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By MATT O’BRIEN MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. (AP) — Robots have long been seen as a bad bet for Silicon Valley investors — too complicated, capital-intensive and “boring, honestly,” says venture capitalist Modar Alaoui. But the commercial boom in artificial intelligence has lit a spark under long-simmering visions to build humanoid robots that can move their mechanical bodies like humans and do things that people do. Alaoui, founder of the Humanoids Summit, gathered more than 2,000 people this week, including top robotics engineers from Disney, Google and dozens of startups, to showcase their technology and debate what it will take to…

A death sentence was handed down Friday, Dec. 12 for a Banning gang member involved in five killings — sometimes just for sport — over multiple years. In October, after deliberating only a few hours, a Riverside jury recommended capital punishment for William Arnold Armendariz III, 28, for his deadly crimes. During a hearing at the Riverside Hall of Justice on Friday, Riverside County Superior Court Judge Matthew Perantoni affirmed the jury’s recommendation, imposing the death sentence on Armendariz, who will be bound for California’s Death Row at San Quentin State Prison after the death warrant is formally signed on…

By JESSE BEDAYN President Donald Trump is considering pressuring states to stop regulating artificial intelligence in a draft executive order obtained Thursday by The Associated Press, as some in Congress also consider whether to temporarily block states from regulating AI. Trump and some Republicans argue that the limited regulations already enacted by states, and others that might follow, will dampen innovation and growth for the technology. Critics from both political parties — as well as civil liberties and consumer rights groups — worry that banning state regulation would amount to a favor for big AI companies who enjoy little to…

The Kings followed two of their strongest consecutive efforts of the season with a penalty-ridden collapse in Seattle, and now they’ll sneak home for a single match before hitting the road again. They haven’t been alone in their one-step-forward-one-step-back trajectory, with much of the NHL and most of the Pacific Division finding itself in a similar pattern, including the two teams at the top. The Ducks snapped a three-game winning streak Thursday on Long Island while Vegas is below .500 in terms of winning percentage for the entire campaign. But the Kings’ opponents Saturday have provided an exception. After an…

The leaders of a mysterious Inland religious group with ties to two missing men, along with a third person, were arrested on suspicion of murder in Hemet on Thursday, Dec. 11. Authorities, beyond acknowledging the arrests, have been tight-lipped about the case. Carl Baker, a Redlands police spokesman, cited the ongoing investigation in declining to say who police believe are the victims. Two former congregants of the His Way Spirit Led Assemblies, Emilio Ghanem, 40, of Nashville; and Ruben Moreno, last seen in Claremont, remain missing. Darryl Muzic Martin, 58; his 62-year-old wife, Shelly Bailey Martin; and 43-year-old Rudy Moreno were…

By Julie Appleby, KFF Health News Florida resident Keith Jones says his Affordable Care Act insurance plan was changed multiple times this year without his permission. Now the 52-year-old is struggling with his health problems while facing large premium bills he says he shouldn’t owe. The third time, he sought help from an insurance agent, who got Jones on the phone with the federal healthcare.gov call center to sort things out. During that call, “literally, there was someone opening a new policy without my consent,” Jones said. Despite new rules that went into effect in mid-2024 aimed at thwarting such…

The world according to Jim: • It’s time. It’s past time, in fact. Time not only to change the process of deciding a college football champion, but time to change the entire face of the sport, after a 2025 regular season lurched to a conclusion and produced a 12-team playoff field that, to be honest, shouldn’t exactly make you feel good about college football’s future. Unless you consider the griping about who did and who didn’t get in – and which outside entities (specifically ESPN) had a thumb on the scale – to be a feature rather than a bug.…

California’s education system really should be viewed as a bigger scandal than it is. In case you missed it, a damning report released last month from the University of California, San Diego laid out how underprepared many incoming freshmen are at one of California’s most prestigious UCs. “Between 2020 and 2025, the number of students whose math skills fall below high school level increased nearly thirtyfold; moreover, 70% of those students fall below middle school levels, reaching roughly one in twelve members of the entering cohort,” they noted. These are students who, on paper, were top performing students in high…

By YURAS KARMANAU, Associated Press Authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko on Friday hosted a U.S. envoy for talks in the Belarus capital of Minsk, the latest step in the isolated leader’s effort to improve ties with the West. Lukashenko met with President Donald Trump’s special envoy for Belarus, John Coale, according to state news agency Belta and the presidential press service. The press service said the talks would continue Saturday. The last time U.S. officials met with Lukashenko, Washington announced easing some of the sanctions against Belarus, and more than 50 political prisoners were released and brought to Lithuania. Overall, Belarus…

LOS ANGELES — A bubble in Indianapolis, a beach in Maui, a futuristic dome in Inglewood, it doesn’t matter where these West Coast powerhouses meet, the final moments tend to decide the game. This iteration of UCLA and Gonzaga will be a measuring stick for the 25th-ranked Bruins (7-2), who are rounding into form after a choppy start. They beat Washington and Oregon to open Big Ten play and will play consecutive contests with a fully healthy lineup for the first time this season. For the eighth-ranked Bulldogs (9-1), it’s a business trip as they try to earn their fourth…