Free Republic

CHATSWORTH Investigators probing Friday's fatal Metrolink collision planned to interview the freight train's brakeman and the conductor Wednesday, the first full day of resumed service along the stretch of track that was closed after the crash that killed 25 people and injured 135 others. Investigations have linked the cause of the crash to Metrolink engineer Robert Martin Sanchez, a La Crescenta resident who previously lived in Menifee. Authorities Tuesday staged a re-creation of the collision, bringing two trains nose-to-nose on the tracks in Chatsworth and then moving them back and forth to determine what the engineers on each was able...

CHATSWORTH, GA (WRCB) - Hundreds of people in one north Georgia town are not allowed to drink their water. The water treatment plant in Ramhurst is temporarily shut down after someone broke in and changed the chemical settings. It's affecting about 400 Murray County residents. Local, state and federal officials are investigating who's to blame. Officials with Chatsworth Water Works say the source of the problems is at the Carter's Lake Water Treatment Plant in the Ramhurst area. Saturday workers noticed someone had changed some chemical settings. First, officials issued a "boil advisory" but the Environmental Protection Department bumped it...

The state agency responsible for train safety voted unanimously today to direct railroad operators to immediately ban the use of cellphones by on-duty engineers, conductors and other rail workers. Officials with the Public Utilities Commission said the deadly Metrolink crash in Chatsworth last week was at least the third train accident in which the use of cellphones may have been a factor. Twenty-five people died and 135 were injured when a commuter train ran through a warning signal in Chatsworth and collided head-on with a Union Pacific freight train. Federal investigators said this week that records from Metrolink engineer Robert...

CHATSWORTH, Calif. (CBS) ― Metrolink officials Saturday put the blame squarely on the engineer of the train for the deadly crash that has claimed at least 25 lives. They say he ran a red light. But a group of local teens, train enthusiasts, who know the engineer well doubt that he was to blame. They called their friend professional and caring and said he helped them learn about trains and being an engineer. To a man, they said he would "never" have been reckless or unprofessional or run a red light. But one minute before the deadliest crash in Metrolink...

Palmdale High graduate was award winner, star student CHATSWORTH - An 18-year-old Palmdale college student on his way to visit his girlfriend was among the two dozen Metrolink train passengers killed in Friday's head-on collision with a freight train. Jacob Hefter, a 2008 Palmdale High School honor graduate who had just started his freshman year at California State University Long Beach, was identified Saturday as one of the casualties of the train wreck, which was described as the worst in the United States in 15 years. ... Hefter was due to get off the train at the next stop, Hanlon...

LOS ANGELES (CBS) ― A commuter train engineer who ran a stop signal was blamed Saturday for the nation's deadliest rail disaster in 15 years, a wreck that killed at least 25 people with more bodies still to be pulled from the smoldering, twisted metal. A preliminary investigation found that "it was a Metrolink engineer that failed to stop at a red signal and that was the probable cause" of Friday's collision with a freight train in Los Angeles' San Fernando Valley, Metrolink spokeswoman Denise Tyrrell said. She said she believes the engineer, whose name was not released, is dead....

Metro Link train in flames...dozens of ambulances en-route to the scene...

LOS ANGELES (CBS) ― A Metrolink train has derailed and is on fire in Chatsworth. Stay with CBS 2 News at 5 and go to cbs2.com for live video and complete coverage.

LOS ANGELES - California state lawmakers are considering an unusual idea to solve the state's huge budget shortfall: Tax pornography. The idea was proposed by a state assemblyman, and would impose a 25 percent tax on the production and sales of pornographic videos -- the vast majority of which are made in southern California. It is unknown, however, how seriously lawmakers will take the idea or how the porn business would deal with the new tax. It is likely, though, that porm-makers would simply pass the cost along to consumers by making pornographic materials more expensive. However, many economists believe...

I just witnessed a car chase from the FOX helicopter feed around where I live. It was fast around Roscoe Blvd., Owensmouth Ave, De Soto Ave, etc. and ended on Topanga Blvd. where Chatsworth Park is near the hills. 12 police cars came by to stop it. Those were airborne videos. Note that this is near very dark. There is a ground video of men and women coming to the noise wondering WTF? I only take a lady to a beach in Ventura that makes hearts quiet.

Victim tackles shooting suspect Chatsworth man dodges bullets in chase BY RICK COCA, Staff Writer Article Last Updated: 07/11/2007 10:08:27 PM PD TARZANA - A Chatsworth man turned the tables on a gunman who fired at him outside a Ventura Boulevard cafe last month, dodging bullets as he chased down and tackled the startled shooter, authorities said. The 25-year-old Chatsworth man chased down Robert Hudson, 20, of Porter Ranch, accused of turning violent after a road-rage incident June 1. Hudson faces multiple felony counts and is expected to enter a plea in a July 20 arraignment hearing at the Van...

Air-quality regulators planned to sample the air around the Santa Susana Field Lab late Thursday for contamination that may have been released when the Topanga Fire roared through the hilltop lab. Thursday was supposed to be the day of the final rocket test at the field lab, ending testing operations at the hilltop site. Instead, it was at the center of a massive brush fire that stretched miles through the rugged area. Several vacant buildings at the site were burned, and an office and machine shop were damaged by the flames. But hazardous waste and radioactive facilities were not affected,...

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Wind-driven brush fires scorched nearly 2,500 acres north of Los Angeles on Wednesday, killing thousands of chickens at a farm while destroying at least one home and threatening others. A mandatory evacuation was ordered in Box Canyon and a freeway was closed as the blaze hopscotched the roadway and burned at the west end of the San Fernando Valley. Los Angeles County Fire Department spokesman Ron Haralson said more than 700 firefighters were on the scene. One firefighter was struck on the head by a 40-pound boulder and was taken to a hospital for treatment, Capt....

LA County Fire Helicopter drops water on RACE fire 6/19/05 With the start of Brush Fire Season, here is the Brush Fire Thread. Fires currently burning in Mt. Washington section of City of Los Angeles

For months, Iryna Singerman concealed her double life from her newlywed husband -- her shiny gold Mercedes, her illicit affair with a Woodland Hills playboy and the house she and her lover purchased together. Ronald Singerman learned of her secrets last week, when his 21-year-old wife failed to come home and financial documents belonging to the aspiring model were among the blood-soaked items found in garbage bags dumped in a trash bin behind a Woodland Hills strip mall. A decomposing body believed to be that of Iryna Singerman was found Tuesday, and police have intensified the search for her lover...

I was listening to the Rush Limbaugh Show today and heard Rush start talking about last night's Crossfire Show. I was only half way paying attention when he mentioned a question by Chatsworth Osborne, Jr.. Well I had to think a minute because I knew that name from someplace and then all of a sudden it came to me that it was a character on the old Dobie Gillis show and was played by a very fine character actor named Stephen Franken. The it hit me that Rush was using that moniker for our old friend Tucker Carlson. Well that...

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Joey Buttafuoco, whose affair with a teenager led to his wife's shooting in New York, was arrested Wednesday and charged with insurance fraud for allegedly making phony repair estimates at his auto body shop. Buttafuoco, 47, co-owns California Collision of Chatsworth. He allegedly told undercover investigators how to file phony insurance claims for undamaged cars, the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office said. Prosecutors charged Buttafuoco with three counts of insurance fraud and one count of grand theft. He was being held on $50,000 bail. The state also has filed a separate action to suspend or...

I was horribly curious. I used to live in Chatsworth, and I knew it pretty well. I had to see the fire. I just had to. And in seeing it, of course, I had to bring back pictures and video to share. Some people would say that I shouldn't have gone there, that I was visiting a spectacle off people's ruined lives. In my defense, I would not have un-ruined one life or saved one house or tree from burning if I had not been there. I gave all emergency vehicles a wide berth and didn't even get vaguely close...