Oscars 2013: An 'Argo' night at Academy Awards

For the second straight year, the movie business fell for itself.

"Argo" — in which a Hollywood producer and makeup artist help engineer the rescue of six Americans from Iran — won the top prize at the 85th Academy Awards, one year after the silent film story "The Artist" took the best picture Oscar.

"I never thought I'd be back here. And I am," producer-director Ben Affleck said in accepting the best picture trophy Sunday night, 15 years after he won an original screenplay Oscar for "Good Will Hunting" and then saw his career fall into a tailspin that included "Gigli" and "Daredevil."

FULL COVERAGE: Oscars 2013 | Winners

"It doesn't matter how you get knocked down in life. That's going to happen," said Affleck, who wasn't nominated for directing "Argo," one of nine films in the best picture race. "All that matters is that you've got to get up."

"Argo," which became the first movie to win best picture without its director being nominated since 1989's "Driving Miss Daisy," collected two other Academy Awards, for editing and adapted screenplay. But it was not the evening's most recognized film: That honor went to Ang Lee's "Life of Pi," which won four Oscars — for directing, visual effects, cinematography and score.

"Thank you, movie god," said Lee, whose movie came into the evening with 11 nominations, one behind Steven Spielberg's "Lincoln." The film about the 16th president helped Daniel Day-Lewis make movie history, as he became the only man to ever win three lead actor statuettes. "Lincoln" won one other prize, for production design.

The song-and-dance heavy ceremony, hosted by Seth MacFarlane, hewed closely to a traditional awards show script, but there were several surprises. First Lady Michelle Obama, who joined the ABC telecast from the White House, announced "Argo" as the best picture. And the ceremony featured only the sixth tie in Oscar history and the first since 1994, with the sound editing award split between "Zero Dark Thirty" and "Skyfall." For the first time in Oscar history, six best picture nominees were $100-million blockbusters.

The ceremony was billed as a tribute to music in film, and boasted a number of extravagant musical numbers — including a medley of songs from movie musicals and an appearance by Barbra Streisand, who sang "The Way We Were." The telecast also paid homage to the long running James Bond series, with Adele singing the theme from "Skyfall" and Dame Shirley Bassey performing the theme from 1964's "Goldfinger."

Oscars 2013: Nominee list | Red carpet | Highlights

Jennifer Lawrence, 22, nabbed the lead actress prize for her role as an emotionally unstable widow in "Silver Linings Playbook" — and promptly tripped over her long dress walking up the stairs to accept her statuette. The crowd quickly gave her a standing ovation. "You guys are just standing up because you feel bad that I fell and that's embarrassing," Lawrence said to the applauding crowd at the Dolby Theatre.

The evening's very first award — for supporting actor — was a shocker, with long shot Christoph Waltz winning for his role as bounty hunter Dr. King Schultz in Quentin Tarantino's "Django Unchained" over favored contenders Robert De Niro ("Silver Linings Playbook") and Tommy Lee Jones ("Lincoln"). Waltz, who won the same award three years ago for Tarantino's "Inglourious Basterds," dedicated his prize to his writer-director, who also won the Oscar for original screenplay. "We participated in a hero's journey — the hero being Quentin," Waltz said.

Tarantino pulled off a mild surprise with the screenplay triumph for his slave-revenge tale. He dedicated his award to his eclectic cast of actors. "I actually think if people know my movies 30-50 years from now it's because of the characters I create," Tarantino said.

Anne Hathaway's supporting actress win for her emotionally raw portrayal of a doomed seamstress in "Les Misérables" was hardly as startling. The 30-year-old had been the odds-on favorite to win since the film first screened for members of the Motion Picture Academy in late November. "It came true," she stage-whispered as she picked up her trophy for her performance, the centerpiece of which is the lament "I Dreamed a Dream."

Oscars 2013: Backstage | Quotes | Best & Worst moments

Some of the evening's wins were bittersweet.

