The Coast Guard says it saw a tow boat, Pere Ana C, hit the wellhead. No injuries were reported.

The Coast Guard does not know who owns the small well, or how much oil has leaked, though a sheen has been spotted in the lake.

A helicopter has been dispatched to survey the area, which is accessible only by boat.

On the BP front, BP is reporting a $17b loss for the past quarter and looking for management changes.

Under current law, the economic liability for a company responsible for a spill is $75 million, or if the company has not made a profit in the past four quarters, it would be liable for $150m, or twice the current cap.

BP however, says it has set aside several billion into an escrow account, to assist the spill victims. Analysts now estimate the cost of clean-up operations in the Gulf, to top $30b. The relief well is nearly complete for the final stage, a “bottom kill” in which mud and cement are pumped in to the leaking well.

BP CEO, Tony Hayward, has announced he will step down from his post in October. However, he feels he has been ‘demonized’ in the U.S., according to U.K.’s Guardian. He may be “too busy” to attend the hearings on the Gulf Oil spill.

“I believe this tragedy will leave BP a different company. I believe for it to move on in the United States it needs new leadership and it is for that reason I have stood down as the CEO,” Hayward said.

Hayward will walk away with a payout of $1.6m, plus $11m pension fund, though there has been talk of a key job at TNK-BP, in Russia, for Hayward. The Russian venture accounts for a quarter of the company’s production.

An American, BP executive Robert Dudley, looks set to replace Hayward. After a dispute with the Russian shareholders, Dudley was forced to flee Russia in 2008.

Adams was a California based photographer who transformed images of mountains, churches, lakes, and trees into sweeping black and whites that overwhelm with power.

His vast collection of work will now be supplemented by the discovery of 65 glass plates believed to have been taken between 1919 and 1930. Purchased for $45 a decade ago at a garage sale by Rick Norsigian, these 65 photographs are being considered the “missing link” in Adams’ career and were once thought lost in a fire.

Art appraiser David W. Streets said he conservatively estimated the negatives’ value at $200 million, based on current sales of Adams’ prints and the potential for selling reproductions.

The glass negatives were assessed by a team of experts, over 6-month examination. They were believed to have been destroyed in a fire in 1937, at his Yosemite National Park studio.

Norsigian, a construction worker and painter said he purchased the negatives 10 years ago, from a man who said he had purchased them from a salvage warehouse in Los Angeles. Norsigian said he tried to contact the man, after learning of the true value, but to no avail.

In the beginning he never suspected they were Adams’ work. Finally he placed the 8½-by-6½-inch negatives in a bank vault and three years ago and sought to have them verified.

Adams died in 1986, at 82, leaving behind a rich heritage of black and white photographs, after developing the legendary Zone System, which determined proper exposure and adjustment of the contrast in the final print. His photographs were recognized for their clarity and exceptional depth.

A review from the Washington Post said, “His photographs are like portraits of the giant peaks, which seem to be inhabited by mythical gods.”

Ansel Adams' Photographs

His timeless and visually stunning photos, from a 60 year long career, have been reproduced on calendars, posters and in numerous books.

His lasting legacy is that he helped elevate photography to an art, comparable with painting and music, equally capable of expressing emotion and beauty.

They include the Basket Tree, Giant Sequoias of California, Circus Tree, Chapel-Oak. Tule Tree and Baobab Trees – including one with a toilet built inside it.

If you have any other weird and wonderful tree shapes email them to us at admin@youmesupport.org

Paloma Werner said Wednesday the whale breached just feet (meters) from their boat in Cape Town’s waters, before landing in the middle of their yacht, snapping the mast in two. A local newspaper showed a photo, captured by a passenger on a nearby boat, of a massive black whale towering over the yacht. Werner says neither she nor her companion were hurt.

Werner saw the whale swimming around minutes after the collision. “Luckily, we weren’t taking on water so we started the engine and headed for shore. I saw the whale reappear further away.

The couple had been watching the whale for over an hour. It may have simply not have known the sailboat, which had its motor off, was there. The seas around Cape Town are teeming with whales and great white sharks at this time of the year.

