Mark Memmott

The complicated effort to assign blame for the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history took another legal twist Monday when BP went to court to accuse Halliburton of "destroying damaging evidence about the quality of its cement slurry that went into drilling the oil well," The Associated Press writes.

(1:45 p.m. ET: We've retopped this post with the latest news and put earlier entries in chronological order so you can see how the story developed.)

The owner of West Virginia's Upper Big Branch coal mine where 29 men died in an explosion last year has agreed to a nearly $210 million settlement that will compensate the victims' families, pay fines and fund upgrades in safety standards at its facilities, NPR's Howard Berkes reports from Charleston, W. Va.

That package includes about $46 million for the miners' families.

A suicide bomb detonated today in the midst of a crowd of Shiite worshipers in Kabul has left about 50 people dead. NPR's Quil Lawrence reports from there that witnesses say dozens of bodies were scattered around the gate of a mosque.

Al-Jazeera says the Afghan ministry of health reports more than 100 people were injured.

Another four people were reportedly killed and more were injured in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif by a similar attack. Al-Jazeera adds that:

The head of the Federal Aviation Administration, who among other duties is in charge of the nation's air traffic controllers, was charged with driving while intoxicated Saturday night in Fairfax, Va., a suburb of Washington, D.C.

And Federal News Radio says Jerome "Randy" Babbitt has now been "placed on a leave of absence." The Associated Press reports that the leave was "at Babbitt's request."

She'll still get about $50 million a year in taxpayers' money to run her palaces and travel the world, but there's word from the U.K. that Queen Elizabeth II has had her "pay" frozen until at least 2015.

Hard times, after all, require sacrifices.

Good morning.

We've already done these posts:

-- Report: Cain To Endorse Gingrich.

-- All Eyes On 'Merkozy' As Leaders Try To Save Euro.

While The New York Times says German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy are working on a deal to save the euro that has "several moving parts," The Financial Times cautions that "officials on both sides have cautioned against expectations of an announcement of a detailed plan by the two."

Update at 12:35 p.m. ET. Not Today:

Newt Gingrich's campaign just told Reuters that there are no plans for former GOP presidential candidate Herman Cain to endorse his fellow Georgian's quest for the Republican nomination today — which, of course, does not rule out it happening at another time.

Our original post and an earlier update: