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Residents posted a flurry of videos on social media, together with theories of aliens or meteors. Others made panicked calls to law enforcement officials. But not to worry, U.S. military officials said. It's a pre-planned missile test. The Navy Strategic Systems Programs held a scheduled missile test flight at sea from USS Kentucky, which is a ballistic missile submarine. The test was conducted off the coast of Southern California, the Pentagon said in a statement. ... The Los Angeles International Airport issued a statement this week about the military testing. "The military airspace to the west of LAX will be...

India’s government has cancelled Greenpeace’s nonprofit registration after national security officials deemed the activist group a “threat to economic security” and took actions to limit the group’s ability to function. The Tamil Nadu provincial government issued a notice Wednesday cancelling Greenpeace India Society’s registration for “‘fraudulently’ conducting their business by falsifying balance sheets, and other violations of the Tamil Nadu Societies Registration Act of 1975,” reports Mongabay.com. For over a year, Indian officials have been cracking down on Greenpeace for protesting coal plants and mines the country is trying to use to bring electricity to the rural poor. Greenpeace has...

Walls of water filled with mining waste cascaded downhill when the dams burst on Thursday, engulfing the village of Bento Rodrigues and its 600 residents in a sea of mud while also flooding others far removed from the open-pit mine. Little remains of the village but ruined walls and cars lying twisted in sludge. Search helicopters buzzed overhead as rescuers tried to save a horse trapped in the mud. "I heard screaming and saw the water coming fast, about 15 to 20 meters high (49-66 feet)," said survivor Antonio Santos, a construction worker who was at home when the dams...

This weapon is designed to disrupt the activity of any electronic device found in the blast radius. The EMP blast affects only electronic equipment, without harming humans, animals, plants or infrastructures. Such a weapon offers a great deal of precision, so that only buildings or rooms with military equipment can be targeted and there is no destruction or collateral damage done. This is crucial in modern warfare, because the fighting takes place in urban locations where conventional ammunition can easily injure noncombatants. The joint project is known as “CHAMP”, which stands for Counter-electronics High-powered Advanced Missile Project. It started a...

A 28-year-old man from outside Sacramento has been arrested in the stabbing of a U.S. airman who gained fame for helping to thwart a terrorist attack on a train in France, police said Wednesday. ... Stone, 23, was hospitalized for a week while recovering from the attack, which police said Wednesday came after some kind of dispute between the suspect's and the airman's friends over cellphone video. "People like to use cellphones and catch people in different situations. There was people in one party that videotaped someone else, and it wasn't something that was appreciated," Sacramento Police Department Chief Sam...

A relative performed a lamb sacrifice to protect a 20-year-old man from harm and evil just days before his body landed on a 5 Freeway sign after being ejected in a fatal car crash in Glendale, according to a fundraising page set up for him. Richard Pananian died on Friday morning. He was allegedly driving his 2004 Ford Fiesta at a high rate of speed and passing vehicles on the freeway’s right shoulder when his car hit the rear of a truck and veered out of control, the California Highway Patrol said at the time. The Fiesta then overturned and...

In cities with wetter climes, storms are cautiously observed through windows. In droughty Los Angeles, they’re ogled in a museum. Rain Room, an exhibition that simulates a downpour indoors, opens at LACMA on November 1. The high-tech installation is immersive: Up to seven people at a time can walk through the 1,000-square-foot deluge without getting wet. British studio rAndom International, whose experiential projects explore human reaction and intuition as they relate to nature, created the work. Motion sensors and 3-D tracking cameras stop the flow of water whenever a human body is detected, imbuing the entire event with a divine...

An unusual re-entry is in store for Nov 13. Object WT1190F discovered by the Catalina Sky Survey (a Near Earth Asteroid survey) on Oct 3, and (as it turns out) observed earlier in 2013 and 2012, is predicted to impact Earth near 6:19 UT on Nov 13, south of Sri Lanka near lat 5.625 N lon 81.452 E. This object is not an asteroid but an artificial object in a trans-Lunar, earth-centered orbit with perigee currently at 5732 km and apogee at 607 773 km (1.6 Lunar Distance). It is currently not known from what launch this object is, but...

Astronomers initially thought the object was an asteroid when they spotted it in early October, and named it Asteroid 2015 TB145. But using the US space agency's Infrared Telescope Facility (IRTF) on Mauna Kea, Hawaii, experts "have determined that the celestial object is more than likely a dead comet that has shed its volatiles after numerous passes around the sun," NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory said in a statement late Friday. ... The space rock has already grabbed attention with its unusually high speed and big size, about as large as a football stadium at 2,000 feet (600 meters) in diameter....

But the team stresses they do not want to build a replica of the original bronze structure of a warrior standing over the entrance of the ancient city’s harbour. Instead, they want to construct a 150-metre tall “reimagining” of the wonder, based on the ambitions and vision of the original 2200-year-old monument. They want to crowdsource its funding through the internet. It will still be a colossal statue. It will still be a lighthouse. But it will we sheathed in a bronze-coloured skin that doubles as solar panels. The team says they aim to “put back on the map the...

