50 Cent makes awkward move on TV reporter

Rapper 50 Cent wasn't content just chatting up Erin Andrews.

He went in for a kiss.

Rebuffed.

In the strangest part of the buildup to the Daytona 500, Mr. Cent brought back memories of Joe Namath's awkward attempt to plant one on Suzy Kolber when he tried the same move with Andrews on pit road.

She turned her head one way, then the other, only allowing the "Candy Shop" rapper to get a peck on the cheek.

— Paul Newberry — http://www.twitter.com/pnewberry1963

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BIG CRASH: We've had the first big wreck of the Daytona 500.

And a bunch of top contenders have seen their chances go up in smoke.

Former 500 winners Kevin Harvick, Tony Stewart and Jamie McMurray were caught up in the crash on lap 33. So was defending Sprint Cup champion Brad Keselowski.

The melee began coming through the tri-oval when Kasey Kahne's car began to slide across the track after appearing to get bumped from behind by Kyle Busch.

At least two other drivers also got caught up in the mess: Juan Pablo Montoya and Casey Mears. Joey Logano made a great move to dodge the spinning cars.

Pole sitter Danica Patrick made it through unscathed and remains near the front of the pack.

— Paul Newberry — http://www.twitter.com/pnewberry1963

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HANG ON TIGHT: From one defending champion to another, Brad Keselowski had a piece of advice for Daytona 500 starter Ray Lewis:

Don't drop the flag.

The retired Baltimore Ravens star served as honorary starter for the Daytona 500. Lewis waved the green flag without incident Sunday to start the "Great American Race."

Lewis, who said he was nervous, got a quick tip from Keselowski.

"Brad texted me on the way in, the one rule is, don't drop the flag," Lewis said before the race. "I'm going to squeeze the flag very hard. I want to watch this and be a part of it. To be here is an awesome experience."

Lewis was one of several stars at Daytona International Speedway. Rappers T.I. and 50 Cent attended NASCAR's season opener, which has Danica Patrick starting on the pole.

Oscar-nominated actor James Franco was the grand marshall and said, "Drivers and Danica, start your engines!" The Zac Brown Band played a pre-race concert in the Daytona International Speedway infield. Band member Clay Cook performed the national anthem.

Retired baseball pitcher Tom Gordon, comedian Drew Carey, and Wes Welker and Steve Spurrier also were in attendance.

Lewis called Keselowski on the eve of the 2012 season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway and left him an inspirational voice message. Keselowski also often listens to Lewis' motivational speeches before races.

"I caught a glimpse of how he always watched my videos and it really inspired him," Lewis said. "That's when me and him really started having conversations with each other, and from there it just turned into a friendship. I send him motivational things, and heads-up on what I am doing, that's where the relationship has gone."

— Dan Gelston — http://twitter.com/APgelston

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DANICA DROPS BACK: Danica Patrick made history by becoming the first woman to start from the pole in a NASCAR Cup race.

But in the beginning of the Daytona 500, she failed to pull off another landmark.

Choosing the outside spot on the front row, Patrick gave up the lead to Jeff Gordon on the very first lap, missing out on an early chance to become the first female to lead a Cup lap.

Over the first 10 laps, she settled in behind Gordon and held on to the second spot in the 43-car field.

Patrick went on the radio before the race to thank her crew for giving her such a strong car. "I'll do the best job I can to do my end of the deal today," she said. "All in all, thank you for everything. You guys are awesome."

— Paul Newberry — http://www.twitter.com/pnewberry1963

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FRANCO'S AUDIBLE: "Drivers ... and Danica!!! ... start your engines."

With that unique command, actor James Franco has ordered the 43 cars to fire up for the Daytona 500.

The duty is normally carried out with the most famous words in racing: "Gentlemen, start your engines."

Of course, this year is different. Danica Patrick is the first woman to start from the pole in a Cup race, and Franco hinted beforehand that he was planning an audible. As unpredictable as ever, he passed on a chance to copy the command that was used when Patrick raced in the Indianapolis 500, "Lady and gentlemen, start your engines."

Now, it's time to go racing at Daytona.

— Paul Newberry — http://www.twitter.com/pnewberry1963

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A HEARTY BUNCH: NASCAR FANS RETURN TO DANGER ZONE: Say this about NASCAR fans: They don't frighten easily.

One day after a harrowing crash injured dozens of fans in the stands, those same seats are filling up for the Daytona 500.

No one seems too concerned.

"These should be good seats," said Rick Barasso, as he settled into a spot that was right in the danger zone when Kyle Larson's car slammed into the catch fencing on the final lap of a Nationwide Series race Saturday. "I mean, what are the chances of it happening again?"

