The sun sets behind two under-construction offshore oil platform rigs in Port Fourchon, La, June 14, 2010, as cleanup of the BP Deepwater Horizon oil continues. (SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty)
Oil from the Ixtoc spill, 30 years ago, remains on Mexican beaches to this day; North Korean soccer star Jong Tae-Se; eliminating work performance reviews?; imaging the current Gulf spill with balloons, string, and cameras; Puerto Rico calls in the National Guard to help with a crime wave; our summer reading list kicks off with Hilary Thayer Hamann's "Anthropology of an American Girl."
Oceanographer Curtis Ebbesmeyer on the effects of the oil spill; headlines.
In 1979, an explosion on the Ixtoc 1 oil platform caused the world's worst accidental oil spill 50 miles off Mexico's Gulf Coast. 140 million gallons of oil gushed into the Gulf. It took more than nine months to cap the leak. The BBC has launched a series, "Oil and Water" in which they will explore the impacts of an oil-based economy in various locations around the world. As a part of the series, BBC reporters traveled to Mexico's beaches only to find the effects of the Ixtoc spill are still being felt today, more than thirty years after the explosion.
This week Washington is all about oil. Along with testimony from BP CEO Tony Hayward before Congress, Americans will be able to watch President Obama's Oval Office address tonight; and the subject? Oil. The Takeaway's Washington correspondent Todd Zwillich looks at President Obama's first Oval Office speech, and the upcoming Congressional gauntlet to be run by Tony Hayward.
The treasury department announced yesterday that it will start sending the majority of its 136 million benefit checks through a system of direct deposits, eliminating the use of paper checks and postage. The move will likely save the U.S. government approximately $303 million during the first five years after the switch, and about $49 million dollars in postage.
North Korea enters today's match against Brazil shrouded in mystery — nobody knows much about their coach, most of their players, or the way they play. The same could be said for their 1966 counterparts, who shocked the world by defeating Italy 1-0, and became the first Asian nation to go past the first round in the World Cup. Can the country pull another upset?
In 2009, the Pentagon lifted a ban that forbade members of the news media from covering the dignified transfer of the remains of U.S. servicemen and women at Dover Air Force Base. On April 5th, 2009, around forty reporters and photographers were present for the return of the remains of Air Force Staff Sgt. Phillip Myers of Hopewell, Virginia.
But these days, there's often only one member of the news media present. Steve Ruark is a freelance photographer with the Associated Press. He has been to Dover for dignified transfers more than ninety times.
It's the time of year when companies around the nation ask employees and employers to have what's usually an awkward conversation: the 'performance review.' We'll be hearing from a management professor who thinks we should simply do away with them entirely. Do you have to do one? Do you have to conduct one? Are they helpful, or is there a better way to get the information across?
Jeff Warren, fellow at MIT's Center for Future Civic Media, tells us about mapping the Gulf oil gusher; headlines.
For 57 days, oil has been gushing into the Gulf of Mexico, following an explosion aboard the Deepwater Horizon oil rig. That's 57 days of trying to determine what the leak looks like, how big it is, who it's affecting and where the oil has hit land. In other words: 57 days to get pretty creative.
Jeff Warren is a student and fellow at the Center for Future Civic Media at MIT. He's working on mapping the Gulf leak using digital cameras tied to balloons and kites. Here are some of the photos Warren and his colleagues have taken, using cheap digital cameras, kites, garbage bags, and tanks of helium.
"You take each image and you stretch it on a map and then every pixel of the location is a place in the real world," says Warren.
Lauren Craig is a master's student at Tulane and a photo volunteer. She's one of the people attaching a camera to a balloon and taking thousands upon thousands of photos.
After the jump, a short video by Jeff Warren in which he describes the project.
Tonight, President Barack Obama will deliver his first prime time address from the Oval Office. Like the State of the Union address, it's an important part of the modern president's conversation with the American people, and often marks a significant statement of policy.
Yesterday we spoke with clinical psychiatrist Dr. Ellen Weber Libby about parents who play favorites, and the effects of that attention on a child's development. We hear from brothers, sisters, mothers and sons on the effect that favoritism played — if any at all. Some listeners, like our Facebook friend Carrie Perrez wrote, "I'm the favorite because I am an only child; but, I have more than one child. They are all my favorite. They each have their own niches in my heart."
Puerto Rico has called upon 1,000 National Guard troops to help local police fight a rampant crime wave that has pushed the murder rate to a record high. In 2009 alone, 894 people were killed on the Caribbean island. The high rate of crime is being attributed to feuding between gangs battling for control of the cocaine and heroin trade. And the crime has not been restricted to metropolitan areas. There have also been reports of violence and murder in the mountain regions of Puerto Rico.
Today in Iraq 325 members of the new Iraqi parliament are sworn in. But more than three months after elections that established no clear party of power, the governmental body has yet to elect a speaker, and though they've been sworn in, the members have yet to institute the new government fully into power. Is this a sign of political stability or instability? We speak with the BBC's Baghdad correspondent Jim Muir, who gives us a closer look at the proceedings.
Hilary Thayer Hamann earned a cult following after she self-published her debut novel, "Anthropology of an American Girl
Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano will tour the Transportation Security Laboratory in Atlantic City, NJ, on Wednesday. We talk with Napolitano about the cutting-edge screening technology being developed there for DHS, and get her thoughts on the Gulf oil gusher - and where she thinks responsiblity lies.
Thousands of pages of Senator Ted Kennedy’s FBI file were released yesterday, 9 months after he died. This is just the first installment of the file, but it covers some of the most interesting years of Kennedy’s life, from 1961, when his brother was president, to 1985, five years after Kennedy’s own failed run for the White House. There are all sorts of gems in the file: unverified claims and documentation of countless threats — some more serious than others — made against the last surviving Kennedy brother.
Teenager Faces Public Outrage Over School Prayer Lawsuit
The Real Story Behind Tyler Clementi's Tragic Death
Today's Takeaway: Romney's Statements and The Changing Face of Poverty
Today's Takeaway: Mitt Romney and the Social Safety Net
Susan G. Komen Planned Parenthood Decision Forces Many to Make Difficult Decision
A Dictionary of American Dialect
Learn to Talk Football with The Takeaway
The 'Safety Net' and Realities of Poverty
English Immersion: The Bilingual Education Debate
Poverty and the Social Safety Net
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