Page 2 - San Francisco

Delhi-San Francisco flight delay: A-I apologises, offers $350 voucher

Air India has apologised and offered a travel voucher of USD 350 each to the passengers of the San Francisco flight that took off from the national capital after a delay of more than 30 hours. There were 199 passengers in the flight, according to a source. After a delay of over 30 hours, the flight took off from the national capital at 2155 hours on Friday and landed at San Francisco at 1245 hours (IST) on Saturday. The flight duration was around 16 hours. "Please allow me to sincerely apologise, on behalf of Air India, for the extended delay in bringing you to San Francisco, which was caused by several technical delays and other operational constraints," Air India Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Klaus Goersch said in a letter to the flight's passengers. As a gesture of apology, Air India has offered a "travel voucher worth USD 350" for future travel with the airline, the letter dated May 31 said. The passengers will also have the option to credit the amount .

Air India's Mumbai-San Francisco flight takes off after inordinate delay

Air India's flight to San Francisco from the city took off on Saturday evening after an inordinate delay due to multiple reasons. The flight, which was originally scheduled to take off at 1600 hours on Friday, was delayed by over 25 hours, due to multiple reasons and rescheduled for Saturday. Again on Saturday, the flight was initially expected to fly out in the morning but finally took off for San Francisco around 1730 hours, according to an official. Details about the number of passengers could not be ascertained. On Friday, passengers had to wait inside the aircraft for more than five hours before the flight was rescheduled for Saturday. An airline official had said the Boeing 777 plane, which was scheduled to take off at 1600 hours, was first delayed due to a technical glitch, then some passengers deboarded and subsequently, another passenger fell ill. After deboarding the passenger who started feeling unwell around 1917 hours, it was noticed that by the time the flight would

First-ever India pavilion inaugurated at Game Developers Conference in US

The first-ever India pavilion has been inaugurated at the prestigious Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, reflecting a new dimension of the bilateral relationship between India and the US. The inauguration on Wednesday also saw the launch of the 'India Gaming Market Report'. It was done in collaboration with the US India Strategic and Partnership Forum (USISPF) and its member WinZO. According to the report, India's gaming market is expected to grow from USD 3.1 billion in 2023 to USD 6 billion in 2028. The inauguration of the India pavilion marks a significant milestone in the Indo-US relationship, said USISPF president and CEO Mukesh Aghi. "The online gaming sector in India is burgeoning and initiatives such as these would go a long way in fostering collaboration between the two nations, including investment, innovation and content. We envision a future where our combined creativity fuels the next wave of gaming excellence," he said. The event witnessed the participation

Musk agreed ChatGPT maker should become for-profit company, says OpenAI

Elon Musk supported making OpenAI a for-profit company, the ChatGPT maker said, attacking a lawsuit from the wealthy investor who has accused the artificial intelligence business of betraying its founding goal to benefit humanity as it pursued profits instead. In its first response since the Tesla CEO sued last week, OpenAI vowed to get the claim thrown out and released emails from Musk, escalating the feud between the San Francisco-based company and the billionaire that bankrolled its creation years ago. The mission of OpenAI is to ensure AGI benefits all of humanity, which means both building safe and beneficial AGI and helping create broadly distributed benefits, OpenAI said in a blog post late Tuesday from five company executives and computer scientists, including CEO Sam Altman. We intend to move to dismiss all of Elon's claims." AGI refers to artificial general intelligence, which are general purpose AI systems that can perform just as well as or even better than humans in a

AT&T cellular outage in US disrupts vital services in major cities

Downdetector showed users of Verizon, T-Mobile and UScellular also faced disruptions

Moderna sales beat estimates at $6.7 bn last year on rising vaccine share

The company said Monday it still expects revenue to fall sharply this year to about $4 billion. It forecasts a return to sales growth in 2025 and to break even the following year

Climate concert in Dubai to highlight 'urgency of a planet in dissonance'

