As the gucci threat of a storm stalled efforts to permanently seal BP's blown-out well in the Gulf of Mexico, the government said Thursday that the well would be left closed off and unattended if ships had to leave the area. Enlarge This ImageTracking the Oil Spill in the GulfMultimedia Feature Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill Multimedia CollectionRelatedBy late Thursday evening, Thad W. Allen,the retired Coast Guard admiral who leads the federal response effort, said many vessels at the well site were preparing to leave now that a tropical depression had developed into a tropical storm, Bonnie, that was headed into the gulf.

Among those preparing to evacuate, he said, was a drill rig that is working on a relief well, which is considered the ultimate way to seal the well. It was beginning the process of disconnecting a riser pipe from the rig to the seabed and pulling it up, a process expected to take up to 12 hours. The decision to leave the well capped, which was made at the recommendation of Energy Coco Chanel Secretary Steven Chu, means that scientists with the government and with BP think that the well is undamaged and that there is little risk it would deteriorate if kept under pressure, as it has been since valves on a new cap were closed a week ago. Reopening the valves would mean that oil, which has not flowed since they were closed, would once again pour into the gulf.

"We have enough confidence to leave the well shut in," Kent Wells, a senior vice president of BP, said in a conference call with reporters in Houston. At the well site, 50 miles off the Louisiana coast, most work was halted during the day in advance of the storm's arrival. "While this is not a hurricane, it's a storm that will have some significant impacts," Admiral Allen said. Mr. Wells said the storm would delay operations 10 to 12 days, depending on its severity and how close it passed by the site. That would push back completion of a relief Chanel handbags well to the middle of August, he said. The drill rig that is working on the relief well is most likely to be among the first to leave because it travels very slowly. Other ships that are better able to handle higher seas and travel faster would leave later, Admiral Allen said. Support ships for submersibles that have been monitoring the well would be among the last to leave, so the well would probably be unattended for only a few days, he said.

The relief well has been temporarily plugged because of the weather worries, Admiral Allen said. If the decision is made that the rig evacuate, it would take 8 to 12 hours to detach a riser pipe from the seafloor and pull it back up so the rig could move. "We would be watching the weather closely," he said. "If conditions allow us to resume, we would do that." On Thursday, Louisiana Gov. Chanel bags Bobby Jindal declared a state of emergency, telling reporters that some low-lying coastal communities might need to be evacuated. But did not order a mandatory state evacuation.

By Thursday afternoon, though, BP and the Coast Guard had already started moving some surplus materials and equipment from low-lying areas into secure staging areas in Louisiana, Florida, Alabama and Mississippi, Rear Adm. Paul Zukunft, the federal on-scene coordinator, said at a news conference in New Orleans on Thursday. Admiral Zukunft said that officials were "re-positioning and gucci bags re-anchoring" the protective boom in some areas. Only the boom that was staged and waiting to be used would be moved to higher ground, he said. But this actions prompted heated debate in some of Louisiana's coastal parishes.

Kevin Davis, the president of St. Tammany Parish, was upset that the Coast Guard told him it was planning to move inland barges that had blocked oil from entering Lake Pontchartrain. He issued an executive order saying that anybody who would move such equipment could be arrested. In St. Bernard Parish, officials worried about whether the protective boom would be moved too far away to be re-deployed quickly after the storm passes. Admiral Zukunft said that moving supplies and equipment was necessary to protect resources so they can quickly be re-deployed after the storm. "We don't want to lose this material," he said.

Once the storm has passed, officials can resume their work on drilling the relief wells. And when the rig is back in place and operating, about two days of work are needed to install and cement a last section of steel casing pipe gucci handbags in the relief well. After that, BP plans to first try another well-sealing procedure, called a static kill, in which heavy drilling mud would be pumped into the well in an effort to permanently stop the flow of oil and gas.