Whales colliding with boats is not an uncommon occurrence.

Recently a 61-year-old woman from Bremerton, Washington, was injured when a whale surfaced next to a whale-watching boat. The woman was on a whale-watching expedition aboard the Hokulani, operated by the Center for Whale Studies, when a male humpback whale surfaced next to the starboard side about 1:25 p.m.

Its pectoral fin reportedly slammed into the boat, causing the woman to fall, police said. The boat’s railing on the starboard side was smashed and thin pieces of tissue, believed to be from the whale, were found on the boat’s hull. The woman was taken to Maui Memorial Medical Center with minor injuries, police said.

In 2007 Lindsay Wright was sailing his brand-new 10-metre (30-ft) trimaran, Loose Goose, about 80 nautical miles off the west coast of the North Island, of New Zealand, when he was hit by a whale.

Wright said he had been sleeping when he was awoken by a loud noise and rushed up on deck to find himself staring at a whale’s head about a foot away.

He said the whale, a large male in a pod of about six humpbacks, had hit his yacht with its tail, opening a large hole in one of the boat’s three hulls.

“When I first saw him I thought he had come back for the coup de grace,” Wright said, then later felt it was just one of those unfortunate accidents.

Wright activated a distress beacon as his yacht took on water and lost electrical power. He was winched to safety aboard a rescue helicopter about five hours later.

A teenage man recently turned himself in to police officers, after stealing an ambulance that was out on an emergency call in Atlanta, Georgia.

Investigators said 18-year old Frank Howard jumped in the driver’s seat and stole the vehicle while its crew was responding to a call in southeast Atlanta.

The paramedics had left the ambulance unlocked and the motor running, while attending to a call at an apartment complex.

The teenage allegedly stole the ambulance, dressed up in ambulance gear and drove the ambulance 2 blocks, before crashing it and running it off the road. The ambulance was found soon afterwards in a ditch on the side of the road.

Howard was being held in the Fulton County Jail and will be charged with auto theft.

In May 2010 two drunks jumped into an ambulance that was standing outside Upstate University Hospital.

21 year old driver, Brandon Ray, then drove the ambulance at a high rate of speed along Walnut Avenue, near Syracuse University, before police were able to stop him.

In April 2009 a Houston ambulance was stolen while paramedics were on duty. The driver hit a number of vehicles, including a police car and another ambulance, which had been blocking traffic for a police vice bust at a club.

Stolen and Wrecked Ambulance

In March 2009 the driver of a stolen ambulance caused a six-car crash in Everston, Chicago, when it ran a red light. Eight people were injured. The ambulance had been stolen from outside a nursing home.

In 1996 an ambulance was taken by vandals, from outside a house in Stevenage, Hertfordshire, and driven into a car-park wall. The joyriders also vandalized life-saving equipment.

The ambulance had been about to pick up a pregnant woman and rush her to hospital. She was forced to wait a further 20 minutes before a replacement ambulance arrived.

A fully equipped ambulance costs around $175,000. The loss of an ambulance in rural areas in particular, puts the public at significant risk, often taking months to have a replacement back in service.

Funding of ambulances is also another deep concern for the community.

Thirty metre high flames and the following crude oil spill closed China’s largest port, Dalian, once voted the most livable city in China. Fifteen hours elapsed before fire fighters were able to put the flames out.

One firefighter was dragged ashore by his colleagues, after drowning in the black goo. The body was completely coated in thick slippery oil. He had been attempting to fix an underwater pump, wearing only a pair of swimming trunks.

Forty oil skimming boats and around 800 fishing boats were deployed in the area to assist with the clean up. More than 15 kilometres of oil barriers have been set up.

“Our priority is to collect the spilled oil to reduce the possibility of contaminating international waters,” Dalian’s vice mayor, Dai Yulin.

The oil has spread over 165 square miles (430 square kilometers). State media says no more oil is leaking into the ocean. It has been estimated around 400,000 gallons of oil has spilled, which is minor compared to the 84 – 184 million gallons in the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

While the China oil spill is dwarfed by the BP spill, the greater danger in the China spill is that officials, oil company workers and volunteers have no protective clothing, as they attempt to clean the blackened beaches.