An upcoming climate concert, named Resonance, will bring together multiple voices from across the globe to raise awareness about the "urgency of a planet in dissonance - that must be healed for humanity". Hosted by San Francisco based non-profit BayEcotarium jointly with United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), the musical event will take place on December 6 in Dubai Opera, during the United Nations COP28 Climate Summit scheduled to be held in UAE from November 30 - December 12. "Music transcends geopolitical and linguistic boundaries and is the soul of civil societies. The Climate Concert is the coming together of multiple voices from around the world during the historic UNCOP28, in solidarity with combating climate change. Aptly named Resonance- its intent is to bring awareness to the urgency of a planet in dissonance - that must be healed for humanity," George Jacob, president and CEO of BayEcotarium, told PTI. The event will see live performances by multiple

14 places in Punjab, Haryana raided over attacks on Indian Consulate in US

The National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Wednesday carried out raids at 14 locations in Punjab and Haryana in connection with its probe into attacks on the Indian Consulate in San Francisco in the US earlier this year, an official spokesperson said. The spokesperson said these places located in north India were raided to unravel the complete conspiracy behind the attacks on March 19 and July 2, involving criminal trespass, vandalism, damage to public property and attempts to cause hurt to the consulate officials and set the building on fire through acts of arson. The locations raided by the NIA were spread across the districts of Moga, Jalandhar, Ludhiana, Gurdaspur, Mohali and Patiala in Punjab and Kurukshetra and Yamunanagar in Haryana. The crackdown led to the seizure of digital data containing information related to the accused persons, along with other incriminating documents, the spokesperson said. The NIA has been probing the case with the aim to identify and prosecute the

Vogt resigns as CEO of Cruise over questions of safety of self-driving cars

Kyle Vogt has resigned as CEO of Cruise, General Motors' autonomous vehicle unit, as questions build about the safety of self-driving cars. Vogt's decision to step down, announced late on Sunday, follows a recent recall of all 950 Cruise vehicles to update software after one of them dragged a pedestrian to the side of a San Francisco street in early October. The California Department of Motor Vehicles revoked the license for Cruise. The company earlier announced it had paused operations for a review by independent experts. The results of our ongoing reviews will inform additional next steps as we work to build a better Cruise centred around safety, transparency and trust, the company said in a statement. We will continue to advance AV technology in service of our mission to make transportation safer, cleaner and more accessible. Cruise won approval to transport fare-paying passengers last year. Since then, the autonomous vehicles have drawn complaints for making unexpected, ...

Joe Biden, Xi Jinping to meet at 30th APEC summit today: What to expect?

US President Joe Biden will meet Chinese President Xi Jinping on Wednesday in San Francisco on the sidelines of the 30th APEC summit

Man who 'attacked' Nancy Pelosi's husband says he wanted to end corruption

The man accused of attacking former US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's husband with a hammer last year told jurors at his federal trial Tuesday how he went to the Pelosis' San Francisco home as part of a bigger plan to end corruption in the United States. David DePape spoke for more than an hour, often getting emotional and crying about how his political leanings went from leftist to right-wing after reading a comment on a YouTube video about former President Donald Trump. He said he went to the Pelosis' home to talk to Pelosi about Russian involvement in the 2016 election, and that he planned to wear an inflatable unicorn costume and upload his interrogation of her online. Prosecutors say DePape bludgeoned Paul Pelosi in the early hours of October 28, 2022, just days before the midterm elections, and that he had rope and zip ties with him. DePape has pleaded not guilty to attempted kidnapping of a federal official and assault on the immediate family member of a federal official with

Govt urges US for evidence in attack on San Francisco consulate: Report

Earlier, in July, a group of Khalistan extremists tried to set the Indian consulate in San Francisco on fire

APEC Summit: Biden seeks to assert US' grip on Pacific amid global turmoil

President Joe Biden is looking to use this week's summit of Asia-Pacific leaders to show world leaders the United States has the gumption, attention span and money to focus on the region even as it grapples with a multitude of foreign and domestic policy crises. Biden's highly anticipated meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Wednesday is the main event of his four-day visit to San Francisco, where leaders from the 21 economies that make up the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum are gathering for their annual summit. The talks with Xi are of enormous importance as the leaders of the world's two biggest economies try to find a measure of stability after what's been a difficult year for U.S.-China relations. But the White House also wants to demonstrate to APEC's leaders that Biden can remain focused on the Pacific while also trying to keep the Israel-Hamas war from exploding into a broader regional conflict and to persuade Republican lawmakers to continue to spend .

