FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. (AP) — A resident of northern Arizona has died from pneumonic plague, health officials said Friday.

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Plague is rare to humans, with on average about seven cases reported annually in the U.S., most of them in the western states, according to federal health officials.

The death in Coconino County, which includes Flagstaff, was the first recorded death from pneumonic plague since 2007, local officials said. Further details including the identify of the victim were not released.

Plague is a bacterial infection known for killing tens of millions in 14th century Europe. Today, it’s easily treated with antibiotics.

The bubonic plague is the most common form of the bacterial infection, which spreads naturally among rodents like prairie dogs and rats.

There are two other forms: septicemic plague that spreads through the whole body, and pneumonic plague that infects the lungs.

Pneumonic plague is the most deadly and easiest to spread.

The bacteria is transmitted through the bites of infected fleas that can spread it between rodents, pets and humans.

People can also get plague through touching infected bodily fluids. Health experts recommend taking extra care when handling dead or sick animals.

Most cases happen in rural areas of northern New Mexico, northern Arizona, southern Colorado, California, southern Oregon and far western Nevada, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

A 16-year-old from Columbia Heights whose body was discovered in a landfill was remembered Friday as a loving and family-oriented son.

His mother, Ashley Berry, spoke about Jordan “Manny” Collins Jr. in front of the Governor’s Residence in St. Paul.

Jordan “Manny” Collins Jr. (Courtesy of the Anoka County Sheriff’s Office)

“I know every mother wants to say this about their child, but he was great,” Berry said. “He had a very old soul. And I hate to even say ‘had.’”

Berry said her son liked to skateboard, play basketball and take photos. He fell asleep on FaceTime with his girlfriend every night and visited his grandmother every week to mow her lawn.

“He cared for everybody,” Berry said. “When I’m checking on him, he checks on me more.”

Berry filed a missing person report with the Columbia Heights Police Department on May 12. She told police that her son lived with his father in an apartment in Columbia Heights.

Video evidence led police to believe Collins’ body went from a dumpster in Columbia Heights to the Elk River Landfill. They began checking the landfill June 4, and the FBI brought in its Laboratory Evidence Response Team Unit and the Technical Hazardous Response Unit from Virginia to help in the investigation.

Berry said her heart sank when police started searching the landfill.

“They’d been out there for way too long, so I knew it was something,” she said.

After searching for nearly a month, law enforcement discovered Collins’ body June 28 in the Elk River landfill. Police also found blood stains in the apartment where Collins Jr. lived with his father.

‘The justice he deserves’

On Wednesday, the Anoka County attorney’s office charged Manny’s father, Jordan Dupree Collins Sr., 38, with second-degree murder with intent but not premeditated.

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Collins Sr. has been in custody since Monday, with bail set at $3 million unconditional or $2 million with conditions. Prosecutors intend to seek an aggravated sentence, according to court documents.

Berry thanked the community and law enforcement for their efforts to find her son.

“We wouldn’t have found him without everybody working together,” she said. “It’s gonna be a long process, but I pray Manny gets the justice that he deserves.”

Berry last communicated with her son May 8 over text message.

She said the last message she received from him was “Mom, I love you and I appreciate you. Thank you, and I’ll see you soon.”

She said she knew the text was truly from her son because he always said “I appreciate you.”

By MATT O’BRIEN

The latest version of Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence chatbot Grok is echoing the views of its billionaire creator, so much so that it will sometimes search online for Musk’s stance on an issue before offering up an opinion.

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The unusual behavior of Grok 4, the AI model that Musk’s company xAI released late Wednesday, has surprised some experts.

Built using huge amounts of computing power at a Tennessee data center, Grok is Musk’s attempt to outdo rivals such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini in building an AI assistant that shows its reasoning before answering a question.

Musk’s deliberate efforts to mold Grok into a challenger of what he considers the tech industry’s “woke” orthodoxy on race, gender and politics has repeatedly got the chatbot into trouble, most recently when it spouted antisemitic tropes, praised Adolf Hitler and made other hateful commentary to users of Musk’s X social media platform just days before Grok 4’s launch.

But its tendency to consult with Musk’s opinions appears to be a different problem.

“It’s extraordinary,” said Simon Willison, an independent AI researcher who’s been testing the tool. “You can ask it a sort of pointed question that is around controversial topics. And then you can watch it literally do a search on X for what Elon Musk said about this, as part of its research into how it should reply.”

One example widely shared on social media — and which Willison duplicated — asked Grok to comment on the conflict in the Middle East. The prompted question made no mention of Musk, but the chatbot looked for his guidance anyway.

