Mississippi River spill idles ships near New Orleans

Dozens of cargo ships, petrochemical tankers and smaller vessels stacked up Thursday near a closed stretch of the Mississippi River, a day after a collision between a barge and tanker spilled more than 400,000 gallons (1.5 million liters) of fuel oil into the nation's busy shipping waterway.

The Coast Guard said reopening nearly 100 miles (160 kilometers) of river to ship traffic could take days, and efforts to clean up the oily sheen left by largest oil spill on the river since 2000 could take weeks. Many of the ships waited at the river's Gulf of Mexico outlet to head upriver to grain and petrochemical terminals above New Orleans, one of the world's busiest …