“We don’t have proper oil cleanup materials, so our workers are wearing rubber gloves and using chopsticks and straw mats,” an official with the Jinshitan Golden Beach Administration Committee told the Beijing Youth Daily newspaper, in apparent exasperation.

The cause of the explosion to the pipe line, owned by China National Petroleum Corp., is still not clear. CNPC is Asia’s biggest oil and gas producer by volume.

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They believe the bottle is from the 1780s, as part of a cargo destined for the Russian court. About 20 bottles are thought to be aboard the sunken vessel.

Swedish wine expert Carl-Jan Granqvist said each bottle could bring $68,000 “iI the corks are intact and the sparkling drink is genuine and drinkable.”

A 1787 Chateau Lafitte, a Bordeaux was sold at Christie’s auction house in the 1980’s for 105,00 pounds, ($160,00). When the buyer, Christopher Forbes, proudly displayed his investment, the ancient cork shrank and fell into the bottle, of what proved to be the most expensive bottle of vinegar. The bottle of wine was supposedly once owned by Thomas Jefferson.

In 2009 a charred bottle of beer that had survived the explosion of the Hindenburg zeppelin, in 1937, was supposed to have been auctioned off for between $7,500 and $20,000. Much of its original contents had evaporated. “You wouldn’t want to drink it – it is probably quite putrid to taste,” auctioneer Andrew Aldridge said.

A New Jersey fireman, Leroy Smith allegedly found 6 bottles of Lowenbrau and a pitcher intact at the scene of the crash. He is reported to have given 5 other bottles away to his colleagues.

Hindenburg Survivor

In 2002, an Australian company called Wineflyers International announced it had sourced and sold six bottles of wine from the Titanic to “a high profile customer in Asia.”

A Swedish freighter Jonkpoing was en route to Russia in 1916, carrying a full cargo of alcohol ordered by Tsar Nicholas II, when she was sunk by a German torpedo. The wreck was found in 1997, where a salvage company reportedly recovered 2000 bottles of 1907 Heidsiek & Co. The Burgundy and Cognac had not survived 82 years of submersion.

Laurent Davaine, Director of Exports at Heidsieck, said “The Champagne still shows an amazing balance and a beautiful golden hue with the effervescence still present.” As of late 2008 most of the bottles had already been sold at auction, but there were still ten bottles for sale at the Ritz Carlton in Moscow, priced at $35,000 each

The MV Republic was a proto-Titanic – the largest operating luxurious cruise ship of her day, owned by White Star Lines until she ran into another boat. In 1981 divers found a 1898 Moet & Chandon that still had “a robust, hearty taste with a pale color similar to ginger ale.” Unfortunately, after spending $10,000 per day to bring three hundred bottles to the surface, Wine Spectator reported that Christie’s “found no bottles in condition to be auctioned off.” They had all been “invaded by sulfur-producing bacteria that travel at the bottom of the sea,” according to Michael Davis, Vice President of Christie’s wine division.

“Before the M.V. Altavia initially docked, officers with the Guam Customs and Quarantine Agency boarded and gave clearance for the cargo to be unlocked for offloading,” said Bernadette Meno, marking administrator for the Port Authority of Guam.

The Guam Department of Agriculture said hundreds of large spiders and thousands of smaller ones were seen when stevedores began offloading from the ship. The insulation and beams for housing units were part of the $200 million contract with Korean construction firms.

The stevedores immediately notified Port police of the incident along with the ship’s agent. The Port police also notified officials at the Guam Customs and Quarantine Agency.

The cargo was returned to the ship and was sent back out to anchorage. Later the Agriculture ordered that the ship not be allowed to dock and was sent out to quarantine anchorage, in the outer Apra Harbour area. The ship was last ported in South Korea.

“When you get this many from this many various sizes, it’s definitely an infestation,” said Department of Agriculture Director Joseph Torres.

Agriculture officials said they didn’t know what type of spiders were on the ship, but it’s a type that is not normally found on Guam. There was concern the spiders could damage the island’s environment.

