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SANTA BARBARA, Calif. - Friday is looking to be a cool start to the day but drying as midday approaches. Sunshine will peak through and temperatures will warm, perfect for an outside lunch today!

Winds will start off with onshore winds, keeping the marine layer stubborn for some micro climates, but will quickly shift to offshore northerly winds for the weekend. As temperatures warm, winds will be the main focus for the wind prone areas, however, no wind alerts are currently in place.

Saturday will start the warming and drying trend well into next week, with Sunday and Monday looking to be the warmest days of the week. Temperatures will reach into the 80s and some low 90s, resulting in above seasonal average temperatures for this time of year.

Through the weekend, the coastal areas can expect early morning marine layer that will dissipate rather quickly into the day and temperatures warm up. A ridge of high pressure is building into the Central Coast and will continue to stay put well into next week, keeping temperatures on the warmer side, just in time for the new month. It will definitely start to feel like summer.

The post Warming for the weekend, tracking northerly offshore winds appeared first on News Channel 3-12.

By Nimi Princewill, Larry Madowo, Lauren Kent, CNN

Nairobi, Kenya (CNN) — A Kenyan high court has temporarily frozen plans by the United States to establish an Ebola quarantine and treatment facility in Kenya – which has not recorded any Ebola cases – for Americans potentially exposed to the deadly virus in Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), more than 1,500 miles away.

The move comes after US Secretary of State Marco Rubio vowed earlier this week that the US “cannot and will not allow any cases of Ebola to enter the United States,” prompting sharp opposition from Kenyan civil society which railed against an apparent double-standard. The rapidly spreading outbreak, which was officially declared on May 15 in the DRC, is believed to be responsible for at least 238 deaths and caused more than 1,000 suspected infections.

The deadly outbreak is driven by the Bundibugyo strain, a rare form of Ebola for which there is no approved vaccine or treatment. It has also spread into Uganda, which borders Kenya and the DRC. In Uganda, the virus has caused one death and at least seven confirmed cases, according to its government.

The plan by the US to set up an Ebola facility in Kenya for Americans, announced Wednesday, was criticized by Kenyan doctors and US officials working at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), according to a CDC source. It was also swiftly challenged in court by the Katiba Institute, a civil society group focused on constitutional issues in Kenya.

In orders issued late Thursday, High Court Judge Patricia Nyaundi barred Kenya from establishing or operating any Ebola-related facility under agreements with the US or other foreign governments and from admitting anyone exposed to or infected with the virus into the country until the legal challenge is resolved. The case is set to return to court on June 2.

‘State-of-the-art’ facility

Trump administration officials had described the proposed facility as “state-of-the-art” and “designed to provide access to high-quality care for Americans who would need to quickly get out of DRC and quarantine without the risks of a lengthy transport back to the US.”

Earlier this month, an American doctor working in the DRC who tested positive for Ebola was evacuated to Germany for treatment. At the same time, another US national with high-risk exposure was transferred to the Czech Republic for care.

A senior Trump administration official said the US had received approval from the Kenyan government for a 50-bed quarantine unit, which was expected to go into operation Friday.

The facility’s location was scheduled to be located on the Laikipia Airbase, about 125 miles north of the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, with additional isolation and biocontainment capacity to be added later, according to the US official. Patients who developed symptoms or tested positive would be moved to other facilities, the official said.

A spokesperson for the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) told CNN on Thursday evening: “The US Public Health Service Commissioned Corps is deploying a team of highly trained officers to Kenya to support the care, monitoring, and quarantine of American citizens departing the Democratic Republic of the Congo as part of a coordinated interagency effort with the State Department and Department of War.”

The “deployed team includes physicians, nurses, laboratory technologists, mental health professionals, and engineers – including officers with previous Ebola response experience in Liberia during the 2014-2015 outbreak,” the spokesperson said.

Why Kenya?

It remains unclear whether the planned facility would also treat patients of other nationalities – a lack

By Sandee LaMotte, CNN

(CNN) — Another alarming episode of Ebola. A rare, contagious hantavirus. Glaring headlines about deadly viruses in far-flung places may be needlessly frightening you.

“The headlines are scary, but honestly, the risk to the average traveler from these viruses is essentially nonexistent,” said Dr. Thomas Moore, clinical professor of medicine at the University of Kansas School of Medicine-Wichita.

Yet people are always concerned about the viral “germ du jour,” said Dr. Ronald Nahass, president of the Infectious Diseases Society of America and clinical professor of medicine at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in New Brunswick, New Jersey.

“A virus is intangible: You can’t see it, can’t feel it until you are sick, so it’s a real concern for many people. I call it the invisible enemy,” Nahass said. “And what makes it worse is our collective PTSD about Covid, so we immediately jump to worrying about the next pandemic.”

Fear over one virus should not translate to worry about another, because each virus has its own “personality,” said Dr. William Schaffner, a professor of infectious diseases, health policy and prevention at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee.

“Think of all your cousins. They may all have the same last name, but each one is distinctive and individual,” Schaffner said. “Covid may have spread worldwide, but Ebola is much different.”

