Drilling Begins at W. Va. Mine: Join the Live Chat
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Tonight on 360°, breaking news on the efforts to find four miners missing in West Virginia. We've learned drilling has started to let in fresh air and lower down listening devices at the Upper Big Branch South Mine. 25 other miners died in yesterday's blast at the facility. Plus, we'll also bring you the emotional reunion of Haitian parents with their baby girl, who they feared died in January's earthquake.
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Report warned of safety issues
[cnn-photo-caption image=http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2010/images/04/06/c1main.mine.sign.gi.jpg caption="The explosion at West Virginia's Upper Big Branch coal mine killed at least 25 people."]
U.S. Department of Labor
Editor’s Note: A Labor Department Inspector General report published days before the West Virginia disaster said the U.S. government mine inspection agency was doing a poor job nationwide of retraining the veteran safety inspectors who are tasked with making sure conditions are safe.
Excerpt: 'The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine'
Program Note: Don't miss Anderson's conversation with Michael Lewis tonight on AC360° at 10 p.m. ET.
Michael Lewis
The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine
Chapter One: A Secret Origin Story
Eisman entered finance about the time I exited it. He’d grown up in New York City, gone to yeshiva schools, graduated from the University of Pennsylvania magna cum laude, and then with honors from Harvard Law School. In 1991 he was a thirty-year-old corporate lawyer wondering why he ever thought he’d enjoy being a lawyer. “I hated it,” he says. “I hated being a lawyer. My parents worked as brokers at Oppenheimer securities. They managed to finagle me a job. It’s not pretty but that’s what happened.”
Oppenheimer was among the last of the old-fashioned Wall Street partnerships and survived on the scraps left behind by Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley. It felt less like a corporation than a family business. Lillian and Elliot Eisman had been giving financial advice to individual investors on behalf of Oppenheimer since the early 1960s. (Lillian had created their brokerage business inside of Oppenheimer, and Elliot, who had started out as a criminal attorney, had joined her after being spooked once too often by midlevel Mafia clients.) Beloved and respected by colleagues and clients alike, they could hire whomever they pleased. Before rescuing their son from his legal career they’d installed his old nanny on the Oppenheimer trading floor. On his way to reporting to his mother and father, Eisman passed the woman who had once changed his diapers. Oppenheimer had a nepotism rule, however; if Lillian and Elliot wanted to hire their son, they had to pay his salary for the first year, while others determined if he was worth paying at all.
Impact Your World: How to help in Haiti
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AC360°
The devastating earthquake affected 3 million people – one-third of Haiti's population. Considered the most vulnerable are the Haitian children that survived the catastrophe. These organizations have created specific programs to protect these children, meet their medical and nutritious needs and help them recover from the trauma of this disaster.
How you can help:
• Child Hope International – Caring for orphans
• Friends of the Orphans – Pediatric Care
• Jean R. Cadet Restavek Foundation – Helping children in servitude
• Kids Alive International – Sheltering orphans
• Meds & Food for Kids – Feeding malnourished children
• Mercy Corps – Comfort for kids
• Save the Children – Child-friendly spaces
• UNICEF – Protecting children
• World Food Programme – Feeding orphans
• World Vision – Child-friendly spaces
In West Virgina, a battle over mountaintop mining
[cnn-photo-caption image=http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2010/US/04/06/mine.disaster.safety/t1main.big.branch.mine.gi.jpg caption="The West Virginia mine explosion on April 5 killed at least 25 people." width=300 height=169]
Sophia Yan
TIME
Pass through the handful of acres that make up Lindytown, W. Va., and you'll see empty houses, a boarded-up church, a town too minor to warrant its own post office. In this forgotten southern corner of the state, even the pine trees look sad.
But this desolate spot, like so many other abandoned small towns in Appalachia, is a gateway to hidden wealth. Deep within Boone County are rich seams of coal, holding some 3.6 billion tons of the black stuff and millions in profits — and much of it sits in Cherry Pond Mountain, a few miles from Lindytown. The largest coal-mining company in the region — Massey Energy, based in Richmond, Va. — has its eye on it.
Loud blasting began years ago. Massey and other large coal-producing companies like Patriot Coal, in St. Louis, employ a particularly destructive form of excavation called mountaintop mining, which exposes entire coal seams by blowing off a mountain's summit; used mostly in Appalachia, such mining produces 130 millions tons of coal in the region per year. It's less popular in other coal-rich spots such as Texas, where the coal is deeper underground and requires a different kind of mining to unearth. Coal companies say mountaintop mining is also cheaper than traditional mining: rather than burrowing under or digging through the "overburden" (the soil, trees and rock that lie on top of coal seams), which requires lots of manpower and expensive machinery, all you need to hit black gold in Appalachia are some explosives.
