Dozens of cargo ships, petrochemical tankers and smaller vessels were stacked up near a closed stretch of the Mississippi River today, after a collision between a barge and tanker spilled more than 400,000 gallons of fuel oil into the busy shipping waterway.

A US soldier accused of beating an Afghan prisoner who later died was set to go to trial today, one day after a US military jury acquitted a fellow Army reservist of the same charge.