Midday Roundup: California crews work to clean oiled beaches, wildlife

Befouled beaches. Clean-up crews in Santa Barbara, Calif., are working to minimize the damage of as many as 105,000 gallons of crude oil that leaked from an underwater pipeline near Refugio State Beach on Tuesday. The oil has washed ashore along 9 miles of beaches so far. Plains Pipeline, the company responsible for the pipeline, has a long history of violating federal regulations. The Texas-based company’s rate of safety and maintenance violations—175 since 2006—is three times the national average, according to the Los Angeles Times. Crews inspected the ruptured pipeline two weeks ago, but results of the assessment didn’t come back before it started to leak, a company spokesman told reporters. The pipeline carries about 6.3 million gallons of crude a day and was last inspected in 2012.

Worth it? The Florida postal worker who flew from Pennsylvania to Washington, D.C., and landed a gyrocopter on the Capitol’s West Lawn faces charges that could send him to prison for almost 10 years. Douglas Hughes, 61, was protesting the influence of big business on politics and had made no secret of his intentions before taking off. Federal investigators interviewed him months earlier, but no one spotted him until he was getting ready to land, too late to do anything about it. Although Hughes intended the flight to highlight one national problem, it ended up bringing attention to another—potentially lax security protecting the skies above the nation’s capital. The charges against Hughes include operating as an airman without an airman’s certificate and violating aircraft registration requirements, both felonies. He’s also charged with violating national air defense space, a misdemeanor.

Nuclear boasts. North Korea claims it can miniaturize nuclear weapons. That, if true, would mark a critical step toward building nuclear missiles, which might even be capable of striking North America. Publicly, Pentagon officials are skeptical because Kim Jong Un’s regime is elusive and notorious for exaggerating its military might. But some top commanders in the field are expressing greater concern. “Our assessment is that they have the ability to put it on a nuclear weapon a kN08 and shoot it at the homeland,” said Adm. William Gortney, who heads the U.S. Northern Command. “That’s the way we think. That’s our assessment of the process.” The Obama administration says the United States is working to improve its homeland missile defenses in an effort to stay ahead of any potential North Korean threat.

Let’s chat. The House Select Committee on Benghazi has subpoenaed a close ally of Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton. The panel investigating the deadly 2012 terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya, has called longtime Clinton family advisor Sidney Blumenthal to testify next month. This comes after a New York Times article reported Blumenthal had special business interests in Libya during the time of the attack—and at the same time was emailing intelligence reports to then-Secretary-of-State Hillary Clinton. She, in turn, forwarded those reports to her personnel. Blumenthal was senior advisor to the Clinton White House and advised Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign. He also has worked for the Clinton Foundation.

Swipe and steal. Thieves are stealing data from ATM cards at the highest rate in 20 years. The crimes occur at ATMs everywhere—banks and stores. Credit score firm FICO tracks the numbers and says debit-card thefts at banks soared 174 percent earlier this year. Attacks in non-bank locations rose by more than 300 percent. Thieves install devices that capture magnetic-strip info, and may use hidden cameras to record your pin number. Experts say you can reduce your risk by avoiding non-bank ATM locations and covering the keypad with your hand.

WORLD Radio’s Mary Reichard and Paul Butler contributed to this report.