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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Many Cruise Ship Lack Backup Power Systems, Vexing Regulators

Denis Poroy/Associated Press

The Carnival Splendor cruise ship was towed into San Diego Bay in 2010, after a fire destroyed its electrical systems.

It is becoming a familiar tale: When the cruise ship was towed into port, the endless hours for passengers of sleeping on deck and going without electricity or toilets were finally over.

“It was really hell,” said Bernice Spreckman, who is 77 and lives in Yonkers, N.Y. “I used my life jacket, which was flashing with a little light on it, to find a bathroom it was so dark.”

Ms. Spreckman was not among the 4,200 people aboard the Carnival Triumph who this month endured five days of sewage-soaked carpets and ketchup sandwiches. Her trial at sea came in 2010, on another ship run by Carnival Cruises, called the Splendor, which carried 4,500 passengers.

On both ships, fires broke out below decks, destroying the electrical systems and leaving them helpless. A preliminary Coast Guard inquiry into the Splendor found glaring deficiencies in its firefighting operations, including manuals that called for crew members to “pull” valves that were designed to turn.

But more than two years after the episode, the final report about what happened on the Splendor has yet to appear, a reflection of what critics say is a pattern of international regulatory roulette that governs cruise ship safety.

While the Splendor was based in the United States, the ship was legally registered in Panama, meaning the Panamanian Maritime Authority had the right to lead the investigation. But after the 2010 fire, Panamanian regulators chose to have the Coast Guard take over the inquiry. Then, officials in both countries apparently spent months trading drafts of their reports.

One official in Panama said the authority had completed its review of the Splendor report in October 2012. But a Coast Guard spokeswoman, Lisa Novak, said it still had not “finalized” the report. In the case of the Carnival Triumph, the regulatory scene will shift to the Bahamas, where that ship was registered.

In a recent letter to Coast Guard officials, Senator Jay Rockefeller, Democrat of West Virginia, said that cruise ships seemed to have two separate lives. Only during days near port are they closely monitored.

“Once they are beyond three nautical miles from shore, the world is theirs,” said the letter from Senator Rockefeller, who has headed recent inquiries into cruise ship safety.

Cruise industry officials point out that seaborne vacations are extremely safe and that some 20 million people go on cruises annually, with few problems. The most glaring exception to that record occurred last year when a vessel operated by a subsidiary of Carnival, the Costa Concordia, ran aground off the coast of Italy, resulting in 32 deaths.

In the Triumph’s case, the Coast Guard has said that the ship’s safety equipment failed to contain the blaze. And both the Triumph and the Splendor returned from their aborted voyages without serious injuries to passengers or crew.

But those successes also underscore what most travelers do not realize when they book cruises: nearly all ships lack backup systems to help them return to port should power fail because to install them would have cost operators more money.

The results are repeated episodes involving dead ships, with all the discomforts and potential dangers such situations can bring. In another case, in late 2012, the Costa Allegra cruise ship, a sister ship of the Concordia, lost power after a fire in the generator room and it had to be towed under guard from its location in the Indian Ocean.

In many ways, passengers aboard boats like the Triumph and Splendor were lucky because their ships were disabled in calm weather, when instead they could have been knocked out during storms, or when they were far out at sea or in pirate-infested waters, experts said.

“Anything that knocks a ship dead in the water is serious,” said Mark Gaouette, a safety expert and former Navy officer.

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The Lede: Reeva Steenkamp, Steve Biko and the Quest for Justice in South Africa

LONDON – The title of the presiding judge 35 years ago was the same, chief magistrate of Pretoria, and the venue for the hearing, a converted synagogue, was not far from the modern courthouse seen on television screens around the world in recent days as Oscar Pistorius, the gold medal-winning Paralympic athlete, fought for bail in the killing of his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp.

The case that unfolded in the last weeks of 1977, like the one featuring Mr. Pistorius, centered on a death that captured global attention. Then, too, it was the role of the chief magistrate, a jurist of relatively minor standing in South Africa’s legal system, to weigh whether it was a case of murder or mishap. Then, too, there were constituencies, inside the courtroom and beyond, that clamored passionately for their version of the truth.

The similarities – and dissimilarities – will have pressed in on anyone who was present in the Pretoria courtroom those decades ago, when the proceeding involved was an inquest, and the death that of Steve Biko, a 30-year-old black activist who was a popular youth leader of the anti-apartheid movement. By the miserable manner of his dying, alone, naked, and comatose on the floor of a freezing prison cell, Mr. Biko became, in death still more than in life, a powerful force for an end to South Africa’s institutionalized system of racial repression.

