12 missing after Gulf oil rig fire
VENICE, La., April 21 (UPI) -- A dozen people were missing Wednesday after an explosion and fire overnight aboard an offshore rig drilling for oil off the coast of Louisiana, officials said.
The blast occurred late Tuesday on the Deepwater Horizon, a mobile offshore drilling rig some 50 miles southwest of Venice, La., WWL-TV, New Orleans, reports.
Coast Guard helicopters, planes and cutters are searching for the missing workers.
The blaze also injured 15 workers, seven of them critically, the U.S. Coast Guard said. A Coast Guard spokesman said 99 others were evacuated and were en route to Port Fourchon, La., The Houston Chronicle reported.
At mid-morning Wednesday, firefighters were still battling the blaze, which began about 10 p.m. Tuesday, officials said.
The Chronicle said the rig is owned and operated by Houston-based Transocean, the world's largest offshore drilling contractor and has been leased by BP since 2007.
The cause of the blaze was under investigation.
The Coast Guard said an explosion came before the fire, but Transocean reported a fire but no explosion.
The 15 injured workers have been flown to West Jefferson Hospital in New Orleans and the Mobile Trauma Center in Mobile, Ala. Three have been discharged from West Jefferson, a spokeswoman said.
Palquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser said the rig was in danger of tipping over.
"The rig is leaning badly and the Coast Guard commander down here feels like it may go over sometime today," Nungesser said. "It is still on fire."
Senior Chief Petty Officer Mile O'Berry of the Coast Guard said at one point the fire on the rig was so intense it hampered rescue efforts.
Obama, lawmakers meeting on court nominee
WASHINGTON, April 21 (UPI) -- U.S. President Barack Obama said Wednesday he would have no "litmus tests" requiring his Supreme Court nominee to be an abortion-rights supporter.
"I will say the same thing that every president has said since this issue came up, which is I don't have litmus tests around any of these issues," he said at the White House before a bipartisan meeting with senators on the high court nomination.
But he said he is "somebody who believes that women should have the ability to make often very difficult decisions about their own bodies and issues of reproduction."
"I want somebody who is going to be interpreting our Constitution in a way that takes into account individual rights, and that includes women's rights. ... I think part of what our core constitutional values promote is the notion that individuals are protected in their privacy and their bodily integrity, and women are not exempt from that."
He stressed his sense of urgency about filling the vacancy.
"As Justice Stevens said, I think it's very important, particularly given the important cases that may be coming before the Supreme Court, that we get this process wrapped up so that a new justice can be seated and staffed, and can work effectively with his or her colleagues in time for the fall session," Obama said.
Summers touts gains in auto industry
WASHINGTON, April 21 (UPI) -- White House economic adviser Lawrence Summers said Wednesday bailed out U.S. auto companies Chrysler and General Motors were on the "road to recovery."
With General Motors Co.'s early payback of $6.7 billion in government loans -- five years ahead of schedule -- and Chrysler Group's recently released financial report, "The distance these companies and the auto industry have traveled over the past year is a bright spot on the road to recovery," he said in a statement.
Chrysler's report released Wednesday said with the exclusion of one-time charges, it would have made a profit in the first three months of the year. In addition, U.S. automakers shed 400,000 positions in 2008 and the industry was headed toward an estimated reduction of 1 million jobs had GM and Chrysler gone under, Summers said.
"That didn't happen. Instead, over the past nine months ... the industry has actually added 45,000 jobs," Summers said.
90 percent of school chiefs see layoffs
WASHINGTON, April 21 (UPI) -- Ninety percent of U.S. school superintendents say they expect to dismiss teachers at the end of the school year, a survey finds.
U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan estimates the number of jobs likely to be lost at 100,000 to 300,000, The New York Times reports. In an interview Monday, he said the country faces "educational catastrophe."
While many schools have already cut jobs because of the recession, this year districts face sharp declines in state aid and local property taxes. Federal stimulus money for education has already been spent.
The Charlotte-Mecklenburg district in North Carolina laid off 120 teachers last year and expects to hand out 940 more pink slips. In California, 22,000 teachers have been notified of possible layoff while Illinois officials predict 17,000 will have to go. "We are doing things and considering options I never thought I'd have to consider," said Peter C. Gorman, the Charlotte-Mecklenburg superintendent. "This may be our new economic reality."
The American Association of School Administrators reports 90 percent of superintendents expect layoffs, up from two-thirds last year. While 2 percent said last year they were considering cutting the school week to four days, 13 percent are doing so now.
Families upset 2 massacre suspects cleared
MANILA, Philippines, April 21 (UPI) -- Families of the victims of the Maguindanao, Philippines, massacre demanded Wednesday Justice Secretary Alberto Agra reverse his decision clearing two suspects.
If Agra refuses, the families said, they will ask President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to remove him, GMANews reported.
Eleven of those accused in the November massacre, in which 57 people were killed, pleaded not guilty Wednesday morning at an arraignment in Taguig City, the Philippine Daily Inquirer reported.
Nena Santos, a lawyer representing 25 families of victims in the murders, said she would fight any attempts to replace prosecutors handling the murder case. Those charged include members of the Maguindanao police as well as members of the powerful Ampatuan clan and its armed backers, GMANews said.
The government alleges the clan orchestrated the massacre and tried to avoid arrest by fomenting a rebellion.
UNTV Channel 37, which lost four crew members in the massacre, called the decision clearing the two suspects "another dark moment in the history of the Filipino people."
Agra "terminated posthaste the cases against the two Ampatuans -- a very simple and easy act of the pen but a horrible act of injustice to the victims," UNTV said in a statement.
Meanwhile, the Foreign Correspondents Association of the Philippines demanded "swift and impartial delivery of justice to the victims of the Nov. 23 massacre, their suffering loved ones and the media community, which has been wronged by this most sordid crime."