That seems to be the attitude of the fans heading into the Daytona 500, the season-opening Cup race and biggest event on the NASCAR schedule. Most people say it's worth the risk to sit next to the ear-rattling action — no more than 20 feet away for those in the first row. They love to hear the engines, smell the exhaust, and feel the wind whipping in their face as 43 cars go by at nearly 200 mph.

Still, there are a few fans fretting about the location of their seats.

Raymond Gober returned to the same location where he was nearly struck by a bolt from Larson's car. He scooped up the debris as a souvenir, though he acknowledged being a little nervous about his seat on the back row of the lower level. He even considered wearing his motorcycle helmet to the 500, but figured "everybody would start laughing at me." Next year, he plans to buy an upper-level seat in the main grandstand.

"My dad called and said, 'You're sitting in the same seats? "' Gober said. "He couldn't believe it."

There are grim reminders of what happened Saturday: a bloody spot that had been washed down (not entirely, though), a tire mark on a seat, another seat that was partially bent from getting struck by that same tire.

— Paul Newberry — http://www.twitter.com/pnewberry1963

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EDITOR'S NOTE — "Daytona 500 Watch" shows you the Daytona 500 and events surrounding the race through the eyes of Associated Press journalists. Follow them on Twitter.

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The Texas Tribune: Advocates Seek Mental Health Changes, Including Power to Detain

Matt Rainwaters for Texas Monthly

The Sherman grave of Andre Thomas’s victims.

SHERMAN — A worried call from his daughter’s boyfriend sent Paul Boren rushing to her apartment on the morning of March 27, 2004. He drove the eight blocks to her apartment, peering into his neighbors’ yards, searching for Andre Thomas, Laura Boren’s estranged husband.

Expanded coverage of Texas is produced by The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit news organization. To join the conversation about this article, go to texastribune.org.

For more articles on mental health and criminal justice in Texas, as well as a timeline of the Andre Thomas case: texastribune.org

Matt Rainwaters for Texas Monthly

Laura Boren

He drove past the brightly colored slides, swings and bouncy plastic animals in Fairview Park across the street from the apartment where Ms. Boren, 20, and her two children lived. He pulled into a parking spot below and immediately saw that her door was broken. As his heart raced, Mr. Boren, a white-haired giant of a man, bounded up the stairwell, calling out for his daughter.

He found her on the white carpet, smeared with blood, a gaping hole in her chest. Beside her left leg, a one-dollar bill was folded lengthwise, the radiating eye of the pyramid facing up. Mr. Boren knew she was gone.

In a panic, he rushed past the stuffed animals, dolls and plastic toys strewn along the hallway to the bedroom shared by his two grandchildren. The body of 13-month-old Leyha Hughes lay on the floor next to a blood-spattered doll nearly as big as she was.

Andre Boren, 4, lay on his back in his white children’s bed just above Leyha. He looked as if he could have been sleeping — a moment away from revealing the toothy grin that typically spread from one of his round cheeks to the other — except for the massive chest wound that matched the ones his father, Andre Thomas (the boy was also known as Andre Jr.), had inflicted on his mother and his half-sister as he tried to remove their hearts.

“You just can’t believe that it’s real,” said Sherry Boren, Laura Boren’s mother. “You’re hoping that it’s not, that it’s a dream or something, that you’re going to wake up at any minute.”

Mr. Thomas, who confessed to the murders of his wife, their son and her daughter by another man, was convicted in 2005 and sentenced to death at age 21. While awaiting trial in 2004, he gouged out one of his eyes, and in 2008 on death row, he removed the other and ate it.

At least twice in the three weeks before the crime, Mr. Thomas had sought mental health treatment, babbling illogically and threatening to commit suicide. On two occasions, staff members at the medical facilities were so worried that his psychosis made him a threat to himself or others that they sought emergency detention warrants for him.

Despite talk of suicide and bizarre biblical delusions, he was not detained for treatment. Mr. Thomas later told the police that he was convinced that Ms. Boren was the wicked Jezebel from the Bible, that his own son was the Antichrist and that Leyha was involved in an evil conspiracy with them.

He was on a mission from God, he said, to free their hearts of demons.

Hospitals do not have legal authority to detain people who voluntarily enter their facilities in search of mental health care but then decide to leave. It is one of many holes in the state’s nearly 30-year-old mental health code that advocates, police officers and judges say lawmakers need to fix. In a report last year, Texas Appleseed, a nonprofit advocacy organization, called on lawmakers to replace the existing code with one that reflects contemporary mental health needs.

“It was last fully revised in 1985, and clearly the mental health system has changed drastically since then,” said Susan Stone, a lawyer and psychiatrist who led the two-year Texas Appleseed project to study and recommend reforms to the code. Lawmakers have said that although the code may need to be revamped, it will not happen in this year’s legislative session. Such an undertaking requires legislative studies that have not been conducted. But advocates are urging legislators to make a few critical changes that they say could prevent tragedies, including giving hospitals the right to detain someone who is having a mental health crisis.