Why you shouldn’t worry about an Ebola pandemic

To be infected with Ebola requires direct contact with skin, blood or bodily fluids such as feces and vomit. In Africa, Ebola is often spread due to local burial customs: Mourners wash, touch and kiss the still-infectious body as a final farewell.

“In addition, family members care for sick loved ones in their homes as they get progressively ill, and that’s where the transmission occurs to the caregivers,” Schaffner said.

Still, many people worry that they may be exposed to Ebola by traveling on a plane with someone from Central or East Africa, where the current outbreak is based, he said.

“A person on an airplane infected with Ebola who is perfectly healthy and has no symptoms is of no risk to anybody else on that airplane,” Schaffner said.

“Remember, it’s only when the infected person becomes seriously sick that they become hazardous to others. This is a very difficult concept for people to grasp.”

Why you shouldn’t worry about a hantavirus pandemic

Most strains of hantavirus in North America are not transmittable from person to person. Infection occurs when people inhale particles from the urine, feces or saliva of infected mice and rats. Cases of common hantavirus are rare: Only 890 were reported in the United States over a 30-year period ending in 2023, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

A rare strain of hantavirus called Andes is the only type of hantavirus to have limited human-to-human transmission. Found in Argentina and Chile, the Andes strain was responsible for the recent hantavirus outbreak that killed three people who had been aboard the Dutch luxury cruise ship MV Hondius. It’s likely that so

Por Clare Duffy, CNN

Una madre de California afirma haber sido estafada por miles de dólares este mes tras recibir una llamada que sonaba como la de su hija angustiada. Ahora sospecha que se trató de un engaño generado con inteligencia artificial.

Ella es una de las muchas personas que han sido víctimas de las estafas de “clonación de voz” a través de llamadas, ya que las herramientas de IA permiten crear una réplica convincente de la voz de otra persona con tan solo unos segundos de audio real.

Según el FBI, los estadounidenses perdieron más de US$ 893 millones el año pasado en estafas relacionadas con la IA, incluyendo ataques de clonación de voz, correos electrónicos de phishing generados por IA, estafas románticas y otros engaños.

Los estafadores pueden imitar a cualquier persona, desde familiares y amigos hasta compañeros de trabajo o profesionales. Bancos como Starling del Reino Unido y el Commonwealth Bank de Australia han advertido a sus clientes sobre las estafas con clonación de voz.

Los expertos afirman que las voces generadas por IA se han vuelto tan realistas que la mayoría de las personas ya no pueden distinguirlas con fiabilidad de las voces humanas reales.

“Para la persona común, no es justo tener que detectar esto”, dijo Henry Ajder, experto en medios generados por IA que asesora a gobiernos y empresas. “Yo mismo tengo dificultades con esto. La mayoría de la gente también”.

Los estafadores pueden crear una réplica de voz generada por IA utilizando una grabación corta de un discurso, a menudo extraída de redes sociales o de una llamada fraudulenta anterior grabada subrepticiamente. Las redes sociales también pueden proporcionar mucha información sobre familiares y amigos cercanos que podrían ser víctimas.

Los estafadores suelen hacer que parezca que el ser querido al que imitan está en peligro, supuestamente secuestrado o encarcelado. Luego, exigen dinero urgente a cambio de su liberación.

“No hubo tiempo para pensar”, declaró a CNN el año pasado Gary Schildhorn, un abogado de Filadelfia que fue víctima de una estafa con voz artificial que imitaba a su hijo. “Solo pensaba: ‘Tengo que reaccionar para ayudar a mi hijo. Está en peligro’”.

En algunos casos, la voz artificial puede ser más que una simple grabación. Los atacantes más sofisticados podrían usar herramientas de conversión de texto a voz o manipulación de voz, que alteran la voz del estafador para que suene como la persona a la que imita en tiempo real. Estas técnicas facilitan las conversaciones entre la víctima y la voz artificial, lo que podría hacer que la estafa sea más convincente, explicó Ajder.

Los hackers también pueden hacer que parezca que una llamada proviene de un número conocido mediante una táctica llamada suplantación de identidad del número de teléfono; por lo tanto, no se puede confiar en que una llamada que parece provenir de tu madre sea realmente de ella.

Antes, las pausas extrañas o las fluctuaciones en la voz se consideraban señales de alerta de que la voz de quien llamaba podría ser generada por IA. Sin embargo, con los avances de la IA, es posible que estas señales ya no estén presentes.

En lugar de intentar determinar si una voz es auténtica, te recomendamos buscar otras señales generales de alerta de estafa, según explicó a CNN el año pasado Hany Farid, profesor de la UC Berkeley y director científico de GetReal Security.

¿La persona al otro lado de la línea te da una fecha límite o te genera una sensación de urgencia? ¿Te pide que no cuentes a nadie lo que está sucediendo? ¿Te pide que transfieras grandes sumas de dinero de maneras inusuales? Estos son algunos de los tipos de preguntas que los expertos recomiendan tener en cuenta.

Las víctimas de este tipo de llamadas deben intentar contactar a sus seres queridos por otros medios, como mediante un mensaje de texto, llamándolos desde el telé