486. Deepsea Challenger

Film director and explorer James Cameron became the first human to travel on his own to the world’s deepest abyss, the Challenger Deep, which lies 62 miles southwest of Guam in the Pacific Ocean in the Mariana Trench. Mr. Cameron found a bleak terrain that was all but barren of life.
Mr. Cameron’s achievement is a triumph of engineering. At 35,756 feet below the surface — two leagues under the sea — where his sub, the Deepsea Challenger, hit bottom.
The dive had been attempted only once before, in 1960, when Don Walsh, a retired United States Navy captain, and Jacques Piccard, a Swiss engineer, reached the spot in the Navy submersible Trieste, but their view was obscured by vast diatomaceous ooze. Here's what they didn't see.

(tags: Politics, Ecology, Earth, Alien, Challenger, ooze, Alien, Mariana Trench)

304. Obama Takes Charge of Oil Spill

WASHINGTON (AP) --  President Obama insists that his administration, not oil giant BP, is calling the shots in responding to the worst oil spill in the nation's history."I take responsibility. It is my job to make sure that everything is done to shut this down," Obama declared at a news conference in the East Room of the White House. (read more: http://alturl.com/fdc3)

301. America's Three Front War on Terrorism

297. Another Human Debacle

Twenty-four days after the oil rig explosion -- and still, BP does not know how to contain the thousands of barrels of oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico each day.

The company is working on no less than seven different schemes for containing the spill; but so far, nothing has worked and the toxic slick continues to drift toward shore. (read more http://alturl.com/d4yw)

292. President Obama Visits Oil Spill

President Obama rushed to southern Louisiana to inspect forces arrayed against the oil gusher as Cabinet members described the situation as grave and insisted the administration was doing everything it could. Then he took a helicopter ride over the water to view the 30-mile oil slick caused by as much as 210,000 gallons of crude gushing into the Gulf each day. The president vowed that his administration, while doing all it could to mitigate the disaster. (read more http://alturl.com/c3ft)