The animated feature Oscar was shared by "Brave" directors Mark Andrews and Brenda Chapman, an unusual pairing given that Chapman was fired from the Pixar Animation Studios film and replaced by Andrews in the middle of production. "Making these are a struggle — it's a battle, it's a war," Andrews said backstage. "I was very happy it was him who took my place," Chapman said.

Rhythm & Hues Studios, the company behind "Life of Pi's" visual effects win, recently filed for bankruptcy and laid off hundreds of its employees. As Oscar winner Bill Westenhofer addressed the situation in his acceptance speech, he ran over time and the theme from "Jaws" began to play him off the stage. His microphone was cut off just as he said the words "I urge you all…"

William Goldenberg was a double nominee in the film editing category — he worked on both "Argo" and "Zero Dark Thirty" — and won the prize for Affleck's CIA drama.

"Working at my father's deli, I had to do a million things at one time," Goldenberg said backstage about the best training for his job. "It really does prepare you for the multitasking it takes to be in an editing room."

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Warner Bros. takes home Oscar gold, sales boost for “Argo”

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Time Warner Inc‘s Warner Bros. basked in the golden glow of coveted Best Picture Oscar for its Iran hostage drama “Argo” on Sunday, giving the Ben Affleck film a likely boost for its ticket and home entertainment sales.

Hollywood‘s big night often proves a boon to studios that take home Oscars, and this year the haul was spread among several major film companies.

Among the Best Picture competitors, shipwreck drama “Life of Pi” from News Corp’s 20th Century Fox studio earned the most awards – four – including Best Director for Ang Lee.

“Les Miserables,” made by Comcast Corp’s Universal Pictures, secured a Best Supporting Actress win for Anne Hathaway and two others.

Besides grabbing the big prize, “Argo” took home two other trophies for Best Adapted Screenplay and Film Editing.

Winning a golden statuette can boost receipts by one-third or more.

Last year, ticket sales for “The Artist” gained 41 percent after it won the top film prize, according to the box office division of Hollywood.com.

Before this year’s awards show, the nominees already racked up a combined $ 2 billion in global sales, with six of the nine contenders topping $ 100 million at the domestic box office.

Ticket sales for “Argo,” directed by and starring Ben Affleck, surpassed the expectations of Warner Bros. executives, topping $ 127 million at theaters in the United States and Canada, plus $ 77 million in international markets. The film was released on DVD last week and should see a spike in sales.

When Lionsgate Entertainment surprisingly took home the gold for “Crash” in 2006, it had already been released in both the theatrical and DVD markets. Its DVD sales spiked after the Academy Awards, with Lionsgate selling 17,500 copies of “Crash” in one day after the Oscars, more than half the previous week’s entire total of 33,000.

“Argo,” a $ 45 million production, recounts a real-life CIA mission to rescue six American diplomats from Iran after the 1979 Islamic Revolution, under the cover of making a fake Hollywood film called “Argo.”

Fox’s “Life of Pi” had scored $ 583 million in global ticket sales ahead of Sunday night’s awards, overcoming skepticism that the book adaptation about a boy stranded on a lifeboat with a tiger would work on the big screen.

“Everyone at Fox, thank you for taking the leap with me!” Lee said onstage as he accepted his Best Director award.

The victory for “Argo” in the Best Picture category ended the winning streak for independent studio The Weinstein Company, which took home the Best Picture trophy last year for “The Artist” and the prior year for “The King’s Speech.”

The studio run by brothers Harvey and Bob Weinstein went into the night with 16 nominations, including Best Picture nominations for “Silver Linings Playbook” and “Django Unchained.”

The Weinstein Company finished the evening with three awards, including Best Supporting Actor for Christoph Waltz in “Django” and Best Actress for Jennifer Lawrence in “Silver Linings.”

Fox, which led rivals going into the ceremony with 31 nominations, ended the night with a total of six, four for “Pi” and two for the international distribution of “Lincoln.”

Sony topped all studios with seven wins, including best foreign language film “Amour” and Best Documentary for “Searching for Sugar Man.” It shared in the two wins for “Django” as the film’s international distributor.