A British television report from South Africa in 1977, eight days after Steve Biko, an anti-apartheid activist, was beaten to death in police custody.

The two cases, of course, will find widely different places on history’s ladder. Mr. Pistorius, awarded bail on Friday after a hearing that was sensational for what it revealed of his actions in shooting Ms. Steenkamp, and for the raw emotions the athlete displayed in the dock, became a global celebrity in recent years for his feats as the Blade Runner, a track star who overcame the disability of being born with no bones in his lower legs.

But for all that it has been a shock to the millions who have seen his running as a parable for triumph in adversity, Mr. Pistorius’s tragedy — and still more, Ms. Steenkamps’s — has been a personal one. Mr. Biko’s death was considered at the time, as it has been ever since, as a watershed in the history of apartheid, a grim milestone among many others along South Africa’s progress towards black majority rule, which many ranked as the most inspiriting event in the peacetime history of the 20th-century when it was finally achieved in 1994.

Still, for a reporter who covered the Biko inquest for the Times as the paper’s South Africa correspondent through the turbulent years of the 1970’s, there were strong resonances in the week’s televised proceedings in Pretoria. Among them was the sheer scale of the media coverage, and the display of how live-by-satellite broadcasting and the digitalization of the print press, with computers, cellphones and Twitter feeds, have globalized the news business.

Oscar Pistorius facing the media during his bail hearing this week in Pretoria.

For the Pistorius hearing, there was a frenzied, tented camp of television crews outside the court, a crush among reporters struggling to get into the hearing, and platoons of studio commentators eager to have their say.

The crush among reporters outside the bail hearing for Oscar Pistorius this week in Pretoria.

On each of the 13 days the Biko inquest was in session, I had no trouble finding myself a seat in the airy courtroom. I took my lunch quietly with members of the Biko family’s legal team, and loitered uneasily during adjournments in an outside passageway, eavesdropping on the policemen who were Mr. Biko’s captors in his final days as they fine-tuned the testimony they were to give in court.

In the Pistorius case, the police again emerged poorly, having, as it seemed, bungled aspects of the forensic investigation in ways that could complicate the prosecution’s case that Ms. Steenkamp’s death was a case of premeditated murder — and having assigned the case to an officer who turned out to be under investigation in a case of attempted murder himself. But nothing in that bungling could compare with the sheer wretchedness of the security police officers in the Biko case, who symbolized, in their brutal and callous treatment of a defenseless man, and in the jesting about it I heard in that courtroom passageway, just how far below human decency apartheid had descended.

There was, too, the extraordinary contrast in the deportment of the magistrates in their rulings in the two cases, and what that said about the different South Africas of then and now. Desmond Nair, presiding at the Pistorius hearing, took more than two hours to review the evidence in the killing of Ms. Steenkamp, swinging back and forth in a meandering — and often bewildering — fashion between the contending accounts of Ms. Steenkamp’s death offered by Mr. Pistorius’s legal counsel and those put forward by the police.

Marthinus J. Prins, the chief magistrate in the Biko inquest, took an abrupt three minutes to deliver his finding, a numbing, 120-word exculpation of the policemen and government doctors who ushered Mr. Biko to his death on the stone-flagged floor of the Pretoria Central Prison. “The court finds the available evidence does not prove the death was brought about by any act or omission involving any offense by any person,” Mr. Prins said, reading hurriedly from a prepared statement before leaving the courtroom and slipping away by a rear door.

In finding that nobody was to blame in the black leader’s death, the magistrate brushed aside testimony suggesting what the policemen and doctors involved acknowledged many years later to have been true, when they petitioned for amnesty under the Truth and Reconciliation Commission process that sought to heal the wounds of apartheid: that Mr. Biko had been beaten in police custody, suffering a severe brain injury that was left untreated until he died.

The utter lack of compassion, and of anything resembling justice, was expressed in the dull-eyed satisfaction of Mr. Prins when I caught up with him an hour or so after the verdict in his vast, dingy office a few blocks from the courtroom.

“To me, it was just another death,” he said, pulling off his spectacles and rubbing his eyes. “It was just a job, like any other.”

Mr. Prins, who rose to his position through the apartheid bureaucracy, without legal training, appeared at that moment, as he had throughout the inquest, to be disturbingly sincere, yet utterly blinded. Faithful servant of the apartheid system, he had given it the clean bill of health it demanded, and freed the police to continue treating black political detainees as they chose. Among the country’s rulers, the verdict was embraced as a triumphal vindication, while those who chose to see matters more clearly understood it to be a tolling of history’s bell.