From the time Mr. Thomas was 10, he had told friends he heard demons in his head instructing him to do bad things. The cacophony drove him to attempt suicide repeatedly as an adolescent, according to court records. He drank and abused drugs to try to quiet the noise.

bgrissom@texastribune.org

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Major Banks Aid in Payday Loans Banned by States

Major banks have quickly become behind-the-scenes allies of Internet-based payday lenders that offer short-term loans with interest rates sometimes exceeding 500 percent.

With 15 states banning payday loans, a growing number of the lenders have set up online operations in more hospitable states or far-flung locales like Belize, Malta and the West Indies to more easily evade statewide caps on interest rates.

While the banks, which include giants like JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Wells Fargo, do not make the loans, they are a critical link for the lenders, enabling the lenders to withdraw payments automatically from borrowers’ bank accounts, even in states where the loans are banned entirely. In some cases, the banks allow lenders to tap checking accounts even after the customers have begged them to stop the withdrawals.

“Without the assistance of the banks in processing and sending electronic funds, these lenders simply couldn’t operate,” said Josh Zinner, co-director of the Neighborhood Economic Development Advocacy Project, which works with community groups in New York.

The banking industry says it is simply serving customers who have authorized the lenders to withdraw money from their accounts. “The industry is not in a position to monitor customer accounts to see where their payments are going,” said Virginia O’Neill, senior counsel with the American Bankers Association.

But state and federal officials are taking aim at the banks’ role at a time when authorities are increasing their efforts to clamp down on payday lending and its practice of providing quick money to borrowers who need cash.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau are examining banks’ roles in the online loans, according to several people with direct knowledge of the matter. Benjamin M. Lawsky, who heads New York State’s Department of Financial Services, is investigating how banks enable the online lenders to skirt New York law and make loans to residents of the state, where interest rates are capped at 25 percent.

For the banks, it can be a lucrative partnership. At first blush, processing automatic withdrawals hardly seems like a source of profit. But many customers are already on shaky financial footing. The withdrawals often set off a cascade of fees from problems like overdrafts. Roughly 27 percent of payday loan borrowers say that the loans caused them to overdraw their accounts, according to a report released this month by the Pew Charitable Trusts. That fee income is coveted, given that financial regulations limiting fees on debit and credit cards have cost banks billions of dollars.

Some state and federal authorities say the banks’ role in enabling the lenders has frustrated government efforts to shield people from predatory loans — an issue that gained urgency after reckless mortgage lending helped precipitate the 2008 financial crisis.

Lawmakers, led by Senator Jeff Merkley, Democrat of Oregon, introduced a bill in July aimed at reining in the lenders, in part, by forcing them to abide by the laws of the state where the borrower lives, rather than where the lender is. The legislation, pending in Congress, would also allow borrowers to cancel automatic withdrawals more easily. “Technology has taken a lot of these scams online, and it’s time to crack down,” Mr. Merkley said in a statement when the bill was introduced.

While the loans are simple to obtain — some online lenders promise approval in minutes with no credit check — they are tough to get rid of. Customers who want to repay their loan in full typically must contact the online lender at least three days before the next withdrawal. Otherwise, the lender automatically renews the loans at least monthly and withdraws only the interest owed. Under federal law, customers are allowed to stop authorized withdrawals from their account. Still, some borrowers say their banks do not heed requests to stop the loans.

Ivy Brodsky, 37, thought she had figured out a way to stop six payday lenders from taking money from her account when she visited her Chase branch in Brighton Beach in Brooklyn in March to close it. But Chase kept the account open and between April and May, the six Internet lenders tried to withdraw money from Ms. Brodsky’s account 55 times, according to bank records reviewed by The New York Times. Chase charged her $1,523 in fees — a combination of 44 insufficient fund fees, extended overdraft fees and service fees.

For Subrina Baptiste, 33, an educational assistant in Brooklyn, the overdraft fees levied by Chase cannibalized her child support income. She said she applied for a $400 loan from Loanshoponline.com and a $700 loan from Advancemetoday.com in 2011. The loans, with annual interest rates of 730 percent and 584 percent respectively, skirt New York law.

Ms. Baptiste said she asked Chase to revoke the automatic withdrawals in October 2011, but was told that she had to ask the lenders instead. In one month, her bank records show, the lenders tried to take money from her account at least six times. Chase charged her $812 in fees and deducted over $600 from her child-support payments to cover them.

“I don’t understand why my own bank just wouldn’t listen to me,” Ms. Baptiste said, adding that Chase ultimately closed her account last January, three months after she asked.

