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CASTAIC (CBSLA.com) — A federal law enforcement-issued gun and badge are just a couple of the items that have been recently found underneath the receding waters of drought-dry Castaic Lake. A Castaic man fishing on the dam at Castaic Lake found a backpack that had been exposed as the water line has gone down 151 feet, Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department officials said. The bag contained a gun and a badge issued to an agent from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. The ATF agent, who was not identified, said that he and a friend from the Los Angeles...

TUSTIN (CBSLA.com) — Police need the public’s help to identify a man who stole at least $1,000 in gift cards, checks and cash Saturday from a wedding at Tustin Ranch Golf Club. Surveillance video captured the man entering the clubhouse at about 4:45 p.m. Saturday and casing the area near a wedding, Tustin police Lt. Robert Wright said. The suspect stood around the gift table, and when no one was looking, he took a box off the gift table containing gift cards, checks and cash and left in an unknown direction.

Ebola may already be in Britain, it was feared last night, after a businessman who had travelled to Macedonia became the first Briton to die from the disease. Macedonian officials confirmed that the 56-year-old, who has not been named, had been suffering from fever, vomiting and internal bleeding and that his condition had deteriorated rapidly. "These are all symptoms of Ebola, which raises suspicions with this patient," said Dr. Jovanka Kostovska of the health ministry's commission for infectious diseases.

Researchers on Thursday said they conducted experiments to learn precisely how sidewinder rattlesnakes are able to climb sandy hills, then applied the reptiles' repertoire to an existing snake robot so it could do the same thing. The study, published in the journal Science, is an example of how scientists are applying knowledge of biology to improve technology. Snake-like robots, rather than robots that move on wheels, offer unique capabilities for such complicated tasks as search-and-rescue operations in collapsed structures and inspecting nuclear power plants, the researchers said. "The snake robot can thread through tightly packed space to access locations that...

The cremation of an oversized body apparently helped set ablaze the roof of a crematory Wednesday when the smokestack overheated and set roofing material on fire. The fire at Southside Cremation Services, in the 1600 block of Crump Street, started shortly after noon and was extinguished by Richmond and Henrico County fire crews by 12:43, according to the Henrico County Division of Fire. Manager Jerry L. Hendrix Sr. said Wednesday afternoon that he’s received a go-ahead to resume cremating an 800-pound cadaver that created excessive heat and oil during a cremation

LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com) — President Barack Obama’s scheduled visit to the Southland on Thursday has prompted a traffic advisory from local authorities. The President will arrive at LAX around 2 p.m. and will then travel to Cross Campus, a shared space for entrepreneurs and startups in Santa Monica, where he will speak on the economy. His visit will be streamed live online. Mr. Obama will then attend a DNC fundraiser at actress Gwyneth Paltrow’s home where tickets cost between $1,000 and $32,000. On Friday, he will designate a portion of the San Gabriel Mountains as a national monument before departing...

LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com) — A man was sentenced Wednesday to death for killing two women in Los Angeles three decades ago, as the judge made note of the brutality of the crimes. Kevin Haley, 50, was sentenced to death in the killings of Laverne Stolzy on June 25, 1984 and Dolores Clement on Sept. 27, 1984. Judge Kathleen Kennedy denied a defense motion to reduce a jury’s death penalty recommendation to life in prison without the possibility of parole, calling the brutality of Haley’s crimes “horrendous” and saying he terrorized women who were “essentially helpless.” Beth Stolzy said she waited...

It was 20 years ago this past July when images of Jupiter being pummeled by a comet caught the world’s attention. Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 had flown too close to Jupiter. It was captured by the giant planet’s gravity and torn into a string of beads. One by one the comet fragments impacted Jupiter — leaving blemishes on its atmosphere, each several times larger than Earth in size. Until that event, no one had seen a comet impact a planet. Now, Mars will see a very close passage of the comet Siding Spring on October 19th. When the comet was first...

The company is among a handful of firms competing to bring well-heeled tourists into suborbital space. There are more than 700 people signed up to take a flight on SpaceShipTwo, with tickets running at $250,000 per seat. The spacecraft is put into the air using a carrier aircraft called WhiteKnightTwo, then will separate for a brief flight in space. Exact timing for the first flight has not been disclosed yet, but it is expected to be in the coming months. “SpaceShipTwo is safely back on the ground after her 54th test flight, including her tenth test of the feather system,”...

A new forecast centre dedicated to space weather has officially opened in Exeter. The Met Office Space Weather Operations Centre is designed to protect the UK's economy and infrastructure from severe events caused by space weather. The term describes the disruptive influence that activity at the Sun can have on Earth. The worst "storms" can disturb satellites, power grids and radio communications. As with terrestrial weather, the Met Office has been asked to co-ordinate operational forecasting. It has been doing this now for a number of weeks, working with experts across the UK and in the US, which has had...

