Updating . .   

No more oil leaking, efforts continue to contain spill and find cause -- Officials said no more oil is leaking into the waters off Huntington Beach, but weather and ocean flows will be key as they try to contain the spill that has already spread down as far as Dana Point. Alicia Robinson, Laylan Connelly in the Orange County Register -- 10/4/21

Birds, wetlands may bear early brunt of California spill -- Since a pipeline spilled crude off the California coast this weekend, only a handful of oiled birds have been recovered in what environmental advocates said could be a hopeful sign for the region’s wildlife. Amy Taxin Associated Press -- 10/4/21

Where is the Orange County oil spill moving, and which beaches are threatened? -- The massive oil spill from a 126,000-gallon leak off the Orange County coast is moving south, threatening marine protected areas as well as popular beaches. The oil will likely continue to encroach on Orange County beaches for the next few days, officials said. Hannah Fry, Jaclyn Cosgrove in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 10/4/21

Thunderstorms, swelling tides could hamper oil spill cleanup efforts in Orange County -- Inclement weather on Monday could pose a challenge to crews scrambling to clean the massive oil spill off the coast of Huntington Beach, multiple weather agencies warned. Hayley Smith in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 10/4/21

Ship’s anchor among possible causes of California oil spill -- Officials investigating one of California’s largest oil spills are looking into whether a ship’s anchor may have struck a pipeline on the ocean floor, causing a major leak of crude into coastal waters and fouling beaches, authorities said Monday. Amy Taxin and Christopher Weber Associated Press -- 10/4/21

How Orange County oil spill compares to those of Santa Barbara, Exxon Valdez and others -- The full scope of this weekend’s oil spill in Orange County remains unclear. But the leak of at least 126,000 gallons of crude oil is one of the largest in recent years in California. However, the size is still far less than several other catastrophic spills in the state and elsewhere. Paul Duginski, Rong-Gong Lin II, Hannah Fry in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 10/4/21

Oil spill threatens Crystal Cove as O.C. cleanup efforts intensify -- Oil from a massive spill off the Orange County coast was heading south from Huntington Beach early Monday, sending chunks of tar ashore, forcing the closure of Newport Harbor and threatening Crystal Cove State Park. Hannah Fry, Anh Do, Robin Estrin, Jaclyn Cosgrove in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 10/4/21

Efforts to contain oil spill off OC coast continue, fishing ban announced -- State wildlife officials on Monday announced a ban on fishing or collecting any shellfish from Huntington Beach to Dana Point as a public health measure following a devastating oil spill that authorities are working to contain and clean up. Alicia Robinson, Laylan Connelly in the Orange County Register -- 10/4/21

Before O.C. oil spill, platform owner faced bankruptcy, history of regulatory problems -- The owner of an offshore oil operation that spewed at least 126,000 gallons of crude oil into the Pacific Ocean and fouled Orange County beaches had emerged from bankruptcy just four years ago and amassed a long record of federal noncompliance incidents and violations. Connor Sheets, Robert J. Lopez, Rosanna Xia, Adam Elmahrek in the Los Angeles Times$ Amy Taxin and Christopher Weber Associated Press -- 10/4/21

What Southern California's oil-drenched waters, beaches look like -- Approximately 126,000 gallons of crude oil spilled into the ocean and washed onto the sands of Orange County beaches 30 miles south of Los Angeles over the weekend, coating the coast in oil, contaminating wetlands and putting off a foul stench. Amy Graff in the San Francisco Chronicle -- 10/4/21

Has the oil leak been stopped? What we know about origin of massive Orange County spill -- As divers for Houston-based Amplify Energy Corp. on Sunday searched for the location and cause of the enormous leak, many questions remain, including how at least 126,000 gallons of crude spilled into the sea, why it happened and whether the oil has stopped flowing. Rong-Gong Lin Ii, Hannah Fry, Rosanna Xia, Connor Sheets in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 10/4/21

Oil spills have marred the California coast — and shaped our politics -- California’s distaste for offshore drilling dates back to 1969, when a devastating oil spill off the coast of Santa Barbara shocked the public and galvanized the modern environmental movement. Rosanna Xia in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 10/4/21

Huge ecological losses feared as Orange County oil spill hits wetlands, marshes -- There was growing alarm in Huntington Beach and beyond over the ecological toll of a 130,000-gallon oil spill that left local beaches and some wetlands soiled with crude. The spill had reached the Talbert Marsh and some environmentally sensitive wetlands areas by Sunday morning. Anh Do, Robin Estrin, Jaclyn Cosgrove, Hannah Fry in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 10/4/21