A spokeswoman for Bank of America said the bank always honored requests to stop automatic withdrawals. Wells Fargo declined to comment. Kristin Lemkau, a spokeswoman for Chase, said: “We are working with the customers to resolve these cases.” Online lenders say they work to abide by state laws.

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Iran Says It Has Found New Uranium Deposits

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (Reuters) — Days before resuming talks over its disputed nuclear program, Iran said Saturday that it had found significant new deposits of raw uranium and identified sites for 16 more nuclear power stations.

The state news agency IRNA quoted a report by the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, which said that the reserves were discovered in northern and southern coastal areas and had tripled the amount outlined in previous estimates.

There was no independent confirmation. Western experts had previously thought that Iran, with few uranium mines of its own, might be close to exhausting its supply of raw uranium.

“We have discovered new sources of uranium in the country, and we will put them to use in the near future,” Fereydoun Abbasi-Davani, head of the Atomic Energy Organization, was quoted as saying at Iran’s annual nuclear industry conference.

The timing of the announcement suggested that Iran, by talking up its reserves and nuclear ambitions, may hope to strengthen its negotiating hand at talks in Kazakhstan on Tuesday with the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany.

Diplomats say the six powers are willing to offer Iran some relief from international sanctions if it agrees to curb its production of higher-grade enriched uranium.

The West says Iran’s enrichment of uranium to a purity of 20 percent demonstrates its intent to develop a nuclear weapons ability, an allegation the Islamic republic denies.

The enriched uranium required for use in nuclear reactors or weapons is produced in centrifuges that spin uranium hexafluoride gas at high speeds. The gas is derived from yellow cake, a concentrate from uranium ore found in mines.

Iran’s raw uranium reserves now total around 4,400 tons, including discoveries over the past 18 months, IRNA quoted the report as saying.

In another sign that Iran is intent on pushing forward with its nuclear ambitions, the report also said that 16 sites had been identified for the construction of nuclear power stations. It did not specify the exact locations but said they included coastal areas of the Persian Gulf, the Gulf of Oman, Khuzestan Province and the Caspian Sea.

The Iranian authorities have long announced their desire to build more nuclear power plants for electricity production. Only one currently exists, in the southern city of Bushehr, and it has suffered several shutdowns in recent months.

The announcements could further complicate the search for a breakthrough in Kazakhstan, after three unsuccessful rounds of talks between the sides in 2012.

“We are meeting all of our obligations under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, and we should be able to benefit from our rights,” Saeed Jalili, Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator, was quoted as saying at the conference on Saturday. “We don’t accept more responsibilities and less rights.”

In what Washington has called a provocative move, Iran is also installing new-generation centrifuges, capable of producing enriched uranium much faster, at a site in Natanz in the center of the country.

Western diplomats say the six powers will reiterate demands for the suspension of uranium enrichment to a purity of 20 percent, the closing of Iran’s Fordo enrichment plant, increased access for International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors and an agreement to address concerns on existing uranium stockpiles.

In return, the latest embargoes on gold and metals trading with Iran would be lifted. Iran has criticized the offer and says its rights need to be fully recognized.

If the West wants to start constructive talks with Tehran, “It needs to present a valid proposal,” Mr. Jalili said. In a statement issued before the Iranian announcement, the German foreign minister, Guido Westerwelle, said the six-power group wanted to enter a “substantial negotiation process” over Tehran’s nuclear program.

The talks in Kazakhstan “are a chance which I hope Iran takes,” he said.

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Te'o doing tough balancing act at NFL combine

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Manti Te'o wants everyone to know he's over the embarrassment of an online hoax, and he's ready to focus on football.

The Heisman Trophy runner-up acknowledges he could have done things to avoid a public spectacle. But he says if he was still embarrassed by it, he wouldn't have taken questions Saturday at the NFL's annual scouting combine.

Instead, nearly two dozen television cameras and a room full of reporters were capturing every word out of Te'o's mouth as he again tried to explain how he was duped into believing a girlfriend that never existed died last fall.

It was the largest group of reporters Te'o has faced since the story broke last month

More than 300 players, including Te'o, are in Indy this weekend to work out for NFL scouts.

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Drone Pilots Found to Get Stress Disorders Much as Those in Combat Do

U.S. Air Force/Master Sgt. Steve Horton

Capt. Richard Koll, left, and Airman First Class Mike Eulo monitored a drone aircraft after launching it in Iraq.

The study affirms a growing body of research finding health hazards even for those piloting machines from bases far from actual combat zones.

“Though it might be thousands of miles from the battlefield, this work still involves tough stressors and has tough consequences for those crews,” said Peter W. Singer, a scholar at the Brookings Institution who has written extensively about drones. He was not involved in the new research.

That study, by the Armed Forces Health Surveillance Center, which analyzes health trends among military personnel, did not try to explain the sources of mental health problems among drone pilots.

