"On Monday, BP said a cap was capturing 11,000 barrels of oil a day from the well. The official government estimate of the flow rate is 12,000 to 19,000 barrels a day, which means the new device should be capturing the bulk of the oil. But is it? With no consensus among experts on how much oil is pouring from the wellhead, it is difficult -- if not impossible -- to assess the containment cap’s effectiveness."
"BP, the very company responsible for the oil spill that is already the worst in U.S. history, has purchased several phrases on search engines such as Google and Yahoo so that the first result that shows up directs information seekers to the company's official website."
"Pennsylvania regulators halted work Monday at dozens of unfinished natural gas wells being drilled by the company whose out-of-control well spewed out explosive gas and polluted water for 16 hours last week."
"A series of internal investigations over the past decade warned senior BP managers that the company repeatedly disregarded safety and environmental rules and risked a serious accident if it did not change its ways."
"More than half of the federal judges in districts where the bulk of Gulf oil spill-related lawsuits are pending have financial connections to the oil and gas industry, complicating the task of finding judges without conflicts to hear the cases, an Associated Press analysis of judicial financial disclosure reports shows."
"Over-reliance on the popular weed-killer Roundup has sped the evolution of weed species resistant to the herbicide, forcing some farmers to return to costlier and less environmentally-friendly methods of controlling crop-destructive infestations."
Impacts of the Gulf oil spill on wildlife, beaches, and tourism continue to spread.
"During President Obama's visit to the Louisiana coast, he got an earful from local officials about his six-month moratorium on deep-water drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. Many people -- from work boat captains to offshore caterers -- say shutting down the industry for that long could be a bigger economic blow to the region than the oil spill itself."
Oil spill National Incident Commander Adm. Thad Allen has put out a written directive that news media have "uninhibited access" to spill response operations unless security or safety problems prevent it. It is not clear whether his order will have any impact on BP.
"President Barack Obama said Saturday that he will stand with Gulf Coast residents 'until they are made whole' from the oil spill catastrophe."
Advertisement 