After uncovering the “deplorable conditions” in the family’s San Jacinto home, sheriff’s deputies on Tuesday arrested the children’s parents on suspicion of felony child abuse, according to the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department. ... The children, whose names were not released, are believed to have attended school but each night were imprisoned in a room in their family’s home in the 1600 block of Santa Fe Avenue, Sheriff’s Deputy Mike Vasquez said. Calling it a “sensitive investigation,” Vasquez said additional details about the alleged abuse would not be released.

The Pope praised Serra’s treatment of Native Americans, saying that he “sought to defend the dignity of the native community, to protect it from those who had mistreated and abused it.” “Mistreatment and wrongs which today still trouble us,” Francis continued, “especially because of the hurt which they cause in the lives of many people.” The Pope has planned to meet with Native Americans in Washington after the Mass, a Vatican official told CNN’s Delia Gallagher. But some Native Americans say Serra was no saint. “We’re stunned and we’re in disbelief,” said Valentin Lopez, 63, chairman of the Amah Mutsun...

Domingo C. Salazar-García, an investigator from Max Planck who did the isotopic analysis on the bones, said the evidence points to a more complex explanation than the result of war or a crime. The final removal of the head, he said, was not the result of cutting but instead of pulling and rotating until detachment was achieved. And there is no evidence that Burial 26, as the remains have been named, was killed. "The chemical analysis of strontium isotopes done in this study indicates that the decapitated individual was not an outsider to the group," Salazar-García said. "Therefore, it was...

The ceremonial opening of the Cathedral Mosque, near the city center, was overseen by Russian President Vladimir Putin. Foreign dignitaries also attended, including Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas. With his speech broadcast live on state television, Putin said that the mosque was "worthy" of a multireligious Russian capital and that he hoped it would become a center of spirituality and education in Russia. Putin, who is stepping up military backing of the Syrian government, also used the mosque opening to push his anti-ISIS message. "We see what's happening in the Middle East, where terrorists from...

State driver’s licenses are among those from four states that will no longer cut it for clearing airport security under tightened measures that will go into effect sometime in 2016. But travelers may not face any obstacles anytime soon. The DMV has asked for an extension from Homeland Security for the Real ID Act, which calls for the extra ID measures in the wake of the 9/11 terror attacks. “We have no reason to believe that any New Yorker will have a problem using their current state-issued ID card to get on a plane come January 2016,” the DMV said...

A U.S. RC-135 aircraft operating above the Yellow Sea, approximately 80 miles east of the Shandong Peninsula, reported the September 15 incident after the Chinese jet passed in front of the RC-135, Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook told reporters. "One of the maneuvers conducted by the Chinese aircraft during this intercept was perceived as unsafe by the RC-135 air crew and at this point, right now, there's no indication this was a near collision, but the report that came back was that the plane operated in an unsafe fashion," Cook said ... President Xi Jinping is in the United States and...

Kenyan police said security agents on Thursday discovered firearms and drugs on the Norwegian-flagged Hoegh Transporter, which is docked at the Indian Ocean port of Mombasa. Coastguards and navies in East Africa have struggled to stem the flow of drugs through their waters as the region has become a key export route for Afghan heroin destined for Europe. Hoegh Autoliners confirmed weapons were found inside some of the vehicles on its vessel, which was carrying a consignment from Mumbai to the U.N. peacekeeping mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo, MONUSCO. ... "The weapons were not declared to us at...

At the time, she was hanging onto the bridge’s ledge with one hand, dangling approximately 80 feet over asphalt, according to the release. The child was described as “sobbing and desperate” by police. Perez stopped his car on the bridge and walked calmly over to the area and began speaking to her, officials said in the release. While talking with the girl, Perez learned she was from a group home in Los Angeles and had fled the facility “for severe emotional reasons, wanting to die,” the release stated. ... The officer then asked the girl if he could approach and...

Everyone is surrounded by a unique "cloud" of millions of their own bacteria, according to scientists at the University of Oregon in the US. Walk through someone else's cloud, and it will "rain" bacteria on your skin and be breathed into your lungs. The study on 11 people, published in the journal PeerJ, showed it was possible to identify people from their microbial miasma. ... Groups of bacteria in the cloud included Streptococcus, which is common in the mouth, and the skin bugs Propionibacterium and Corynebacterium. The researchers argue the mix may have a "forensic application" to detect whether someone...

The incident took place in the 8500 block of Aqueduct Avenue (map) and was reported at about 2:22 a.m., according to Officer Mathew Ludwig with the Los Angeles Police Department. Several people were residing some tents in front of one of the homes on the street when a man came over and trespassed through the front yard, Ludwig said. When the people in the tents confronted the man, he pulled out a hammer and attacked at least one of them before being stopped, Ludwig said.