SAN DIEGO — A small Cessna plane crashed in La Jolla Wednesday night, killing the pilot, officials said.

The wreckage of the plane, a single-engine Cessna P210, was found shortly after 2 a.m. in a brushy area off Caminito Claro near Gilman Drive, said San Diego police Officer David O’Brien.

Residents called 911 around 9:35 p.m. reporting that they heard or saw a distressed plane and that it had crashed.

“We got reports that the plane was low, circling the area” and reports that “the plane had gone down,” O’Brien said.

Officers searched the area, but it took hours to locate the wreckage in the dark. O’Brien said the aircraft missed a condo complex and hit a hillside.

According to the Federal Aviation Administration registry, the plane’s registered owner lives in Carlsbad.

The pilot was the only person on board the six-seater and died before he could be taken to a hospital. His name was not released, pending notification of family.

According to FlightAware, the plane departed from French Valley Airport, just north of Temecula, on Monday and flew to Buchanan Field Airport in Concord. The plane was headed back from the Bay Area Wednesday night but diverted from French Valley. The Cessna appeared to attempt to land at Montgomery Field in Kearny Mesa before continuing west toward La Jolla, according to FlightAware tracking. It crashed about 3 miles west of the airport, according to a spokesperson from the National Transportation Safety Board.

“An NTSB investigator will arrive on site later today to begin the on-scene portion of the investigation,” according to the spokesperson. “Once on site, the investigator will begin the process of documenting the scene and examining the aircraft. The aircraft will then be recovered to a secure facility for further evaluation.”

No other information was immediately available.

Jose Antonio Alvarez, 25, and Omar Rojo, 25, both entered no contest pleas to voluntary manslaughter and were formally sentenced in late October. They were originally charged with murder and robbery in the death of 25-year-old Jaime Valdovinos.

Police said at the time that Rojo and Alvarez arranged to rob Valdovinos and another man of “a large amount of marijuana” after setting up a cannabis deal. The four men met on the 3000 block of East Ninth Street in Oakland on Sept. 26, 2019.

Investigators said in a court statement that Alvarez was identified as a suspect through “surveillance video and witnesses.”

The plea deal includes a court order for both defendants to stay away from the surviving victim and to not possess guns after their release from prison. Both men were originally charged with crimes that made them eligible for life without the possibility of parole.

Neither man has yet been transferred to state prison, according to public records.

Three weeks ago, the sheriff’s office in Mariposa County had asked the public’s help in finding the 42-year-old man, whom it called armed and dangerous.

The announcement did not specify his connection to Pullins, a 57-year-old Ahwahnee woman who was reported missing on June 18, 2022.

She had last been seen three days earlier, before heading off toward Mariposa, 25 miles away, to register her vehicle.

She reportedly planned to stay the night at a friend’s home on Stumpfield Mountain Road, off Highway 49 between Ahwahnee and Mariposa. Her cellphone location indicated she left the friend’s house, but she never made it to the Department of Motor Vehicles, the Mariposa County sheriff’s office said.

About two months later, her Jeep Cherokee was found down a steep embankment in a remote area of Mariposa County, the sheriff’s office said. Pullins’ body was not found, but blood found in the SUV was determined to be hers.

No developments were reported in the case for more than a year, then the sheriff’s office issued a flurry of announcements:

• Sept. 26, 2023: It was announced that investigators believed Pullins to have been killed.

• Oct. 4: The sheriff’s office asked for the public’s help in finding a Subaru Outback believed to be connected to the case.

• Oct. 10: It was announced that the Subaru had been found.

On Monday, Nov. 13, law enforcement officers saw the suspect getting into the passenger seat of a car in Willits. The vehicle was followed about half a mile, and then officers from Mendocino, Lake and Mariposa counties closed in on it and  “performed a high-risk enforcement stop,” said a statement from the Mendocino County sheriff’s office.

The driver, said to be a relative of the suspect’s, obeyed commands to get out of the car, but the suspect did not. A dog was “deployed into the vehicle,” and the man was removed.