COVID Vaccine  

Why this Bay Area lawyer is getting flooded with calls about religious exemptions -- Jason Geller, an employment attorney in San Francisco, had a busy week handling calls and meetings with employers who had a crucial inquiry: How to best navigate requests from employees seeking religious exemptions to the COVID-19 vaccine? Shwanika Narayan in the San Francisco .,m Chronicle$ -- 10/4/21

Sacramento State reports that nearly all students have followed COVID vaccine policy -- California State University, Sacramento, announced that nearly 100% of itsstudents have either been vaccinated against COVID-19, granted an exemption or decided not to return to campus. Only 80 students have yet to comply with the university’s vaccine policy. Sawsan Morrar in the Sacramento Bee$ -- 10/4/21

COVID Economy  

How some Bay Area businesses are trying to entice workers to return -- Fast Water Heater in San Jose is offering $1,000 referral bonuses to anyone who can help them find new workers. Bloom Energy is touting mental health counseling benefits and up to a $1,200 signing bonus for new hires as it looks to expand. And in Danville, restaurant owner Darren Matte has eked out a small hourly pay boost to attract workers. Jesse Bedayn in the San Jose Mercury$ -- 10/4/21

Policy and Politics  

What’s at stake for Newsom’s biggest recall campaign donors -- The recall election gave interest groups that lobby at the California Capitol an unusual opportunity to try to wield influence. They donated millions to help Newsom keep his job. Now he’s deciding the fate of their bills. Laurel Rosenhall CalMatters -- 10/4/21

California Republicans see bright spots in Newsom recall for 2 midterm races. Here’s where -- Significant portions of District 3, held by Rep. John Garamendi, D-Walnut Grove, and District 10, held by Rep. Josh Harder, D-Turlock, showed strong support for removing the state’s top Democrat. Lara Korte in the Sacramento Bee$ -- 10/4/21

L.A. Mayor Garcetti in ‘confirmation purgatory’ as Biden’s nominations stall -- Nearly three months after Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti was picked by President Biden to be U.S. ambassador to India, it is unclear when the Senate might take up his nomination — creating a limbo at City Hall with no end in sight. Dakota Smith in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 10/4/21

Barabak: Sen. Kyrsten Sinema makes liberal heads explode. And that’s just fine with the Arizona Democrat -- When Kyrsten Sinema ran for Senate in 2018, she could not have been more clear. The Democrat did not call herself a Democrat but rather an “Arizona independent.” Mark Z. Barabak in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 10/4/21

Street  

Opioid overdose epidemic is rapidly spreading across the Bay Area -- In just the past week, three people died at three different stations inside the vast Bay Area Rapid Transit system from causes believed to be drug overdoses. Efforts to resuscitate them, including by administering the opioid reversal drug Narcan, were unsuccessful, reports said. Yoohyun Jung in the San Francisco Chronicle$ -- 10/4/21

Water  

The water year just ended - here's how much rain the Bay Area got -- How dry? The region received a little more than a third of normal precipitation from Oct. 1, 2020, to Sept. 30, 2021, according to data from the National Weather Service — a common occurrence for the past several years, which bodes ill for a region already at the worst “exceptional” level on the U.S. Drought Monitor map. Kellie Hwang in the San Francisco Chronicle$ -- 10/4/21

Education  

San Diego County schools are struggling with a labor shortage -- It was already difficult before the pandemic to get teachers to come to work at tiny Mountain Empire Unified, a rural school district with 1,700 students in East San Diego County. Now a nationwide labor shortage, exacerbated by COVID-19, has been making it worse. Kristen Taketa in the San Diego Union-Tribune$ -- 10/4/21

Inside one California school's approach to reading as a 'civil right' -- For Richmond’s Nystrom Elementary School, students’ longstanding struggle with reading is not only an academic issue but one about civil rights. Ali Tadayon EdSource -- 10/4/21

Also . . .   

Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram suffer worldwide outage -- The company said it was aware that “some people are having trouble accessing (the) Facebook app” and it was working on restoring access. Regarding the internal failures, Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram, tweeted that it feels like a “snow day.” Associated Press -- 10/4/21

Banks: Reintroducing the series ‘Black L.A.: Looking at Diversity,’ 39 years later -- It was billed by the Los Angeles Times as an “unprecedented” endeavor. The “Black L.A.: Looking at Diversity” project would be a window into the lives of ordinary Black folks, who were neither criminals nor celebrities. The series would be reported and written entirely by the newspaper’s small contingent of Black journalists. Sandy Banks in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 10/4/21

Scripps Research scientist wins Nobel in medicine for discovery of receptors that sense heat, cold and pain -- Ardem Patapoutian, a Lebanese immigrant who escaped civil war in his own country and became a masterful neuroscientist at Scripps Research in La Jolla, was chosen Monday to share the 2021 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine for helping to discover skin receptors that enable people to sense heat, cold, pain, touch and sound. Gary Robbins, Jonathan Wosen in the San Diego Union-Tribune$ -- 10/4/21

William Shatner will fly to space next week aboard Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin rocket -- Captain Kirk is rocketing into space next week — boldly going where no other sci-fi actors have gone. Jeff Bezos’ space travel company, Blue Origin, announced Monday that “Star Trek” actor William Shatner will blast off from West Texas on Oct. 12. Associated Press via the Los Angeles Times$ -- 10/4/21

Bear incidents are rising in the North Bay. Biologists sent in a wildlife tracker to find out why -- On a recent survey near Atlas Peak in Napa County, Walla-Murphy and a pair of volunteers found 13 signs of bear scat and claw marks on the trunk of an oak. Gregory Thomas in the San Francisco Chronicle$ -- 10/4/21

Dragonfly species missing for more than 100 years is spotted anew at Donner Lake -- In a thrilling discovery for naturalists, citizen scientists spotted a Spiny Baskettail dragonfly at Donner Lake near Truckee this summer — the first time the species has been seen in the area since it was first discovered there in 1904. Ryan Kost in the San Francisco Chronicle$ -- 10/4/21

California Policy and Politics Monday Morning  

Photos: Major oil spill closes Orange County beaches -- The spill had reached Talbert Marsh and some environmentally sensitive wetlands areas by Sunday morning. It will take time to know the extent of the damage but officials said some birds and fish have died. Allen J. Schaben, Myung Chun in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 10/4/21

What caused the massive oil spill off Huntington Beach? Here is what we know -- There are many unanswered questions about the spill, and officials are calling for a full investigation. Here is what we do know: Rong-Gong Lin II, Teresa Watanabe, Hannah Fry, Robin Estrin, Sean Greene, Paul Duginski in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 10/4/21

As oil washes on shore, locals worry about wildlife and rally around first responders -- Throughout Sunday afternoon, people gathered at the mouth of the Santa Ana River between Newport Beach and Huntington Beach after at least 126,000 gallons of crude oil spilled into Orange County coastal waters. A berm of sand blocked off the ocean and prevented the oil from getting into the river, where birds swooped down to catch fish. Brittny Mejia, Anh Do in the Los Angeles Times$ Rachel Pannett, Paulina Firozi and Hannah Knowles in the Washington Post$ Kris Maher in the Wall Street Journal$ -- 10/4/21

Oil spill seeps into O.C.’s coastal wetlands, a critical link along migratory bird route -- The stench of petroleum permeated the air of Huntington Beach’s Talbert Marsh on Sunday as crews in small boats and sealed inside protective uniforms heaved absorbent pads laden with oil as thick as brownie mix into plastic bags. Louis Sahagún in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 10/4/21

Crews race to limit damage from major California oil spill -- Crews on the water and on shore worked feverishly Sunday to limit environmental damage from one of the largest oil spills in recent California history, caused by a suspected leak in an underwater pipeline that fouled the sands of famed Huntington Beach and could keep the beaches there closed for weeks or longer. Amy Taxin and Christopher Weber Associated Press -- 10/4/21

Major oil spill closes OC beaches, kills wildlife in Huntington Beach -- A 126,000-gallon oil spill from an offshore rig – the largest spill in Orange County in three decades – led to major ecological damage in Huntington Beach over the weekend, prompting officials to close beaches that could remain off-limits for weeks or months. Laylan Connelly, Eric Licas, Martin Wisckol in the Orange County Register -- 10/4/21

Oil spill: What is Beta Offshore and what does it do? -- Long Beach-based Beta Offshore Operating Co., LLC, a subsidiary of Amplify Energy, is one of the largest oil producers in Southern California, according to the Long Beach Chamber of Commerce. The company operates three offshore oil platforms in the waters about 12 miles south of Long Beach. Ryan Carter in the San Jose Mercury$ -- 10/4/21