The data is self-reported by water agencies with 3,000 or more customers. Together, the reporting agencies serve 33.5 million Californians, or roughly 87 percent of the state’s population. Gov. Jerry Brown called on Californians to reduce water use by 20 percent when he declared a drought emergency in January. Californians could face further restrictions if the drought worsens and the coming winter fails to produce adequate snow and rainfall. Marcus says the board is focused on pushing hesitant cities to conserve as much as they can for worse-case-scenarios, rather than achieving an across-the-board 20 percent cut in water use. A...

:45 p.m. UPDATE: The plane is confirmed to be a Grumman S2 Tracker tanker. 5:30 p.m. UPDATE: Cal Fire spokesman Daniel Berlant has confirmed it was a Cal Fire tanker that went down. We will be speaking live with Berlant on the CBS13 News at 6. 5:20 p.m. UPDATE: A plane has crashed in Yosemite National Park during the fight against the Dog Rock Fire, according to the National Parks Service. There is no word on what kind of plane crashed, or who was onboard, or the status of the people on board. The plane did crash within the area...

Hot off the news that XCOR is partnering with Mars One to offer joyrides in space, the company announced this week that it has mated the cockpit to the fuselage on the prototype — which they classify as a major milestone in construction. Check out pictures of the team at work below. “The team at XCOR has been working a long time to reach this goal,” stated XCOR CEO Jeff Greason. “We always knew there would be a day when we could see a spacecraft forming in our hangar. Today is that day. These pictures show our ongoing journey to...

The discovery demonstrates the presence of an ancient human population in America's Far West at the end of the last ice age. It was found that human coprolites were of Siberia-east Asian origins and is between 13,000 and 13,200 years old. The findings also confirmed that these fossilized samples were a thousand years older than the Clovis civilization, Paleo-Indian people who were used to reside in New Mexico around 11,500 years ago. Jenkins's work at the site began in 2002, but archaeologists first began exploring the caves as early as 1938. He said, "As we have used increasingly sophisticated scientific...

Scientists have noticed that while greenhouse gases have continued to mount in the first part of the 21st century, global average surface air temperatures have stopped rising along with them, said Nasa. Some studies have suggested that heat is being absorbed temporarily by the deep seas, and that this so-called global warming hiatus is a temporary trend. But the latest data from satellite and direct ocean temperature measurements from 2005 to 2013 "found the ocean abyss below 1,995 metres has not warmed measurably", Nasa said in a statement.

We haven't had the need to keep someone in (therapeutic torpor) for longer than seven days," Mark Schaffer, aerospace engineer for SpaceWorks Enterprises said at the International Astronomical Congress in Toronto last week. "For human Mars missions, we need to push that to 90 days, 180 days. Those are the types of mission flight times we're talking about." To go into stasis, astronauts would basically have a tube stuck up their nose that releases a cooling agent, which gradually lowers the body temperature to the 89 to 93 degrees Fahrenheit range needed to induce torpor. A nasal solution, says SpaceWorks...

PASADENA (CBSLA.com) — A Southern California lawmaker is set to protest what he says is a “federal land grab” by the Obama Administration. KNX 1070’s Bob Brill reports Assemblyman Tim Donnelly issued a warning ahead of a scheduled visit by President Obama to the San Gabriel Mountains, where he is expected to declare 600,000 acres of the land as a “national monument.” Any move by the White House to take control of a large swath of land adjacent to the Angeles National Forest and portions of the San Bernardino National Forest could force the closure of popular local attractions such...

Authorities say a suspected drunken driver was arrested after allegedly going the wrong way on a Riverside County freeway ramp and crashing into a sheriff’s transport van. The driver, identified as 20-year-old Sergio Garcia of Fontana, suffered major injuries and was taken to a hospital following the collision early Monday.

NASA told two companies to halt work on the next phase of its commercial crew program — the spacecraft expected to replace Russian ones ferrying astronauts to the International Space Station — because of a protest related to the contract award, according to media reports. Sierra Nevada Corp. (SNC) filed a complaint on Sept. 26, shortly after its Dream Chaser shuttle-like design was not selected for further funding under the Commercial Crew Transportation Capability (CCtCap) phase of the program. Competitors SpaceX and Boeing each received billions of dollars for further development for their Dragon and CST-100 spacecraft, which are expected...

LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com) LA football fans have been waiting nearly 20 years for a team to call their own. LA is the second largest TV market, host to plenty of baseball, basketball and hockey franchises, not to mention college teams. But the idea of a pro football team in this area has been nothing more than rumor for decades. According to a report, one or two NFL teams are on the way, “fairly soon.” “As the 20th anniversary of the NFL’s departure from Los Angeles, the NFL seems closer than ever to returning,” said the report. “Per a league source,...