Sony’s thriller, “Zero Dark Thirty,” the controversial account of the CIA’s search for Osama bin Laden, landed just one technical award, for sound editing, in a category that was a tie.

Walt Disney Co earned the Best Animated Feature award for Pixar movie “Brave” about a spunky red-headed princess, plus three other awards.

Disney-distributed film “Lincoln,” produced by Steven Spielberg’s DreamWorks, went home with just two statuettes, Best Actor for Daniel Day-Lewis and Production Design, after going into the night with an industry-leading 12 nominations.

The film about the 16th U.S. president is leading Best Picture nominees in the box office race, however, selling $ 179 million worth of tickets at U.S. and Canadian theaters in addition to $ 59 million in international markets

(Edited by Ronald Grover and Mary Milliken)

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Mediterranean Diet Can Cut Heart Disease, Study Finds

About 30 percent of heart attacks, strokes and deaths from heart disease can be prevented in people at high risk if they switch to a Mediterranean diet rich in olive oil, nuts, beans, fish, fruits and vegetables, and even drink wine with meals, a large and rigorous new study found.

The findings, published on the New England Journal of Medicine’s Web site on Monday, were based on the first major clinical trial to measure the diet’s effect on heart risks. The magnitude of the diet’s benefits startled experts. The study ended early, after almost five years, because the results were so clear it was considered unethical to continue.

The diet helped those following it even though they did not lose weight and most of them were already taking statins, or blood pressure or diabetes drugs to lower their heart disease risk.

“Really impressive,” said Rachel Johnson, a professor of nutrition at the University of Vermont and a spokeswoman for the American Heart Association. “And the really important thing — the coolest thing — is that they used very meaningful end points. They did not look at risk factors like cholesterol of hypertension or weight. They looked at heart attacks and strokes and death. At the end of the day, that is what really matters.”

Until now, evidence that the Mediterranean diet reduced the risk of heart disease was weak, based mostly on studies showing that people from Mediterranean countries seemed to have lower rates of heart disease — a pattern that could have been attributed to factors other than diet.

And some experts had been skeptical that the effect of diet could be detected, if it existed at all, because so many people are already taking powerful drugs to reduce heart disease risk, while other experts hesitated to recommend the diet to people who already had weight problems, since oils and nuts have a lot of calories.

Heart disease experts said the study was a triumph because it showed that a diet is powerful in reducing heart disease risk, and it did so using the most rigorous methods. Scientists randomly assigned 7,447 people in Spain who were overweight, were smokers, had diabetes or other risk factors for heart disease to follow the Mediterranean diet or a low-fat one.

Low-fat diets have not been shown in any rigorous way to be helpful, and they are also very hard for patients to maintain — a reality born out in the new study, said Dr. Steven E. Nissen, chairman of the department of cardiovascular medicine at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation.

“Now along comes this group and does a gigantic study in Spain that says you can eat a nicely balanced diet with fruits and vegetables and olive oil and lower heart disease by 30 percent,” he said. “And you can actually enjoy life.”

The study, by Dr. Ramon Estruch, a professor of medicine at the University of Barcelona, and his colleagues, was long in the planning. The investigators traveled the world, seeking advice on how best to answer the question of whether a diet alone could make a big difference in heart disease risk. They visited the Harvard School of Public Health several times to consult Dr. Frank M. Sacks, a professor of cardiovascular disease prevention there.

In the end, they decided to randomly assign subjects at high risk of heart disease to three groups. One would be given a low-fat diet and counseled on how to follow it. The other two groups would be counseled to follow a Mediterranean diet. At first the Mediterranean dieters got more intense support. They met regularly with dietitians while the low-fat group just got an initial visit to train them in how to adhere to the diet followed by a leaflet each year on the diet. Then the researchers decided to add more intensive counseling for them, too, but they still had difficulty staying with the diet.

