As if the water wasn't deep -- or oily -- enough around British Petroleum's public relations, the company has hired a former spokeswoman for Vice President Dick Cheney to be its public face for the disaster.
Anne Womack Kolton, former head of public affairs at the Department of Energy and Cheney's onetime campaign press secretary, will take the baton from BP this week.
BP hires Cheney spokeswoman to lead PR effort
US President Barack Obama 'to extend oil drilling ban'
US President Barack Obama is set to extend a moratorium on deep-water offshore drilling for six months, the White House says.
The move comes as his administration faces criticism of its handling of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.
The ban will stay in place while a commission further investigates the circumstances of the disaster.
BP says its latest effort to stem the flow of oil from the well after a rig explosion is going to plan.
Electric car travels record 1,000km on single charge
The customised Mira EV travelled at speeds of around 40kph as it drove non-stop around a car racing course in Shimotsuma in Ibaraki Prefecture.
The red and white vehicle, fitted with a special lithium ion battery created by the Japanese company Sanyo, ran for 27.5 hours covering a distance of 1,003km without being recharged.
Oil inspectors let companies fill in own audits, while one admitted getting high on meth, report says
The agency in charge of overseeing the United States' oil reserves was plagued with gross mismanagement that in at least one case allowed the companies being inspected to fill in their own audit reports, an Inspector General's report will reportedly reveal this week.
Fed'l inspections on rig not as claimed
The federal agency responsible for ensuring that the Deepwater Horizon was operating safely before it exploded last month fell well short of its own policy that the rig be inspected at least once per month, an Associated Press investigation shows.
In fact, the agency's inspection frequency on the Deepwater Horizon fell dramatically over the past five years, according to federal Minerals Management Service records. The rig blew up April 20, killing 11 people before sinking and triggering a massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
Quest for oil leaves trail of damage across the globe
Across the globe, people such as Harpe in oil-producing regions are watching the catastrophe in the Gulf with a mixture of horror, hope and resignation. To some, the black tide is a global event that finally may awaken the world to the real cost of oil.
"This is a call to attention for all humanity," said Pablo Fajardo, a lawyer in Ecuador who's suing Chevron over oil pollution in the Amazon on behalf of 30,000 plaintiffs.
BP's own probe finds safety issues on Atlantis rig
The company whose drilling triggered the Gulf of Mexico oil spill also owns a rig that operated with incomplete and inaccurate engineering documents, which one official warned could "lead to catastrophic operator error," records and interviews show.
In February, two months before the Deepwater Horizon spill, 19 members of Congress called on the agency that oversees offshore oil drilling to investigate a whistle-blower's complaints about the BP-owned Atlantis, which is stationed in 7,070 feet of water more than 150 miles south of New Orleans.
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