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On September 2, 2010, another offshore oil rig exploded and burst into flames in the Gulf of Mexico just west of the infamous BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill, according to a recent ABCnews.com report.

Initial reports said that the 13 workers on the rig were accounted for but were floating in the water near the rig. Twelve of the workers are reportedly wearing immersion suits, and one worker is reportedly injured.

According to the U.S. Coast Guard, the rig platform was fixed in 340 feet of water and the rig was in production at the time of the fire. Workers have told authorities that they had started emergency shutdown procedures before evacuating.

The platform does not have a standard blow-out preventer, according to the U.S. Coast Guard.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs addressed the rig explosion in his daily briefing saying, “We obviously have response assets ready for deployment, should we receive reports of pollution in the water.”

The U.S. Coast Guard has seven helicopters, two fixed-wing planes and a number of watercraft on the way to the scene. The vidtims are expected to be taken directly to area hospitals, according to ABC affiliate KATC.

The rig, positioned 80 miles south of Vermillion Bay in Louisiana, is owned by Mariner Energy. It was not immediately known what caused the explosion, but the rig reportedly remained on fire after the explosion.

Phone messages left for Mariner Energy were not immediately returned.

It is unclear whether oil is leaking into the water.

Officials have been trying to determine who is at fault and what prompted the largest food recall in U.S. history. Companies involved in this recent food scare have begun blaming one another and offering conflicting theories about the possible source of salmonella contamination that has sickened 1,470 people and led to the recall of 550 million eggs across the United States, according to a recent Wall Street Journal news report.

Wright County Egg of Galt, Iowa, whose chicken-feed samples tested positive for salmonella, has suggested the contamination might have come from a feed ingredient, bone meal, supplied by another company. That company, Central Bi-Products of Redwood Falls, Minn., strongly disagreed and said its heat-processed bone meal was untainted when it was shipped.

The FDA said it still didn’t know where the contamination found by its inspectors originated. It issued a report on August 30, 2010 citing many sanitation problems at Wright’s facilities, such as flies, frogs, pigeons, piles of chicken manure, and bird droppings.

The tainted eggs haven’t been tied to any deaths, according to the U.S. government. The strain of bacteria linked to the illnesses was found in feed made by Wright’s parent company, Quality Egg LLC, which also supplies the other major egg producer in the recall, Hillandale Farms of Iowa.

Wright raised the issue of its supplier last week when the FDA said the feed and bone meal showed traces of salmonella. Wright spokeswoman Hinda Mitchell said the company kept bone meal in an overhead bin and the ingredient was tested separately by FDA officials.

“This finding obviously is of great concern to us,” Wright said in a statement, adding that the company provided the FDA with information about its supplier and immediately notified that company of the testing results.

Central Bi-Products’s president, Don Davis, said in an interview that he was “shocked and surprised” that anyone was suggesting his bone-meal ingredients were tainted, in light of recent FDA reports on Wright County Egg farms.

He said Central Bi-Products heats its meat and bone meal to temperatures of up to 260 degrees to kill any bacteria, including salmonella, and hires a company to test its products regularly. The ingredients are later added to the chicken feed as a protein supplement. It appears “obvious” that any contamination occurred after the meal left Central’s plant, Mr. Davis said.

If that is so, the question remains as to when the salmonella got into the feed, which the FDA has said is a likely source of infection in the chickens and their eggs.

The sanitary conditions in the Quality Egg feed mill, where feed and feed ingredients are stored, showed multiple points of possible contamination, according to the FDA.

Storage bins containing ingredients including the meat and bone meal were rusted, porous and exposed to live birds and avian feces, FDA investigators said. They also said rodents, a major source of salmonella, appeared to have access to many parts of the barn.

Quality Egg mixes the bone meal with corn and soy meal to make the feed that is given to chickens. An FDA official said individual ingredients were usually heat-treated but the final feed wasn’t processed again.

Central Bi-Products’s Mr. Davis said his company didn’t sell directly to Wright or Quality Egg but went through a middleman. He said Central Bi-Products, which is part of Farmers Union Industries LLC, supplies many farms and feed distributors. According to FDA officials, only two egg farms: Wright and Hillandale appear to be linked to the contamination.

Once again Toyota vehicle owners were dealt bad news. On August 26, 2010, Toyota announced a recall of more than 1.1 million 2005 through 2008 model Corolla sedans and Matrix hatchbacks over faulty engine-control computers that could cause the vehicles to stall in traffic, according to a recent USA Today news report.

The huge recall Toyota’s 15th in 2010 came just two days after the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration announced it was ratcheting up its investigation of the stalling problem. NHTSA said it has received 163 complaints. Toyota blamed the faulty computer, called an electronic control module or ECM for the stalling and said it will replace them in the recalled vehicles. The company said it has three unconfirmed reports of crashes, including one involving an injury.

Owners will be informed of the recall by mail in September and then will get a second letter when dealers have the parts for the repair.

Of all of the 5.8 million cars that Toyota has recalled since January 1, this is the first that involves a problem with the engine computer. Toyota continues to defend the ECM against allegations that it might be at fault in some sudden-acceleration incidents, which have already prompted two huge Toyota recalls for mats that can jam the gas pedal and pedals that can stick open.

Some auto-safety advocates say it raises new doubts about the ECMs.

“If you can get it wrong on stalling, you can get it wrong on unintended acceleration,” says Clarence Ditlow, executive director of the Center for Auto Safety in Washington, D.C.

And Sean Kane of Safety Research & Strategies said the stalling problem is similar to runaway car problems in that the computers don’t always create diagnostic trouble codes that let mechanics or investigators figure out what went wrong. “The heart of the problem is really their inability to detect the problem.”

Toyota has known about the stalling problem for years. It issued four technical service bulletins, the most recent in 2007, telling mechanics about the problem and instructing them to replace the module. But it did not deem the problem to be a safety risk needing a recall.

It was only after extreme temperature tests in which four of 32 units malfunctioned that Toyota decided to voluntarily proceed with the recall, Hanson said. It was found stalling could be due to faulty coating on the module’s circuit boards or a crack in the surface of a glass coating.