Benicia

The “Mothball Fleet” is in the news, and on a government agency agenda, once again.

The San Francisco Bay Region of the California Regional Water Quality Control Board will have an opportunity Feb. 10 to discuss the lawsuit between Arc Ecology and the U.S. Maritime Administration about maintaining the Reserve Fleet in Suisun Bay.

The suit is one of several items the board has put on the closed session portion of its agenda.more...

Motorists may be shelling out an extra dollar to cross a Bay Area bridge by July, and carpoolers may no longer get a free ride if a recommended toll hike is approved later this month.

Increases for big rigs, meanwhile, would be delayed by a year.more...

As of New Year’s Day, California restaurateurs can no longer serve food cooked in trans fat.

Trans fat, or unsaturated fat with trans-isomer fatty acid(s), raises the low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, or LDL — the so-called “bad” cholesterol — and lowers the high-density lipoprotein cholesterol, or HDL — the “good” cholesterol — in a person’s body, according to information from the Mayo Clinic. It’s created when hydrogen is added to vegetable oil through a process called hydrogenation.  more...

Benicia police detectives said thieves had illegally obtained debit card information and have used it to steal up to $8,000 from local residents’ bank accounts. At least 15 cases have been reported, Lt. Mike Daley said Friday.

“Someone has fraudulently obtained debit card information and PIN numbers for withdrawals in Martinez, Benicia and the American Canyon area,” Daley said.

Victims of this fraud are apparently not missing their cards, raising the possibility that the perpetrators are somehow using duplicate cards.more...

San Francisco was the logical choice for the 13th annual U.S. Conference on AIDS organized by the National Minority AIDS Council and held last week at the Hilton Hotel. While it was 29 years ago in Chicago where the first AIDS case was diagnosed, since then San Francisco has been ground zero for the worldwide HIV/AIDS pandemic.more...

Benicia — Reminiscent of the case of Bill Maddock, the Shell employee whose body was found in early May floating in a water tank at the refinery, a worker at the Valero refinery in Benicia fell while cleaning a water filtration tank Monday, causing her to lose consciousness and sustain injuries to her head, legs and lower back, according to officials from Valero and the Benicia Fire Department.more...

SUNDAY — members of a joint SWAT team comprised of officers from the Benicia and Vallejo police departments arrested a fugitive from a North Carolina jail and the guard who allegedly helped him escape.

Police arrested Jeffrey Miles, 26, and former jail guard Anita Vestal, 32, in Vallejo around 9 p.m., Vallejo police said.

The duo had been featured on the TV show “America’s Most Wanted.”more...

Laboratory tests confirmed last week that the unusual smell and taste of water coming out of faucets in Solano and Napa counties was caused by blue-green algae, also known as cyanobacteria — or simply “pond scum.”

Solano County Water Agency General Manager David Okita said test results received by the agency showed that geosmin — a product of algal metabolism — caused the water to smell, and taste, bad.more...