Julian Sands: Helicopter search for missing British actor as mobile phone forensics used to try to locate him
A helicopter search is under way for missing British actor Julian Sands, as US authorities use mobile phone forensics to try to pinpoint his location.
The 65-year-old was reported missing by his wife a week ago after he failed to return home from a hike in the southern Californian mountains.
Due to evidence of avalanches, ground crews have not been able to continue their efforts, and the area is only being searched via helicopter for now.
Both national and state officials are working with the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s office to help find Sands, but authorities have said there was still “no time set” for when ground searches will begin.
On Friday, the county sheriff’s department revealed that pings from the actor’s phone appeared to show he had been on the move, heading further into the Baldy Bowl area of the San Gabriel Mountains on the day he was reported missing.
“We are working with state and federal agencies that have cell phone forensics to assist us in pinpointing a location, but so far no new info has been developed,” a spokesperson from the department said.
No date has been set for calling off operations yet, with the incident still being treated as a search and rescue operation.
Mount Baldy residents noted the “extreme” conditions in the area, which has been experiencing freezing temperatures and bad weather in recent days, but said they would not “rule anything out” in the mission to find Sands.
‘With every step, danger increases’
San Bernardino County Fire Department captain Rodd Mascis said the search for missing hikers was “sadly regular” and could be like finding a “needle in a haystack”.
“It truly is ‘enter at your own risk’,” he added.
“Most people come equipped for the day… but coming up against the elements is very difficult after a couple of days.
“You’ve got to be careful, it’s a beautiful area, but with every step that danger increases.”
The San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department previously urged hikers to “think twice and heed warnings”, saying its search and rescue teams had responded to 14 calls on Mount Baldy and in the surrounding area over the last four weeks.
Sands pictured with his wife Evgenia Citkowitz
Who is Julian Sands?
Born in Yorkshire, Sands’ breakout role came as the free-spirited George in the period drama A Room With A View, in which he appeared opposite Helena Bonham Carter.
He later starred in films such as Leaving Las Vegas, Warlock and Arachnophobia,
He has seen success on the small screen too, playing parts in Smallville and 24, with Kiefer Sutherland.
More recently, he played the chief medical officer in the 2021 Jack Lowden and Peter Capaldi-led drama Benediction.
Sands has three children, a son who he shares with former London Evening Standard editor Sarah Sands, and two daughters who he shares with his wife, journalist Evgenia Citkowitz.
It could be diplomatic dynamite.
The first meeting between a sitting US and Russian president in more than four years, following one of the bleakest periods in the history of their countries’ bilateral relations.
But a Putin–Trump summit does not necessarily mean there will be a ceasefire.
Ukraine war latest: Kremlin aide’s full statement on Trump-Putin talks
On the one hand, it could signal that a point of agreement has been reached and a face-to-face meeting is needed to seal the deal.
That has always been Russia’s stance. It’s consistently said it would only meet at a presidential level if there’s something to agree on.
On the other hand, there might not be anything substantive. It might just be for show.
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‘Good chance’ Trump will meet Putin soon
It might just be the latest attempt by the Kremlin to diffuse Donald Trump’s anger and dodge his deadline to end the war by Friday or face sanctions.
It would give Trump something that can be presented as progress, but in reality, it delivers anything but.
After all, there has certainly not been any sign that Moscow is willing to soften its negotiating position or step back from its goals on the battlefield.
Tellingly, perhaps, it’s this latter view which has been taken by some of the Russian press on Thursday.
Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin have not met face to face since the US president returned to the White House. File pic: Reuters
“Putin won” is the headline in Moskovsky Komsomolets regarding the Kremlin leader’s meeting with Witkoff.
The state-run tabloid quotes a political scientist, Marat Bashirov, who claims Putin “bought time” ahead of Friday’s deadline.
“It is noteworthy that in his rhetoric [on sanctions] Trump did not mention Russia at all,” the paper notes.
Komsomolskaya Pravda is similarly dismissive.
“Donald Trump has two simple interests in connection with Ukraine: to earn money for America, and political whistles and the Nobel Peace Prize for himself,” it says.
“Russia has its own interests,” it adds, “securing them is what Vladimir Putin will seek at a meeting with Trump.”
At this stage, the most likely location is the United Arab Emirates. Putin met the country’s president in the Kremlin today, and afterwards said it would be a “suitable location”. It felt like a strong hint.
And the UAE certainly makes sense.
It’s played mediator for a number of the prisoner swaps between Russia and Ukraine; it has good relations with the US (and was one of Trump’s stops on his recent Middle East tour); and most importantly for Moscow, it’s not a member of the International Criminal Court. So Putin doesn’t have to worry about being arrested.