One group assigned to a Mediterranean diet was given extra virgin olive oil each week and was instructed to use at least 4 tablespoons a day. The other group got a combination of walnuts, almonds and hazelnuts and was instructed to eat about an ounce of them each day. An ounce of walnuts, for example, is about a quarter cup — a generous handful. The mainstays of the diet consisted of at least 3 servings a day of fruits and at least two servings of vegetables. Participants were to eat fish at least three times a week and legumes, which include beans, peas and lentils, at least three times a week. They were to eat white meat instead of red, and, for those accustomed to drinking, to have at least 7 glasses of wine a week with meals.

They were encouraged to avoid commercially made cookies, cakes and pastries and to limit their consumption of dairy products and processed meats.

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BP Trial Opens, With Possible Deal in Background

NEW ORLEANS — The long-awaited civil trial against BP and its contractors stemming from the 2010 explosion of a drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico that left 11 dead and soiled hundreds of beaches began on Monday, even as settlement talks appeared to intensify between the oil company and federal and state goverments.

Jim Roy, the lead lawyer of private plaintiffs, started the trial with a scathing attack on BP for ignoring multiple signs of problems on the rig and in routine maintenance of safety tests and equipment that led to the Macondo well accident.

“BP made a series of decisions to save time and money that substantially increased risk,” Mr. Roy told a packed courtroom. He said the decisions were typical of “a culture of profit and production over safety.”

In more than an hour of testimony, Mr. Roy noted that BP had decided to employ single-walled drill pipe, which provided inferior barriers to leaks, and it decided that it was not necessary to circulate drilling mud, a method designed to strengthen cement, before installing a seal on the well. He reminded the court that BP opted against conducting a cement bond test, an acoustics test that could have identified the gas that had leached into the piping during the well cementing process.

And finally, he said, using information that has previously been described in numerous government and private reports since the accident, BP ignored the results of a failed pressure test shortly before the well was sealed and blew out.

But Mr. Roy also argued that Transocean, the owner and operator of the Deepwater Horizon rig, had failed to adequately train its employees in emergency operations, and Halliburton was deficient in testing and mixing the cement to seal the well.

The first phase of the trial, which was expected to last three months under Judge Carl J. Barbier of Federal District Court in New Orleans, will determine whether BP or its contractors were “grossly negligent” in causing the accident.

Many of Mr. Roy’s arguments will be repeated in later opening statements by the Justice Department and gulf state attorneys general. BP and its contractors will contest much of the testimony, and they are expected to lay various degrees of blame on each other. The private plaintiffs in the trial, including thousands of businesses and individuals, are suing for damages from all the companies.

At the same time, details of a settlement offer by federal and state officials to the oil company began to emerge over the weekend. The plan, worth a total of $16 billion, would limit the fines paid by BP under the Clean Water Act to $6 billion, a proposal that could help reduce its tax liability, one person briefed on the plan said Sunday, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

BP would also pay $9 billion in penalties to cover damages to natural resources as well as the cost of restoration, that person said. The remaining $1 billion would be set aside in a fund that could be tapped if unanticipated environmental damages related to the spill developed.

No one at BP, the Justice Department or the states involved has commented on any settlement proposal, but several lawyers briefed on the negotiations said that a $16 billion proposal had been made. The affected states are Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas, although only Alabama and Louisiana are participating in the trial.

Even if settlement talks slow or stall, the proposal represents a big breakthrough for several reasons, lawyers briefed on the talks said. For one, it represents the first time that Louisiana, which was hardest hit by the spill and would receive the largest payout of any state from a settlement, has participated in an offer.

In addition, the proposal signals the first agreement among states and the federal government on two other crucial issues: a rough plan for how the states would divide any settlement money, and how the settlement would balance fines and penalties against BP.

BP pleaded guilty last year to 14 criminal charges, including manslaughter; admitted negligence in misreading important tests before the blowout; and agreed to pay $4.5 billion in fines and other penalties. The Justice Department has also filed criminal charges against four BP employees.

Last February, a trial to resolve claims against BP by individuals and businesses affected by the spill was delayed by Judge Barbier on the eve of trial because of settlement talks. BP subsequently agreed to create a fund now valued at $8.5 billion to settle those claims. However, numerous individuals and businesses chose not to participate and are also parties to the trial that started Monday.

