OCEAN SPRINGS, Miss./TORONTO (Reuters) – Gluey gobs of thick oil from BP Plc's Gulf of Mexico spill washed ashore in Mississippi for the first time on Sunday as Russia called for a special levy on oil companies to finance a fund to help clean up environmental disasters like this one.

NEW YORK – A New Jersey woman has been charged with cheating real estate investors out of $45 million in a Ponzi scheme.

Federal prosecutors in Manhattan said Wednesday that Antoinette Hodgson told investors in New York and New Jersey that their money was being used to flip real estate for high returns.

NEW ORLEANS – BP said Monday it hopes to siphon as much as half of the oil leaking into the Gulf of Mexico and is getting ready to shoot mud into a blown-out well later this week to try and stop all of it.

BP PLC chief operating officer Doug Suttles said at a press conference that the company will never again try to produce oil from the well, though BP did not rule out drilling elsewhere in the reservoir.

NEW ORLEANS – Oil company engineers on Sunday finally succeeded in keeping some of the oil gushing from a blown well out of the Gulf of Mexico, hooking up a mile-long tube to funnel the crude into a tanker ship after more than three weeks of failures.

Millions of gallons of crude are already in the water, however, and researchers said the black ooze may have entered a major current that could carry it through the Florida Keys and around to the East Coast.

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. – Revenue and employment sank at the nation's commercial casinos for the second straight year in 2009 as consumers kept tight hold of their wallets during the recession and remained cautious at slot machines and gambling tables.

The American Gaming Association said Thursday that casino revenue declined 5.5 percent nationwide in 2009 to $30.74 billion. Commercial casinos' payments to state and local governments fell 1.6 percent in 2009 to $5.59 billion.

ON THE GULF OF MEXICO – A boat carrying a 100-ton concrete-and-steel contraption designed to siphon off the oil fouling the Gulf of Mexico arrived Thursday at the spot in the sea where a blown-out well is spewing hundreds of thousands of gallons a day.

Another boat with a crane plans to start lowering the box to the seafloor later in the day. Engineers hope it will be the best short-term solution to controlling the leak that has only worsened since it began two weeks ago.

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. – Resorts Atlantic City, the nation's first casino to open outside Nevada says it can't guarantee it will survive. Another Atlantic City casino hasn't paid its loan since last summer. And three others are in bankruptcy.

Atlantic City's 11 casinos have been struggling for more than three years now. Financial documents filed with the state this week show just how bad things have gotten.

Mother Nature is an unlikely opponent for politicians. But history has shown that mayoral responses to a snowstorm can determine the fate of their political careers.

'A mayor is expected to do this [efficient snow removal] and see that it's done, and if he doesn't, it's expected that he will be in real political trouble in the next election,' said Andrew McFarland, a political science professor at the University of Illinois-Chicago, who witnessed the unraveling of Chicago Mayor Michael A. Bilandic's political career after the February 1979 blizzard.

Mother Nature is an unlikely opponent for politicians. But history has shown that mayoral responses to a snowstorm can determine the fate of their political careers.

'A mayor is expected to do this [efficient snow removal] and see that it's done, and if he doesn't, it's expected that he will be in real political trouble in the next election,' said Andrew McFarland, a political science professor at the University of Illinois-Chicago, who witnessed the unraveling of Chicago Mayor Michael A. Bilandic's political career after the February 1979 blizzard.