LOS ANGELES Federal and local California officials have announced the arrest of a man in connection with the start of the deadly Palisades Fire in January.Twelve people died in the fire, which destroyed more than 6,800 homes and buildings and injured four people, including one firefighter. More than 23,000 acres were burned."This arrest, we hope, will provide a measure of justice to all those who were impacted," said Acting United States Attorney for the Central District of California Bill Essayli.The Palisades Fire is one of the most destructive wildfires in Southern California's history."Today marks a significant moment in a long road to justice for our community," said Special Agent in Charge Kenny Cooper of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives Los Angeles Field Division. "After more than eight months of tireless, meticulous work, I stand here with our partners, proud to announce an arrest in connection to the devastating palisade fires that claimed lives, destroyed homes and shook this community to its core."OLYMPIC SWIMMER PRESENTED REPLACEMENT MEDALS FOLLOWING DEVASTING LOSS IN CALIFORNIA WILDFIREOfficials said the fire was started by 29-year-old Jonathan Rinderknecht, who was using an open flame.Rinderknecht was a California resident at the time the fire started. He was arrested Tuesday in Florida, where he now lives, Essayli said.Essayli said digital evidence within the affidavit, included a ChatGPT prompt created by RInderknecht a few months before the fire's start of a dystopian painting showing, "a burning forest and a crowd fleeing from it."Officials allege Rinderknecht started the fire 12 minutes into the new year on Jan. 1. Officials said Rinderknecht dropped off an Uber passenger in the Palisades late on New Year's Eve and then walked up a trail in the Pacific Palisades.According to authorities, Rinderknect listened to and watched the music video for a French rap song which included objects being lit on fire before starting the Palisades fire.INSURED LOSSES FROM LOS ANGELES FIRESTORM ESTIMATED TO BE IN EXCESS OF $28 BILLION"It took the defendant several tries to contact 911 to report the fire," Essayli said. "He fled the scene in his car, but turned around after passing fire engines, driving in the opposite direction to fight the fire."Essayli said Rinderknecht returned to the same trail from earlier in the evening and watched firefighters attempt to contain the blaze, taking videos on his phone.Firefighters were successful in suppressing the fire on Jan. 1, officials said, but it continued to smolder and burn underground until Jan. 7, when strong winds caused the fire to spread to the surface again. It then burned until Jan. 31, when the flames were extinguished.DRONE VIDEO CAPTURES MALIBU'S APOCALYPTIC DAMAGE AFTER SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA FIRESTORM"I want to thank the outstanding partnership we had in getting this case to where it's at, thanks to the work of the ATF and, investigative support from both the LAPD and the Los Angeles Fire Department and the U.S. Forest Service for their hard work in this investigation," Essayli said.Charges brought against Rinderknecht include destruction of property by means of fire. Essayli said more charges are likely to be filed as the evidence is presented to a grand jury."We know this arrest cannot erase the pain or grief or losses endured, but we hope it is a step forward. It is proof that justice will not be forgotten," Cooper said.

BUXTON, N.C. Residents in Buxton, North Carolina are doing just about everything they can to salvage belongings as aggressive tides continue to pose a major threat to oceanfront properties.On the scene in Buxton, FOX Weather Correspondent Robert Ray spoke with two men who used a ladder to scale a compromised property and rescue furniture and belongings out of a house after its stairway was destroyed. Since Sept. 30, Nine houses in Buxton have succumbed to the Atlantic Ocean as the threat of additional destruction looms.Nate Bopp and Thomas Payette, of Virginia, traveled to Buxton and entered the home of a friend on Tuesday in an effort to salvage belongings from the damaged, waterfront property." You got to remember, people have photographs, they have photo albums that none of these people have been able to get out, so we're trying to get as much as we can for them," Bopp said.Bopp said they were attempting to salvage belongings from a house that belonged to their friends that reside in Iowa.When asked by FOX Weather Correspondent Robert Ray whether the home would survive king high tides and strong surf that will continue to rattle the Buxton beachfront, Bopp replied, "No.""When I was a kid, there was 200, 250 yards of beach," said Bopp, who said he has been coming to Buxton since 1983.Due to aggressive beach erosion, the properties that once had dunes and sand to provide coastal resilience now sit directly on the Atlantic Ocean without a natural barrier."My dear friend she was interviewed the other day, her house was here," Bopp said. "She never got her stuff out. Some of it was her husband's, who passed away a few years ago, (it's) gone."Since Sept. 30, nine homes have collapsed in Buxton, where the threatened structures experienced severe impacts from Hurricanes Imelda and Humberto.Not out of the clear yet, structures on the Buxton beachfront remain under pressure as a result of unusual high tides spawned by the super moon and king tides that will peak Wednesday morning in the Outer Banks.

