Monday: Workers Try to Contain Spill; NYPD Releases Video of Bomb Suspect

Eddie Soto, working with Resolve Marine Group, carries oil containment booms Sunday to the edge of Lake Pontchartrain in New Orleans. Photo by Chris Graythen/Getty Images.

President Barack Obama on Sunday called the growing oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico that continues to creep toward coastlines in three states a “potentially unprecedented environmental disaster.”

The spill “could seriously damage the economy and the environment of our gulf states and it could extend for a long time,” President Obama said. “It could jeopardize the livelihoods of thousands of Americans who call this place home.”

The slick is now approximately 6,800 square miles — roughly the size of Puerto Rico — since the April 20 explosion on a BP drilling rig that led to the spill. Speaking on NPR on Monday, the company’s chief executive officer, Tony Hayward, said: “We will absolutely be paying for the clean-up operation. There’s no doubt about that.”

While stormy weather over the weekend limited the cleanup effort, Hayward said the company will begin work Monday to install a shutoff valve on one of three underwater leaks. BP workers will attempt to lower a containment dome over the largest leak and pump the oil to the surface. The method is untested in such deep waters, however, and will take at least six days to set up.

Meantime, the federal government has ordered a 10-day ban on fishing in waters affected by the spill, a major hit to Louisiana’s $1.8 billion seafood industry.

Officials Seeks Man on Video Near Bombing Attempt

Law enforcement officials are searching for a suspect they believe may be connected to a failed car bombing in New York’s Times Square on Saturday night.

Officials “were reviewing surveillance footage that showed a white man who appeared to be in his 40s walking away from the area as he looked over his shoulder and removed a layer of clothing,” the New York Times reports.

The car bomb, which was discovered inside a dark green Nissan Pathfinder, was made up of gasoline, propane, firecrackers and what officials say were eight bags of a non-explosive fertilizer. If the device had gone off, it “would have caused casualties” and “a significant fireball,” New York Police Commissioner Raymond Kelley said Sunday.

Authorities say they are treating the incident as a potential terrorist attack. Thus far, however, there was no evidence to support a claim of responsibility by the Pakistani Taliban.

United, Continental to Merge

United Airlines announced Monday it will merge with rival carrier Continental in a $3 billion deal that if approved would create the world’s largest airline.

“The deal is the culmination of a lengthy search by United CEO Glenn Tilton for a partner that would bolster his carrier’s global network and that would promote consolidation in a badly fragmented industry plagued by chronic losses,” reports the Chicago Tribune.

The merger will make the business outlook a little less bleak for both carriers in an industry with a “gruesome” economic landscape, says Planet Money. “But the picture will still be pretty ugly.”