JOSH CAIN, OC Register: "Federal regulators have found that workers on an oil rig off the coast of Huntington Beach got an alert about low pressure in a pipeline connecting it to the shore early Saturday morning, signaling that thousands of barrels of oil were leaking into the Pacific Ocean, hours before the company notified public officials.

In a letter to the CEO of Houston-based Amplify Energy Corp., investigators for the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration said their preliminary review found that workers with the company’s subsidiary, Beta Offshore, “received a low-pressure alarm on the San Pedro Bay Pipeline, indicating a possible failure,” at around 2:30 a.m. Saturday.

Sometime before that, U.S. Coast Guard officials believe a ship’s anchor struck the pipeline and dragged it, bending it like a straw and opening up a 13-inch split allowing the oil to pour through."

Federal regulation of oil platforms dogged by problems long before OC spill

LA Times, CONNOR SHEETS, ADAM ELMAHREK and ROBERT J. LOPEZ: "Government regulators have long failed to effectively oversee energy companies that rely on pipelines to transport large volumes of oil from offshore rigs, according to experts, environmental advocates and even reports by a federal watchdog agency.

Regulators admitted that inspection requirements for pipelines like the one that ruptured off the coast of Orange County in recent days are inadequate, records show, and environmentalists complain that federal authorities rely too heavily on oil companies to conduct their own checks of their infrastructure.

Federal overseers are short-staffed and have failed to update regulations that are in some cases decades old, falling behind technological advances in the industry, environmentalists and industry experts said."

Sacramento Bee, KIM BOJORQUEZ: "Californians earning below $75,000 a year can expect to see more money in their bank accounts soon after the state on Tuesday issued its latest batch of stimulus payments.

About 705,000 stimulus payments were sent to Californians today, totaling nearly $480 million, according to Andrew LePage, a spokesman for the state’s Franchise Tax Board.

LA Times, LUKE MONEY/RONG-GONG LIN II: "COVID-19 hospitalizations have dropped by half from the summer peak, as California continues to steadily, if slowly, shake off the worst of the Delta surge.

California reached its summer peak in hospitalizations on the last day of August, when 8,353 people with confirmed COVID-19 were in the state’s hospitals. As of Monday, there were 4,467 people hospitalized — a number last seen in early August as the Delta surge picked up steam.

California is now recording half as many new daily COVID-19 hospital admissions as the nation overall on a per capita basis."

Sacramento Bee, NADIA LOPEZ: "The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in a split decision on Tuesday curtailed a California law that would have banned private detention centers in the state, ruling that the legislation should not go into effect because it impedes on the federal government’s ability to enforce immigration policy.

Prior to the federal appeals court’s decision, private immigration detention centers in the state — including at least two in Kern County that are owned and operated by The GEO Group — would have had to close when the prison companies’ contracts expired. The ruling means U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement can continue using for-profit detention centers in California to hold immigrants until they are released or deported.

The court’s ruling is the latest chapter in a two-year saga over AB 32, which would have phased out the use of private prisons and immigration detention facilities by 2028. A U.S. District Court judge largely upheld the law in October 2020, a year after the bill was signed into law. But in the decision issued Tuesday, two judges on the appeals panel appointed by President Donald Trump — Judge Kenneth K. Lee and Judge Bridget Bade — reversed the district court’s opinion and directed it to block the law."

LA Times, PAUL PRINGLE: "In their sprawling sexual assault inquiry focused on USC, Los Angeles police detectives traveled the country to interview scores of people about a campus gynecologist accused of abusing young women for decades, a scandal that eventually cost C.L. Max Nikias the school presidency and the university more than $1.1 billion in legal settlements.

But there was at least one prominent person detectives never approached for an interview, The Times has learned: Nikias himself.

Many of Dr. George Tyndall’s accusers have expressed outrage over USC’s handling of complaints against the physician. They are demanding an investigation into whether Nikias or other administrators sought to cover up the allegations against the doctor, something Nikias has denied doing."

Sacramento Bee, ANDREW SHEELER: "You’ll have to ask for that ketchup packet now.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Tuesday signed a bill into law prohibiting restaurants and other food facilities from providing single-use foodware accessories or condiments — such as forks or soy sauce packets — unless they are specifically requested by the customer.

The bill, Assembly Bill 1276 authored by Assemblywoman Wendy Carrillo, D-Los Angeles, prohibits single-use items from being bundled or packaged in a way that prevents the customer from taking only the item desired."

The Chronicle, ALEXEI KOSEFF: "California will end mandatory minimum sentences for nonviolent drug crimes, following years of failed attempts to reduce these penalties.

Gov. Gavin Newsom signed SB73 on Tuesday without comment, giving judges discretion to hand down probation instead of jail time for offenses such as possessing a small amount of heroin for sale and manufacturing methamphetamine. It takes effect in January.

The Chronicle, JESSICA FLORES: "Amid California’s worsening drought, Pleasanton city officials on Tuesday are expected to declare a local drought and water shortage emergency, and require residents to reduce their water usage by 15%.

