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TheAssociatedPress GALT AworkerataNorth- ern California recycling center saved a tiny kitten from certain death when he spotted the animal heading down a conveyor belt. Tony Miranda tells tele- vision station KCRA that he was sorting recyclables Tuesday when he found the pink-nosed, white-pawed cat between the debris and scooped it up. It's not clear how the kit- ten got in with the trash, but it may have survived a ride in a dump truck before a tractor pushed it onto one of two conveyer belts. A call went out to em- ployees of Cal-Waste Recov- ery Systems that a baby cat had been discovered at the facility in Galt, a city about 90 miles northeast of San Francisco. Another worker decided to adopt the kitten and named it Murphy. Information from: KCRA-TV. ADOPTED By Tom Verdin The Associated Press SACRAMENTO Doug Wil- lis, who followed Ron- ald Reagan from the gov- ernor's office to the presi- dential campaign trail and covered Jerry Brown's first stint as governor during a three-decade career writ- ing about California pol- itics for The Associated Press, has died. He was 77. He died Tuesday night at a hospital in Sacramento from complications fol- lowing hip surgery, said his wife, Judy. He had been di- agnosed with Alzheimer's about three years ago and had been living in a mem- ory-care home since sum- mer, she said. Judy Willis said it was especially sad that her hus- band suffered from demen- tia because he had such a quick wit, nimble mind and fail-safe memory through- out his journalism career and their 22-year marriage. "Somebody once called him a walking encyclope- dia," she said. "It's abso- lutely heartbreaking." Indeed, Willis was some- thing of an anomaly in a profession notorious for its aversion to math: He had won a full-ride engineer- ing scholarship to Stan- ford University before get- ting bored with that major and switching to journal- ism. Colleagues recalled him as a congenial but fierce competitor who never for- got a fact or let sources off the hook. "He didn't give up. He would get his question an- swered," said Rebecca La- Vally, a Sacramento State University communica- tions lecturer who was a re- porter and manager in the state capital for the com- peting wire service, United Press International, during the 1970s and 1980s. Willis started with the AP in San Francisco in 1969 after beginning his career as a police and gen- eral assignment reporter for the old San Jose News and a brief stint as an ed- itor for a newspaper in Bend, Oregon. An only child, Willis was born April 16, 1938, in Oak- land, California, and was raised by his mother and grandmother. His father died during World War II, shot down in the Pacific while serving in the Army Air Corps. Judy Willis said her husband never regretted changing majors from en- gineering to journalism. Rather, he fed off the ex- citement of being pres- ent at some of the biggest events of the day. OBITUARY Doug Willis, state political writer, dies By Justin Pritchard The Associated Press LOS ANGELES California unveiled precedent-setting draft rules Wednesday that would slow the public's ac- cess to self-driving cars of the future until regulators are confident the technol- ogy is safe. That cautious approach requires that the cars have a steering wheel, and a li- censed driver must be ready to take over if the machine fails. The draft sets out the framework for how the state's Department of Mo- tor Vehicles wants to move from the current small- scale testing of proto- types on roads and high- ways to giving consumers access to the fast-evolv- ing technology. The DMV can change the rules over the coming months before they are finalized, and the industry is likely to con- test them as overly bur- densome. Though no manufacturer has said it thinks the cars are ready just yet, at least a dozen are developing the technology, and the most aggressive suggest a model could be ready within a few years. California is the larg- est auto market in the U.S., and its rules will be a land- mark in the development of self-driving technology. States including Texas, Ne- vada and Michigan have courted testing on their roads but not weighed in on consumer use of the cars in detail as California did Wednesday. Under the draft rules, even if Google thinks its car is ready for sale, that wouldn't be immediately possible. Initially, manu- facturers would receive a permit for three years, dur- ing which time consum- ers could lease the cars but manufacturers would be re- quired to keep tabs on how safely they are driving and report that performance to the state. Before granting that ini- tial permit, both the man- ufacturer and an indepen- dent certifier would need to sign off that the car has passed safety testing. Any person who wants to lease or use one of the cars would need special training pro- vided by the manufacturer, and then receive a special certification on their driv- er's license. "Given the potential risks associated with de- ployment of such a new technology, DMV believes that manufacturers need to obtain more experience in testing driverless vehi- cles on public roads prior to making this technology available to the general public," the agency said in a written summary of the regulations. DMV regulation writ- ers struggled with how they would know the tech- nology is safe before let- ting it go beyond proto- type testing, which re- quires a specially trained driver behind the wheel. The agency was supposed to propose regulations at the start of 2015, but that process has dragged on over issues including how a person could take over when the car cannot drive itself safely, how to pre- vent hackers from seizing control of what amount to computers on wheels, and the privacy of data that the cars collect about their us- ers. California has grappled for several years with how to regulate the technology. The DMV has said it wants the regulations to protect public safety, but not be too onerous so that signature companies such as Google will be stifled in developing a technology with huge life- saving potential. After all, cars that can safely drive themselves un- der all conditions wouldn't rely on drivers who may be drowsy, distracted, buzzed — or unable to drive be- cause of their age or a dis- ability. Boosters say the technology could prevent many of the more than 32,000 deaths on U.S. roads each year. The cars use a suite of sensors — including ra- dar, lasers and cameras — and onboard comput- ers to drive. Many also rely on maps that detail every- thing from curb heights to the exact placement of lane stripes. TECHNOLOGY State: Self-driving cars must have driver behind wheel KCRA-TV A kitten that was found on a conveyor belt and escaped potential death at recycling center in Galt. Tiny kitten rescued from conveyer belt at plant THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Associated Press Correspondent Doug Willis, le , talks with then Gov. Ronald Reagan at the Capitol in Sacramento in 1974. PublishedbyTheDailyNewswithgreatappreciationfor the support of local businesses! IusetheServiceDirectorysectionof The Red Bluff Daily News every year. Mostly in the spring and summer to advertise my business Cutting Edge Landscape for the season. 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