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| Good morning, Daily Briefing readers! A state of emergency has been declared in Orange County and criminal and civil investigations are underway following a massive oil spill off the Southern California coast. A former Facebook employee who alleges the social media giant lied to the public will testify before a Senate panel. And just who's the chonkiest of them all? The winner of Fat Bear Week will be announced. 🐻 |
| It's Steve and Jane with Tuesday's news. |
| 🏥 New this morning: Anthem Blue Cross, the country's second-biggest health insurance company, is behind on billions of dollars in payments owed to hospitals and doctors. |
| 💵 We have a winner! A single ticket sold in California matched all six numbers drawn Monday and was the lucky winner of a Powerball jackpot of nearly $700 million, officials said. |
 | | Blank forms for the Powerball lottery sit in a bin at a local grocery store, in Des Moines, Iowa, in January 2021. | | Associated Press photo; USA TODAY graphic | |
| ⚓️The Navy has sold the former USS Kitty Hawk and USS John F. Kennedy to a Texas shipbreaking company to scrap the aging, defunct aircraft carriers. The price tag: a penny for each. |
| 💻 Facebook down: Monday's outage of Facebook, Facebook Messenger, Instagram and WhatsApp marooned billions of users who rely on the social media giant and its apps. |
| 🎧On today's 5 Things podcast, hear how and why a massive outage shut down Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram. You can listen to the podcast every day on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on your smart speaker. |
| Here's what's happening today: |
California oil spill: Gov. Gavin Newsom declares state of emergency, investigations underway |
| Crews along Southern California's coast deployed skimmers and attempted to corral oil-slicked ocean waters in booms Monday following an enormous oil spill that threatened to close beaches for months. Officials are looking into whether a ship's anchor may have struck a pipeline on the ocean floor, causing the leak of crude, authorities said Monday. The head of the company that operates the pipeline, Amplify Energy CEO Martyn Willsher, said he expected there would be a clearer picture of what caused the damage by Tuesday. California Gov. Gavin Newsom proclaimed a state of emergency in Orange County, directing state agencies "to undertake immediate and aggressive action to clean up and mitigate the effects" of the spill. A state spokesman told USA TODAY that numerous government probes of the company's actions and of the spill have begun. |
More from the West Coast oil spill: |
| 🛢The massive California oil spill was reported Friday: But nobody told the millions who went to the beaches. |
| 🐦Graphic explainer: How pipeline breach off California coast closed beaches, killed wildlife. |
Facebook whistleblower to testify before Senate panel |
| Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen is scheduled to testify Tuesday morning at a Senate Commerce consumer protection panel . Haugen leaked documents to The Wall Street Journal and to lawmakers that she says showed Facebook lied to the public about its efforts to root out hate speech, misinformation and violence. Haugen, 37, was employed at Facebook for nearly two years. She worked on the civic integrity team as a product manager to combat election interference and misinformation. According to her written testimony, Haugen will compare Facebook to tobacco companies. "When we realized tobacco companies were hiding the harms it caused, the government took action," Haugen's testimony says. "I implore you to do the same here." |
 | | Whistleblower and former Facebook employee Frances Haugen called the platform "dangerous" ahead of her Senate testimony. | | COURTESY CBS | |
What else people are reading: |
| 🔵 Freedom Riders traveled deep into the South in 1961. Klansmen beat them, then set their bus on fire. |
| 🌏 "Quite concerning": Earth is appearing to dim, and climate change is a big reason why, according to research. |
| 🚗 Catalytic converter theft has surged nationwide. L.A.'s top prosecutor is threatening a fight with auto companies to force change. |
| 🖥 Microsoft has begun the Windows 11 rollout for owners of PCs, tablets and devices. What you need to know about the free upgrade of the operating system. |
Biden heads to Michigan to promote infrastructure, budget packages |
| President Joe Biden will travel to Howell, Michigan, on Tuesday to promote his $3.5 trillion budget bill and $1 trillion infrastructure package. The town is in the district of Rep. Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich., a moderate House Democrat who has said she will "very seriously" examine a final reconciliation package. Though a majority of Democratic lawmakers and the president support both bills, the party's razor-thin majorities in both chambers of Congress mean that any small group of lawmakers could jeopardize the passage of a bill. Later this week, Biden will host lawmakers from different factions of the party for talks over the spending bills, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said in a statement Saturday. |