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Oscars stage manager braces for his final cues to the stars

He delivered a forgotten harmonica to Stevie Wonder onstage at the Grammy Awards, supplied a shoulder to lean on for a post-hip-surgery Gregory Peck at the Oscars and served as a human Xanax for hundreds of other stars in the most terrifying and exhilarating moments of their careers.

Stage manager Dency Nelson, 61, works behind the scenes at the Oscars, plus at times the Grammys, Screen Actors Guild Awards, Teen Choice Awards, MTV Movie Awards and other shows. This year will mark his 25th — and last, he said — Academy Awards, as he plans to retire from one of show business' least known but most stressful gigs.

An anonymous but critical piece of the Hollywood awards season machinery, stage managers like Nelson control the chaos of the live TV broadcast — they deliver the correct winning envelopes, ensure that the pop-up microphone actually pops up and, most delicately, orchestrate the flow of talent through the stage wings.

Oscars 2013: Nominee list | Ballot | Trivia | Timeline

An avuncular former hippie with twinkling green eyes, a silver earring and a scruffy, salt-and-pepper beard, Nelson is stationed in the stage-right wings, a hot spot where most of the Oscar telecast's jittery presenters enter and elated winners exit.

"It's like air traffic control," he said one recent afternoon at the Dolby Theatre at the Hollywood & Highland Center, where he was preparing for Sunday's show. "Ninety percent of the people in the room don't know my name, but when they round the corner and come into the wings there's a smile, 'Oh, that guy.'"

Even seasoned performers rely on stage managers for assurance in the unforgiving medium of live TV, and backstage figures like Nelson develop a rapport with stars they see at multiple shows.

Last year, before Meryl Streep stepped onto the Oscar stage to present an award, she reviewed her script, smoothed her gown and cast a tentative glance at Nelson. "You'll push me out when it's time?" she asked. He gently led the actress by the arm to the edge of the curtain, sending her off to face an audience of 40 million.

An hour later, after winning lead actress for "The Iron Lady," the first person an emotional Streep saw was Nelson, with a chair and a welcome water bottle.

"Dency's businesslike, but he makes people comfortable," said American Film Institute founder George Stevens Jr., who met him when the recent college grad was lugging heavy film reels for the L.A.-based nonprofit. Charmed by the young man's work ethic, nearly four decades later Stevens still hires him to stage-manage the "Kennedy Center Honors" and "Christmas in Washington" shows every year.

Many of the approximately 500-person backstage crew at the Oscars have been performers themselves, including head stage manager Gary Natoli (Nelson's boss) and a stage manager who specializes in talent, Valdez Flagg, both former actors and dancers.

TIMELINE: Academy Award winners

According to guild minimums, the stage managers must make at least $746 for a 12-hour day, and many work other steady jobs. Thanks to the proliferation of performance-based reality shows such as "American Idol" and "The Voice," there's a lot of work available for the specialized group who know how to do it.

Nelson has stage-managed the game show "Let's Make a Deal" and the syndicated variety program "The Wayne Brady Show."

"Anyone can do this job as long as nothing goes wrong," said Flagg. "If you can't go with the flow, you won't last. You'll freak out."

The year Wonder forgot his harmonica, for instance, the Grammys crew had to think quickly — how do you subtly signal a blind man? Ultimately, Nelson asked the director to frame a tight shot on the singer's face while he sneaked up from below and tugged on Wonder's pant-leg. At the Emmys, when an impostor tried to walk off with "Hill Street Blues" star Betty Thomas' trophy, Nelson skidded on stage with another.

And then there's that other occupational hazard: jerks. "People are just nervous in some cases and take it out on you," Nelson said with a shrug.

This year's Oscar telecast is a particularly taxing one for the stage crew, with many singing and dancing casts to maneuver. The consequences of a missed cue can be dire — at several points in the show, 34.5-foot lifts built into the stage floor will open to move scenery pieces.

