Favorable winds Monday helped crews contain an oil spill from a barge in the middle of Galveston Bay, Texas. The accident Sunday closed the Houston Ship Channel and sent workers scrambling to contain an oil slick 3 miles long and one-half mile wide. Authorities said environmentally sensitive areas would be spared. The barge, owned by Buffalo Marine Services Inc. of Houston, buckled and one or two tanks ruptured, spilling up to 210,000 gallons of fuel oil. The barge got to a port 5 miles away and was encircled by containment booms.

HURRICANE NAMES: The six-month Atlantic hurricane season begins Saturday with an expectation it will be calmer than last year, which had the most storms since 1933. William Gray, a hurricane expert at Colorado State University, has predicted there will be 11 tropical storms, seven of which will become hurricanes. Last year, there were 19 storms, 11 of them hurricanes. A tropical storm is named when winds reach 39 mph. It becomes a hurricane when winds reach 74 mph. Names for this year's storms are Arthur, Bertha, Cesar, Dolly, Edouard, Fran, Gustav, Hortense, Isidore, Josephine, Kyle, Lili, Marco, Nana, Omar, Paloma, Rene, Sally, Teddy, Vicky and Wilfred.