Evening Edition

“We’re feeling more confident that we have integrity,” BP senior vice president Kent Wells told reporters in an early morning briefing.

“At this point there’s not evidence that we don’t have integrity,” he said as a second day of tests on the condition of the wellbore below the seabed continued.

The tests, which involve multiple pressure readings on the wellbore that runs to the oil reservoir bBP prolongs tests on oil well structure as cap holdselow the seafloor, began Thursday when valves on the cap were sealed, choking off the flow of crude into the Gulf for the first time since the spill began in April.

“We’re moving forward six hours at a time. If there is a change in what we’re doing we will announce it,” said BP spokesman Mark Salt as the initial 48-hour testing period ended on Saturday afternoon.

One British and one American soldier were killed in two attacks on Saturday while the other troopers died a day earlier, NATO’s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) and Britain’s defence ministry said.

Another NATO soldier was killed in a separate attack on Saturday, ISAF said, without giving the trooper’s nationality.

Oosthuizen, who missed the cut in seven of his prior eight majors, stood on 13-under par through 12 holes while Casey, trying to become England’s first major champion since Nick Faldo at the 1996 Masters, was two strokes off the pace.

Casey had five birdies on the front nine, twice moving within a stroke of the lead only to have Oosthuizen, the 36-hole leader by a five-shot margin that was the British Open’s largest since 1982, answer each time with a birdie.

Luxembourg’s Andy Schleck, of Saxo Bank, retained the race leader’s yellow jersey with his 31sec lead on main rival and reigning champion Alberto Contador intact ahead of Sunday’s first stage in the Pyrenees.

Vinokourov, who only returned to racing last year, was delighted with his win after capping a late counter-attack to Italian Alessandro Ballan with a determined drive for the finish line.

Thought to be premium brand Veuve Clicquot, the 30 bottles discovered perfectly preserved at a depth of 55 metres (180 feet) could have been in a consignment sent by France’s King Louis XVI to the Russian Imperial Court.

If confirmed, it would be by far the oldest champagne still drinkable in the world, thanks to the ideal conditions of cold and darkness.

But they admitted legislation was not on the cards in the strongly Catholic country, where homosexuality is still a social taboo and relatively few people choose to be openly gay.

“We demand a civil partnership law,” read a massive banner at the head of the colourful Europride parade which wound through the Polish capital in sweltering heat, close to 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit).

BP started a pressure test on the well on Thursday after a new cap it had attached choked off the flow of oil into the Gulf. That was the first time the gusher had been stopped since the April 20 rig explosion that killed 11 workers and started the leak.

The test passed a 48-hour deadline on Saturday afternoon with no hint from BP of a stopping point. It was intended to show whether the explosion damaged the piping and cement inside the well, which could allow oil and gas to leak out the sides and seep up through the seabed.

No breakthrough news is expected on a vaccine. But researchers are more hopeful than they have been in years that it may be possible.

They just have to choose the best path to pursue.

Australia’s first female prime minister was appointed three weeks ago by the ruling Labor party as the government faced electoral defeat. Since then Gillard has resurrected support, putting Labor narrowly ahead in opinion polls. But conservative opposition leader Tony Abbott needs to win only nine seats to form a government with four independents, or 13 seats to take office outright.

“Today I seek a mandate from the Australian people to move Australia forward,” Gillard told a news conference.

“Too often, the Republican leadership in the United States Senate chooses to filibuster our recovery and obstruct our progress. And that has very real consequences,” Obama said in his weekly radio and Internet address.

Senate Republicans have used the filibuster, a procedural hurdle demanding 60 votes in the 100-member chamber, to block at least three Democratic initiatives to extend unemployment insurance. Republicans cite the need to curb government spending amid a record budget deficit.

The clock expired on BP’s critical 48-hour observation period, and it appeared scientists were still contemplating what to do next. Scientists and engineers were optimistic that the well showed no obvious signs of leaks, but were still struggling to understand puzzling data emerging from the bottom of the sea.

It’s possible the past three days will be only a brief reprieve from the flow of oil bleeding into the Gulf. BP and government scientists could decide at any time to reopen the well and bring in containment ships to suck up the oil. Or, if scientists are confident in what they see, the cap might stay closed.

The rights of Native nations to govern themselves independently has long been recognized by federal treaties, but the extent of that recognition beyond U.S borders is under challenge in a post-Sept. 11 world.

After initially refusing to accept Iroquois-issued passports because the documents lack security features, the State Department gave the team a one-time waiver.

Jason “J.T.” Ready is taking matters into his own hands, declaring war on “narco-terrorists” and keeping an eye out for illegal immigrants. So far, he says his patrols have only found a few border crossers who were given water and handed over to the Border Patrol. Once, they also found a decaying body in a wash, and alerted authorities.

But local law enforcement are nervous given that Ready’s group is heavily armed and identifies with the National Socialist Movement, an organization that believes only non-Jewish, white heterosexuals should be American citizens and that everyone who isn’t white should leave the country “peacefully or by force.”

The South African’s total is 15-under 201. His closest challenger is England’s Paul Casey, whose 67 left him at 205 overall Saturday. No one else is within seven shots of Oosthuizen (WUHST’-hy-zen), who failed to make the cut in three previous Open appearances.

Tiger Woods struggled to a 73 that left him a dozen shots behind, giving him little hope of winning a third straight Open at St. Andrews. He had dominating victories in 2000 and 2005.

A home video that has gone viral on the Internet showing a Holocaust survivor dancing at Auschwitz and other Holocaust sites to the disco classic “I Will Survive” with his daughter and grandchildren has brought such questions to the fore.

To some, images of Adolek Kohn and his family shuffling off-beat at such hallowed places is an insult to those who perished; to others a defiant celebration of survival. The incongruous juxtapositions have struck many viewers as funny and chilling at the same time.

Dogs with pushed-back faces such as English bulldogs and pugs accounted for roughly half the purebred dog deaths on airlines in the past five years, the Transportation Department disclosed Friday.

Overall, at least 122 dog deaths have been reported since May 2005, when U.S. airlines were required to start disclosing them, the department says. The dogs died while being shipped as cargo.

Former Air Force Maj. Michael Almy took the witness stand to support a federal court lawsuit filed by a Republican gay rights organization challenging the constitutionality of the military’s ban on openly gay troops.

The non-jury trial has forced the federal government to defend a policy that President Barack Obama is pushing Congress to repeal.

The arrest was the latest incident to spark outrage in racially charged Paris, about 90 miles northeast of Dallas, where the Nation of Islam and the New Black Panther Party led protests last year after murder charges were dropped against two white defendants accused of fatally striking a black man with a pickup truck.

The video shows a squad car pulling up to the site of a Nov. 10 roadside arrest. Paris Police Officer Jeremy Massey, who is wearing sunglasses, a cowboy hat and is not in uniform, is standing alongside his unmarked pickup truck holding a handcuffed suspect, 18-year-old Cornelius Gill.