California springs an oil leak off its coast, get ready for the largest recall in auto history and L.A. preps to raise its minimum wage.
It’s Wednesday, and here are five things to know for your New Day:
BIKER BRAWL
Moving out: Police will leave the parking lot of Twin Peaks today, but the investigation into Sunday’s violence continues. Authorities are still worried about more violence, but there are signs many of the bikers want peace. The Cossacks Motorcycle Club, one of the groups at Sunday’s melee, has agreed to cancel its 14th annual “Mingus Blowout” party. The event was scheduled for this weekend in Palo Pinto County, about 100 miles northwest of Waco.
OIL SPILL
Slick spot: A four-mile long oil slick appeared Tuesday near a popular California beach after a pipeline ruptured. The oil slick is at Refugio State Beach near Santa Barbara. The pipeline has been shut off. Social media photos showed black, sticky oil hugging the coastline. County emergency crews and teams from the U.S. Coast Guard and California state parks were working to contain and clean up the spill.
CRUISE SHIPS
Sad incident: A 10-year-old girl drowned over the weekend on a cruise ship off the coast of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. The girl was reported unresponsive on the Norwegian Gem’s pool deck. The ship’s medical team tried unsuccessfully to revive her. The ship had left New York on Saturday for a seven-day cruise to Florida and the Bahamas. Coast Guard investigators boarded the ship Monday. In another incident involving a Norwegian ship, the Norwegian Dawn ran aground Tuesday near Bermuda after temporarily losing power. No one was injured and the ship is not taking on water. It’s unclear at this point if the ship will continue to its next destination or if the passengers will need to disembark.
AUTO RECALL
The largest: Airbag maker Takata is nearly doubling the size of its faulty airbag recall, making it the largest auto recall in history. It now involves 34 million vehicles — that’s about one out of every seven cars on U.S. roads today. At least five deaths have been tied to the faulty airbags, which have been known to explode and send shrapnel into the face and body of both the driver and front seat passenger. Most of the recalled cars were made by Honda.
MINIMUM WAGE
Big hike: Los Angeles is the latest big city to try to raise its minimum wage to $15 an hour. The L.A. City Council vote yesterday would phase in the increase by 2020 and directs Los Angeles’ city attorney to formally draft legislation that would then go before the same council for a vote. Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti had been pushing for the hike. Seattle and San Francisco also raised their minimum wages to $15 per hour.
Those are your five biggies for the day. Here are a few others that are brewing and have the Internet buzzing.
Grocery groans: A man makes annoying food puns while his girlfriend shops.
Bike buster: Take a ride on the “backwards brain” bike.
So goofy: Zappa the dog’s tongue has 30,000 Instagram followers.
Bear down: Swedish man scares an attacking bear.