Sacramento Bee, ANDREW SHEELER: "California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Tuesday signed a bill into law that prohibits the “chasing arrows” — a symbol that tells a consumer that an item is recyclable — from being placed on an item that cannot actually be recycled.

Senate Bill 343, authored by Sen. Ben Allen, D-Santa Monica, prohibits the sale, distribution or import of a product or packaging that makes a deceptive or misleading claim about the recyclability of the product or packaging. The law states that the use of chasing arrows is misleading or deceptive if the product does not meet statewide recyclability criteria.

“Consumers dutifully fill their blue bins with items they believe are recyclable,which contaminate the recycling stream and make it more costly to sort and clean the truly recyclable material. The plastic resin identification coding (RIC) system, which classifies plastic types by numbers one through seven often displayed in the chasing-arrows symbol, further confuses consumers,” wrote Allen in an author’s statement accompanying a Senate floor analysis of the bill. “Most consumers simply see the chasing arrows and assume a product can be recycled.”"

The Chronicle, TRISHA THADANI: "San Francisco’s vaccine mandate for certain city workers appears to have prompted nearly 900 employees to get vaccinated during the days surrounding the deadline, as many faced the risk of losing their jobs if they continued to refuse the shot.

Due to a state order, all San Francisco employees who routinely work in high-risk settings — such as hospitals, clinics and nursing homes— had to be fully vaccinated by Sept. 30.

All 35,000 city employees must be vaccinated by Nov. 1, regardless of their role, in accordance with city regulations."

LA Times, IAN JAMES: "Cities in Southern California rely largely on water flowing through aqueducts from the Colorado River and the Sierra Nevada. But some parts of the region, such as Ventura County and northwestern L.A. County, don’t have access to Colorado River water and depend entirely on the water that comes from the Sierra through the State Water Project.

With the project’s supplies now severely limited due to the drought, Southern California’s water agencies have begun shifting these precious supplies to areas that need it most, while Los Angeles is taking less from the State Water Project and instead receiving Colorado River water to fill the gaps.

Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti announced an agreement on Tuesday, saying the city’s Department of Water and Power is assisting the region by taking less water from the State Water Project, helping to preserve those supplies so that other districts will get the water. In turn, Los Angeles is receiving additional Colorado River water that has been stored by the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California."

Sacramento Bee, CATHIE ANDERSON: "Sacramento-based UC Davis Health is offering free mammogram screenings to uninsured women ages 40 and over in recognition of October’s designation as Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

“About a quarter of all breast cancer deaths could be avoided through early detection such as regular mammography, but screening rates are very low among uninsured populations,” said Kami Gosal, the breast imaging supervisor at UC Davis Health.

Want to schedule an appointment? Call 916-734-6145 and ask about the free screenings being offered on select Saturdays in October. Note that this particular type of mammogram is for women who do not have any symptoms."

The Chronicle, ALEXIE KOSEFF: "Since California legalized assisted death more than five years ago, potentially thousands of terminally ill patients seeking the lethal medication have died before obtaining a prescription that would have allowed them to end their lives on their own terms.

Gov. Gavin Newsom signed legislation Tuesday to reduce that barrier, shortening a mandatory waiting period for the life-ending drugs during which advocates say many patients become too sick to continue the process.

The Chronicle, JILL TUCKER: "With a $116 million shortfall increasing the likelihood that the San Francisco school district won’t be able to pay its bills, the California education superintendent is stepping in to address its financial tailspin in a move aimed at avoiding a full state takeover.

The intervention, revealed this week in district meeting documents, means the state will bring in a fiscal consultant to help the school board figure out how to cut the equivalent of 13% of its annual $1 billion budget. It will also require the district to submit any labor agreements to state Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond for review.

The state emphasized that it has the power to withhold pay from school board members and the superintendent for “failure to provide requested financial information.” State officials said they are not currently taking that step, but could in the future."

Sacramento Bee, CATHIE ANDERSON: "Registered nurses at Sutter Roseville Medical Center will hold a candlelight vigil Thursday evening near the hospital entrance in protest of staffing levels that they say are putting patient care at risk.

“As nurses, we have been on the front lines fighting this pandemic for a year and half,” said Meredith Piggee, a registered nurse in the intensive care unit at Sutter Roseville. “With the ICUs filling up and not enough staff to care for the surge of COVID-19 patients, the nurses are showing serious signs of moral injury.”

A moral injury occurs when someone is forced to witness, commit or fail to prevent acts that go against their moral beliefs or expectations. This tyically happens during traumatic or highly stressful events, and it is associated with post-traumatic stress disorder."

AP, ROBERT BURNS: "In a reversal of Trump administration policy, the State Department has revealed the number of nuclear weapons in the U.S. stockpile, a disclosure that it said would aid global efforts to control the spread of such arms.

The number of U.S. nuclear weapons, including those on active status as well as those in long-term storage, stood at 3,750 as of September 2020, the department said Tuesday. That is down from 3,805 a year earlier and 3,785 in 2018.

As recently as 2003, the U.S. nuclear weapon total was slightly above 10,000. It peaked at 31,255 in 1967, in the middle of the Cold War."

Early warning

The Roundup: