the gulf and it is good news this morning, according to many who have followed this from day one. now day 85 into the gulf oil disaster. a look now at the new cap. these are live underwater pictures. bp got it situated last night and now beginning today, bp will begin testing the pressure in the well to see if the cap will work at actually stopping the oil flow all together. if all goes as planned, the next step would be to close the vents and drastically cut the flow of oil. ed lavendera is live in new orleans with the latest on all of this. we had a chance last hour to speak to the lsu professor, at the pem ytroleum engineering lan baton rouge. he says all signs point to this being very, very positive. reporter: right. that tone of optimism is starting to percolate all across the gulf coast region. perhaps it is also a sign that after three months of enduring this oil disaster, people are
we ll go live to the gulf in a moment. targeting terrorists in uganda. authorities have made several arrests in suicide bombings that killed dozens of people who were watching the world cup final sunday. officials say it could have been much worse. just ahead we ll talk to an american who survived the attacks. a high-stakes hearing for the popular diabetes drug avandia. an fda panel could vote to pull this off the market. studies have linked avandia to an increased risk of heart attack, stroke, even death. the drugmaker insists it is safe. we ll dig deeper on that one. the a.m. fix blog is up and running. join the live conversation right now. go to cnn.com/amfix. but first let s get back to the big story this morning. and it is a good one if it works. a glimmer of hope for the gulf coast residents. we look now at live pictures of a new cap on top of the leaking well. and for the first time in 85 days, bp seems to be pretty confident now the oil you see spewing into the gulf c
waiting for? joining me now, donovan newenhost, professor of petroleum geoscience at the university of houston. i m sure, don, you ve been looking at these live pictures as we have and i guess potentially what we would see is a slowing or at least a narrowing of the leak that s coming out of the top of this thing. correct? yes. i think what they re going to probably try to do is close some of the vents at a time slowly so they can check the pressure response to closing those vents because they want to close the vents extremely slowly so that they don t create a hammer-like effect on the well by shutting it quickly. in other words, if they were to cut the pressure quickly, it would be like a train running into a brick wall rather than using bricks and they need to be very careful with this equipment while they re testing it out. all the information we re getting out sounds very positive to the moment as they have put this cap in place now. it s where it is supposed to be.
these kind of blow-out protectors and caps on the racks, as you say, so we can pull them off and put them if place in case, god forbid, this happens again? i believe that s absolutely correct. i think the easiest solution to the concerns that we all have are to have this equipment available. now this particular type of cap is something they didn t have before, but now they will have that available. and i think it would be appropriate for them to have the equipment they need for every type of well depending on the specific conditions, the pressure, the temperature and the water depth, to have blow-out preventers and back-up caps like this available in case there is another accident of this nature so that they can respond much more quickly an take advantage of what they ve learned from this exercise which has been a tremendous disaster in the gulf of mexico which is something that cannot be overestimated. don, real quick question, sort of political. a new ban on oil drilling in the
rely on the government agencies to give us some direction as to whether the medicine is safe or not. if there is a better alternative, something that doesn t have as much risk, i d rather do that. and i think that s what i ll do. reporter: edward darden didn t wait. he switched to another medication and he is not alone. prescriptions of avandia are down by two-thirds in the past three years. dr. sanjay gupta, cnn, reporting. coming up in the next hour, 7:40 eastern, we ll speak to dr. steven nissen. he essentially started all of this. he s going to be testifying at today s hearings from the cleveland clinic and his study raised initial questions about the safety of avandia. he s going to talk to us about what he thinks will happen today. good. especially with those people who have it in their prescription cap nets right now. 31 past the hour. that means time for this morning s top stories. new hope this morning in the gulf. bp testing now a tighter fitting containment cap. if