He was taken to Mendocino County Jail on a felony murder arrest warrant pending extradition to Mariposa County, the sheriff said.

Loay Abdelfattah Alnaji was expected to be booked into jail and held in lieu of $1 million bail, the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department said.

Paul Kessler, 69, was found suffering on the afternoon of Nov. 5, a Sunday, bleeding from his head and mouth at Westlake and Thousand Oaks boulevards, according to authorities and witness accounts.

The Sheriff’s Department continues to investigate the case.

On Thursday, it asked that anyone driving in the area of the confrontation in a car with video-recording equipment between 3 and 4 p.m. to contact the agency. If a witness wants to remain anonymous, he or she can contact Crime Stoppers at 800-222-TIPS (8477).

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

The shift, made this week, is accompanied by a new court calendar reserved for people who discover they are the subject of bench or arrest warrants, and until now had to submit to jail booking — and possible detention — just for the chance to argue to a judge why they shouldn’t be in custody.

According to the court and attorneys involved in shaping the new policy, the change had been in the works for several months. The issue gained added public pressure in July when the ACLU and the Stanford Law School Criminal Defense Clinic sued the court over the previous practice.

The plaintiffs — led by a man who discovered he had a warrant for a minor offense, then spent three days in jail only to be released at arraignment — called the system a “bail or jail” test that unfairly burdened poor people.

“Our hope is that this allows people to avoid truly unnecessary incarceration,” said Emi Young, a staff attorney at the ACLU Foundation of Northern California. “That’s something that never should have happened. It was extremely harmful to individuals and was bad public policy.”

The Superior Court declined to offer any comment other than to assert that the lawsuit was not the catalyst for the policy change.

Under the new protocol, people who learn they are wanted for a warrant now have the option, through an attorney, to request an arraignment date on the court calendar. They would still have to submit to an “informal booking” requiring a photograph and fingerprint recording, but they would head to court from there instead of being faced with posting bail or going into jail custody. In its initial stages, the reserved calendar for these cases will be on the second and fourth Mondays of the month.

A judge still has the final say on whether someone will be released, based on a person’s individual case and history. The kinds of cases on this calendar will typically involve minor and nonviolent offenses for which there is a good chance that someone will be ordered released while their case is adjudicated.

Meghan Piano, a county deputy public defender who was involved in drafting the new protocol — joined by representatives for the court, pretrial services, the district attorney’s office and the sheriff’s office — said the change is an important step toward leveling court access.

“Prior to this calendar, if you were poor and could not post bail, you sat in jail, whereas your wealthy neighbor would never step foot into a cell,” Piano said. “What matters is that we are here addressing this gaping hole of inequity.”

In several ways, this new calendar is a return to form. A similar practice was instituted as an emergency measure near the start of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020. But in July 2022, Criminal Division Supervising Judge Daniel Nishigaya sent an email directive to judges stating that continuing to calendar unserved arrest warrants created an “administrative difficulty” that muddied recording, tracking, and reporting of cases.

Brandon Cabrera, supervising deputy district attorney for his office’s court diversion and mental-health unit, said a series of meetings followed in which there was a consensus to move away from forcing jail stays for people whose situations meant they would likely be released by a judge anyway.

“We got all the right people finally together to have a conversation about this,” Cabrera said.

Cabrera said that led to discussions about how to tackle those “administrative difficulties,” which ultimately led to the court agreeing to reserve a court session on two Mondays a month, when the arraignment calendar is the least busy, and the sheriff’s office agreeing to staff those Mondays at the county jail specifically to handle the warrant bookings.

What resulted, partly at Piano’s urging, was a “one-stop shop” system in which someone could get booked at the jail and go to court on the same day to see a judge and argue for release.

The new system is currently in a pilot phase, starting with one case this past Monday, and continuing with a full 10-case calendar Nov. 27.

Piano, who supervises the Pre-Arraignment Representation and Review program at her office, said she is already getting a flood of inquiries from people about the new court calendar.

“Just in the past week I have received numerous phone calls from people who really want to take care of their case but are petrified, and rightfully so, of having to sit in custody while they do so,” she said.

