Spill could affect more than oil prices

Spill could affect more than oil prices

NEW ORLEANS

The calamitous oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico isn’t just a mess for the people who live or work on the coast. If you drink coffee, eat shrimp, like bananas or plan to buy a new set of tires, you could end up paying more because of the disaster.

The slick has forced the shutdown of the gulf’s rich fishing grounds and could also spread to the busy shipping lanes at the mouth of the Mississippi River, tying up the cargo vessels that move millions of tons of fruit, rubber, grain, steel and other commodities and raw materials in and out of the nation’s interior.

Though a total shutdown of the shipping lanes is unlikely, there could be long delays if vessels are forced to wait to have their oil-coated hulls power-washed to avoid contaminating the Mississippi.

Earthquakes hit in Chile and Haiti

The U.S. Geological Survey says a magnitude-6.4 earthquake has struck off Chile’s central coast. There were no immediate reports of damage or injuries.

The USGS says the quake’s epicenter was 94 miles south-southwest of Concepcion, Chile, at a depth of 12 miles.

Meanwhile, a mild tremor rattled a Haitian capital still traumatized by the deadly Jan. 12 earthquake.

There were no immediate reports of damage or injuries from the latest tremor.

Preliminary data from the U.S. Geological Survey show the magnitude-4.4 earthquake struck in the Caribbean Sea about 25 miles west of Port-au-Prince.

Congress agrees to pay freeze

WASHINGTON

Facing election-year pressure to keep a lid on their salaries, lawmakers in Congress have agreed quietly not to increase their pay next year.

As a result, most members of Congress next year will receive $174,000 in 2011 under legislation awaiting President Barack Obama’s signature, the same amount they’re getting this year.

US discloses nuclear stockpile

WASHINGTON

The United States has 5,113 nuclear warheads in its stockpile and “several thousand” more retired warheads awaiting the junkpile, the Pentagon said Monday in an unprecedented accounting of a secretive arsenal born in the Cold War and now shrinking rapidly.

The Obama administration disclosed the size of its atomic stockpile going back to 1962 as part of a campaign to get other nuclear nations to be more forthcoming, and to improve its bargaining position against the prospect of a nuclear Iran.

“We think it is in our national-security interest to be as transparent as we can be about the nuclear program of the United States,” Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton told reporters at the United Nations, where she addressed a conference on containing the spread of atomic weapons.

Ahmadinejad trades charges with Clinton

UNITED NATIONS

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton engaged in a verbal nuclear exchange Monday on the U.N. stage, where nations gathered for a monthlong debate over the world’s ultimate weapons.

Speaking from the podium of the General Assembly Hall, Clinton accused Iran of “flouting the rules” of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty with its suspect uranium enrichment program, and said it is “time for a strong international response.”

For his part, Ahmadinejad earlier rejected such allegations, saying Washington has offered not “a single credible proof.”

Combined dispatches