The deputy mayor of Los Angeles released a statement after his home was raided by the FBI as part of an investigation into a bomb threat made against City Hall earlier this year. Brian Williams was appointed by Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass to oversee public safety, but he is now being investigated over the bomb threat, according to the Los Angeles Times. 'Los Angeles City Hall had been evacuated after a suspicious package was found in the lobby.' The mayor's office confirmed the accusation in a statement Wednesday and said Williams was placed immediately on administrative leave. "When the threat was reported, the LAPD investigated and determined there was no immediate danger. Following additional investigation, LAPD referred this matter to the FBI for further investigation," the statement read. Before joining Bass' office in March 2023, Williams had worked for seven years as the executive director of the Los Angeles County Sheriff Civilian Oversight Commission. "My number one job as Mayor is to keep Angelenos safe," said Bass after appointing Williams. "The only way to do that is to hold people who commit crimes accountable and to take real steps to prevent crime from happening in the first place." No further details were released about the bomb threat, but in September, the Los Angeles City Hall had been evacuated after a suspicious package was found in the lobby. Also in October, the mail room of City Hall had been evacuated after a suspicious white substance was found in a package. Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

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This is an exciting time of year, one in which we spend quality time with friends and family and exchange presents with loved ones. Unfortunately, the holiday season is also when scammers work overtime to get their hands on your personal information by any means necessary. That's why Google has been developing new features throughout the year to ensure that services like Gmail are ready to combat these holiday scams before they arrive. In a blog post this week, Google senior director of product management Andy Wen claimed that Gmail users have reported 35% fewer scams reaching their inboxes during the first month of the 2024 holiday season than over the same period last year. It turns out that artificial intelligence has been key to stopping scams in their tracks. Google developed a series of AI models that "significantly strengthened Gmail cyber-defenses, including a new large language model (LLM) that we trained on phishing, malware and spam." That one large language model alone is able to block 20% more spam than Gmail was blocking before while reviewing 1,000 times more user-reported spam daily. For now, even the most advanced AI can't stop every piece of spam from sneaking through the cracks. With that in mind, Google shared three scams that are in heavy rotation this holiday season that everyone should be doing their best to avoid: Invoice scams: This method involves scammers sending fake invoices to unsuspecting users, typically trying to solicit phone calls to dispute the “charges” and using this connection as a way to convince victims to pay them. These scams aren’t new, but are persistent and incredibly prevalent this holiday season. Celebrity scams: Over the past month, many of the most common scams popping up reference famous people, either pretending to come from the celebrity themself or claiming a given celebrity is endorsing a random product. The associations don’t always make much sense, but the goal of these campaigns is to use the association to build trust and trick people into engaging with “too good to be true” scenarios. Extortion scams: This brand of scam is vicious and scary. Victims receive emails with details on their home address, sometimes even including a picture of the location. There are a few different versions of the messages, but they generally either include threats of physical harm or threats of releasing damaging personal material they say they acquired through a hack. In order to keep yourself safe, Google recommends taking your time to question suspicious emails before clicking any links or following any directions, double-checking the details for anything out of place, not sending money to anyone you don't know, and marking any emails you don't trust as spam. That way, Gmail might catch it next time. Don't Miss: Whisk is Google’s newest AI image generator, and it looks amazing The post Gmail is using new AI models to keep spam and scams out of your inbox appeared first on BGR. Today's Top Deals Today’s deals: $769 M2 MacBook Air, $198 Sony XM4 headphones, $24 AirTag, $600 off Narwal Freo X Ultra, more Today’s deals: $20 Waterproof Bluetooth speaker, $999 M3 MacBook Air, Duracell batteries, Cosori air fryer, more Today’s deals: $40 Magic Bullet, $38 Sony Bluetooth speaker, $25 myQ, Energizer batteries, more Best deals: Tech, laptops, TVs, and more sales

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