“It’s this unexpected complete interruption in life. All the main staples of what people have to hold on, their housing or their job or their family situation, they get ripped away from all that,” De-Bug cofounder Raj Jayadev said. “Even if the jail stay is only a couple of days, some of those things might never come back.”

Cabrera added that the new policy helps streamline the court system by incentivizing people to resolve their warrants, and allow cases to move along rather than wait for an unserved warrant to get activated by a happenstance encounter with law enforcement.

“If we can avoid someone waiting two to three days in jail and we know they don’t need to be there, this is a perfect solution,” he said.

Kenneth David McIsaac, 32, was arrested Tuesday in Oakland and booked into the Martinez Detention Facility, the Contra Costa County District Attorney’s Office said.

At a hearing Wednesday, Judge Julia Campins terminated McIsaac’s mental health diversion status at the district attorney’s request. Prosecutors said McIsaac is being held without bail.

On Sept. 24, 2022, McIsaac allegedly broke into a Lafayette apartment, forced a family to be tied up at gunpoint and held them hostage for five hours until they were able to break free.

McIsaac was charged with a dozen felony counts that included kidnapping, false imprisonment by violence, robbery, burglary and child abuse. He spent a year in jail while the case was pending, until roughly two months ago, when Judge Campins ruled that he qualified for a mental health diversion program that allowed him to stay at a hotel but required him to submit to drug testing and other supervision.

Prosecutors, along with one of the alleged victims, objected to placing McIsaac in the diversion program.

At a hearing in September, Campins said she believed the diversion program would do a better job of addressing McIsaac’s underlying mental illness than the prison system.

“If properly done and properly managed, it is actually safer to have someone receive treatment and guidance through this process than place them in prison for a period of time with no such treatment and then released,” Campins said during the hearing.

McIsaac left the diversion program on Oct. 24. A warrant was then issued for his arrest.

Criminal proceedings against McIsaac will resume on Nov. 29, according to prosecutors.

Modera The Alameda, a 168-unit apartment building on The Alameda near the SAP Center and Diridon train station, is a step closer to transformation into an affordable housing complex following a unanimous vote by the San Jose City Council.

A $100 million package of tax-exempt bonds to finance the purchase of Modera The Alameda is the funding centerpiece of the affordable housing conversion.

The city’s decision paves the way for the anticipated future owner of the property to pursue the financing for the apartment complex at 787 The Alameda.

The $100 million financing package would be used for “the acquisition, rehabilitation, improvement, and equipping of 167 apartments and one manager’s unit to transition to an affordable housing development,” a city staff report states.

The California Municipal Finance Authority, an agency jointly established in 2004 by multiple government agencies, is slated to issue the bonds for the purchase of the Modera apartment complex.

“This will allow the Modera development to move forward with its current financing plan and create much-needed affordable housing,” the city staff report stated, referring to the financing package to convert Modera into affordable housing.

The California Municipal Finance Authority acts as a conduit for tax-exempt bonds to finance an array of projects to promote economic development.

“San Jose lacks a sufficient amount of affordable housing to meet residents’ needs,” the city staff report states.

The conversion proposal sketches out a plan whereby Catalyst Impact Fund, a nonprofit, would purchase Modera, the city documents show. Catalyst Impact would buy Modera the Alameda from current owner AEW Capital Management.

Once the apartments are converted to affordable housing, they would be set aside for very low-income and low-income individuals and families.

People who live in Modera typically pay monthly rents that range from a low of slightly more than $2,300 a month to nearly $4,600 a month, apartments.com reports.

“To avoid displacement of any current market-rate residents, units will transition to affordable upon move-out,” the city staff report states. “Existing residents who income-qualify will be offered affordable rates upon lease renewal.”

Of the 168 units, 34 units will be set aside for people at the 50% area median income level and the remaining 134 units will be restricted to people at the 80% area median income level, city officials say.

“The 2023 income limit for households with 50% area median income is $62,450 to $89,200 a year and the 80% area median income is $96,000 to $137,100 a year,” the city staff report stated.

Modera’s current assessed value is $101.7 million, county documents show.