“It’s not on Guam,” Torres said. “We don’t want it here.”

If the species proves to be invasive, the contents of the container will be fumigated, paid for by the owner of the vessel. If more spiders are found the ship will remain in quarantine.

Vice President of Marianas Steamship Agencies Inc., Richard P. Sablan, said his agency is following the leads of officials from Customs, the Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Coast Guard on the matter.

Infestations on ships are not uncommon, from insects, to mites, rats, cockroaches and fire ants. These can persist for years in ships, even after the initial infestation has been dealt with.

It shows BP’s ‘Command Centre’ in Houston, where ever-vigilant BP employees appear to sit in a dark room, monitoring a ten-screen display of oil-spill footage.

However, the photo on the website was allegedly Photoshpped by adding three extra images to it. The question is why was it necessary?

BP's Photoshopped images

The metadata on the superimposed photograph indicates that the image was photographed in March of 2001, which would point to BP ‘covering up’, once again. The company blames its photographer for any confusion.

In the meantime scientists are attempting to analyze date from the sea floor as to whether or not a leaking well cap is a sign of BP’s broken oil well is buckling. Oil and gas are once again seeping into the Gulf, though more slowly this time.

Seepage was also detected 2 miles from the Deepwater Horizon site. This may have nothing to do with the broken oil well, as oil and gas are known to ooze naturally from fissures in sea floor of the Gulf.

BP and the government had been at loggerheads over the company’s desire to leave the cap in place, until a relief well can be used to plug it permanently.

Governent point men on the disaster, Thad Allan, said his initial preference was to pipe oil through the cap to tankers on the surface, in order to reduce the chance that the buildup of pressure inside the well would cause a new blowout. That plan would require releasing millions more gallons of oil into the ocean for a few days during the transition.

However, with lower pressure readings from the well than expected, speculation is that either the reservoir of oil is dwindling, or there is an undiscovered leak somewhere in the well.

Both BP and the Coast Guard initially said no oil was leaking from the oil rig, after it exploded on April 20, killing 11 workers. Next the company and its federal overseers, drastically underestimated the size of the spill. Somewhere between 94m and 184m gallons have gushed into the Gulf.

Ronald Sepulvado, a BP drilling supervisor, has testified that he reported a leak of hydraulic fluid in a critical safety device, weeks prior to the explosion. This report could have diverted the worst U.S. ecological disaster ever.

Was it this report that nudged BP CEO, Tony Hayward, to sell his 1.4 million pound of shares in BP just a month before the Gulf spill?

BP says the cost of the clean-up has now reached $4billion, with around 300 law suits and 116,000 claims being made against the company.

They thought the neighbourhood kids were watching for them to leave their home, then dashing in and making use of the swimming pool. Whey the couple asked their neighbours if they had seen anyone around their home while they were out, the answer always came back negative.

Totally mystified, the couple set up a video cam recorder, determined to find who the culprits were.

Imagine their surprise when they discovered it was a neighbour’s dog from across the street. He would run down the slippery slide, flop into the pool, then repeat the process over and over again, until he became exhausted.

However, not all dogs enjoy water, but for those who do, Hong Kong has created pools just for dogs. In Mexico, the Eldorado Dog Club has an annual swim day for dogs.

Pool For Dogs

Australia is also in the forefront of the doggy business. In Melbourne, Kepala Pet Resort is a five star luxury resort for pets, which includes a full size swimming pool.

Dogsoverboard, in New South Wales, specializes in dog therapy, with its in-ground in-door heated pool. They offer day/stay swim packages for overweight dogs, or dogs recovering from an injury, or surgery, or dogs who just enjoy frolicking in warm water.

However, it is estimated that more dogs drown in swimming pools than people. It is assumed that dogs are naturally better swimmers than people. While most dogs have a natural instinct to swim, dogs are not able to swim very well. While keen to plunge into a pool, many have difficulty getting out again.

Just as the authorities insist on ‘child-proofing’ swimming pools, so special precautions must be taken around pool, as protection for dogs.