Reaction to mine disasters: Wake-up calls, cries for action
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caption="A West Virginia state police car is parked Tuesday outside the coal mine where Monday's fatal blast happened." width=300 height=169]
CNN
An explosion at a Massey Energy Co. coal mine in West Virginia killed at least 25 workers, the deadliest U.S. mining disaster in 25 years. It came days after five miners were killed and 115 were rescued in northern China when a rush of underground water flooded the Wangjialing coal mine.
The two recent disasters on opposite sides of the world raise these questions – why do these incidents keep happening, when will we learn from them and how can we stop them?
For Davitt McAteer, the former head of the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration during the Clinton administration, the answer is clear. McAteer, who investigated the 2006 Sago mine disaster, also in West Virginia, said the government and coal companies must have more transparency regarding mine safety issues, according to West Virginia Public Broadcasting.
Police detective charged with carjacking and rape
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[cnn-photo-caption image=http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2010/images/04/06/art.vert.crime.jeff.jpg caption="Jeff Thomas Jelinek is a prison guard." width=292 height=320]
Gabriel Falcon
AC360° Writer
A police detective and a corrections officer have been charged in connection with the carjacking and rape of a young woman in California.
The circumstances of the case have investigators looking into whether the suspects may be responsible for other sexual attacks in the area.
“We believe it’s a possibility,” Sgt. David McBride of the Ontario Police Department told CNN. “The manner in which the crime was committed, it seemed very unlikely it just happened at the spur of the moment.”
Anthony Nicolas Orban, a five-year veteran of the Westminster Police Department, and prison guard Jeff Thomas Jelinek, are each being held on $1 million bail at the West Valley Detention Center in Rancho Cucamonga, Calif., according to a statement from the Ontario Police Department.
The suspects, who are both 30, allegedly ambushed the woman last Saturday evening as she was walking from her work to her car in the Ontario Mills parking lot.
According to police, Jelinek stood watching, Orban opened the passenger side of the vehicle at the same time the victim entered the car, and at gunpoint told her to drive away. Jelinek remained in the parking lot while Orban forced the woman to head north on the 15 Freeway, police said.
Photo Gallery: Coal mine explosion in West Virginia
AC360°
Twenty-five miners were killed during an explosion at the Massey Energy Company's Upper Big Branch Coal Mine on Monday April 5. The accident was the worst mining disaster in the United States in 25 years.
A section on the Upper Big Branch Mine on April 6, 2010 in Montcoal, West Virginia. Rescue efforts for four miners that remain unaccounted for have been suspended due to conditions underground.
Families leave near a section of the Upper Big Branch Mine on April on April 6, 2010 in Montcoal, West Virginia.
Michelle McKinney's father, Benny Willingham, died in yesterday's mine explosion, near a section of the Upper Big Branch Mine on April 6, 2010 in Montcoal, West Virginia.
West Virginia State Highway Patrol officers talk to one another near a section of the Upper Big Branch Mine on April on April 6.
Kevin Stricklin (L), an administrator with the Mine Safety and Health Administration, speaks alongside West Virginia Governor Joe Manchin at a press conference.
A note is posted at Marsh Fork Worship Center in Eunice, West Virginia, near the Upper Big Branch coal mine.
Beat 360° 4/6/10
Ready for today's Beat 360°? Everyday we post a picture you provide the caption and our staff will join in too. Tune in tonight at 10pm to see if you are our favorite! Here is the 'Beat 360°' pic:
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Navy Admiral Mike Mullen, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Energy Secretary Steven Chu hold a news briefing about the new Nuclear Posture Review at the Pentagon April 6, 2010 in Arlington, Virginia.
Beat 360° Winners:
Staff:
Jay Kernis
“Secretary of State Clinton demonstrates that you can Fixodent and forget it.”
Viewer:
Phillip
"Anybody got any Polygrip?? I just ran out!!"
Have fun with it. We're looking forward to your captions! Make sure to include your name, city, state (or country) so we can post your comment.
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Tonight: Text 360°
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AC360°
An explosion at a Massey Energy Co. mine in West Virginia killed at least 25 workers, the deadliest U.S. mining disaster in 25 years.
Gary Tuchman and Dr. Sanjay Gupta are on the ground in West Virginia reporting on rescue efforts in the aftermath of the explosion. They'll be updating us tonight. Do you have a question for them? Let us know!
Send us a text message with your question. Text AC360 (or 22360), and you might hear it on air!
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