With almost 10 homes collapsing into the ocean in the past week along North Carolinas Outer Banks, those who live there know the problem of coastal erosion is only worsening.Barry Crum owns Crum Works, Inc., a company that specializes in retrofitting and moving homes threatened by coastal erosion.However, even for someone experienced with this coastal threat, Crum said the homes lost more recently came as a shock."It's been pretty heartbreaking because I've lived here all my life," Crum said. "I've watched a lot of storm damage happen, but I've never seen anything like this. The erosion that is attacking this particular spot at this time is just, I think it's unprecedented, at least in our area. Another thing that's hard is when these houses are going in, the ocean is so rough at that time that we really can't do anything but just sit back and watch."King Tides and big waves are again threatening the villages along Cape Hatteras National Seashore, such as Buxton and Rodanthe, where more than 20 homes have collapsed since 2020. Last week, eight homes in Buxton and one in Rodanthe were brought down as the sand slipped away with the waves caused by conditions from hurricanes Imelda and Humberto passing hundreds of miles offshore. Conditions should peak Tuesday with the full Moon.Crum explained that most homeowners have two options to try and protect their homes. The first is retrofitting to buy more time from coastal erosion. The second option is moving the entire home to another location.PHOTOS: MASSIVE DEBRIS PILES ALONG OUTER BANKS AFTER 9 HOMES CRUMBLE FROM ROUGH SURFCurrently, Crum Works, Inc. is working with homeowners who are several houses back from the ocean."We're looking at preemptive measures," Crum said. "We're also doing sandbags to try to protect what's there. We're going to be putting in pilings, like sister pilings and putting them down really deep so that when the sand scours out, the homes are able to stay and withstand the tide."Currently, one of the homes theyve added pilings too is surrounded by water under the current high tide and flooding conditions."There's a big blue house that's out there, and it's out in the ocean, but it's still level, and it's safe," Crum said.He said many of the homes falling now were built when building codes were different."Everything here is sand. There's no silt or clay. So the pilings are actually jetted in, and then they're impacted after they're jetted. And the problem that we're having is these homes that are falling were built in the seventies and eighties in the codes back then were different than they are now," Crum said. "So the codes now seem to be pretty close to sufficient to keep these homes safe, but the older homes, not so much. So they have to be retrofitted."If youve ever watched a wave take out a sand castle, using sand as a base might not sound like a solid plan, but Crum said it works better than other ground materials."Its actually a very stable ground to work as opposed to clay. Where some of the soils that you guys have up north, you guys have to drive the piling so deep because it's just mud," Crum said.The problem is that coastal erosion is washing away that stable ground."The sand is stable until it all gets washed away," Crum said.Some homes can be moved back by about 100 to 150 feet onto their existing lots. That buys some more time, but moving a home is very costly and isnt a long-term solution for those lots. It can cost $50,000-$60,000 to move a home, and then add the cost of new septic, driveway, stairs and a new base. The move can end up costing $300,000 in some cases.Crum said he is an advocate of long-term solutions, including building a jetty and more beach replenishment."I feel like the jetty is a long-term solution. It'll really help stabilize and build the beach on the north side where we're having these issues," he said.Even as a business owner who makes a profit from this climate problem, Crum said he loses sleep knowing that not every home can be saved."I think a lot of people are kind of in shock," he said. "This is hard. Even though most of these homes aren't local people, we're still all pretty devastated over it."

Agentic AI systems act as autonomous digital workers for performing complex tasks with minimum supervision. They are currently growing with a rapid attraction, to the point that one estimate surmises that by 2025, 35% of firms will implement AI agents. However, autonomy raises concerns in high-stakes even subtle errors in these fields can have serious []The post The Role of Human Feedback in Agentic AI Tool Validation appeared first on Analytics Vidhya.

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The latest release of GPT-5 has taken the world by storm. OpenAIs newest flagship model has received mixed reviews while some praise its capabilities, others highlight its shortcomings. This made me wonder: Is GPT-5 truly superior to the original favorite, GPT-4o? Personally, GPT-4o was my go-to LLM for everything from text summarization to image []The post GPT-5 vs GPT-4o: Is the latest OpenAI model better than its most beloved one? appeared first on Analytics Vidhya.

Welcome to the showdown of the (AI) century. Two rockstars go head-to-head in this headliner battle, in the search for the one true champion of AI models. On one side, youve got OpenAIs flagship brainchild the GPT-5 polished, powerful, and dripping with experience, and on the other, Googles latest prodigy the Gemini []The post GPT-5 vs Gemini 2.5 Pro: The Champion AI is appeared first on Analytics Vidhya.

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