Friday: BP to Detail Gulf Plan; July Now Deadliest Month for U.S. in Afghanistan

Updated 10:45 a.m. EST
The U.S. military has announced that three more American troops have been killed in Afghanistan, raising the monthly toll to 66.

Posted 10:10 a.m. EST
Newly-named BP CEO Bob Dudley will outline the company’s long-term plans to aid Gulf recovery efforts Friday and announce the addition of former FEMA chief James Lee Witt as a new leader in the oil spill response effort.

Dudley will be in Biloxi, Miss., to announce that Witt will support the company’s recovery efforts. Local officials have recently voiced concern that with the broken wellhead capped, BP may wind down its efforts.

Illustrating these concerns, The New York Times reports Friday on how the Gulf of Mexico has long been a dumping ground for industry:

[L]ike no other American body of water, the gulf bears the environmental consequences of the country’s economic pursuits and appetites, including oil and corn.

There are around 4,000 offshore oil and gas platforms and tens of thousands of miles of pipeline in the central and western Gulf of Mexico, where 90 percent of the country’s offshore drilling takes place.

This week on the NewsHour, we reported on one man’s mission to help clean up the Gulf.

July Now Deadliest Month for U.S. Troops in Afghanistan

Three U.S. troops were killed in Afghanistan in separate bombings in the last 24 hours, making July the deadliest month for American forces since the Afghan conflict began.

The three U.S. service members died in two separate blasts in southern Afghanistan on Thursday, a NATO statement said Friday. It gave no nationalities, but U.S. officials said all three were Americans, according to the AP. The news agency reports:

The tally of 63 American service member deaths in July is based on military reports compiled by the Associated Press. June had been the deadliest month for both the U.S. and the overall NATO-led force. A total of 104 international service members died last month, including 60 Americans.

GlobalPost has reporters on the ground in Afghanistan and filed this dispatch from a soldier-turned-civilian’s experience in the country.

GDP Numbers Show Recession Deeper Than Previously Thought

The Commerce Department, in revisions issued Friday, estimates the economy shrank 2.6 percent last year. That’s worse than the 2.4 percent decline originally estimated.

The Wall Street Journal reports on what it says about the economy’s recovery:

After suffering its worst downturn since the 1930s, the U.S. economy began taking small steps forward about a year ago, helped by the Federal Reserve’s slashing of lending rates and the government tax cuts. But recent data have raised questions about the recovery’s durability. The job market remains weak, with almost one in 10 Americans unemployed, and growth in consumer spending and manufacturing appears to be slowing down.