Earlier tonight, there were reports of a yacht explosion off the coast of Sandy Hook, New Jersey: 21 passengers, 9 of them badly burned, had apparently escaped into life boats.

Oil is seeping from the sea bed near the Deepwater Horizon well, and the choke valve may need to be reopened.

[Yesterday, Day 52 of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, the US Coast Guard sent BP a letter telling the company to hurry things up a bit. Meanwhile, Brits are fed up with all of this BP bashing. Image: Getty]

The Coast Guard says the Gulf of Mexico cleanup effort could last at least until the fall—if the oil spill is stopped by summer. BP says its capturing 10,000 barrels of crude per day. [Image via AP]

When a crew from CBS News tried to film an oil-covered beach in Louisiana, they were stopped and threatened with arrest by a group of BP contractors and members of the Coast Guard. "This is BP's rules, it's not ours."

CNN just reported that the Coast Guard fired on a "suspicious" vessel on the Potomac in D.C., but the Coast Guard says it was a training exercise and no shots were fired.

Martha Stewart continues to demonstrate her flair for attracting the authorities. This past holiday weekend she and her billionaire boy toy, Charles Simonyi, were taking a spin in Skylands II, her boat, off the coast of the domestic doyenne's getaway property in Seal Harbor, Maine. A few minutes into the excursion, the Coast Guard showed up for a spot inspection of the vessel! It no doubt triggered painful flashbacks of raids of yore for Martha, but all in all it was a pretty innocuous affair: Stewart's boat was forced to dock, a few guys from the U.S. Coast Guard made sure the safety equipment and whatnot was up to code, and then the Stewart-Simonyi loveboat was allowed back on its way. If anything, Martha actually seemed to take pleasure in the USCG's boarding of her pleasure craft—she pruriently notes that the Coast Guard dudes were "handsome" and "strong."

"The Coast Guard has reeled in a record 355,000 pounds of cocaine over the past year... the street value of the drugs seized or removed last year by the Coast Guard equals roughly half the agency's total annual budget, said Commandant Adm. Thad Allen." Which explains why the fine commandant will be selling back the 50 kilos hidden on various parts of his person to some Columbian friends of his later today. Still, it's pretty impressive, given that the Coast Guard basically has no working boats and an inability to purchase working communications systems. [CNN]