An ExxonMobil pipeline leaked an undetermined amount of crude oil into the Yellowstone River near Billings, Montana, prompting a burgeoning cleanup effort, officials said Saturday.
About 80 people from a regional response team were on site Saturday and 70 additional trained individuals were en route, an ExxonMobil spokesman said.
The cause was under investigation. Spokesman Kevin Allexon said no information was available Saturday on the pipeline's age, depth under the river and its maintenance record. The spokesman said he could not speculate on whether river conditions had anything to do with the incident.
Crude leaked into the Yellowstone River, officials said.One day after a stunning court revelation about an accuser's lack of honesty in the Dominique Strauss-Kahn sexual assault case, media across New York descended on the freed financier with a renewed sense of vigor.
On Saturday, the former head of the International Monetary Fund was pursued by photographers and news teams across Manhattan.
FULL STORYVowing to "restructure the government," Congressman Thad McCotter formally announced his candidacy for president at a festival in his home state of Michigan Saturday.
McCotter is the tenth Republican and third member of the U.S. House of Representatives to enter the race.
McCotter is considered a long-shot candidate by party insiders. But he is laying the groundwork for a campaign in Iowa. Last month McCotter anonymously purchased a prime location for the upcoming the Ames Straw Poll in August.
Fond of quoting rock bands in his political commentary, McCotter described last spring's near government shutdown as a "Communication Breakdown" between the parties in a reference to the Led Zeppelin classic.
FULL STORYIn a move largely seen as a compromise over the rights that can be afforded to gay and lesbian couples, Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee on Saturday signed into law a bill that legalizes civil unions, making his state the fifth in the nation to allow them.
The bill - which was signed just over a week after New York legalized same-sex marriage - will take effect later Saturday, according to the governor's spokesman Christian Vareika.
The law will provide same-sex couples with a host of new state tax breaks, health-care benefits and greater ease of inheritance.
Such unions are currently permitted in New Jersey and Illinois, and will be allowed in Delaware and Hawaii beginning January 1, 2012. California, Oregon, Washington and Nevada also allow for "comprehensive domestic partnerships," largely considered an equivalent to their civil union counterparts.
FULL STORY[Update 10:37 a.m] Petra Kvitova of the Czech Republic defeated Russian Maria Sharapova 6-3, 6-4 in the Wimbledon women's singles championship, the final point coming on a thundering ace that froze Sharapova where she stood. Kvitova is only the third left-handed woman to win the championship in the open era, which started in 1968; one of the others was fellow Czech Martina Navratilova.
[Update 9:51 a.m.] Petra Kvitova won the first set of the Wimbledon best-of-three women's final, 6-3 over Maria Sharapova. Sharapova had four double-faults in the set.
[Original post 9:31 a.m.] No. 5 seed Maria Sharapova is playing No. 8 Petra Kvitova Saturday in the women's final at Wimbledon, a matchup heralded by NBC analyst Mary Carillo as the epitome of "Big Babe Tennis."
The 6-foot-2-inch Russian and the 6-foot Czech are prime examples of the "grip it and rip it" power game that thrills former champion Martina Navratilova, SI.com's Bruce Jenkins writes.
Sharapova won the title in 2004, when she was just 17; this is 21-year-old left-hander Kvitova's first appearance in a Grand Slam final. The match began at 9 a.m. ET. FULL POST
At least 11 civilians were killed in a roadside bomb attack in Afghanistan's southern Zabul province, a local police official said.
"Women and children are among the deaths, too. These people were on the way going to Pakistan from Zabul province," said Ghulam Nabi Elham, Zabul police chief.
Libyan rebels and troops loyal to Moammar Gadhafi shelled each other for hours on Saturday in clashes at the highly contested frontline of Dafniya, an embattled town just west of the besieged port city of Misrata.
At least 11 rebels were wounded in the exchange of fire and treated at one of the two field hospitals in what has been the most active day in Dafniya this week, according to a CNN team.
Heavy government shelling on Misrata and Dafniya began shortly after Gadhafi rallied his supporters in an audio message on state TV and threatened to take the fighting to Europe in retaliation for NATO's bombing campaign.
"As soon as Gadhafi's speech ended, they started shelling Dafniya and around midnight there was a salvo of about eight rockets inside Misrata itself, and it continues on the front this morning," said CNN's Ben Wedeman, who was in Misrata Saturday.
FULL STORYA 71-year-old Seattle man living under an assumed name at a retirement community in Washington has been arrested in connection with the 1957 kidnapping and murder of an Illinois girl, authorities said Friday.
Maria Ridulph, 7, disappeared while playing near her home in the town of Sycamore, west of Chicago.
Her story captured national headlines and the attention of President Dwight D. Eisenhower and FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, according to news accounts published at the time.
Federal agents joined local and state law enforcement authorities as well as the community in the search for the girl, whose remains were found four months later by a couple walking in the woods, the news reports said.
FULL STORY
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