If the static kill is successful, the only need for the relief well may be to confirm that the well is permanently sealed. If the results from the static kill are ambiguous, though, it would then take at least several days, and perhaps several weeks, to permanently shut the flow from the bad well by pumping mud down the relief well. The National Weather Service said Thursday that the Replica Handbags tropical depression, the third in what is expected to be a busy hurricane season, had formed in the Bahamas. Now a storm, its track was expected to run to the northwest into the gulf. A spokesman for the private weather service AccuWeather said the storm would probably reach the area of the well site late Saturday or early Sunday.ZMC

Reporting from Washington - Democratic Rep. Charles B. Rangel, once among the most powerful members of Congress, will face a hearing on charges of violating House ethics rules after a panel of his peers formally accused Designer Handbags him of wrongdoing Thursday.For two years, House ethics investigators pored over records of the New York congressman's travel and record-keeping in response to complaints about corporate-paid trips, the use of several rent-stabilized apartments and other allegations.

Rangel, 80, could face reprimand, censure or expulsion if the House Ethics Committee determines he violated rules. Any such sanction would be subject to a vote of the full House.Not since 2002, when Congress was investigating Democrat James Traficant of Ohio, has the secretive Ethics Committee convened such a proceeding. Rangel, who has been in Congress for 40 years, is expected to mount a gucci outlet vigorous defense."For over two years I've been asking them to look at this and to throw out what I believe has no substance," Rangel told reporters at the Capitol on Thursday. "I don't have any fear at all, politically or personally, what they come up with."

The committee appointed a panel to hear his case and said those members would hold a public meeting next week. At some point, the adjudicatory panel will hold a hearing that could last several days as lawmakers omega decide whether ethics investigators have proved their case. No formal charges have been made public.Rangel requested the Ethics Committee investigation in July 2008 after published reports concerning corporate-paid trips to the Caribbean, the use of several rent-stabilized apartments in a luxury Harlem building and private fundraising activities that used his office stationery.

A spokesman for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D- San Francisco) said the committee's action indicated "that the independent, bipartisan Ethics Committee process is moving forward."But the ethics proceeding is being convened in Chanel the middle of a Democratic fight to retain control of the House in this fall's midterm election, and Thursday's announcement carried potent political overtones. Republicans pounced on the investigation, signaling that it would become part of their election-year message.

Democrats won control of the chamber in 2006 in part because of voter disapproval of Republican ethics scandals, including an investigation of House Republican leader Tom DeLay of Texas.Democrats promised a new approach and implemented stricter ethics rules.Rep. John A. Boehner of Ohio, now the Republican leader, said Thursday that the ethics panel's action "is a sad reminder Chanel bag of Speaker Pelosi's most glaring broken promise: to 'drain the swamp' in Washington.

"In his long career, Rangel rose to one of the most influential positions in Congress: chairman of the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee. During the lengthy investigation, Rangel grudgingly links of london relinquished that seat in March.

Rangel becomes the first lawmaker to face such a reckoning by his peers since Traficant's expulsion in 2002. Traficant was a felon, having been convicted of bribery, racketeering, tax violations and other federal links of london bracelet charges.In Thursday's notice, the Ethics Committee announced the formation of an eight-member "adjudicatory subcommittee" to hear the charges. It will be chaired by Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-San Jose), who is also chairwoman of the Ethics Committee. Rep. Michael McCaul of Texas will be its senior Republican member.

With the ethics cloud surrounding Rangel, several challengers have stepped forward to face him in the Sept. 14 primary. One is Adam Clayton Powell IV, a New York assemblyman and son of the late member of Congress, tiffany jewelry who had ethics troubles of his own. Rangel defeated the elder Powell in the 1970 primary - three years after Congress refused to seat Powell, who promptly won a special election for his old seat.ZMC

THERE was a time when a movie like "Salt," a spy caper starring Angelina Jolie, got its publicity pop on the festival circuit, maybe even playing on the splashier side of Cannes. Yet here it was on opening day of gucci 2010 Comic-Con International, the annual convention for fans of comic books and related TV shows and movies, on Thursday. You get no Croisette, no H?tel du Cap by coming to the San Diego Convention Center, which is plopped between a Marriott and some train tracks. What you do get are 130,000 fans only too happy to blast the Web with movie chatter, and international media coverage second only to that for the Oscars.

