Oil Spill Stemmed? Maybe. Maybe Not (Front‪)‬

Workers use boom off Pass a Loutre, La., to contain oil from the Gulf spill. continued on Page 9 BP engineers struggled Friday to plug an oil well a mile under the sea, but as of late in the day they had made little headway in stemming the flow. // Amid mixed messages about problems and progress, the effort - called a "top kill" - continued for a third day, with engineers describing a painstaking process of trying to plug the hole, using different weights of mud and sizes of debris, such as golf balls and tire scraps, and then watching and waiting. Officials said they would continue with the process for another 48 hours, into Sunday, before giving up and considering other options, including another containment dome to try to capture the oil.