By TIM PADGETT / SAN JOSÉ MINE 

 


 By the time the capsule rose through the mineshaft's manhole-size opening shortly after midnight, the surrounding desert outside the northern Chilean city of Copiapó was as dark and cold as a sepulcher. But when 30-year-old Florencio Avalos emerged from 2,000 ft. (700 m) below the earth — where he and his 32 companions had been huddled since their gold and copper mine collapsed on Aug. 5 — and into the arms of his wife and children, an incand...

BP last night delayed a critical test to determine if a new cap on its blown-out Macondo well can arrest the flow of oil that has gushed into the Gulf of Mexico for the past 12 weeks.

"We decided that the process may benefit from additional analysis that will be performed [yesterday and today]," said retired Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen, overseeing the U.S. response to the spill.

Regardless of the results, BP should be able to contain the flow with oil-siphoning vessels by mid-July, he sai...