Free Republic

The eight-hour exercise will see actors in various parts of the UK simulate symptoms of the virus to test the responses of emergency services, government ministers and health chiefs. It forms part of the UK's contingency plan against Ebola, which has killed more than 4,000 people worldwide. Passenger screening is to be introduced at key UK airports and rail terminals. The national exercise, ordered by Prime Minister David Cameron, will also include a simulated meeting of the government's Cobra emergency committee, to be chaired by Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt. Actors will simulate symptoms of the deadly virus in various areas...

LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com) — A homeless man Friday was sentenced to 12 years in prison for the fatal attack of a woman in Hollywood. Dustin James Kinnear, 27, pleaded no contest last week to voluntary manslaughter charges in the stabbing death of 23-year-old Christine Calderon. Calderon was fatally stabbed on June 18, 2013 outside of the Hollywood & Highland Center. “Kinnear demanded money from Calderon and a friend after the pair had just taken photos of transients,” who were holding obscene signs, the District Attorney’s Office said. When Calderon refused to pay, Kinnear attacked. Kinnear’s public defender said the victim’s...

LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com) — President Barack Obama Friday declared more than 346,000 acres of the San Gabriel Mountain range a national monument. Obama arrived in San Dimas by helicopter and made the announcement around 1:40 p.m. Proponents believe the declaration will help protect the area, which does not include Wrightwood and Mt. Baldy Village, by keeping it clean; while those who oppose say the decision will add more restrictions that would make it more difficult for businesses. “What’s going to happen is, they are basically going to put up signs and locks and keys when they can’t decide a budge,”...

Workers at a New Jersey treatment plant say they saw a heavy, metallic object fall from the sky Wednesday, and they want to know where the potentially deadly projectile came from. The employees at Secaucus Treatment Works said the 5-by-5 inch piece of metal debris hit a railing, ricocheted off a concrete tank, then hit the ground. It landed about 25 feet from where employees were working. "It came close. It came pretty close," said employee Victor Suppa. It "could have killed somebody, absolutely" if it hit anyone, added operations foreman Steven Bronowich.

MISSION VIEJO (CBSLA.com) — A mixed martial arts fighter surrendered following an hours-long standoff with SWAT officers at his Mission Viejo home Thursday, authorities said. The incident began when Orange County Sheriff’s deputies attempted to take Jason “Mayhem” Miller into custody on an arrest warrant in a domestic violence and stalking case around 10 a.m., according to a Sheriff’s spokesperson. When deputies tried to take Miller into custody, he ran back into his home and has refused to come out, authorities said. Miller surrendered in back of the residence and was in custody shortly after 2:10 p.m., a Sheriff’s spokesperson...

Gov. Perry Visits Troops Deploying to West Africa in Fight against Ebola More than 500 troops from the 36th Engineer Brigade, 1st Medical Brigade and 85th Civil Affairs Brigade stationed at Ft. Hood are expected to deploy to Liberia by the end of this month. Approximately 200 troops stationed at Ft. Bliss, but assigned to aviation units at Ft. Hood, will also deploy. Their mission will be constructing facilities to be used in the housing and care of Ebola patients. The troops will not have contact with Ebola patients. The servicemen and women from Ft. Hood are part of a...

When the experts describe the Ebola disaster, they do so with numbers. The statistics include not just the obvious ones such as caseloads, deaths and the rate of infection, but also the ones that describe the speed of the global response. Right now, the math still favors the virus. Global health officials are looking closely at the “reproduction number,” which estimates how many people, on average, will catch the virus from each person stricken with Ebola. The epidemic will begin to decline when that number falls below one. A recent analysis estimated the number at 1.5 to two. The number...

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...