Nelson, who grew up in Menlo Park the son of an Army auditor, originally wanted to be an actor. As a child he hosted the Andy Williams Christmas show by himself in front of the Christmas tree, with a toilet paper roll as a microphone.

After graduating from UC Santa Cruz with a degree in theater, he took a job as a driver and mail clerk for AFI and worked behind the scenes as "the guy who guarded the doughnuts" for the 1970s soap opera parody "Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman" and a cue card man for "Saturday Night Live" and David Letterman.

Play-at-home ballot: Have you made your picks yet?

Along the way he continued to act in commercials, basement theaters and tiny walk-on roles (in Woody Allen's "Manhattan," you can see Nelson stride across Park Avenue carrying an attaché case). "I wasn't really getting anywhere," he said. "I just saw my actor colleagues, their talent, and saw I'm not that."

The frustrated performance experience, however, gives Nelson a nuanced understanding of what the people he's pushing into the lights on Oscar night are feeling. "There have been plenty of times where I have held a trembling hand and smiled," he said. "I so admire anyone who can do that."

The stage crew prepares with the thoroughness of a military campaign. During rehearsals, Nelson marks his show rundown with different colors of highlighters and pens, noting when he'll send a performer upstage or where a piece of scenery will move. Unlike some younger stage managers, he still uses paper, not an electronic device, for storing his "road map."

In a change this year, six college film students will deliver the trophies onstage, instead of the usual cadre of models who float from show to show. On Wednesday, Nelson was coaching them on the subtle art of statuette distribution.

"Let the kiss and hug happen," he said, his hands stained with red ink from jotting notes on his script, six roles of tape swinging from his belt. "Just linger upstage, let that traffic happen."

At Nelson's first Oscars, before the students were born, Jack Lemmon was the host. Over the years, Nelson said he's noticed an evolution in the awards show scene, as older performers who approached show business with a certain gentility have given way to a more casual and sometimes cruder generation.

"I'm no prude, but there was a certain formality and respect to things," he said. "I'm sorry to see it go, although I understand the financial necessity 'cause it's about the ratings."

A married father of one grown daughter, Nelson lives in Hermosa Beach and is active in Democratic party politics and environmental causes; he helped found a nonprofit devoted to alternative vehicles called Plug in America (he owns two electric cars). Especially engaged in the union to which stage managers belong, the Directors Guild of America, this year he received the guild's Franklin J. Schaffner Award for service.

He said he's retiring to devote more time to his political passions, but he also appears ready to shed the pressures of awards season.

"I don't want to make any mistakes," Nelson said. "The worst is just before the show starts. That's awful. That last hour in the wings.... It's not calm inside. As I am nearing my retirement, I just keep thinking of Jack Nicholson's line in 'Terms of Endearment' ... 'Inches from a clean getaway.'"

Play-at-home ballot: Have you made your picks yet?

rebecca.keegan@latimes.com

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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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Athletes cash in on California's workers' comp

SACRAMENTO — In his seven-year career with the Denver Broncos, running back Terrell Davis, a former Super Bowl Most Valuable Player, dazzled fans with his speed and elusiveness.

At the end of his rookie year in 1995, he signed a $6.8-million, five-year contract. Off the field he endorsed Campbell's soup. And when he hung up his cleats, he reported for the National Football League Network and appeared in movies and TV shows.

So it may surprise Californians to find out that in 2011, Davis got a $199,000 injury settlement from a California workers' compensation court for injuries related to football. This came despite the fact Davis was employed by a Colorado team and played just nine times in California during an 88-game career, according to the NFL.

Davis was compensated for the lifelong effects of multiple injuries to the head, arms, trunk, legs and general body, according to California workers' compensation records.

He is not alone.

Over the last three decades, California's workers' compensation system has awarded millions of dollars in benefits for job-related injuries to thousands of professional athletes. The vast majority worked for out-of-state teams; some played as little as one game in the Golden State.

All states allow professional athletes to claim workers' compensation payments for specific job-related injuries — such as a busted knee, torn tendon or ruptured spinal disc — that happened within their borders. But California is one of the few that provides additional payments for the cumulative effect of injuries that occur over years of playing.

