A summary of events Friday, June 25, Day 66 of the Gulf of
Mexico oil spill that began with the April 20 explosion and fire on
the drilling rig Deepwater Horizon, owned by Transocean Ltd. and
leased by BP PLC, which is in charge of cleanup and containment.
The blast killed 11 workers. Since then, oil has been pouring into
the Gulf from a blown-out undersea well.

DIRTY EVIDENCE
More dirty evidence of the massive oil spill washed ashore along
the Gulf Coast for residents who don't need any more reminders of
their frustration over failed efforts to stop the crude gushing
from a blown-out undersea well. In Florida, officials on Thursday
closed a quarter-mile stretch of Pensacola Beach not far from the
Alabama line when thick pools of oil washed up, the first time a
beach in the state has been shut because of the spill. A large
patch of oil oozed into Mississippi Sound, the fertile waters
between the barrier islands and mainland of a state that has mostly
been spared.

CAP
A cap collecting oil from the well was back in place after a
deep-sea robot bumped it and engineers concerned about escaping gas
removed it for about 10 hours Wednesday. Even before that latest
setback, the government's worst-case estimates suggested the cap
and other equipment were capturing less than half of the oil
leaking from the seafloor. And in recent days, the "spillcam"
video continued to show gas and oil billowing from the well.

COLLECTING & CLEANUP
BP says it will soon be able to collect more spewing oil.
Jefferson Parish Councilman John Young doesn't believe it. He says
the latest problem shows "they really are not up to the task and
we have more bad news than we have good news." BP officials said
they sympathized and planned to do more. "Our intent is to restore
the Gulf the way it was before it happened," BP PLC managing
director Bob Dudley, who has taken over the company's spill
operations, said in Washington. He said BP had asked James Lee
Witt, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency during
the Clinton administration, to review its response to the oil spill
and recommend improvements.

SHARES
BP shares fell sharply in London on Friday following the
company's announcement that the cost of responding to the Gulf of
Mexico oil leak has risen to $2.35 billion. The share price dipped
as low as 296.6 pence ($4.42) during morning trading, an 8.9
percent drop and the lowest for BP since August 1996.

COURT
The federal judge who struck down the Obama administration's
six-month ban on deep-water drilling in the Gulf refused to hold
off his ruling while the government appeals. And environmental
groups asked the court to release more information about his
holdings in oil-related stocks.

NO SHRIMP
Vicki Guillot has served her last seafood po-boy. The local
bounty of fresh shrimp and oysters that once kept things bustling
in the only restaurant in the rural Louisiana town of Gheens can no
longer be harvested from the Gulf of Mexico because of the massive
oil spill that has fouled the water. All her distributors can offer
her now is imported shrimp at twice the price she was paying 10
weeks ago, before an oil rig explosion triggered the disaster that
has dumped millions of gallons of crude off the Gulf Coast. Guillot
says she can't buy imported. And she broke down in tears in the
kitchen of Debbie's Cafe. Guillot, 49, had to close the restaurant
for good Tuesday after just six months in business.

GEEK FIELD DAY
Louisiana State University's Edward Overton once published a
research article with the tongue-tangling title, "Effectiveness of
Phytoremediation and Bioremediation of n-Alknaes as a Function of
the length of the Carbon Chain in Wetland Environments." He also
holds a patent for something called a "Microstructure
Chromatograph with Rectangular Column." But recently, the
professor emeritus reached another milestone: He appeared on David
Letterman's "Late Show" to talk in plain language about oil.
Overton is one of scores of scientists who have toiled for years in
obscurity and now find themselves in the middle of a media frenzy,
trying to explain the Gulf oil spill to the public.

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