The proposal would remove Modera from the property tax rolls — which means the complex would no longer generate property tax revenue once the new owner takes over.

About $1 million a year in property tax revenue would be wiped out as a result of conversion to affordable housing.

Despite the loss in property tax revenue, a conversion makes sense, in the view of Bob Staedler, principal executive with Silicon Valley Synergy, a land-use consultancy.

“Existing units can be purchased for less than the exorbitant cost to build new affordable housing,” Staedler said.

Ryan Christopher, a San Jose resident, wrote an email to city staffers that raised questions about the wisdom of the conversion to affordable housing, especially if a significant hit to San Jose’s revenue from property taxes is in the offing.

“It appears to me that the 80% area median income rents are very similar to the current rents at the property,” Christopher wrote in a Nov. 14 email to the city. “As such, it seems questionable that there is a public benefit, and certainly questionable that we should forgo tax revenue to support this.”

The San Francisco Department of Emergency Management called the event a “civic demonstration.” The protesters were stationed on the lanes before Treasure Island. According to the California Highway Patrol, about 50 protesters were arrested and 15 vehicles were towed as officers worked to reopen the bridge for traffic.

All lanes of westbound I-80 east of Treasure Island on the Bay Bridge are blocked by protesters. CHP on scene. No ETO. pic.twitter.com/BOQXCAuVhK

— CHP Oakland (@CHPoakland) November 16, 2023

We are in close contact with the California Highway Patrol and @CaltransD4 who are working to remove the protestors that are blocking traffic. City agencies are providing any necessary support. We will provide updates when we know more. https://t.co/N9YO6KEVeM

— London Breed (@LondonBreed) November 16, 2023

The demonstration Thursday morning comes amid a tension-filled week as numerous world leaders, including President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping, filed into San Francisco for the Asian-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit. Protests have erupted throughout the week in support of a ceasefire in Gaza, as well as LGBT rights, women’s empowerment, Indigenous people’s rights and the environment.

This is a developing report. Check back for updates.

But a recent study conducted by Kantar on behalf of the Family Online Safety Institute (FOSI) found that both parents and teens are not only aware of GAI but also mostly optimistic about its impact. The study included teens (13-17) and their parents completing an online survey with 1,000 participants in each of three countries: The U.S., Japan and Germany. I’ll focus mostly on the U.S. responses, which, for the most part, were similar to those from the two other countries.

Familiarity and use

When it comes to awareness, U.S. teens (69%) and parents (74%) are mostly familiar with GAI with 25% of parents saying they “know a lot,” compared with 22% of teens, which itself is different from most other tech issues where teens tend to be more aware than their parents. But what’s most surprising is that 45% of U.S. teens agreed that their parents know more than they do about GAI while only about a third (32%) of teens said that they know more. Parents concurred, with the same percentage saying their teen knows more compared with 43% saying “I know more than my teen.”

The report didn’t speculate why parents feel more clued-in than teens, but I’m guessing it has something to do with extensive news coverage of GAI and the fact that parents are more likely to consume mainstream news than are teens. Teens are more likely to get their news from digital sources, including social media.

Even though parents are more likely to say they are aware of GAI, U.S. teens are slightly more likely (67%) than parents (64%) to “have used or tried using genAI.”

Nearly three-quarters (73%) of U.S. parents and 63% of teens say they mostly use GAI for its analytical tools while 67% of parents and 61% of teens have used it for creative tasks. The report said that teens are more likely (74% vs. 59%) to use GAI “to be more efficient at tasks including proofreading and creating synopses of longer works.”

Only about a third (34%) of American parents feel that they “don’t have enough information and education about genAI,” compared with 47% in Germany and 73% in Japan.

Top concerns

Respondents were asked to rate their top concerns, and both parents and teens picked job loss as No. 1, followed by the spread of false information. Parents picked “loss of critical thinking skills” as No. 3, while teens were more likely to worry about “AI surpassing humans.” The teens picked “new forms of harassment” as their fourth concern, but that didn’t make it on the parents’ top 5 list. Both groups rated “growing dependency on genAI” as No. 5.