A growing roster of athletes are using this provision in California law to claim benefits. Since the early 1980s, an estimated $747 million has been paid out to about 4,500 players, according to an August study commissioned by major professional sports leagues. California taxpayers are not on the hook for these payments. Workers' compensation is an employer-funded program.

Now a major battle is brewing in Sacramento to make out-of-state players ineligible for these benefits, which are paid by the leagues and their insurers. They have hired consultants and lobbyists and expect to unveil legislation next week that would halt the practice.

"The system is completely out of whack right now," said Jeff Gewirtz, vice president of the Brooklyn Nets — formerly the New Jersey Nets — of the National Basketball Assn.

Major retired stars who scored six-figure California workers' compensation benefits include Moses Malone, a three-time NBA most valuable player with the Houston Rockets, Philadelphia 76ers and other teams. He was awarded $155,000. Pro Football Hall of Fame wide receiver Michael Irvin, formerly with the Dallas Cowboys, received $249,000. The benefits usually are calculated as lump-sum payments but sometimes are accompanied by open-ended agreements to provide lifetime medical services.

Players, their lawyers and their unions plan to mount a political offensive to protect these payouts.

Although the monster salaries of players such as Los Angeles Lakers guard Kobe Bryant and Denver Broncos quarterback Peyton Manning make headlines, few players bring in that kind of money. Most have very short careers. And some, particularly football players, end up with costly, debilitating injuries that haunt them for a lifetime but aren't sufficiently covered by league disability benefits.

Retired pros increasingly are turning to California, not only because of its cumulative benefits but also because there's a longer window to file a claim. The statute of limitations in some states expires in as little as a year or two.

"California is a last resort for a lot of these guys because they've already been cut off in the other states," said Mel Owens, a former Los Angeles Rams linebacker-turned-workers' compensation lawyer who has represented a number of ex-players.

To understand how it works, consider the career of Ernie Conwell. A former tight end for the St. Louis Rams and New Orleans Saints, he was paid $1.6 million for his last season in 2006.

Conwell said that during his 11-year career, he underwent about 18 surgeries, including 11 knee operations. Now 40, he works for the NFL players union and lives in Nashville.

Hobbled by injuries, he filed for workers' compensation in Louisiana and got $181,000 in benefits to cover his last, career-ending knee surgery in 2006, according to the Saints. The team said it also provided $195,000 in injury-related benefits as part of a collective-bargaining agreement with the players union.

But such workers' compensation benefits paid by Louisiana cover only specific injuries. So, to deal with what he expects to be the costs of ongoing health problems that he said affect his arms, legs, muscles, bones and head, Conwell filed for compensation in California and won.

Even though he played only about 20 times in the state over his professional career, he received a $160,000 award from a California workers' compensation judge plus future medical benefits, according to his lawyer. The Saints are appealing the judgment.

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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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Many States Say Cuts Would Burden Fragile Recovery

States are increasingly alarmed that they could become collateral damage in Washington’s latest fiscal battle, fearing that the impasse could saddle them with across-the-board spending cuts that threaten to slow their fragile recoveries or thrust them back into recession.

Some states, like Maryland and Virginia, are vulnerable because their economies are heavily dependent on federal workers, federal contracts and military spending, which will face steep reductions if Congress allows the automatic cuts, known as sequestration, to begin next Friday. Others, including Illinois and South Dakota, are at risk because of their reliance on the types of federal grants that are scheduled to be cut. And many states simply fear that a heavy dose of federal austerity could weaken their economies, costing them jobs and much-needed tax revenue.

So as state officials begin to draw up their budgets for next year, some say that the biggest risk they see is not the weak housing market or the troubled European economy but the federal government. While the threat of big federal cuts to states has become something of a semiannual occurrence in recent years, state officials said in interviews that they fear that this time the federal government might not be crying wolf — and their hopes are dimming that a deal will be struck in Washington in time to avert the cuts.

The impact would be widespread as the cuts ripple across the nation over the next year.

