The oil spill: The latest developments

-- Mississippi and Alabama report oil hitting their shores for the first time. A two-mile-long, three-foot-wide strand of oil was found on Petit Bois Island in Mississippi, and patches of oil washed up on Dauphin Island in Alabama.

-- Robotic machines work on cutting away the oil well's broken riser pipe

so that engineers can try fitting a cap over the opening.

-- Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. announces criminal and civil investigations into the spill.

By the numbers

75,920 square miles

of the Gulf of Mexico has been closed to fishing. (For comparison,

Florida covers 65,795 square miles of land.)

17,000 troops

from the National Guard have been deployed.