Listening to Mr. Nair delivering his ruling in the Pistorius case, there will have been many, in South Africa and abroad, who will have found his monologue on Friday confusing, circular in its argument, and numbingly repetitive. As an exercise in jurisprudence, it was something less than a stellar advertisement for a South African legal system that, at its best, is a match for any in the world, as it was back in 1977.

Sydney Kentridge, lead counsel for the Biko family at the inquest, moved seamlessly to England in the years that followed, and became, by widespread reckoning among his peers, Britain’s most distinguished barrister, still practicing in London now, at 90.

In the 2011 Steve Biko Lecture at the University of Cape Town, Sydney Kentridge spoke about the inquest into his death in 1977.

A host of other South African expatriates who fled apartheid have made outstanding careers as lawyers and judges in Britain, the United States, and elsewhere in the English-speaking world, but many others stayed at home, and continue to serve a court system that has fared rather better, in recent years, than many other institutions in the new South African state.

But even if Mr. Nair, in granting Mr. Pistorius bail, seemed no match in the elegance of his argument for South Africa’s finest legal minds, he nonetheless did South Africa proud. In the chaotic manner of his ruling, which sounded at times like a man grabbing for law books off a shelf, he was, indisputably, doing something that Mr. Prins, all those years before, had not even attempted: looking for ways to steer his course to justice. People will disagree whether Mr. Pistorius deserved the break he got in walking free from that courtroom, but nobody could reasonably contest that what we saw in his case was the working of a legal system that strives for justice, and not to rubber-stamp the imperatives of the state.

This post was revised to make it clear that Sydney Kentridge, the lawyer who represented Steve Biko’s family in 1977 and practiced law well into his 80s, is now 90.

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Fans injured when car sails into fence at Daytona

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (AP) — At least 30 NASCAR fans were injured Saturday when a car sailed into the fence at Daytona International Speedway, and large chunks of debris — including a tire — flew into the grandstands. No fatalities were reported from the accident on the last lap of the Nationwide Series race.

The crash began as the field closed in on the finish line, and rookie Kyle Larson's car came upon the wreck and went airborne into the fence that separates the track from the seats.

Large chunks of Larson's car landed in the grandstands, and one of his tires appeared to fly over the fence and land midway up the lower section. The car itself had its entire front end sheared off, with the burning engine wedged through a gaping hole in the fence.

Speedway President Joie Chitwood said 14 fans were treated on site, and 14 others were taken to hospitals. Chitwood didn't give any updates on their conditions.

The number of those transported given by Chitwood was slightly lower than that given by local officials.

Halifax Health spokesman Byron Cogdell said 12 people were transported to Halifax Health Medical Center in Daytona Beach and six others were taken to Halifax Health Medical Center of Port Orange. All were in stable condition, Cogdell said.

Lindsay Rew, a spokeswoman for Florida Hospital Memorial Medical Center, said its Daytona Beach hospital had one fan there who was in good condition. She said three others they had been expecting were diverted to another hospital.

No fatalities were reported at either hospital. Cogdell said two people taken to the Halifax in Daytona Beach arrived in critical condition, and one of those had life-threatening injuries, both were upgraded to stable condition.

The accident happened the day before the Sprint Cup Series season-opening Daytona 500 — NASCAR's version of the Super Bowl. Daytona workers could be seen repairing the large section of fence where Larson hit, as well as the wall that was damaged in the accident.

"First and foremost our thoughts and prayers are with our race fans," Chitwood said. "Following the incident we responded appropriately according to our safety protocols, and had emergency medical personnel at the incident immediately.

"We're in the process of repairing the facility and will be ready to go racing tomorrow."

As emergency workers tended to injured fans and ambulance sirens wailed in the background, a somber Tony Stewart skipped the traditional post-race victory celebration.

Stewart, who won for the 19th time at Daytona and seventh time in the last nine season-opening Nationwide races, was in no mood to celebrate.

"The important thing is what going on on the frontstretch right now," said Stewart, the three-time NASCAR champion. "We've always known, and since racing started, this is a dangerous sport. But it's hard. We assume that risk, but it's hard when the fans get caught up in it.

"So as much as we want to celebrate right now and as much as this is a big deal to us, I'm more worried about the drivers and the fans that are in the stands right now because that was ... I could see it all in my mirror, and it didn't look good from where I was at."

The accident spread into the upper deck and emergency crews treated fans on both levels. There were five stretchers that appeared to be carrying fans out, and a helicopter flew overhead. A forklift was used to pluck Larson's engine out of the fence.