But if NBC’s reports are correct, that a Putin-Trump summit is conditional on the Russian president meeting with Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy, then the summit may not happen at all.
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Until now, Putin has refused to meet Zelenskyy, despite numerous demands from Kyiv, because he views him as illegitimate.
The Kremlin said the prospect of a trilateral meeting between the leaders was mentioned by Witkoff on Wednesday, but the proposal was left “completely without comment” by Russia.
GPT-5, the long-awaited upgrade to the ChatGPT AI chatbot, has been released by its maker OpenAI.
It has been one of the most highly anticipated launches in Silicon Valley after OpenAI’s first offering ChatGPT – powered by its GPT-3 model – kick-started the current AI boom in late 2022.
“GPT-3 sort of felt like talking to a high school student,” said Sam Altman, OpenAI’s chief executive.
“GPT-4, maybe it was like talking to a college student. But with GPT-5, now it’s like talking to an expert, a PhD-level expert in anything, any area you need, on demand.”
At the launch event, OpenAI claimed the new chatbot, which will be released to all ChatGPT users on Thursday, was more than a simple upgrade to its previous offerings.
According to OpenAI, the new model exceeds the chatbot competition from the likes of Google, X and Antropic on “benchmarks” – standardised tests used to rank models.
OpenAI claims it has been designed to be easier and more natural to communicate with, better at writing prose and advanced computer code, solving academic questions from mathematics to law, assisting with healthcare-related questions, as well as being safer than its predecessors.
“It’s an incredible superpower on demand,” claimed Mr Altman.
GPT-5. Pic: OpenAI
The model is also more intelligent in how it uses its own brain power – and therefore an expensive computing resource – according to OpenAI.
It is a hybrid of previous chatbots and slower, more computing-intensive “reasoning” models like OpenAI’s Deep Research.
Based on a user’s request, the model will decide how much “thinking” is required before answering, rather than requiring the user to switch between different models.
GPT-5. Pic: OpenAI
Although AI enthusiasts who had been expecting GPT-5 to represent “artificial general intelligence [AGI]” will be disappointed.
Despite this being OpenAI’s stated goal, Mr Altman billed GPT-5 as a “major upgrade” to GPT-4 and a “significant step along the path to AGI”.
But they’re clearly not there yet.
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July: ‘ChatGPT is the partner I always wanted’
A real test of GPT-5 will be whether it sells.
OpenAI is projected to spend $8bn (£6bn) this year, on top of $5bn (£3.7bn) last year, and while it is expected to make a profit this year, the business case for increasingly powerful AI models is still not clear to many investors.
Given a single training run for GPT-5 is rumoured to have cost $500m (£373m), there will be an expectation the new model is significantly more useful to business users.
Despite a very slick demonstration of its coding skills at the launch presentation, where it built an online language learning game in seconds, GPT-5 will have to prove its worth for professional coding.
Many in the tech industry prefer Anthropic AI’s Claude model to write code. OpenAI and its investors will be hoping GPT-5 changes that.
AI experts will also be testing GPT-5’s tendency to “hallucinate”, an issue OpenAI claims to have improved with GPT-5.
But erroneous or bizarre answers are a problem that dogs all large generative AI models.
“Shiny things are always fun to play with, and I fully expect GPT-5 to be the shiniest so far,” said Gary Marcus, a cognitive scientist at New York University and AI commentator.
“But that doesn’t mean that it is a critical step on the optimal path to AI that we can trust,” Mr Marcus added in a post.
Dean Cain has been branded the “worst superman ever” as he announced he will join the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) “ASAP”.
The 59-year-old, who was cast as Superman in the TV series Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, announced he had joined the team amid the federal agency’s unprecedented immigration raids.
He told Fox News on Wednesday his recruitment video on Instagram had gone viral and since then, “I have spoken with some of the officials over at ICE and I will be sworn in as an ICE agent ASAP”.
“You can defend your homeland and get great benefits,” he said in the Instagram post where he appealed for his followers to join ICE.
Speaking with the Superman theme song in the background, he said “hundreds of thousands of criminals” had been arrested since US President Donald Trump took office.
He then told his followers they would get a series of benefits if they joined ICE, including a $50,000 (£37,407) signing bonus and student loan repayment.
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“If you want to help save America ICE is arresting the worst of the worst and removing them from America’s streets,” he said, before adding: “I voted for that.”
ICE agents are under pressure from the White House to boost their deportation numbers in line with Mr Trump’s campaign promise to crack down on illegal immigration.
Cain’s post on Instagram received some backlash, with one user commenting: “Worst superman ever”.
Another said: “Shame on you Dean – that’s the most un-Superman thing you could possibly advocate.”
One fan turned against him and said: “Until I saw this I was such a fan. What a sad human being you must be.”
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