Roundup: Gulf spill reaching land

According to a very recent report filed by The Wall Street Journal, spilled oil from the Deepwater Horizon oil rig disaster entered the Mississippi River Delta overnight and started washing up along the coast of Louisiana Friday morning. The Journal story also clarifies remarks made by White House adviser David Axelrod on a morning television program Friday. Axelrod appeared to say that all new domestic offshore drilling would be postponed pending an investigation of the Gulf of Mexico spill. His comments were interpreted by many outlets to mean that the White House was issuing a ban on drilling. (The UK's Times Online has a long story containing the remarks and the misinterpretation, but it's worth reading anyway because it contains quite a bit of response from locals who will be affected by the spill.) To correct the misinterpretation, officials told The Journal that currently planned operations and lease sales will go on. Reuters (via the Calgary Herald) has also posted a long story about the spill's latest, focusing on governmental and corporate response to it, plus news that Louisiana fishermen have filed a class action lawsuit against the companies involved.

Predictably enough, the spill is starting to affect financial markets. Reuters (via the Edmonton Journal) reports that the spill is expected to disrupt petroleum importing terminals along the affected areas of the Gulf Coast, and BP's stock has taken around a 12 percent dive since the first reports of the rig explosion. Some analysts say that the spill's eventual cost to BP won't equal that drop, so now's the time to buy. Read more of Reuters' market analysis, here.

And finally, to end on a somber note, the names of the 11 rig workers missing and presumed dead have been released. UK's Times Online reports on each of them. Read about the lives lost, here.