dan balz, amy walter, thank you both. >> brown: again, the major developments of the day.coast guard admiral thad allen said oil collection efforts are gradually improving. b.p. is now siphoning nearly a half million gallons per day from the damaged well. an unknown missing are-- unnumber number are still missing and officials fear the missing could rise. the newshour is always online. kwame holman, in our newsroom, previews what's there. kwame. >> holman: our oil leak ticker now includes b.p.'s projections of the amount of oil it's siphoning from the ruptured well. a follow-up to ray's report on obesity in china last week. we posted answers to your questions about how developing countries are dealing with the crisis. and a look ahead to the world cup soccer tournament in south africa. find a reader's guide to blogs and resources about the games. all that and more is on our web site, newshour.pbs.org. gwen? >> ifill: and that's the newshour for tonight. i'm gwen ifill. >> brown: and i'm jeffrey brown. we'll see you online, and again here tomorrow evening. thank you and goo

ask dan balz, senior political reporter for the "washington post." thank you both for being back with us. a lot to cover. dan, i'm going to start with you. any overriding message out of what happened yesterday? >> well, i think in some ways the overriding message is that the overriding message that we've been following all year isn't necessarily going to prevail in every election. and i think that was certainly the case in arkansas, where blanche lincoln, who was said to be the potential victim of anti-incumbent sentiment, managed to survive by kind of turning the tables on her opponent. and we see that in a variety of places. i think there's no question, as we've said many times, this is aory that sets up much better for republicans than democrats, but there are underlying factors that make some of those races more difficult to predict and certainly the fall is going to be very competitive, and at some point, somewhat unpredictable. >> woodruff: hard to predict. >> well, it is, and i want to build on dan's point, which is sometimes it's getting hard