But Air Force officials and independent experts have suggested several potential causes, among them witnessing combat violence on live video feeds, working in isolation or under inflexible shift hours, juggling the simultaneous demands of home life with combat operations and dealing with intense stress because of crew shortages.

“Remotely piloted aircraft pilots may stare at the same piece of ground for days,” said Jean Lin Otto, an epidemiologist who was a co-author of the study. “They witness the carnage. Manned aircraft pilots don’t do that. They get out of there as soon as possible.”

Dr. Otto said she had begun the study expecting that drone pilots would actually have a higher rate of mental health problems because of the unique pressures of their job.

Since 2008, the number of pilots of remotely piloted aircraft — the Air Force’s preferred term for drones — has grown fourfold, to nearly 1,300. The Air Force is now training more pilots for its drones than for its fighter jets and bombers combined. And by 2015, it expects to have more drone pilots than bomber pilots, although fighter pilots will remain a larger group.

Those figures do not include drones operated by the C.I.A. in counterterrorism operations over Pakistan, Yemen and other countries.

The Pentagon has begun taking steps to keep pace with the rapid expansion of drone operations. It recently created a new medal to honor troops involved in both drone warfare and cyberwarfare. And the Air Force has expanded access to chaplains and therapists for drone operators, said Col. William M. Tart, who commanded remotely piloted aircraft crews at Creech Air Force Base in Nevada.

The Air Force has also conducted research into the health issues of drone crew members. In a 2011 survey of nearly 840 drone operators, it found that 46 percent of Reaper and Predator pilots, and 48 percent of Global Hawk sensor operators, reported “high operational stress.” Those crews cited long hours and frequent shift changes as major causes.

That study found the stress among drone operators to be much higher than that reported by Air Force members in logistics or support jobs. But it did not compare the stress levels of the drone operators with those of traditional pilots.

The new study looked at the electronic health records of 709 drone pilots and 5,256 manned aircraft pilots between October 2003 and December 2011. Those records included information about clinical diagnoses by medical professionals and not just self-reported symptoms.

After analyzing diagnosis and treatment records, the researchers initially found that the drone pilots had higher incidence rates for 12 conditions, including anxiety disorder, depressive disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, substance abuse and suicidal ideation.

But after the data were adjusted for age, number of deployments, time in service and history of previous mental health problems, the rates were similar, said Dr. Otto, who was scheduled to present her findings in Arizona on Saturday at a conference of the American College of Preventive Medicine.

The study also found that the incidence rates of mental heath problems among drone pilots spiked in 2009. Dr. Otto speculated that the increase might have been the result of intense pressure on pilots during the Iraq surge in the preceding years.

The study found that pilots of both manned and unmanned aircraft had lower rates of mental health problems than other Air Force personnel. But Dr. Otto conceded that her study might underestimate problems among both manned and unmanned aircraft pilots, who may feel pressure not to report mental health symptoms to doctors out of fears that they will be grounded.

She said she planned to conduct two follow-up studies: one that tries to compensate for possible underreporting of mental health problems by pilots and another that analyzes mental health issues among sensor operators, who control drone cameras while sitting next to the pilots.

“The increasing use of remotely piloted aircraft for war fighting as well as humanitarian relief should prompt increased surveillance,” she said.

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BP and Gulf Coast States Jockey Over Settlement on Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill

John Moore/Getty Images

A BP cleanup crew removing oil from a beach in May 2010 in Port Fourchon, La., after the Deepwater Horizon disaster.

With a major civil trial scheduled to start Monday in New Orleans against BP over damages related to the explosion of an offshore drilling rig in 2010, federal officials and those from the five affected Gulf Coast states are trying to pull together to strike an 11th-hour settlement in the case.

A lawyer briefed on those talks said that the Justice Department and the five states — Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas — have reportedly prepared an offer to resolve the two biggest issues central to a series of trials against BP, the first of which starts Monday.

One of those issues is the fines that the company would pay for violations of the Clean Water Act related to the four million gallons of oil spilled after the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon rig, which BP had leased from Transocean. The other point of dispute is how much the company will have to pay in penalties under a different environmental statute for damage caused by the oil to the area: beaches, marshes, wildlife and fisheries.

The Wall Street Journal reported late Friday that federal and state officials were preparing a $16 billion settlement offer that would cover both the Clean Water Act fines and environmental penalties related to the spill. “The ball is on BP’s side of the table,” said the lawyer, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly on the matter.

Justice Department officials and state officials could not be reached Saturday to comment on any possible offer. A spokesman for BP, Geoff Morrell, said, “BP doesn’t talk about possible offers or negotiations, but I can tell you we are ready for trial and looking forward to opening arguments on Monday.”

