News

In its continued battle to bulletproof the right to abortion, California is suing two major anti-abortion groups over claims made about the viability of “abortion pill reversal,” Attorney General Rob Bonta announced Thursday.

Heartbeat International, a national anti-abortion group, and RealOptions Obria, a chain that operates five crisis pregnancy centers in Northern California, both promote services to “reverse” the medication abortion process. Bonta is suing both groups in Alameda Superior Court under the state’s False Advertising and Unfair Competition laws.

LIVERMORE — Two years after Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill to preserve Tesla Park in eastern Alameda County, the California Department of Parks and Recreation is just beginning the public process to decide what to do with the 3,100 acres that environmentalists and others sought to protect for decades.

A recently established website — alamedateslaplan.com — said it could take up to five years before the park is completed and opened to the public. Currently, the park remains closed.

Lobbyists for the tech industry are hedging their bets as Washington gears up to consider new AI laws this fall — not just pressuring Congress, but also fanning out to state capitals to stave off more serious restrictions nationwide.

Gov. Gavin Newsom issued an executive order Wednesday recognizing the risks and potential benefits of emerging AI technology for the state government, and ordering a number of departments to outline how the tech tools might best be harnessed by the state.

The order requires the California Department of Technology and other agencies to study how generative artificial intelligence might be used by state workers and to eventually create training for how they might use it, while also creating guidelines for protecting vulnerable communities from its potential harms.

Mayor London Breed has called San Francisco “the artificial intelligence capital of the world,” and she’s not wrong: Companies like OpenAI, Scale AI and Anthropic have created a scene for the technology in the city that is far ahead of any other locale in attracting capital and talent. 

San Francisco and Oakland state lawmakers are pushing a bill through the Legislature that would raise tolls by $1.50 on seven Bay Area bridges starting next year and direct the revenue toward the region’s public transit systems that have been struggling to survive post-pandemic.

SACRAMENTO — Much of the debate about whether the government should regulate artificial intelligence has centered on Congress, where top AI voices have testified in highly publicized hearings.

But with a gridlocked Congress, some lawmakers and tech experts see the much more agile California Legislature as a key player in the debate. Gov. Gavin Newsom told The Chronicle he’s also starting to focus on the issue.

Artificial intelligence is reshaping the workforce, largely by shifting decision making processes into the hands of automated decision tools. The impact of this transformation has understandably drawn calls for robust regulation of the use of AI, but to date there is little to no government oversight on the development and deployment of automated decision tools.

But not for a lack of effort.

Several Bay Area lawmakers say they don’t support a bill that would temporarily raise tolls on seven state-owned bridges to give BART and other transit agencies more money to avoid service cuts.

That’s the main aim of Senate Bill 532 by San Francisco state Sen. Scott Wiener, unveiled June 23. The proposal, if passed by two-thirds of the Legislature and signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom, would increase bridge tolls by $1.50 — resulting in $9.50 tolls through 2028 — to raise $900 million for regional transit agencies struggling to recover riders after the pandemic.

California Democrats boast that their state is a haven for abortion seekers and providers. But in one big way, abortion rights supporters concede that they’ve failed in the year since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.