kagan has been facing her first day of tough questioning as supreme court nominee. jeff sessions leading the critici criticism, arguing that kagan is too liberal. kagan says politics will not influence her decisions on the court. and in the gulf this hour, right now vice president joe biden meeting with residents in new orleans. he was greeted earlier at the airport by governor bobby jindal. before his briefing at the command center. he will then travel to pensacola beach, florida, this afternoon. forecasters believe that tropical storm alex could well develop into a hurricane by this evening. the storm is following a path west of the oil spill site, but high winds and waves are still expected to cause problems for workers in the region. and during an interview with brian williams on nightly news last night, billy nungesser says the vice president won t see the worst of his disaster on his trip. the president says we re at war, and i m a little
alex is intensifying and yucatan landfall with the tropical storm. on monday morning, you should be entering the could you state your name gulf. at least the periphery of the storm will increase the waves and the winds near the oil spill site. here s the official forecast. it does not head north towards the oil spill, but to the north and northwest. tuesday into wednesday, it could be near the texas coast or northern mexico. don t pay a lot of attention to the intensity. they are notoriously bad five days in advance. this could be a hurricane by next week. the good news at this point is it does not look like a direct hit on the u.s., but we will see thunderstorms, gusty wins and large waves that will cause enough problems. more updates throughout the morning. we look forward to that. the latest on the gulf of mexico oil spill on day 68 in this disaster. live in venice, louisiana, good
a small smoldering dent with the oil spill. ali is back on shore. we saw some of the pictures. what was it like to be out there and be so close to that controlled burn? kiran and drew, i ve seen oil and i ve seen fires, i ve never seen anything like this in my life. this is a team effort to try and deal with the oil that is about between three and 15 miles away from the oil spill site. that s where we went out to yesterday. what you ll see, is the team that puts this all together, they fight these fires, it s a contractor, a private contractor, that s done this elsewhere in the world but not in the united states. what you ll see in this video, shrimp boats who are the boats that attach themselves to the boom and contain the oil that gets set on fire these are shim pers out of work, contracted to bp to help clean up this mess to help make their gulf a place they can actually go shrimping again in the future. here s what i saw yesterday. what we re going to be witnessing is a controlle
this as it reaches an ecosystem all along the east coast. what we know about the spill. the coast guard estimates 1.6 million gallons of oil spilled in this area since that massive explosion back on april 20th. a bigger picture here, the slick is now 130 miles long, 70 miles wide. threatening hundreds of species of wildlife that live all along the gulf. now, bp and the oil rig owner, transocean, they now face at least 36 lawsuits over this oil spill. also, we re just getting this in from the white house. they re confirming that president obama will visit the oil spill site on the louisiana coast sometime in the next 48 hours. the president, of course, going to be in ann arbor today, the commencement ceremony for the university of michigan there. details being worked out when exactly he will make it to the coast, but officials say he will visit the area because of its national significance and the threat being posed to the
especially the delta wildlife refuge, that s a place that s home to some 400 different species of animals eng da s endr protective. let s send it back the you. that bird you mentioned, saw the video, the first picked up an they expect possibly many, many more. hope not but that was just the first. reynolds, we appreciate that report. we ll be checking in with you throughout the morning. thanks so much. talking to an environmentalist about that later this morning. this spill generating a federal response. the president himself saying he is considering a visit to the oil spill site near the coast as early as tomorrow. now, the details still being worked out but white house administration officials say mr. obama will visit the area because of its national significance and really as we mentioned the threat, to the environment that it poses, yesterday had the president pledging federal support to the victims of this oil spill.