The lawyer briefed on the talks said that one problem with the current proposal by federal and state officials was that it did not cover economic damages claimed by the states related to the spill. Such claims could still leave BP on the hook for billions more, in addition to the environmental damages.

The late negotiations among federal and state officials to find common ground represents progress, even if limited, in the search for a settlement. The five states have had sharp disagreements over how much BP should pay and how billions of dollars in potential settlement funds should be divided.

For example, only two of the states, Louisiana and Alabama, are participating in the trial starting on Monday, though Florida, Mississippi and Texas could be part of any settlement. Officials in Louisiana believe their state deserves the bulk of any settlement since that state’s coastal waters, fisheries and businesses suffered the most. Florida and other states that escaped serious coastal damage instead want money for economic losses that they sustained.

“There are a lot of moving parts,” said Luther Strange, the attorney general of Alabama. “Personalities aside, the issues are so complex.” Another lawyer briefed on the talks said he believed any proposal involving Louisiana would be significant because its participation would be critical to any settlement.

Also, billions of dollars could be assessed against BP in several ways, either through fines, or through penalties to redress environmental damage and payments to cover economic losses. And each of those methods represents a different set of stakes and consequences for each of the states and for BP.

For instance, BP would prefer to limit the fines, and make more payments through environmental damage penalties, because those penalties can be written off as tax deductions while fines cannot. But the states have more flexibility in spending money derived from fines.

To date, BP has agreed to pay an estimated $30 billion in fines, settlement payments and cleanup costs related to the Deepwater Horizon explosion, which killed 11 workers aboard the rig. And so far, company officials have said that they have no intention of acceding to demands from the states for huge economic damages.

Still, the stakes for BP in the trial are high. If the company is found in this first phase of the trial to have acted with gross negligence, BP could face up to $17.5 billion in penalties, much of that in fines that would hit the bottom line hardest because those fines do not qualify as tax deductions.

The lack of a unified strategy to date among the states has also posed another problem for BP; companies are less likely to settle a major lawsuit if they know yet another one is waiting.

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The Lede: Syrian Television's Most Outraged Bystander

Last Updated, Friday, 2:41 p.m. In the aftermath of a deadly bombing in Damascus on Thursday, a man emerged from a small knot of bystanders crowded around a camera crew from Syrian state television to vent his anger at the foreign Islamist fighters he held responsible. “We the Syrian people,” he said, “place the blame on the Nusra Front, the Takfiri oppressors and armed Wahhabi terrorists from Saudi Arabia that are armed and trained in Turkey.”

A report on Thursday’s bombing in Damascus from Syrian state television’s YouTube channel.

Pointing at the ruined street near the headquarters of President Bashar al-Assad’s ruling Baath Party, the man described the location as “a civilian place — a mosque, an elementary school, the homes of local families.”

Watching a copy of the report online, Rime Allaf, a Syrian writer monitoring the conflict from Vienna, noticed that this man on the street, whose views so closely echoed those of the Syrian government, had a very familiar face. That is because, as opposition activists demonstrated last year, the same man had already appeared at least 18 times in the forefront or background of such reports since the start of the uprising.

Man who appears on #Syria TV as “innocent bystander” with every Damascus car bomb has again appeared today. http://t.co/PmPRhzUUBN

— Rime Allaf (@rallaf) 21 Feb 13

After she posted a screenshot of the man’s latest appearance on Thursday, Ms. Allaf observed on Twitter that “it would be funny if there weren’t so many victims of Syria regime terrorism!”

As The Lede noted last July, the man was even featured in two more reports the same day, attending a small pro-Assad rally in Damascus.

Two pro-Assad television channels in Syria interviewed the same man on the street at a rally in July 2012.

Mocking the dark comedy of government-run channels recycling the same die-hard Assad supporter in so many reports, activists put together several video compilations of his appearances in the state media. The most comprehensive, posted online last June, featured excerpts from 18 reports (including two from international broadcasters).

A compilation of Syrian state media reports featuring the same Assad supporter again and again.

Another highlight reel, uploaded to YouTube 13 months ago by a government critic, showed that after the man had spoken at least five times on state-run television, he appeared in the background of a BBC report wearing a military uniform.

A man who is frequently interviewed on Syrian state television in civilian dress appeared in the background of a BBC report wearing a military uniform.

As longtime readers of The Lede may recall, during the dispute over Iran’s 2009 presidential election, opposition bloggers noticed that one particularly die-hard supporter of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad also appeared again and again and again in photographs of pro-government rallies.

While there is no way to determine just who is responsible for Syrian television’s frequent interviews with this same man on the street, there is some evidence that Iran has advised Syria on how to report bombings on state television.