Oil spill underscores urgency to shut wells, environmentalists say -- Environmentalists, as well as a local congressman, bemoaned the environmental damage caused by Saturday’s offshore oil spill impacting Huntington Beach, and said the incident underscored the urgency to accelerate closure of the 27 platforms in waters off the California coast. Martin Wisckol, Laylan Connelly in the Orange County Register -- 10/4/21

Mozingo: What it was like to surf on day of Orange County oil spill: Frantic dolphins, exhaust smell -- When I heard about the Orange County oil spill Sunday morning, I immediately started wondering about the surreal day I had Saturday, surfing with my son, his friend and a pod of dolphins in Huntington Beach. Joe Mozingo in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 10/4/21

The smell of oil wafted in the air Friday. Why did it take another day to identify massive O.C. spill? -- TK Brimer was getting ready to close up his surf shop, Frog House, Friday evening when he smelled something like tar in the air. Hannah Fry, Jaclyn Cosgrove, Rong-Gong Lin Ii, Anh Do in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 10/4/21

Oil spill laps at “heartbeat” of California beach community -- Now, the massive spill threatens to keep the ocean off-limits for weeks or months, harm marine life and halt the waterfront activities that are the lifeblood of Southern California’s Huntington Beach. Amy Taxin Associated Press -- 10/4/21

COVID  

National Guard helps rural California hospitals as locals resist ‘death dart’ vaccine -- “I will not violate my body by putting an experimental death dart with undisclosed ingredients in it,” Deborah Burns, an interventional radiology nurse from Redding, told the crowd. Asked what she wanted her Board of Supervisors to do, she replied “We want them to say to Sacramento, ’Guess what? That doesn’t work here in Shasta County, in the north state.’ ” Ryan Sabalow and Phillip Reese in the Sacramento Bee$ -- 10/4/21

Vaccine mandates are working in California. Here’s what the numbers show -- California in August gave the state’s health care workers an ultimatum: Get vaccinated by Sept. 30 or submit to twice-weekly COVID-19 testing. So far, it appears to be working. Three major Sacramento-area health care systems say vaccination rates among employees are now higher than the general population. Lara Korte in the Sacramento Bee$ -- 10/4/21

Dolbee: Can faith leaders move the needle when it comes to the COVID-19 vaccine? -- With COVID’s wrath well into its second year, a broad spectrum of religious leaders — from Catholics to Buddhists to Muslims and Jews — are using pastoral letters, online messages and media interviews to try to persuade their members to roll up their sleeves. Sandi Dolbee in the San Diego Union-Tribune$ -- 10/4/21

Policy and Politics  

Walters: California experiments with social democracy -- California, as everyone should know by now, has the nation’s highest rate of poverty as determined by the Census Bureau when the cost-of-living is included in the calculation. Dan Walters CalMatters -- 10/4/21

Street  

Police: Oakland home of slain education advocate Dirk Tillotson may have been targeted -- The home of prominent Oakland education-equality advocate Dirk Tillotson may have been targeted in the Friday night break-in that resulted in him being shot to death and his wife, Amina, wounded. Ethan Baron, Marisa Kendall, George Kelly in the San Jose Mercury$ -- 10/4/21

Protesters call for school officer who shot woman in Long Beach to face arrest, charges -- The protesters gathered outside of Long Beach Police Department headquarters at around 1 p.m. The protest was organized by community groups and some people who know Mona Rodriguez, the woman who was shot and was not expected to recover. Emily Rasmussen in the Long Beach Press Telegram$ -- 10/4/21

Also . . .   

Surfer bitten by shark off Bay Area coast 'critically injured,' authorities say -- A man surfing off Salmon Creek Beach just north of Bodega Bay was bitten by a shark early Sunday morning, sustaining injuries to his left thigh. He is in critical condition but expected to survive, authorities say. Amanda Bartlett in the San Francisco Chronicle -- 10/4/21

Camp Pendleton battalion returns from deployment that included Afghanistan evacuation mission -- Almost 300 Marines and sailors returned to Camp Pendleton Sunday after a six-month deployment to the Middle East where many of the troops found themselves among an emergency response force sent to Kabul, Afghanistan, to assist in the massive August evacuation. Andrew Dyer in the San Diego Union-Tribune$ Erika I. Ritchie in the Orange County Register -- 10/4/21

Ambulance stolen at East Sacramento hospital. Here’s what happened before arrest is made -- Cecil Jackson, 35, was taken into custody and booked into the Sacramento County Main Jail. Jail records show that Jackson faces charges including violating parole, reckless driving, attempted theft and hit-and-run. He is ineligible for bail. Vincent Moleski in the Sacramento Bee$ -- 10/4/21