Oil Spill 10 Times Larger Than Thought

An already-bad situation could be a whole lot worse than we thought: NPR asked scientists to analyze new video of the oil spill, and they estimate that 70,000 barrels of oil are spilling into the Gulf of Mexico each day—a whole lot more than BP’s official estimate of 5,000 barrels per day. The spill is “already far larger” than the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill. A poll finds that a majority of the public approves of President Obama’s handling of the disaster, but Mike Allen at Politico points out that “from a P.R. standpoint, the worst could be yet to come: The oil hasn’t started rushing ashore.”