Last year, when The Guardian published a trove of hacked e-mails taken from the in-boxes of Syrian officials, one message forwarded to the president appeared to include advice from Iranian state television’s bureau chief in Damascus on what his Syrian counterparts should report after bombings. That e-mail, from Hussein Mortada, a Lebanese journalist who runs coverage of Syria for the Iranian government’s satellite news channels, complained that the government was not heeding directions he had received “from Iran and Hezbollah,” the Lebanese militant group, about who Syria should blame for bomb attacks. “It is not in our interest to say that Al Qaeda is behind” every bombing, Mr. Mortada wrote, “because such statements clear the U.S. administration and the Syrian opposition of any responsibility.”

Friday, 2:28 p.m. Update: As a reader of The Lede pointed out on Twitter after this post was published, Syrian activists noticed that the frequent bystander had also appeared at the very start of a graphic video clip recorded just after the bomb attack in Damascus on Thursday. In the first few seconds of that clip, which was copied from a pro-Assad Facebook page by opposition activists, the bearded man appeared to be directing a group of men in civilian dress who rushed to a car to help a badly wounded victim of the bombing to an ambulance.

A copy of graphic video of the aftermath of a bombing in Damascus on Thursday, originally uploaded to a pro-Assad Facebook page.

A version of this article appeared in print on 02/22/2013, on page A4 of the NewYork edition with the headline: Backing Assad, In 18 Videos, A Recycled Fan.

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Oscar Pistorius gets bail as murder trial looms

PRETORIA, South Africa (AP) — Oscar Pistorius walked out of a South African court Friday a free man — for now — after a magistrate agreed to release him on bail ahead of his premeditated murder trial over the shooting death of his girlfriend.

But even as he was driven away from court and chased by videographers and photographers, questions continued to hound the Paralympian about what actually happened when he opened fire on Valentine's Day inside his home and killed Reeva Steenkamp.

Chief Magistrate Desmond Nair, who agreed to bail with harsh restrictions for the athlete, expressed his own doubts about Pistorius' story. Those questions, highlighted at a four-day bail hearing that at times foreshadowed his coming trial, come from Pistorius' account that he felt threatened and mistook Steenkamp for an intruder when he fired the four shots at her in his bathroom.

"Why would (Pistorius) venture further into danger?" Nair asked.

Pistorius' supporters shouted "Yes!" when Nair made his decision after a nearly two hour explanation of his ruling to a packed courtroom in Pretoria, South Africa's capital. Yet when prosecutors and the defense said they agreed to bail terms, Nair more than doubled those conditions for the 26-year-old runner to be free ahead of trial.

Nair set the bail at 1 million rand ($113,000), with $11,300 in cash up front and proof that the rest is available. The magistrate said Pistorius must hand over his passports and also turn in any other guns that he owns. Pistorius also cannot leave the district of Pretoria without the permission of his probation officer, Nair said, nor can he take drugs or drink alcohol.

Pistorius' family members hugged each other after the decision was read, with tears in their eyes.

"We are relieved at the fact that Oscar got bail today but at the same time we are in mourning for the death of Reeva with her family," said Pistorius' uncle, Arnold Pistorius. "As a family, we know Oscar's version of what happened on that tragic night and we know that that is the truth and that will prevail in the coming court case."

Sharon Steenkamp, Reeva's cousin, had said earlier that the family wouldn't be watching the bail decision and hadn't been following the hearing in Pretoria.

"It doesn't make any difference to the fact that we are without Reeva," she told The Associated Press.

Nair set Pistorius' next court appearance for June 4. The Olympian left the courthouse in a silver Land Rover, sitting in the rear, just more than an hour after the magistrate imposed the bail conditions. The vehicle, tailed by motorcycles carrying television cameramen aboard, later pulled into the home of Pistorius' uncle.

Pistorius left behind more than a dozen international and local television crews at the red-brick courthouse. It's a sign of the growing global fascination with a case involving an inspirational athlete and his beautiful, law-school graduate girlfriend, who was a model and reality TV show contestant.

During Friday's long session in Pretoria Magistrate's Court, Pistorius alternately wept and appeared solemn and more composed, especially toward the end as Nair criticized police procedures in the case and as a judgment in Pistorius' favor appeared imminent. He showed no reaction as he was granted bail.

Before the hearing, Pistorius' longtime coach Ampie Louw said he hoped to put his runner back into his morning and afternoon training routine if he got bail.

"The sooner he can start working the better," said Louw, who was the person who convinced the double-amputee to take up track as a teenager a decade ago. But he acknowledged Pistorius could be "heartbroken" and unwilling to immediately pull on his carbon-fiber running blades, the reason behind his "Blade Runner" nickname.

There is one place, however, where Nair ordered that Pistorius cannot go: His upscale home in a gated community in the eastern suburbs of Pretoria, where he killed Steenkamp in the predawn hours of Feb. 14.

