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California to use generative AI to improve services, cut traffic jams

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California to use generative AI to improve services, cut traffic jams


California could soon deploy generative artificial intelligence tools to help reduce traffic jams, make roads safer and provide tax guidance, among other things, under new agreements announced Thursday as part of Governor Gavin Newsom’s efforts to harness the power of new technologies for public services.

The state is partnering with five companies to create generative AI tools using technologies developed by tech giants such as Microsoft-backed OpenAI and Google- and Amazon-backed Anthropic that would ultimately help the state provide better services to the public, administration officials said.

“It is a very good sign that a lot of these companies are putting their focus on using GenAI for governmental service delivery,” said Amy Tong, secretary of government operations for California.

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The companies will start a six-month internal trial in which state workers test and evaluate the tools. The companies will be paid $1 for their proposals. The state, which faces a significant budget deficit, can then reassess whether any tools could be fully implemented under new contracts. All the tools are considered low risk, meaning they don’t interact with confidential data or personal information, an administration spokesperson said.

Newsom, a Democrat, touts California as a global hub for AI technology, noting 35 of the world’s top 50 AI companies are located in the state. He signed an executive order last year requiring the state to start exploring responsible ways to incorporate generative AI by this summer, with a goal of positioning California as an AI leader.

FILE – California Gov. Gavin Newsom speaks in Larkspur, Calif., April 16, 2024. California could soon deploy AI tools to help solve problems, under agreements announced May 9, 2024, as part of Newsom’s efforts to harness technologies for public services.

In January, the state started asking technology companies to come up with generative AI tools for public services. Last month, California was one of the first states to roll out guidelines on when and how state agencies could buy such tools.

Generative AI, a branch of AI that can create new content such as text, audio and photos, has significant potential to help government agencies become more efficient, but there’s also an urgent need for safeguards to limit risks, state officials and experts said. In New York City, an AI-powered chatbot created by the city to help small businesses was found to dole out false guidance and advise companies to violate the law. The rapidly growing technology has also raised concerns about job losses, misinformation, privacy and automation bias.

While state governments are struggling to regulate AI in the private sector, many are exploring how public agencies can leverage the powerful technology for public good. California’s approach, which also requires companies to disclose what large language models they use to develop AI tools, is meant to build public trust, officials said.

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The state’s testing of the tools and collecting of feedback from state workers are some of the best practices to limit potential risks, said Meredith Lee, chief technical adviser for the University of California-Berkeley’s College of Computing, Data Science and Society. The challenge is determining how to assure continued testing and learning about the tools’ potential risks after deployment.

“This is not something where you just work on testing for some small amount of time and that’s it,” Lee said. “Putting in the structures for people to be able to revisit and better understand the deployments further down the line is really crucial.”

The California Department of Transportation is looking for tools that would analyze traffic data and come up with solutions to reduce highway traffic and make roads safer. The state’s Department of Tax and Fee Administration, which administers more than 40 programs, wants an AI tool to help its call center cut wait times and call length. The state is also seeking technologies to provide non-English speakers information about health and social services benefits in their languages and to streamline the inspection process for health care facilities.

The tools are to be designed to assist state workers, not replace them, said Nick Maduros, director of the Department of Tax and Fee Administration.

Call center workers there took more than 660,000 calls last year. The state envisions the AI technology listening along to those calls and pulling up specific tax code information associated with the problems callers describe. Workers could decide whether to use the information.

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Currently, call center workers have to simultaneously listen to the call and manually look up the code, Maduros said.

“If it turns out it doesn’t serve the public better, then we’re out $1,” Maduros said. “And I think that’s a pretty good deal for the citizens of California.”

Tong wouldn’t say when a successfully vetted tool would be deployed, but added that the state was moving as fast as it can.

“The whole essence of using GenAI is it doesn’t take years,” Tong said. “GenAI doesn’t wait for you.”



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4.6 earthquake jolts Northern California awake, residents report shaking homes for miles

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4.6 earthquake jolts Northern California awake, residents report shaking homes for miles


4.6 earthquake jolts Northern California awake, residents report shaking homes for miles

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READY… ACCORDING TO THE MONTEREY COUNTY OF EMERGENCY SERVICES THERE’S ONLY BEEN 429 EARTHQUAKES IN OUR AREA THAT ARE ABOVE A 4.0 MAGNITUDE. BUT OFFICIALS AND EXPERTS SAY IT IS ONLY A MATTER OF TIME UNTIL THE NEXT BIG ONE. NOW TO PREPARE YOU CAN SIGN UP WITH YOUR COUNTY’S EMERGENCY SERVICES ALERTS BY GOING ON THE COUNTY WEBSITE. YOU CAN ALSO DOWNLOAD THIS APP CALLED MYSHAKE. IF A QUAKE ABOVE 4.5 MAGNITUDE HITS CALIFORNIA, YOU CAN GET AN ALERT A FEW SECONDS YOU FEEL IT IN YOUR AREA. THAT DEPENDS ON HOW CLOSE YOUR ARE TO THE EPICENTER. IT WILL REMIND YOU WHAT TO DO AND ALLOWS YOU TO SHARE AND SEE WHAT DAMAGES HAVE BEEN REPORTED NEAR YOU. NOW DOWNLOADING SOME SORT OF ALERT SYSTEM IS IMPORTANT, ESPECIALLY FOR THOSE OF US LIVING NEAR THE COAST. I SPOKE WITH SANTA CRUZ COUNTY’S OFFICE OF EMERGENCY SERVICES, AND THEY HAD FOUR REMINDERS: FIRST ONE – PREP YOUR LIVING SPACE. TRY TO AVOID PLACING BOOKSHELVES AND BIG FURNITURE NEAR ENTRY WAYS THAT COULD FALL AND BLOCK DURING AN EARTHQUAKE. SECONDLY – LIKE FOR ANY NATURAL DISASTER: HAVE A PLAN. WHEN IT COMES TO AN EARTHQUAKE, UTILITIES LIKE YOUR WATER AND SEWER SYSTEM MAY NOT WORK. THIRD – MAKE SURE YOU HAVE A GO BAG PREPPED WITH YOUR FOOD, WATER, CASH… AND THE LAST ONE: PUT ALL YOUR ESSENTIAL IDENTITY AND HEALTH DOCUMENTS IN ONE PLACE SO YOU CAN JUST GRAB IT AND GO. THE BIGGEST EARTHQUAKE TO HIT OUR NECK OF THE WOODS WAS THE LOMA PRIETA QUAKE IN 1989. THAT CLOCKE