As a so-called reasoning model, much like those made by rivals OpenAI or Anthropic, Grok 4 shows its “thinking” as it goes through the steps of processing a question and coming up with an answer. Part of that thinking this week involved searching X, the former Twitter that’s now merged into xAI, for anything Musk said about Israel, Palestine, Gaza or Hamas.

“Elon Musk’s stance could provide context, given his influence,” the chatbot told Willison, according to a video of the interaction. “Currently looking at his views to see if they guide the answer.”

Musk and his xAI co-founders introduced the new chatbot in a livestreamed event Wednesday night but haven’t published a technical explanation of its workings — known as a system card — that companies in the AI industry typically provide when introducing a new model.

The company also didn’t respond to an emailed request for comment Friday.

“In the past, strange behavior like this was due to system prompt changes,” which is when engineers program specific instructions to guide a chatbot’s response, said Tim Kellogg, principal AI architect at software company Icertis.

“But this one seems baked into the core of Grok and it’s not clear to me how that happens,” Kellogg said. “It seems that Musk’s effort to create a maximally truthful AI has somehow led to it believing its own values must align with Musk’s own values.”

The lack of transparency is troubling for computer scientist Talia Ringer, a professor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign who earlier in the week criticized the company’s handling of the technology’s antisemitic outbursts.

Ringer said the most plausible explanation for Grok’s search for Musk’s guidance is assuming the person is asking for the opinions of xAI or Musk.

“I think people are expecting opinions out of a reasoning model that cannot respond with opinions,” Ringer said. “So, for example, it interprets ‘Who do you support, Israel or Palestine?’ as ‘Who does xAI leadership support?”

Willison also said he finds Grok 4’s capabilities impressive but said people buying software “don’t want surprises like it turning into ‘mechaHitler’ or deciding to search for what Musk thinks about issues.”

“Grok 4 looks like it’s a very strong model. It’s doing great in all of the benchmarks,” Willison said. “But if I’m going to build software on top of it, I need transparency.”

For all of the well-deserved pregame hype about the Twins facing Pittsburgh ace Paul Skenes on Friday, manager Rocco Baldelli admitted that in meeting with his hitters, they didn’t burn incense, light candles or take any other extreme measures in order to coax a hit or two against the dominant righty.

The challenge of facing Skenes — who earlier this month became the first Pirate ever selected to the All-Star Game in each of his first two major league seasons — is the same for every player that steps into the batters box.

“I can’t tell you they’re that much different,” Baldelli said of the pregame hitters meeting prior to facing Skenes. “If there was some secret plan that was reasonably obvious to anyone on Earth, we would probably know about it, and any team…every team would probably be focusing on that. There is no overriding plan that you know has a high level of success. You have to go in there and win a lot of individual at-bats and individual pitches.”

Still, with Twins All-Star right-hander Joe Ryan headed to the mound to start the game and a big crowd on hand, Baldelli acknowledged that these kinds of head-to-head matchups, on a warm summer night, with Minnesota battling for a wild card spot, are the type of games that bring fans out to the park or have them tuning into the TV broadcast.

“Those types of days can be an enjoyable spectacle. They’re the types of matchups that get people talking a lot, they get people excited, they get people in this building and in this clubhouse excited, and hopefully a lot of our fans at home are going to enjoy watching some good baseball and very well-pitched games,” he said. “So, I think that’s what it’s about. And probably one of the more you know…it doesn’t happen every day. Like, you’ve got to take advantage of the opportunities that you have to watch great players out there. And when you see two pitchers like this matchup, it should be must-see TV.”

Confidence boost from Cubs series

The Twins fell short of a sweep in the three-game series with Chicago earlier in the week. But with the Cubs coming to Minnesota on an offensive tear, holding the visitors to one run in the series opener, and two runs in the second game, was chalked up as a confidence booster for the defense and pitching staff.

With a huge contingent of Cubs fans at Target Field for all three games, keeping the visiting fans mostly quiet was a nice bonus.

“That’s a really good team with a really tough lineup, and to take two of three from them just shows how good our team can be when we play to our potential,” said Twins reliever Danny Coulombe, who pitched 2/3 of an inning in each of the wins. “It was kind of crazy to see so much blue. Obviously the Cubs travel great, but it was a really fun week.”

Metrodome memories for McCutchen

While he has spent the bulk of his career in the National League and has not been a rival of the Twins, Pirates slugger Andrew McCutchen has some good memories of summer trips to Minnesota. In 2014, when the All-Star Game was at Target Field, he represented Pittsburgh, and he came into Friday’s game with a dozen career home runs in Minneapolis.

McCutchen’s first career home run was hit on June 17, 2009, off Twins ace Francisco Liriano at the Metrodome, in the final season the Twins played indoor baseball.

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