The showcasing of "Salt," which opens in theaters on Friday, struck many longtime conventiongoers as a tipping point. The movie does not fit into any of the categories Comic-Con has traditionally celebrated: horror, fantasy, superheroes, animation, science fiction. Purists have blustered for years that Hollywood was taking over Comic-Con as a marketing platform. Now, it has become a big, blurry film festival for the little guy, with plenty of television - and some comics - thrown in. Ms. Jolie's previous appearances at Comic-Con have been for films that neatly fit its focus - "Beowulf," for instance. On Thursday she bluntly highlighted why "Salt" did not. Her previous action movies were "always based in fantasy in some way," she said. This one is "smart, proper, dramatic."

"Salt" is not the only head-scratcher at this year's Comic-Con, which runs through Sunday. Also represented here are "Nurse Jackie" and "The Other Guys," a Will Ferrell comedy. CBS dispatched young women in grass skirts to Louis Vuitton plug its forthcoming remake of "Hawaii Five-O." "I sort of feel it's like worrying about the weather - there's no going back," Marc Guggenheim, the writer of the forthcoming

"Green Lantern" movie from Warner Brothers, told the blog Hero Complex. "The genie is out of the bottle." Cherry Davis, a fund-raising consultant attending the convention from Los Angeles, wasn't as forgiving when she replica watches spotted the comedian Pauly Shore trying to orchestrate a publicity stunt. "What is he doing here? Has he ever even been in a science fiction movie?" Ms. Davis fumed aloud.

There was a lot of obsessiveness on display for the opening day of Comic-Con, which has been sold out for months. Walt Disney Studios wowed fans of its forthcoming "Tron: Legacy" with eight minutes of 3-D footage. The snippet depicted a character entering the movie's video-game reality for the first time. "That ‘Tron' footage was definitely amazing," said John Juarez, a restaurant replica watch manager from El Cajon, Calif., who regularly attends Comic-Con. "A lot of these presentations have become just big commercials that we stupidly pay to see." Disney took the unusual step of recording a cheering crowd of 6,000 in Hall H, the convention's main showplace, to incorporate into "Tron: Legacy." Attendees were told to stand and follow prompts on a screen. ("Stomp! Stomp!") The result was a kind of pep rally for the film.

The director Guillermo del Toro, who reluctantly walked away from "The Hobbit" in May because of production delays, made a surprise appearance to announce the subject of his next big movie: Disneyland's Haunted Mansion. lv bags Disney first tried to turn the attraction into a motion picture in 2003 and did a belly flop. "The Haunted Mansion," a $90 million comedy starring Eddie Murphy, attracted just $75 million at the North American box office. "We are not returning Eddie Murphy's calls," Mr. del Toro said to cheers.

"Hobbit" fans hoping for some good news - Hollywood has been abuzz over the possibility that a deal is nearly completed for Peter Jackson to take over as director - were out of luck. Staff members of the fan Web site TheOneRing.net were hard-pressed to come up with positive tidbits. Besides the loss of Mr. del Toro, Ian McKellen is tired of waiting around to play Gandalf, lv bag and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, which owns half the project, is still in financial disarray.

In one of the other big presentations on Thursday, DreamWorks Animation and Paramount Pictures promoted "Megamind," about a supervillain who succumbs to ennui after doing in his archnemesis. Mr. Ferrell, gucci who is the voice of the title character in the film, appeared wearing blue face paint and an elaborate Megamind costume.

He was in the minority: in contrast to years past, only a smattering of attendees turned out dressed as their favorite characters, perhaps another sign of Comic-Con's evolution into a mainstream entity. "As I can see as I look into the hall, not a lot of people in costume," he said. If Comic-Con is a film festival, though, it still belongs to the people. Those who wanted a gucci bags glimpse at Robert Rodriguez's grisly action movie "Machete" were invited to a Thursday night screening of scenes in a parking lot, after a party with free tacos, tequila and beer ("with this flier, while supplies last"). ZMC