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4.6 earthquake jolts Northern California awake, residents report shaking homes for miles

Updated: 9:36 AM CDT Apr 2, 2026

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A magnitude 4.9 earthquake struck Northern California early Thursday, according to the U.S. Geological Survey, with many saying they felt their homes shake for a few seconds in a 100-mile stretch, including San Francisco. The quake hit at 1:41 a.m. PST east-southeast of Boulder Creek, the USGS said. It had a depth of 6.7 miles. Boulder Creek, which has about 5,000 people, is about 65 miles southeast of San Francisco.Some residents said they were first awakened by earthquake alerts on their phones, then felt their beds and windows shake. Some items were knocked off store shelves in Boulder Creek.The shaking was felt in other parts of the Central Coast, including Marina, where at least one resident said they felt slight shaking and were awakened by it.The National Tsunami Warning Center said there is no tsunami danger from the earthquake. No damage or injuries were immediately reported.

A magnitude 4.9 earthquake struck Northern California early Thursday, according to the U.S. Geological Survey, with many saying they felt their homes shake for a few seconds in a 100-mile stretch, including San Francisco.

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The quake hit at 1:41 a.m. PST east-southeast of Boulder Creek, the USGS said. It had a depth of 6.7 miles. Boulder Creek, which has about 5,000 people, is about 65 miles southeast of San Francisco.

Some residents said they were first awakened by earthquake alerts on their phones, then felt their beds and windows shake. Some items were knocked off store shelves in Boulder Creek.

The shaking was felt in other parts of the Central Coast, including Marina, where at least one resident said they felt slight shaking and were awakened by it.

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The National Tsunami Warning Center said there is no tsunami danger from the earthquake.

No damage or injuries were immediately reported.

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April kicks off in the Sierra with chain controls on I-80

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April kicks off in the Sierra with chain controls on I-80



Just days after Northern California saw a stretch of record high temperatures, the high Sierra Nevada is once again getting snow.

Chain controls went up on Interstate 80 in the Sierra early Wednesday morning.

As of 7 a.m., controls are in effect westbound from the Donner Lake Interchange to Rainbow. On the eastbound side, chain controls are in effect from Kingvale to Truckee.

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Highway 50 is not seeing any restrictions at this time.

Other major Sierra roads seeing chain controls Wednesday include Highways 4, 49 and 88.

Wednesday also marks the day California’s Department of Water Resources will conduct its fourth snow survey of the season. As of Monday, the statewide snowpack is at about 18% of average.

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Meet the moderators; Fresno State to host bipartisan California governor candidate forum

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Meet the moderators; Fresno State to host bipartisan California governor candidate forum


Preparations are underway for a major bipartisan gubernatorial candidate forum set for Wednesday at Fresno State, where several high-profile candidates for California governor will make their case to voters.

The event is expected to spotlight issues impacting not only the Central Valley but also communities across the state, with a strong focus on affordability, agriculture, and water policy.

Confirmed candidates scheduled to appear include:

  • Xavier Becerra, attorney and former U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services
  • Chad Bianco, Riverside County sheriff
  • Steve Hilton, author and Fox News contributor
  • Matt Mahan, San Jose mayor
  • Katie Porter, former U.S. representative
  • Antonio Villaraigosa, former Los Angeles mayor

The forum will be moderated by Fresno County Supervisor Buddy Mendes and former State Assemblymember Kristin Olsen, who say their goal is to ensure Central Valley concerns remain front and center.

“There are so many issues related to affordability right now, energy costs, housing costs, regulatory costs, even food prices,” Olsen said. “These are real challenges affecting families, farmers, and farm workers in the Central Valley. We want to make sure candidates clearly explain how they’ll address them if elected.”

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Moderators say they are prepared to press candidates for direct answers.

“That will be our challenge,” Olsen said. “We’ll clearly lay out expectations for candid responses, and if someone doesn’t answer the question, we’ll follow up.”

Mendes emphasized the importance of water policy, a critical issue for the region’s agricultural economy, noting that many statewide candidates may lack a full understanding of how California’s water systems operate.

“A lot of candidates don’t fully understand water movement in this state, how storage works, or the difference between surface water and groundwater,” Mendes said.

He added that keeping candidates focused may be one of the biggest challenges during the forum.

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“We might have to stop them and remind them to answer the question instead of running out the clock,” Mendes said.

Mendes, who is a registered republican, and Olsen, who has since switched from republican to no party preference, have both moderated in the past, though this marks their first time moderating a gubernatorial forum.

They stressed that their approach will be firm but nonpartisan.

“This isn’t about being partisan, it’s about answering the questions,” Mendes said.

Organizers say hosting the forum in Fresno is intentional, aiming to elevate issues specific to the San Joaquin Valley — a region they say is often overlooked in statewide political discussions.

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The forum is scheduled to run from noon to 1:30 p.m. and is sponsored by 30 agricultural associations statewide. It will be streamed live on the FOX26 YouTube page.



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