Stormy seas continued to hamper cleanup efforts

Based on the upper end of a range of government estimates, the spill passed the 140-million-gallon mark, surpassing the 1979-1980 Ixtoc I spill off Mexico.

While Hurricane Alex spared a direct hit on the gushing well 40 miles off the Louisiana coast, high swells kept BP from skimming or burning surface oil and halted the placement of new sections of boom.

Drillships continued to bore a relief well that is expected to plug the well in the next few weeks — slightly ahead of a mid-August target date - said retired Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, who commands the multipronged spill response.

"We're now amassing our forces to move back out once the weather allows us to get back on the water and skim," Allen told reporters at a Thursday briefing.

That could be sometime this weekend, depending on weather, he said.
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Secret agents living in the shadows of the suburbs

Kindergarten play dates versus the tap-tap-tap of radiograms. Housework versus the “brush pass” exchange of parcels. They were even described as having concealed their missions from their closest observers.

“There is no inkling at all,” said Assistant United States Attorney Michael Farbiarz, “that their children, who they live with, have any idea they are Russian agents.”

In the end, in court, the side of their lives described as cloaked in secrecy and deception mostly won out over parenthood, with two defendants denied bail. Another may be allowed to serve a kind of house arrest next week.

The fourth, who was granted bail, is the one the government concedes lived under her own name: Vicky Pelaez, a veteran columnist for El Diario La Prensa, a newspaper in New York. Her husband, Juan Jose Lazaro Sr., postponed his request for bail.

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Blocked a six-month moratorium on deep-water drilling

In a 22-page opinion, the judge, Martin L. C. Feldman of United States District Court, issued a preliminary injunction against the enforcement of a late May order halting all offshore exploratory drilling in more than 500 feet of water.

Citing potential economic harm to businesses and workers, Judge Feldman wrote that the Obama administration had failed to justify the need for such “a blanket, generic, indeed punitive, moratorium” on deep-water oil and gas drilling.

“The blanket moratorium, with no parameters, seems to assume that because one rig failed and although no one yet fully knows why, all companies and rigs drilling new wells over 500 feet also universally present an imminent danger,” wrote Judge Feldman, a 1983 appointee of President Ronald Reagan. The administration’s order halted 33 exploratory drilling projects and suspended new permits, but did not affect platforms that were already in production.

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Democrats continued to make use of Mr. Barton’s apology

The largest beneficiary of campaign donations from BP in the 2008 election cycle, for instance, was President Obama, who took in $77,000 from company executives and its political action committee. This year, Senator Blanche Lincoln, Democrat of Arkansas and chairwoman of the Agriculture Committee, leads all candidates with $286,000 in donations from oil and gas companies.

And while Democrats have pounced on Mr. Barton for accusing Mr. Obama of conducting a “shakedown” by demanding that BP set up a $20 billion fund for oil spill claims, a number of Democratic lawmakers — especially those from oil-producing Gulf states — have struggled to balance their criticism of BP with support for the industry.
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Agrees to $20b account to pay Gulf claims

American people,’’ Obama said. “BP is a strong and viable company and it is in all our interests that it remains so. This is about accountability. At the end of the day, that’s what every American wants and expects.’’

The agreement emerged after a more than three-hour meeting between White House officials and BP executives, whose relationship has grown increasingly strained as the spill nears the two-month mark.

Obama participated at various times in the discussions, which senior administration officials described as a “negotiation,’’ and met alone afterward with BP chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg. Attorney General Eric H. Holder also participated in much of the session, a sign of the potential criminal liability the oil company may face.

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Gulf oil may be double earlier estimates

The new figures could mean 42 million to 84 million gallons of oil have leaked into the Gulf of Mexico since the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded on the night of April 20 — with the lowest estimate nearly four times the size of the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill.

The flow estimates were released by Marcia McNutt, director of the U.S. Geological Survey, and do not count any increases that may have occurred since the cutting of the well's riser pipe, a step that was expected to boost the flow.


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Arizona crackdown

McClendon sported a T-shirt that read "Arizona: Doing the Job the Feds Won't Do!" It's one of four similarly-themed shirts she wears regularly. Her sartorial choices earn her frequent compliments from strangers — not a surprise, as polls consistently show large majorities backing the state's crackdown against illegal immigration.


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