Chastened by heavy criticism from lawmakers, a grim-faced BP chief executive Tony Hayward said Thursday he was "deeply sorry" for his company's catastrophic oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

"I understand the seriousness of the situation, the frustrations and fears that continue to be voiced," he told a House investigations subcommittee.

But before testifying, Hayward had to endure more than an hour of mostly unrelenting criticism from Democrats and Republicans alike.

"We are not small people, but we wish to get our lives back," Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., the panel's chairman, told Hayward, throwing back at the oil giant comments made the day before by BP Chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg — about how BP sympathized with the "small people" of the Gulf — and Hayward's earlier remark that he wanted his "life back."

In a sharp exchange, Stupak noted that over the past five years, 26 had died and 700 were injured in BP accidents — including the Gulf spill, a pipeline spill in Alaska and a refinery explosion in Texas. He asked Hayward whether the government should ban drilling by companies with such "poor safety records?"

Hayward insisted that safety had always been his top priority and "that is why I am so devastated with this accident." When he became CEO, Hayward said he would focus "like a laser" on safety, a phrase he repeated on Thursday.

A Dutch court is deciding whether a 14-year-old girl should be released from state custody so she can try to become the youngest person to sail solo around the globe.

Child welfare authorities are seeking a two-month extension of Laura Dekker's guardianship.

Since she was made a ward of the state last year, Dekker has been trying to satisfy concerns for her safety and welfare.

Last weekend she made a solo trip to England and back — 22 hours each way — to show her command of her small yacht and its seaworthiness.

Her lawyer says Laura has obtained a first-aid diploma and has been getting accustomed to lack of sleep. Arrangements are being made for her schooling.

The court in the southern city of Middelburg is making its announcement Thursday.

A Philadelphia court has awarded more than $4.5 million to a mesothelioma plaintiff and his wife of 57 years. Few mesothelioma plaintiffs live long enough to hear a final verdict in their cases, making the outcome of this reverse bifurcated trial especially significant.

Waters & Kraus, LLP, and the Shein Law Center, LTD, served as plaintiff’s counsel for former U.S. Navy engineman John Koeberle. The plaintiff was diagnosed with malignant pleural mesothelioma in April 2009. Under the reverse bifurcated system, Phase I requires a jury to first determine whether the plaintiff’s illness was caused by asbestos exposure. Neither the names of the manufacturers nor a suggested dollar amount for damages may be mentioned to the jury during this phase. According to Waters & Kraus attorney Demetrios Zacharopoulos, the team’s first order of business was to support the diagnosis of mesothelioma. Typically, the diagnosis is based on hard tissue samples, but Mr. Koeberle’s doctors advised that the physical risks associated with obtaining tissue samples from his lung were not in the plaintiff’s best interest. As a result, the diagnosis was made based on cytological examinations of fluids taken from Mr. Koeberle’s chest cavity — a diagnosis which was made by Mr. Koeberle’s treating physician and confirmed by Plaintiff’s medical expert Gordon Yu, M.D.

According to Mr. Koeberle’s testimony, his Naval duties from 1948 to 1957 included maintenance work on diesel engines, valves, and pumps requiring the replacement of asbestos-containing gasket and packing materials. Frequently, the removal of these materials involved scraping and wire-brushing, which generated conditions he described as “very dusty.” In addition, the process of inserting new gaskets and packing often involved cutting sheet material to fabricate a custom fit.

After a nine-day trial, the jury concluded that Mr. Koeberle’s exposure to asbestos was indeed a contributing cause of his mesothelioma. Mr. Koeberle was awarded $3 million under the Survival Act, and Mrs. Koeberle was awarded $1.5 million for loss of consortium, or deprivation of the benefits of a family relationship due to illness or injury.

The Phase II liability proceeding was a bench trial in which the court found John Crane Inc., the lone remaining defendant of seven original manufacturers in the case, liable for Mr. Koeberle’s illness under Section 402A’s strict liability rule. The plaintiff recalled seeing the name of the defendant and manufacturer, John Crane Inc., on the boxes he used while maintaining and repairing equipment for the Navy.

The judge ruled that Mr. Koeberle’s exposure to John Crane asbestos-containing gaskets and packing was a factual cause in the development of Mr. Koeberle’s mesothelioma. As a result, John Crane is liable for one-seventh of the amount of damages rendered by the Jury in Phase I.

Although Mr. Koeberle was too ill to be in the courtroom when the final decision was announced on June 3, WK attorney Demetrios Zacharopoulos said the plaintiff and his family are both pleased and relieved.

“These cases are never easy,” explained Mr. Zacharopoulos. “As with all of our cases, we pushed to expedite proceedings — and in this instance, Mr. Koeberle and his family were able to witness justice being rendered and having John Crane held accountable for its actions. They’re very pleased with the result, and they’re relieved that they can now move on and experience some closure.”

About Waters & Kraus, LLP
Waters & Kraus, LLP, is a plaintiffs’ firm concentrating on complex product liability and personal injury/wrongful death cases. The firm’s diverse practice includes toxic tort (asbestos and mesothelioma) litigation, pharmaceutical product liability, negligence, and consumer product liability, as well as qui tam (whistle-blower), and commercial litigation. With offices in Maryland, Texas, California, and Waters & Kraus has litigated cases in jurisdictions across the United States on behalf of individuals from all 50 states, as well as foreign governments.

President Barack Obama met on his own turf with top BP officials on Wednesday to press his demands that the London-based oil giant pay into a claims fund for victims of the worst oil spill in the nation's history.

BP Chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg, CEO Tony Hayward, and other officials walked slowly as a group from the Southwest Gate of the White House, where they were dropped off, and climbed the steps leading to the West Wing.

The meeting comes the morning after Obama vowed to an angry nation that "we will make BP pay for the damage their company has caused." BP is the majority owner of the deep water well that blew out on April 20, killing 11 rig workers and triggering the spill.

It was Obama's first meeting with BP officials since the spill. While Hayward has served as the voice of the company, the White House has been emphasizing the role of the company's chairman, Svanberg, instead.

Obama in his speech to the nation from the Oval Office backed creation of a fund administered by an independent trustee to pay damages and clean up costs associated with the spill.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and other Democrats have suggested the fund be established with $20 billion from BP.

A New Mexico-based uranium producer plans to move forward with a mining operation in the western part of the state after that a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday that its land is not part of Indian Country.

The full 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver ruled in a 6-5 decision that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency erred when it determined that a parcel of land near the Navajo community of Church Rock was Indian land.

The decision means that Hydro Resources Inc. can seek an underground injection control permit from the state of New Mexico rather than the EPA, which has permitting authority on tribal lands.

Hydro Resources wants to inject chemicals into the ground to release uranium and pump the solution to the surface in a process called in-situ leaching.

City lawyers called on local Boy Scout officials to muster "the courage of their convictions" and challenge their national group's ban on gays as a trial over government funding opened Tuesday.

The city of Philadelphia wants to end its $1-a-year lease to the local Boy Scouts chapter unless it rejects a Boy Scouts of America policy banning "avowed" gays. The city says the national rule violates a local law banning discrimination on sexual-orientation and other grounds.

Local scout chapters, including the Cradle of Liberty Council in Philadelphia, have struggled in recent years to satisfy both public and private funders as well as their national leadership's dictums. The Boy Scout oath calls for members to be "morally straight," which the national group interprets to mean that gays cannot participate.

In 2004, the Philadelphia chapter agreed to ban any "unlawful" discrimination. But the city said the policy didn't go far enough, given that the U.S. Supreme Court in 2000 had said scouts and other private organizations can legally restrict membership.