“Teens,” said the report “are acutely aware of the potential for genAI to be used for more sophisticated means of bullying, or to create new or intensified forms of harassment. From parents’ perspective, many express trepidation that their teens will lose opportunities to engage in deep analysis, original ideas and meaningful thinking.”

Parents were asked if they need more information to help them guide their teens, and 55% of U.S. parents said they wanted to know more about the potential risks vs. the benefits. Just under half (49%) picked benefits. Fortunately, these are not mutually exclusive. ConnectSafely is currently working on a parents guide to GAI which will focus on both risks and benefits.

Perceived vs. actual risks

It’s important to remember that a survey measures perceived risks, not necessarily actual ones. GAI is still very new, and we don’t yet know what the real risks are. It’s not yet clear, for example, whether GAI will result in a net loss or a net gain in jobs, though it’s likely to have a negative impact on some job categories. We know that GAI can result in misinformation, but there are efforts in place to use it to help combat that very scourge. The same can be said for bullying and harassment. Time will tell, and we might be surprised to find that some of our fears don’t turn into major problems, while other problems may emerge that we are not thinking about right now. I know this from personal experience as the author of the1994 booklet, “Child Safety on the Information Highway,” which was written before there was a lot of research and well before some problems emerged that I wasn’t able to anticipate nearly 30 years ago.

Generally positive perceptions of GAI

Despite concerns and plenty of negative press, parents do feel positive about their teens’ use of GAI. Two-thirds (66%) of U.S. parents said they felt positive, compared with 70% in Germany and 59% in Japan.

About two-third of parents (66%) and teens (65%) agreed that “Using genAI tools will be a vital skill to have to remain competitive in school or career. About 60% of both groups also feel that “GenAI will augment or supplement humans, but we’ll still need human creativity,” vs. “it will surpass human capabilities and take over many tasks,” while 55% of parents and 57% of teens say it “will make it easier to stay connected with others,” vs. “it will make it harder to stay connected with others.”

Trying it out

Although this survey sheds light on how adults and teens are using GAI and paints a reasonably optimistic picture of how it’s perceived, the best way for you to learn about GAI is to try it. Google Bard, Microsoft Bing and ChatGPT all offer free access to GAI services that make it easy for anyone to ask questions or create content. I find it fascinating to try out different scenarios on these services and have used them in my work to generate ideas and recently used ChatGPT’s Dalle2 image-generation tool to create artwork to accompany some of my blog posts. I understand that it can make mistakes, so I never rely on it without verifying information. I also have an ethical responsibility to do my own work in my own words, so I use it mainly for ideas and research rather than a shortcut to wordsmithing. But, just as I can’t imagine going back to my old typewriter, it’s now hard to imagine doing creative work without getting at least a little help from Generative AI.

Larry Magid is a tech journalist and internet safety activist. Contact him at larry@larrymagid.com.

Tyler Burrow, 24, and Bailey Blunt, 28, were each reported missing by their families in late September. According to an October news release from the Humboldt County sheriff’s office, Blunt was last seen on Sept. 22 when she went to retrieve her belongings from a property associated with Burrow near the community of Willow Creek.

Two days later, her pickup truck was detected by license plate readers in Redding and in Central Point, Ore., the sheriff’s office said.

The arrest on the afternoon of Tuesday, Nov. 14, near Trail, Ore., came after a hunter who had been in the area contacted Blunt’s sister Steffany Baroni, who had been coordinating a public search, and told her of finding an encampment in the woods.

She passed that information on to sheriff’s investigators in Oregon’s Jackson County, she told the North Coast news site Redheaded Blackbelt, and they found Burrow near the site, about 30 miles north of Central Point.

They also found Blunt’s dog, Hank, and her pickup truck, which had been spray-painted black, Baroni said.

A search party that Blunt’s family had organized for Saturday, Nov. 18, has been called off, Baroni’s Facebook page says.

Anyone with information regarding Blunt’s whereabouts is asked to call the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office at 707-445-7251.

Sage Alexander can be reached at 707-441-0504.