Dozens of cargo ships, petrochemical tankers and smaller vessels stacked up Thursday near a closed stretch of the Mississippi River, a day after a collision between a barge and a tanker spilled more than 400,000 gallons of fuel oil into the waterway near New Orleans. Crews had cleaned up only about 6,000 gallons by day's end.

More Photos (1):

Related articles:

Around the Nation Around the nation Around the nationAround the nation Around the nation Around the nation Around the nation Around the nationAround the nation Around the nation

Employment Information
Vail School District
Recruitment Coordinator Engineering
CIMETTA ENGINEERING & CONSTRUCTION
QUALIFIED PARTY (MSHA & OSHA CERT) Health Care
Sonora Behavioral Health
CD Therapist General
CHULA VISTA LANDSCAPING
LANDSCAPE CREW LEADER Dental
DENTAL ASSISTANT Administrative & Professional
La Paloma Family Services, Inc.
Licensing Specialist Trades/Construction
Koedyker & Kenyon
Stucco Piece Crews and Stucco Hourly Crews

NEW YORK — T-R-O-U-B-L-E could loom for a Scrabble knockoff that has become one of the most popular activities on Facebook.

Hasbro Inc., the company that owns the word game's North American rights, sued the creators of the Scrabulous program on Thursday, less than two weeks after the release of an authorized version of Scrabble for Facebook.

Hasbro said in its lawsuit that Scrabulous violates its copyright and trademarks. Separately, Hasbro asked Facebook to block the game.

Video-game maker Electronic Arts Inc. released an official version for American and Canadian Facebook users last week as part of a licensing deal with Hasbro, yet Facebook users have continued to spend time on the unauthorized Scrabulous.

Now, Hasbro is trying to stop Scrabulous completely and collect unspecified damages.

JARRATT — A killer who argued Virginia's procedures for lethal injection were unconstitutional was executed Thursday after a federal appeals court upheld the primary method of capital punishment in the nation's second-busiest death chamber.

Christopher Scott Emmett, 36, was pronounced dead at 9:07 p.m. He was convicted of beating a co-worker to death with a brass lamp in 2001 so he could steal the man's money to buy crack cocaine.

Emmett's appeal was the first to require a federal appeals court to interpret a U.S. Supreme Court decision in April that upheld Kentucky's three-drug meth-od of lethal injection and apply it to another state's procedures.

FORT WORTH — An 18-year-old man shown on a video coaxing his 2- and 4-year-old nephews into smoking marijuana was sentenced Thursday to eight years in prison.

Demetris McCoy pleaded guilty to two charges of injury to a child/causing bodily injury and agreed to testify against his co-defendant, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported online Thursday.

Drug tests showed the youngsters had marijuana and cocaine in their bodies. When the video was made, the children's mother was sleeping in another room, police have said. She was not arrested.

SAN DIEGO — Charges have been dismissed against a Camp Pendleton Marine sniper accused in the shooting deaths of two Syrians in Iraq, Marine Corps officials said Thursday.

The charges against Sgt. John Winnick II were dismissed without prejudice by the commanding general of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, meaning charges could be brought again at a later time.

Winnick, 24, was charged with two counts of voluntary manslaughter and failing to adhere to the military's rules of engagement by firing without reasonable certainty that his targets were hostile.

PRICE — The operator of a collapsed Utah mine violated safety protocols by cutting coal pillars that should have been left standing to prevent cave-ins, federal regulators said Thursday.

The officials said a subsidiary of Ohio-based Murray Energy Corp. undermined other pillars by excavating coal from tunnel floors. They also faulted the company's engineering firm, Agapito Associates Inc. of Grand Junction, Colo., for conducting a flawed evaluation of mining dangers.

Murray Energy chief Bob Murray has insisted that taking down the pillars, a practice called retreat mining, had nothing to do with the collapse. He argued from the start that it was caused by an earthquake.

At a news conference Thursday, Mine Safety and Health Administration chief Richard Stickler disputed that, instead blaming poor engineering.

"First of all, it was not — and I'll repeat, not — a natural occurring earthquake, but in fact it was a catastrophic outburst of the coal pillars that were used to support the ground above the coal seam," Stickler said.

The agency fined Murray Energy affiliate Genwal Resources Inc. $1.6 million and Agapito $220,000 for the disaster — the largest ever imposed on a U.S. coal-mining operation, he said.

The Aug. 6 collapse trapped six miners whose bodies have not been recovered. Three others were killed during a rescue attempt.

TERRELL — After catching one of two people wanted in a series of break-ins, deputies let their fingers do the chasing to catch a second suspect.

Catawba County sheriff's Maj. Coy Reid said that when deputies caught a 16-year-old suspect on Wednesday, they confiscated his cell phone.

Soon, a text message arrived asking the teen if he had been caught. The deputies typed "no" in response.

After a few more messages, the sender said he would try to pick up his friend, not knowing he was in custody.

Deputies waited in an area where several break-ins had occurred. They said they arrested the 17-year-old texter after finding him in a car with three other people.

Both teens face several charges, including larceny and breaking and entering.