Group Top 20. Granada (16-5, 7-3) is No. 4. Granada holds a half-game edge over Foothill (7-4) in the division standings.As good as these teams are, the real attraction was the pitching matchup. De la Torre is headed to Cal next season. Morano is going to Arizona.“There are a lot of (big-league) teams following him,” Amador Valley coach Lou Cesario said of de la Torre. “He’s 6-4, weighs about 215 pounds and throws 92 miles per hour.”Cesario said de la Torre, who will pitch at ...

Oakland A’s fans to hold rally to protest possible relocation to Las Vegas

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:56:35 GMT

A’s fans have mostly had to stand back and watch the years-long public squabble between team officials and Oakland political leaders over the franchise’s future.Friday night, fans will have a platform to air their feelings about the team’s potential move to Las Vegas, the failed negotiations with Oakland, and the sad state of the once-proud franchise.A’s fan groups called Oakland Forever and (Un)Rooted in Oakland — the name mocks a longtime A’s marketing slogan about being Rooted in Oakland — are calling on fans to gather outside the ballpark before Friday night’s game against the Cincinnati Reds. It will be the first home game since the team announced an agreement to buy land for a ballpark off the Vegas Strip. Oakland mayor Sheng Thao responded by immediately terminating negotiations with the team about the Howard Terminal ballpark project.“We were played,” said Curt Silver, a co-organizer of the protest. “I think there is a possible...

A drug company abandoned a treatment for  ‘bubble boy disease.’ After a 5-year fight, this little California girl is about to get it

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:56:35 GMT

By Elizabeth Cohen and Lauren Mascarenhas | CNNLater this spring, a little girl in California who essentially has no immune system will receive a lifesaving treatment for “bubble boy disease” thanks to the persistence of a dogged group of parents, a pediatrician, a veteran newsman and a few episodes of “Grey’s Anatomy.”Five-year-old Seersha Sulack has the same rare disease portrayed in the 1976 John Travolta movie, “The Boy in the Plastic Bubble.” A germ — even a common cold — could kill her, and so she stays away from anyone outside her immediate family.The treatment she’s been waiting for had stunning, near-perfect results in a clinical trial, but it’s been sitting on the shelf for years in the US because the pharmaceutical company that once owned the license abandoned it when it decided not to not to pursue approval from the US Food and Drug Administration.“It’s a pretty tough situation,” said Dr....

Google moves into two big San Jose buildings within huge tech campus

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:56:35 GMT

A sign in a tech complex that Google has named its Brokaw Campus, located on Brokaw Road between North First Street and Bering Drive in north San Jose. (George Avalos/Bay Area News Group)SAN JOSE — Google has moved into two San Jose buildings that are part of a huge tech campus where the search giant could eventually employ thousands if it fills all the buildings it has leased at that site.The buildings are among four office sites that Google has leased along East Brokaw Road between North First Street and Bering Drive in north San Jose.Google’s official expansion at the north San Jose tech campus, which is owned by legendary real estate firm Peery Arrillaga, arrives at a time when uncertainty has arisen over the precise pace of Google’s proposed transit-oriented neighborhood in downtown San Jose.In 2019, Google leased four north San Jose buildings totaling a combined 729,000 square feet from Peery Arrillaga. The buildings weren’t constructed at the time...

Foundation 3D prints prosthesis, gives them free in Uruguay

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:56:35 GMT

MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay (AP) — The first thing 11-year-old Mia Rodríguez says she did with her new prosthetic hands was draw a picture of a kitten.The Uruguayan girl, whose fingers never fully developed, put on the prosthetic hands and demonstrated the grasping movement she can now make.“Now I can hold the pencil with one hand. Before, I had to do it with both hands because my fist wouldn’t close,” she said, while her mother Ana Van López watched excitedly.Rodríguez received the protheses from the Uruguayan Manos de Héroes foundation, which designs and prints hands and arms with 3D technology for children and adults across the South American country. Since 2020, the foundation has provided more than 100 free prostheses, most of them for families in vulnerable situations. Van López, 28, lives with her partner and their four children in an abandoned factory in Salinas, about 40 kilometers (25 miles) from Montevideo, and her income comes from informal work, such as selling firewood or pine...

Kansas legislators impose sweeping anti-trans bathroom law

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:56:35 GMT

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Republican legislators in Kansas enacted possibly the most sweeping transgender bathroom law in the U.S. on Thursday, overriding the Democratic governor’s veto of the measure without having a clear idea of how their new law will be enforced.The vote in the House was 84-40, giving supporters exactly the two-thirds majority they needed to override Gov. Laura Kelly’s action. The vote in the Senate on Wednesday was 28-12, and the new law will take effect July 1. Seven other states have enacted laws preventing transgender people from using the restrooms associated with their gender identities, but most of them apply to schools. The Kansas law applies also to locker rooms, prisons, domestic violence shelters and rape crisis centers. The Kansas law is different than other states’ laws in that it legally defines male and female based on a person’s reproductive anatomy at birth and declares that “distinctions between the sexes” in bathrooms and oth...

GOP-controlled Kansas Legislature overrides Democratic governor’s veto to enact sweeping anti-transgender bathroom bill.

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:56:35 GMT

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — GOP-controlled Kansas Legislature overrides Democratic governor’s veto to enact sweeping anti-transgender bathroom bill.Source