US and British leaders sought to ease tensions amid sharpened rhetoric over the expanding oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, as President Barack Obama readied to take matters into his own hands. As political pressure mounts over his handling of the worst environmental disaster in US history, Obama will make his fourth visit to the disaster zone Monday (Tuesday in Manila) with a two-day trip to Mississippi, Alabama and Florida. The US Coast Guard meanwhile piled pressure on British Petroleum (BP), giving the embattled oil giant 48 hours to deliver a better plan to contain oil from a stricken well gushing worse than once feared.

Obama heads to oil spill disaster zone. (2010, June 14). The Manila Times, p. B3.