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The Coast Guard has gathered evidence it failed to follow its own firefighting policy during the Deepwater Horizon disaster and is investigating whether the chaotic spraying of tons of salt water by private boats contributed to sinking the ill-fated oil rig, according to interviews and documents. Training Exercises Showed Gaps in Government Preparedness Before BP Oil Spill Data Mine: Coast Guard Database Keeps Oil Spill Penalties Under Wraps Coast Guard officials told the Center for Public Integrity that the service does not have the expertise to fight an oil rig fire and that its response to the April 20 explosion...

Petraeus: Times Square bomber likely acted alone By KIMBERLY DOZIER (AP) – 34 minutes ago WASHINGTON — Gen. David Petraeus says the Times Square bombing suspect apparently operated as a "lone wolf" who did not work with other terrorists. The general who oversees the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan tells The Associated Press that alleged bomber Faisal Shahzad was inspired by militants in Pakistan, but didn't necessarily have direct contact with them.

The Country Club Plaza area was awash with pepper spray Saturday night as police struggled to disperse a rowdy gathering of hundreds of young people. At least one person was reported with a serious head injury about 11:20 p.m. in the parking lot outside Winstead’s restaurant. It wasn’t immediately clear how the person was injured. The victim was taken to nearby St. Luke’s Hospital. Several dozen police officers spent much of the evening attempting to disperse large crowds — totaling an estimated 500 to 1,000 people — that gathered at various spots in the shopping district. Police at times used...

Hole in Jetliner Disrupts Flight By Martin Weil Washington Post Staff Writer Tuesday, July 14, 2009 A Southwest Airlines jetliner headed for Baltimore-Washington International Marshall Airport made an emergency landing in West Virginia yesterday evening after a hole opened in the body of the plane and the cabin lost pressure, an airline spokeswoman said.

Thursday, June 25, 2009 Governor Sanford Flunks Geography of Argentina As almost everyone has heard over the past couple days, South Carolina’s Republican Governor Mark Sanford went AWOL several days last week, ostensibly hiking the Appalachian Trail, before being met at Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport by an inquiring reporter from the Columbia daily The State. undefinedIn reality, Sanford had just returned from a "spontaneous" trip to “exotic” Argentina where, he said, he drove the scenic coastline alone. Several observers have pointed out, some with great hilarity, that the governor would first have had to drive several hours through hundreds of...

And there are certain things we've got to do. Our infrastructure — look what happened in Beijing. You go to the Olympics and these folks are building, and we've got sewer lines that are crumbling.

A senior executive at TNK-BP told us a few months ago that the oil company was "a poster child" for foreign investment in Russia. So it is turning out to be, only not in the way that he intended. Blessed by Vladimir Putin at its creation in 2003, BP's Russian joint venture is now getting the standard Kremlin treatment. Yesterday a "bureaucratic" visa problem forced the British company to send home 148 expatriate workers. Meanwhile, the Interior Ministry launched a "tax evasion" probe into a TNK-BP unit. And last week, the (renamed) KGB raided the oil company's Moscow offices and...

Over the years, investors in Russia have grown accustomed to the unexpected. Often, just when things seem to have calmed down, the next bombshell is right around the corner. That's surely the only way to describe the extraordinary news that a manager from TNK-BP, British Petroleum's Russian joint venture, and his brother, who works for the British Council, have been arrested and accused of spying. The arrests came less than three weeks after Russia's election of a new President, Dmitry Medvedev, which seemed to send a reassuring message of liberalism and stability (BusinessWeek.com, 3/3/08). Remarkably, they also occurred just one...

Russia targets UK interests with 'spy' arrests By Adrian Blomfield in Moscow Last Updated: 2:08am GMT 21/03/2008

MOSCOW, March 19 (Reuters) - Russian law enforcement agencies were on Wednesday searching the headquarters of Russian oil firm TNK-BP TNBPI.RTS, half owned by BP Plc (BP.L: Quote, Profile, Research), industry sources told Reuters. The company declined to comment. "Searches began this morning and are still continuing," one of the sources said. The reason for the searches was not immediately clear. One source said the searches were being conducted by the Federal Security Service, main successor agency to the Soviet-era KGB secret police. TNK-BP is half owned by a group of Russian billionaire shareholders. Many analysts have said they were...

February 15, 2008 Read More: Hillary Clinton Putin vs. Clinton When Hillary Clinton said, way back in New Hampshire, that Vladimir Putin "doesn't have a soul," I figured that would be the sort of thing the Russian wouldn't be pleased about. But when I called the foreign ministry the next day for comment, it was Orthodox Christmas, and I let it slide. He was asked about the remark at his press conference yesterday, however, and indeed wasn't pleased. The former KGB lieutenant colonel appeared to lash out at U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton — a leading Democratic candidate for president —...

Tatar Media Abuzz Over Obama Catchphrase By Alexander Osipovich Staff Writer They seem like an unlikely couple. One is a rising star of the U.S. Democratic Party, and the other is a former Soviet official who has ruled his republic of Russia since 1991. But U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama and Tatarstan President Mintimer Shaimiyev have something in common. In an apparent coincidence that has Tatar media outlets abuzz, the Obama slogan "Yes, We Can!" has the same meaning as Shaimiyev's favorite catchphrase, which in Tatar is "Bez Buldyrabyz!" The two slogans are "identical," Karim Kamal, a journalist for the...

By JILL LAWLESS, Associated Press WriterTue Jun 26, 11:29 AM ET Fewer chartered planes, more train trips and a royal Jaguar that runs on cooking oil have helped Prince Charles achieve a carbon-neutral household, an annual review of the prince's accounts said Tuesday. The annual review by the prince's Clarence House office said Charles cut his annual carbon emissions by 9 percent, to 3,775 tons, between April 1, 2006 and March 31 of this year. The prince offset those emissions by investing in an agency that promotes tree planting and sustainable energy projects. The review said the prince's households —...

An explosion hit a McDonald's restaurant in the city center on Sunday, injuring at least six people, officials said. The explosion blew out windows at the restaurant and partially destroyed the ceiling, said Irina Andriyanova, spokeswoman for the Emergency Situations Ministry. She said six people were wounded, including four who were hospitalized with various injuries, including concussions and cuts from flying glass. Ekho Moskvy radio, citing eyewitnesses, said the blast went off in the handbag a restaurant patron. Officials did not say whether they believed the explosion was related to terrorism or a criminal act. McDonald's restaurants have been targets...

Jewish World Review Jan. 2, 2007 / 12 Teves, 5766 With the quiet release of a 33-year-old US State Department cable, a good chunk of the edifice of the longest-running big lie was destroyed By Caroline B. Glick Printer Friendly Version Email this article Time for world to admit it was duped to the tune of billions of dollars http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Yasser Arafat was a master of the big lie. Since he invented global terrorism with the founding of the Fatah terror organization in 1959, Arafat successfully portrayed himself as a freedom fighter while introducing the...