NASA to Los Angeles: Get ready for 5.0 quake

((NEWSER) – NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory is out with a study predicting that Los Angeles has a 99.9% chance of experiencing an earthquake with a magnitude of 5.0 or greater within the next two and a half years.

"There’s enough energy stored to produce about a magnitude 6.1 to 6.3 earthquake" with an epicenter in La Habra, which was hit by a quake in 2014, says a JPL geophysicist, per CBS LA. Earthquake scientists used information from the La Habra quake to make their predictions, and found that there's a 35% chance of an earthquake with a magnitude of 6.0 or greater, the Los Angeles Daily News reports.

But other experts aren't convinced; KPCC goes so far as to call the JPL study "controversial."

As the US Geological Survey notes, "the accepted random chance of a (magnitude 5.0) or greater in this area in three years is 85%, independent of the analysis in this paper." Plus, JPL's research "has not yet been examined by the long-established committees that evaluate earthquake forecasts and predictions made by scientists," the USGS says, per LA Weekly. "The lack of details on the method of analysis makes a critical assessment of this approach very difficult."

And, as one Caltech seismologist who read the study notes, "As far as I’m concerned there has never been a successful earthquake prediction, and a scientific breakthrough would be required for us to make a scientifically based prediction." But, he adds, since earthquakes tend to cluster, it's not much of a stretch to assume there will be another one in La Habra. (Only a single survivor remains from another California earthquake.)

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Saudi prince arrested in LA over alleged sexual assault

A Saudi prince has been arrested on charges of trying to force a worker at a Beverly Hills estate to perform oral sex, Los Angeles police have said.

Majed Abdulaziz Al Saud , 28, was arrested on Wednesday and was released on a $300,000 (£197,000) bond the next day.

The Los Angeles police department said the prince did not have diplomatic immunity, according to the Los Angeles Times and KCBS-TV.

The Times said police descended on the huge estate after a neighbour saw a bleeding woman screaming for help as she tried to scale the property’s surrounding wall on Wednesday.

The $37m property, in one of the most exclusive enclaves in the world, has been rented for weeks at a time by foreign nationals over the past year, the neighbour told the Times.

The prince is expected to be in court on 19 October, court records show.

Attempts to reach him by phone were unsuccessful and his lawyer was not immediately known. A call to the Saudi embassy was not immediately returned.

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Los Angeles in 'State of Emergency' Due to 'Homelessness'

Homeless people--they are seen everywhere. With over 44,000 homeless people finding refuge anywhere along the streets of Los Angeles, elected officials prompted for a move on Tuesday to declare the city in a state of emergency due to homelessness.

Los Angeles' count for homeless people has been in a steady increase and have grown for more than 10 percent in the past two years, Los Angeles Times reports.

In response to the home crisis, City Council and Mayor of Los Angeles Eric Garcetti promised to allocate $100 million as an aid for the homeless which will come from the annual budget, the Los Angeles Times added.  

According to CBS, the hundred-million aid will be used to provide permanent shelter programs.

"This city has pushed this problem from neighborhood to neighborhood for too long, from bureaucracy to bureaucracy," Garcetti said in a press conference as Yahoo UK reports. "Every single day we come to work, we see folks lying on this grass, a symbol of our city's intense crisis."

Meanwhile, Los Angeles City Councilman Paul Krekorian told CBS that Los Angeles government "spend millions of dollars each year to manage the problem, but without any strategy or long term goals."

"Ending homelessness is a moral imperative that also makes financial sense for our city," Krerorian added.

Reasons for the home crisis? Experts pin point at high renting rates, low salary and increasing number of unemployed individuals, Los Angeles Times says.

Low-priced hotels, motels and apartments which were once the last option for Los Angeles' poor have been eliminated, according to the same report, hence forcing them to settle on the streets with makeshift tents, if they are lucky enough. Some, however, settle for blankets or none at all. 

Housing fund also deteriorated last year, plummeting from $108 million in 2008 down to $26 million, says the same report.

Experts also cited the Los Angeles weather and climate as factors that led to Los Angeles' housing crisis. Warm weather accommodates and attracts homeless individuals to flock and settle in the streets, the Los Angeles Times added.

Most of the homeless individuals, more than half of them, can be found in the City of Los Angeles, CBS reports. Countywide, as of January, the population hits 44,359.  

According to the latest survey released by Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, a total of 25,686 Angelinos are homeless and a larger portion of them were single adults, accounting for 82 percent of the population. Men dominate the population and most of the homeless were identified to be under ages 25-54. African-Americans make up the most of the count, attributing 47 percent of the population.

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U.S. And China Join Forces To Build A Bullet Train Between LA And Las Vegas

It’s been a decade since private railroad company XpressWest promised Californians and Nevadans a zippy interstate system that would hook up Los Angeles and Las Vegas. So long that many understandably began to lose faith; after all, several previous attempts to improve the connections between the Mountain West and Southern California failed. But finally, after four years of negotiations, a deal has been set up.

XpressWest has announced it is joining forces with China Railway International to make this high-speed passenger rail system come to fruition. Called the Southwest Rail Network, the 370-kilometer-long (230 miles) track will have numerous stops in LA and Las Vegas, and a few in-between. The bullet train will cruise along at speeds of up to 240 kilometers per hour (150 mph), slashing a would-be four-hour drive to a more palatable 80-minute journey.

The project is supported by an injection of $100 million (£65 million) in initial capital, but of course that won’t go particularly far: The whole thing is estimated to cost close to $7 billion (£4.5 billion), sourced from a combination of private capital and a hefty federal loan. Still, it’s an improvement on the figure slapped on to a proposed Maglev system to achieve the same goal, onwards of $12 billion (£7.8 billion). That financial burn, combined with the fact that it would be difficult to blend such a system with those planned for further on down the line, has meant this idea has essentially been scrapped.

Now that hands have been shaken, XpressWest has to make its way through a to-do list of regulatory and commercial activities, but the company hopes to begin implementation within 100 days. Construction will commence slightly later on down the line, although it could start as early as this time next year. An environmental impact assessment has already been completed.

Although there have, of course, been opponents to this high-speed rail system, alongside slashing the journey time between these two major cities, the project also brings numerous other benefits, like the creation of jobs and a reduction in carbon emissions. By decreasing the number of road trips, XpressWest believes a 40% reduction in air pollution in the I-15 corridor could plausibly be achieved in the long-term. Hmm. We shall see. 

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