Texas expects to see its education aid slashed hundreds of millions of dollars, which could force local school districts to fire teachers, if the cuts are not averted. Michigan officials say they are in no position to replace the lost federal dollars with state dollars, but worry about cuts to federal programs like the one that helps people heat their homes. Maryland is bracing not only for a blow to its economy, which depends on federal workers and contractors and the many private businesses that support them, but also for cuts in federal aid for schools, Head Start programs, a nutrition program for pregnant women, mothers and children, and job training programs, among others.

Gov. Bob McDonnell of Virginia, a Republican, warned in a letter to President Obama on Monday that the automatic spending cuts would have a “potentially devastating impact” and could force Virginia and other states into a recession, noting that the planned cuts to military spending would be especially damaging to areas like Hampton Roads that have a big Navy presence. And he noted that the whole idea of the proposed cuts was that they were supposed to be so unpalatable that they would force officials in Washington to come up with a compromise.

“As we all know, the defense, and other, cuts in the sequester were designed to be a hammer, not a real policy,” Mr. McDonnell wrote. “Unfortunately, inaction by you and Congress now leaves states and localities to adjust to the looming threat of this haphazard idea.”

The looming cuts come just as many states feel they are turning the corner after the prolonged slump caused by the recession. Gov. Martin O’Malley of Maryland, a Democrat, said he was moving to increase the state’s cash reserves and rainy day funds as a hedge against federal cuts.

“I’d rather be spending those dollars on things that improve our business climate, that accelerate our recovery, that get more people back to work, or on needed infrastructure — transportation, roads, bridges and the like,” he said, adding that Maryland has eliminated 5,600 positions in recent years and that its government was smaller, on a per capita basis, than it had been in four decades. “But I can’t do that. I can’t responsibly do that as long as I have this hara-kiri Congress threatening to drive a long knife through our recovery.”

Federal spending on salaries, wages and procurement makes up close to 20 percent of the economies of Maryland and Virginia, according to an analysis by the Pew Center on the States.

But states are in a delicate position. While they fear the impact of the automatic cuts, they also fear that any deal to avert them might be even worse for their bottom lines. That is because many of the planned cuts would go to military spending and not just domestic programs, and some of the most important federal programs for states, including Medicaid and federal highway funds, would be exempt from the cuts.

States will see a reduction of $5.8 billion this year in the federal grant programs subject to the automatic cuts, according to an analysis by Federal Funds Information for States, a group created by the National Governors Association and the National Conference of State Legislatures that tracks the impact of federal actions on states. California, New York and Texas stand to lose the most money from the automatic cuts, and Puerto Rico, which is already facing serious fiscal distress, is threatened with the loss of more than $126 million in federal grant money, the analysis found.

Even with the automatic cuts, the analysis found, states are still expected to get more federal aid over all this year than they did last year, because of growth in some of the biggest programs that are exempt from the cuts, including Medicaid.

But the cuts still pose a real risk to states, officials said. State budget officials from around the country held a conference call last week to discuss the threatened cuts. “In almost every case the folks at the state level, the budget offices, are pretty much telling the agencies and departments that they’re not going to backfill — they’re not going to make up for the budget cuts,” said Scott D. Pattison, the executive director of the National Association of State Budget Officers, which arranged the call. “They don’t have enough state funds to make up for federal cuts.”

The cuts would not hit all states equally, the Pew Center on the States found. While the federal grants subject to the cuts make up more than 10 percent of South Dakota’s revenue, it found, they make up less than 5 percent of Delaware’s revenue.

Many state officials find themselves frustrated year after year by the uncertainty of what they can expect from Washington, which provides states with roughly a third of their revenues. There were threats of cuts when Congress balked at raising the debt limit in 2011, when a so-called super-committee tried and failed to reach a budget deal, and late last year when the nation faced the “fiscal cliff.”

John E. Nixon, the director of Michigan’s budget office, said that all the uncertainty made the state’s planning more difficult. “If it’s going to happen,” he said, “at some point we need to rip off the Band-Aid.”

Fernanda Santos contributed reporting.

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