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• RICHMOND, Calif. (AP) -- Investigators were looking at how a small, seemingly insignificant leak at one of the country's biggest oil refineries quickly unraveled into an intense fire that sent acrid black smoke into the sky and hundreds of people to hospitals with health complaints.
• The leak started as a drip at about 4:15 p.m. Monday, officials said. Chevron -- which is required to "immediately" notify the public of any gas leak, fire or oil spill, according to state law -- did not consider it an immediate danger to residents nearby.
• "At that point in time, there really wasn't anything we could advise the community

to do," said Mark Ayers, the refinery's fire chief. "We surely wouldn't advise anybody to shelter in place."
• The company's engineers began stripping away insulation on the leaky pipe to investigate the source, which released a vapor of a flammable substance similar to diesel. About two and a half hours later, a conflagration had officials scrambling to warn residents to stay inside.
• Chevron officials notified Contra Costa County so it could activate its emergency warning system, said Randy Sawyer, director of the county's health services agency.
• ___

• HEFEI, China (AP) -- One of China's most politically charged murder trials starts here Thursday. But talk to the student at the cafe, the female taxi driver, the software salesman and the flower seller -- none of them has any idea that the courtroom in an imposing building not far from the downtown of this grimy industrial city is about to become the center of China's political universe.
• As everywhere in the country, the talk in Hefei is more about China's medal tally at the Olympics (53 so far) than the drama surrounding Gu Kailai, who is accused of murdering a British businessman, when her husband Bo Xilai ruled the roost as the Communist Party boss of Chongqing metropolis.

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