Newsmakers in their own words: William Shatner on going to space |
 | | Actor and entrepreneur William Shatner | | Photo by Jason Shook; USA TODAY graphic | |
| William Shatner, Captain Kirk from "Star Trek," is rocketing into space this month, boldly going where no other sci-fi actor has gone. Jeff Bezos' space travel company, Blue Origin, announced Monday that Shatner will blast off from West Texas on Oct. 12. |
| At age 90, Shatner will become the oldest person in space. He'll join three others – two of them paying customers – aboard a Blue Origin capsule. It will be the company's second launch with a crew. |
Red Sox and Yankees face off in winner-take-all wild card matchup |
| After 162 regular season games, MLB's postseason arrives Tuesday. Longtime American League East rivals, the Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees , kick off the playoffs with the AL Wild Card game Tuesday night (8:08 p.m. ET, ESPN). Both teams won their games Sunday to finish with identical 92-70 records, locking them into their playoff positions. Since the Red Sox won the season series over the Yankees in 2021, taking 10 out of 19 games, Tuesday's winner-take-all matchup will be played at Fenway Park in Boston. The winner of the wild card game will face another AL East foe in the American League Division Series, the Tampa Bay Rays, who finished with 100 regular season wins and Major League Baseball's third-best record. |
Winner of Fat Bear Week to be announced |
| America, who is the chonkiest bear in all the land? The champion of Fat Bear Week, a competition put on by the Katmai National Park and Preserve in southwest Alaska, will be announced Tuesday. This year's contenders are some of the chonkiest the annual celebration has seen, with five of the seven past winners competing again. The celebration started off as a singular day in 2014, and it wasn't long until it captivated the country. Although the celebration is all in fun, it raises awareness of how bears are dealing with climate change: The reason these bears can gain all the weight is because of the abundance of salmon in the area. If the salmon were to disappear, the bears would be in great danger. Here are some of the bears vying for this year's title. |
ICYMI: Some of our top stories Monday |
| 📚 Former White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham is warning that if former President Donald Trump is reelected to a second term, "he will be about revenge." |
| 🔵"I should not have put myself in that position": Jacksonville Jaguars coach Urban Meyer apologized for a video in which a woman who was not his wife danced on him. |
| 🛒"Deep discounts": Amazon is rolling out "Black Friday-worthy deals" earlier than ever. The online retail giant announced that holiday savings are now available. |
| 🐍"Nobody knows how rare it is": A Mississippi woman came across a venomous snake so rare there really aren't statistics on it: a blond timber rattlesnake. |
'Monday Night Football': Chargers look stout in knocking off unbeaten Raiders |
| The Las Vegas Raiders, who got off to a 3-0 start for the first time since 2002, fell from the ranks of unbeaten when they lost on the road to the Los Angeles Chargers 28-14 on "Monday Night Football." The Chargers jumped out to a 21-0 lead in the first half behind quarterback Justin Herbert's three touchdown passes and never looked back. |
 | | Los Angeles Chargers running back Austin Ekeler (30) runs the ball against the Las Vegas Raiders. | | Kirby Lee, USA TODAY Sports | |
| More on Monday's game and other NFL storylines: |
| 🏈 "I'm sorry, but you're blind": Chargers star Joey Bosa was critical of the refs after his team's victory over the Raiders. |
| 🏈 Weather delay: Raiders coach Jon Gruden was left confused after lightning delayed kickoff at a domed SoFi Stadium in Southern California. |
| 🏈 Employing a "1-0 mentality": After the Raiders' loss, just one undefeated team remains in the NFL: the Arizona Cardinals. |
| 🏈 Column: Baltimore Ravens coach John Harbaugh was out of line with his last-second ploy to secure a rushing record when a win over the Denver Broncos was already in hand. |
📸 Oil spill along California coast fouls beaches, kills wildlife 📸 |
 | | A staff of California Department Fish & Wildlife examines a contaminated Sanderling from the oil spill in Huntington Beach, Calif., on Monday, Oct. 4, 2021. A major oil spill off the coast of Southern California fouled popular beaches and killed wildlife while crews scrambled Sunday to contain the crude before it spread further into protected wetlands. | | Ringo H.W. Chiu, AP | |
| Wildlife rescuers are scrambling to protect birds and fish from the massive oil spill along Southern California's coast. Environmental groups are demanding an end to offshore drilling following the disaster. |
| Learn more about the cleanup efforts and work to rescue wildlife in our gallery of images from the scene. |
| The Daily Briefing is free, but several stories we link to in this edition are subscriber-only. Please support our journalism and become a USA TODAY digital subscriber today. |
| Contributing: The Associated Press |
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