is not yet affecting current containment efforts at the deepwater horizon site. work continues. however, there is a backup plan for the relief wells should they fail when they are supposed to go on line sometime in august. more on that in a moment. for now tropical storm alex expected to remain far from the spill zone. it s projected to make landfall over mexico and/or texas sometime thursday is the latest guess. meantime there is a renewed suggestion to blow up the well if bp s efforts do not work. former president clinton saying the navy may need to resort to that but nuclear weapons will not be necessary. the current vice president, joe biden, visited louisiana and pensacola, florida, today and the obama administration said that bp met the deadline to pay the government s first bill for costs associated with responding to the disaster, $71 million, obviously just the beginning. let s turn first to msnbc political analyst richard wolf.
well, it is the bottom of the hour. let s take a look at what s driving the day. hurricane alex is expected to make landfall near the texas/mexico border late tonight. the storm is expected to stay away from the spill zone, but it is complicating the cleanup efforts there. right now, all skimming efforts are on hold off the louisiana coast because of the weather. in just about a half hour, ken feinberg will be on capitol hill to discuss bp s $20 billion claims fund for gulf victims. feinberg who is running the process will update lawmakers on how the fund is being designed and administered. president obama hits the road later today for wisconsin. he ll be in racine for a town hall meeting on the economy. other stories making headlines this wednesday, u.s. attorney general eric holder made a surprise stop in afghanistan. holder is in kabul today for talks with afghan officials about fighting corruption and building an effective criminal justice system there. afghanistan ranks se
time in the top 100 of the celebrity 100 list. and they re young and very well-loved. but oprah, i was reading $1 million a day or something close to that. we were discussing that earlier, my producer and i. i figured it out. and it looks like if forbes is right, she makes about $863,000 every single day. rain or shine. boy, she picked right profession. like you said, she is a market-maker, also a network-maker with o. christine romans, thank you so much. a little fun there, when the market takes a dip on this day. and you can catch more of christine, along with our own ali velshi on your money saturdays at 1:00 p.m. and sunday at 3:00 p.m. eastern time, as well. let s check out our top stories for at the moment. day 71 of the gulf oil disaster, and owl eyes are on tropical storm alex as it moves through gulf. forecasts showing it could make landfall tomorrow near the texas/mexico border as a hurricane. and even though it s hundreds of miles from the spill zone, the storm sti
there are some workers out here that just walked off the beach after cleaning up some of the oil here on the sand. but no sunbathers, no surfers, no one really enjoying this day. a day of prayer that s been declared now by four gulf states. texas, mississippi, alabama and here in louisiana. but as we mentioned, there is something to be thankful for and that is that tropical storm alex is now tropical depression alex and looks like it won t be coming here to louisiana. it is it has been slamming belise yesterday and last night. dumping heavy rain over northern guatemala and mexico s yucatan peninsula, expected to hit the gulf later this week. it will make a left turn and not a right and hit mexico again and avoid the spill zone. as you mentioned, any winds topping 46 miles per hour would force b.p. to abandon its containment efforts for up to two weeks. it would have to disconnect the two systems that are capturing up to a million gallons of oil a day and cleanup would be affected as
latest report shows 35,000 to 60,000 barrels of oil are leaking a day. 80 to 250 million gallons have been spilled since the oil rig explosion april 20th. engineers hoping they can reposition a relief cap on wednesday. rick leventhal monitoring all of this in grand isle, louisiana. from there, rick, good to see you, great reporting this week. what effect would a tropical storm have had on the cleanup efforts? well, first of all, all work would be suspended at the spill site and in the surrounding waters and that includes the drilling of the two relief wells and a containment of the oil that is gushing from the sea floor, along with the cleanup of the area around that site and along the shores. we have heard from coast guard admiral thad allen who says they re watching the storm closely and they know it could change direction at any moment. if it does, heading toward the spill zone, they would suspend operations there five day before the storm s arrival to give everyone time to be pac