Pistorius said in a sworn statement to the court that he shot his girlfriend accidentally, believing she was an intruder in his house. He described "a sense of terror rushing over" him and feeling vulnerable because he stood only on his stumps before opening fire.

Prosecutors, however, say he intended to kill Steenkamp, saying the shooting followed a loud argument between the two. Yet despite poking holes in Pistorius' statement — they questioned why he didn't notice his girlfriend missing despite walking past the bed and brought up incidents that they said highlighted his temper — their case unraveled through testimony by the police's lead investigator in the case, Detective Warrant Officer Hilton Botha.

Botha, who faces seven charges of attempted murder in an unrelated incident, was removed from the case Thursday. His replacement, the nation's top detective Vinesh Moonoo, stopped briefly by the hearing Friday. Prosecution spokesman Medupe Simasiku said later Friday: "We're still confident in our case."

While Nair leveled harsh criticism at Botha for "errors" and "blunders," he said one man does not represent an investigation and that the state could not be expected to put all "the pieces of the puzzle" together in such a short time. The magistrate questioned whether Pistorius would be a flight risk and be prepared to go "ducking and diving" around the world when he stood to lose a fortune in cash, cars, property and other assets.

Pistorius faced the sternest bail requirements in South Africa because of the seriousness of the charge. His defense lawyers had to prove that he would not flee the country, would not interfere with witnesses or the case and his release would not cause public unrest. They also had to show "exceptional" circumstances for his release as well, something Nair said could be found in the "weak" case offered by prosecutors.

Yet the magistrate still anticipated the shape of the state's case at trial. Nair said he had serious questions about Pistorius' account: Why didn't he try to locate his girlfriend on fearing an intruder was in the house? Why didn't he try to determine who was in the bathroom? And why would he venture into perceived "danger" — the bathroom area — when he could have taken other steps to ensure his safety?

Touching those unanswered questions, Nair said: "There are improbabilities which need to be explored."

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AP Sports Writer Gerald Imray contributed to this report from Johannesburg.

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Jon Gambrell can be reached at www.twitter.com/jongambrellAP .

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Question Mark: Acne Common in Baby Boomers Too

Pimples are no surprise on babies and teenagers, but boomers?

You no longer have to gaze over a school lunchroom, hoping to find a seat at a socially acceptable table. You don’t rush to get home at night before your junior license driving restrictions kick in. And you men no longer have to worry that your voice will skip an octave without warning.

But if adolescence is over, what is that horrid protuberance staring at you in the mirror from the middle of your forehead? Some speak of papules, pustules and nodules, but we will use the technical term: zit. That thing on your forehead now is the same thing that was there back in high school, or at least a close relative. Same as it ever was (cue “Once in a Lifetime”).

We get more than the occasional complaint here from baby boomers who want to know about this aging body part or that. So you would think people would be happy with any emblem of youth — even if it is sore and angry-looking and threatening to erupt at any second. But oddly, there are those who are not happy to see pimples again, and some have asked for an explanation.

Acne occurs when the follicles that connect the pores of the skin to oil glands become clogged with a mixture of hair, oils and skin cells, and bacteria in the plug causes swelling, experts say. A pimple grows as the plug breaks down.

According to the American Academy of Dermatology, a growing number of women in their 30s, 40s, 50s and even beyond are seeking treatment for acne. Middle-age men are also susceptible to breakouts, but less so, experts say.

In some cases, people suffer from acne that began in their teenage years and never really went away. Others had problems when they were younger and then enjoyed decades of mostly clear skin. Still others never had much of the way of pimples until they were older.

Whichever the case, the explanation for adult acne is likely to be the same as it is for acne found in teenagers and, for that matter, newborns: hormonal changes. “We know that all acne is hormonally driven and hormonally sensitive,” said Dr. Bethanee J. Schlosser, an assistant professor of dermatology at Northwestern.

Among baby boomers, the approach of menopause may result in a drop in estrogen, a hormone that can help keep pimples from forming, and increased levels of androgens, the male hormone. Women who stop taking birth control pills may also see a drop in their estrogen levels.

Debate remains over what role diet plays in acne. Some experts say that foods once thought to cause pimples, like chocolate, are probably not a problem. Still, while sugar itself is no longer believed to contribute to acne, some doctors think that foods with a high glycemic index – meaning they quickly elevate glucose in the body — might. White bread and sweetened cereals are examples. And for all ages, stress has also been found to play a role.

One message to acne sufferers has not changed over the years. Your mother was right: don’t pop it! It can cause scarring.

Questions about aging? E-mail boomerwhy@nytimes.com

Booming: Living Through the Middle Ages offers news and commentary about baby boomers, anchored by Michael Winerip. You can follow Booming via RSS here or visit nytimes.com/booming. You can reach us by e-mail at booming@nytimes.com.

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