Goyal arrives in San Francisco; begins bilateral with IPEF partner nations

During the meeting, the leaders emphasised ways of enhancing cooperation between India and Singapore in emerging and futuristic areas

Biden to travel to San Francisco to host APEC Summit participants

US President Joe Biden will be travelling to San Francisco to host the representatives of the 21 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation member economies for the APEC Economic Leaders' Week. Biden, who will be leaving the White House on November 14, has also invited Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the APEC Leadership Summit, but his visit has not been confirmed yet. The president will highlight the strength and resilience of the US economy, "our longstanding economic ties with the Asia-Pacific, the surge of job-creating investments from APEC economies into the US in recent years, and the role of the US economy in driving growth and innovation in the Asia-Pacific and globally", White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said. "He will also reaffirm our commitment to partnering with APEC economies to chart the next chapter of sustainable, inclusive regional growth, further strengthen the ties between our economies and our populations, and support American families and workers," she sai

India among San Francisco's top market for tourism growth recovery

The city witnesses a large number of Indian tourists visiting friends and relatives, staying in the nearby Silicon Valley

India one of the fastest-growing overseas visitor markets for SF: Official

After JFK airport in New York, San Francisco has emerged as the number two gateway for Indians in the US which is mainly driven by the expansion and new non-stop flights of Air India, according to officials who were in Mumbai this week to explore avenues to tap the huge Indian market. Our market measurement shows there are about 1,100 passengers per day each way between San Francisco, the Bay Area and India, Kevin Bumen, Chief Financial & Commercial Officer at San Francisco International Airport told PTI in an interview after concluding his two-day visit to Mumbai. Air India, he said, has been a real bright spot during the pandemic with a carrier that grew and really made the most of a difficult market and made some big moves with their expansion in San Francisco. Today San Francisco is the number two gateway in the US behind John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK). We're 17 flights a week. JFK has 21 flights a week. And if United Airlines were operating their full schedule, ..

Subway franchise owners must pay workers nearly $1 mn, sell or close stores

A federal court ordered the owners of 14 Subway locations north of San Francisco to pay employees nearly USD 1 million in damages and back pay and also to sell or shut their businesses, with any sale proceeds going to the Department of Labor. Federal investigators said franchise owners John and Jessica Meza directed children as young as 14 to operate dangerous machinery, assigned minors work hours that violated federal law, and failed to pay their employees regularly, including by issuing hundreds of bad checks and illegally keeping tips left by customers. The Labor Department also charged that the Mezas coerced employees in an attempt to prevent them from cooperating with its investigation, sometimes threatening children who attempted to raise concerns about the work environment. According to the court order, the owners acknowledged several of the Labor Department's findings. Messages left for the Mezas at email addresses included in the settlement were not immediately returned.

Air India's SFO flight from Bengaluru diverted to Alaska due to tech issue

A San Francisco (SFO)-bound Air India flight from Bengaluru, with more than 280 people onboard, was diverted to a city in Alaska due to a technical issue, according to an airline official. After fixing the issue, flight AI 175 took off and landed at San Francisco at around 1000 hours India time on Monday, the official said. There were more than 280 people onboard and the flight later landed at its destination after a delay of around four hours, the official said. In a statement, an Air India spokesperson said the flight was briefly diverted to Anchorage in Alaska due to a technical reason. "All passengers were well looked after, and the flight thereafter continued to its destination San Francisco, where it landed safely. Air India regrets any inconvenience that the delay may have caused," the spokesperson said. Generally, the duration of the flight from Bengaluru to San Francisco is around 16 hours.

AI's SFO flight diverted to Alaska due to tech issue; lands later: Official

A San Francisco (SFO)-bound Air India flight from Bengaluru, with more than 280 people onboard, was diverted to a city in Alaska due to a technical issue, according to an airline official. After fixing the issue, flight AI 175 took off and landed at San Francisco at around 1000 hours India time on Monday, the official said. The flight, operated by a B777 aircraft, faced a technical issue enroute to San Francisco. It was diverted to Anchorage, a city in Alaska. There were more than 280 people onboard and the flight later landed at its destination after a delay of around four hours. Generally, the duration of the flight from Bengaluru to San Francisco is around 16 hours. There was no official statement from Air India.