Friday News Update: Oil Spill, Home Sales and Economic Optimism
News Updates: Jobs Report, BP Oil Spill and Google Privacy

The Gulf’s silent environmental crisis

On the Gulf of Mexico (CNN) — Ten miles off the coast of Louisiana, where the air tastes like gasoline and the ocean looks like brownie batter, Louisiana State University professor Ed Overton leans out of a fishing boat and dunks a small jar beneath the surface of the oil-covered water.

“God, what a mess,” he says under his breath, scooping up a canister of the oil that’s been spilled into the Gulf of Mexico.

Personal spending unchanged in April

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — Personal spending was flat in April, after six months of increases, while income rose, according to a government report released Friday.

The Commerce Department said individual spending rose less than 0.1%, or $4 billion, last month after an upwardly revised 0.6% increase in March. Economists surveyed by Briefing.com were expecting a 0.3% increase.

Cheapest Gasoline Since March Greets U.S. Memorial Day Drivers

May 28 (Bloomberg) — Gasoline prices will be at the lowest level since March as U.S. drivers take to the highways this Memorial Day weekend, the traditional start of the summer driving season in the world’s largest energy-consuming country.

Pump prices have dropped for three weeks to an average $2.749 a gallon for regular gasoline, as of May 26, as crude oil prices collapsed, according to AAA, the nation’s biggest motoring organization. Consumers will be paying 12 percent more than a year ago, though prices are 30 percent less than in 2008, the year crude oil rose to a record $147 a barrel.

Friday News Update: Oil Spill, Home Sales and Economic Optimism
News Updates: Jobs Report, BP Oil Spill and Google Privacy