Chitwood waited by steps as emergency workers attended to those in the stands. Across the track, fans pressed against a fence and used binoculars trying to watch. Wrecked cars and busted parts were strewn across the garage.

"It's a violent wreck. Just seeing the carnage on the racetrack, it's truly unbelievable," driver Justin Allgaier said.

It was a chaotic finish to a race that was stopped for nearly 20 minutes five laps from the finish by a 13-car accident that sent driver Michael Annett to a hospital, where his Richard Petty Motorsports team said he would be held overnight with bruising to his chest.

The race resumed with three laps to go, and the final accident occurred with Regan Smith leading as he headed out of the final turn to the checkered flag. He admittedly tried to block Brad Keselowski to preserve the win.

"I tried to throw a block. It's Daytona, you want to go for the win here," Smith said. "I don't know how you can play it any different other than concede second place, and I wasn't willing to do that today. Our job is to put them in position to win, and it was, and it didn't work out."

As the cars began wrecking all around Smith and Keselowski, Stewart slid through for the win, but Larson plowed into Keselowski and his car was sent airborne into the stands. When Larson's car came to a stop, it was missing its entire front end. The 20-year-old, who made his Daytona debut this week, stood apparently stunned, hands on his hips, several feet away from his car, before finally making the mandatory trip to the care center.

He said his first thought was with the fans.

"I hope all the fans are OK and all the drivers are all right," Larson said. "I took a couple big hits there and saw my engine was gone. Just hope everybody's all right."

He said he was along for the ride in the last-lap accident.

"I was getting pushed from behind, I felt like, and by the time my spotter said lift or go low, it was too late," Larson said. "I was in the wreck and then felt like it was slowing down and I looked like I could see the ground. Had some flames come in the cockpit, but luckily I was all right and could get out of the car quick."

It appeared fans were lined right along the fence when Larson's car sailed up and into it, but Chitwood indicated there was a buffer. He said there would be no changes to the seating before the Daytona 500.

"We don't anticipate moving any of our fans," Chitwood said. "We had our safety protocols in place. Our security maintained a buffer that separates the fans from the fencing area. With the fencing being prepared tonight to our safety protocols, we expect to go racing tomorrow with no changes."

Larson's car appeared to hit where the cross-over gate — a section that can be opened for people to travel back and forth from the infield to the grandstands — is located in the fence. Previous accidents in which drivers hit crossover gates were severe, but the gates were in the wall and not the fence for Mike Harmon's accident at Bristol in 2002 and Michael Waltrip's at the same track in 1990.

Still, NASCAR senior vice president Steve O'Donnell said it would be studied.

"I think we look at this after every incident," O'Donnell said. "We've learned in the past certain protocols put in place today are a result of prior incidents. Again, our initial evaluation is still ongoing. But it's certainly something we'll look at. If we can improve upon it, we'll certainly put that in play as soon as we can."

Larson had been scheduled to race his sprint car later Saturday night in Ocala, Fla., and even seemed restless to get there during the late stages of the Nationwide race. He pulled out of the event following the accident.

"Honestly, the race itself pales in comparison to the injuries sustained by the fans," said Chip Ganassi, the team owner who has Larson in his driver development program. "Our thoughts and prayers go out to all the fans that were injured as a result of the crash. As for Kyle, I am very happy that he is OK."

Keselowski watched a replay of the final accident, and said his first thoughts were with the fans. As for the accident, he agreed he tried to make a winning move and Smith tried to block.

"He felt like that's what he had to do, and that's his right. The chaos comes with it," Keselowski said. "I made the move and he blocked it, and the two of us got together and started the chain events that caused that wreck. First and foremost, just want to make sure everyone in the stands is OK and we're thinking about them."

Keselowski said the incident could cast a pall on the Daytona 500.

"I think until we know exactly the statuses of everyone involved, it's hard to lock yourself into the 500," Keselowski said. "Hopefully, we'll know soon and hopefully everyone's OK. And if that's the case, we'll staring focusing on Sunday."

___

AP Sports Writer Dan Gelston in Daytona Beach and Associated Press writer Jennifer Kay in Miami contributed to this report.

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Off the Dribble: Salley Offers a Healthy Assist

When Carmelo Anthony went on a vegetarian diet a few weeks ago and caused the biggest culinary conundrum in sports since fried chicken and beer had starring roles in the Red Sox clubhouse, John Salley could only shake his head.

Anthony’s diet was blamed for his sluggish play and the Knicks’ 3-4 record during the 15-day fast.

Anthony admitted that his body felt “depleted out there.”

But Salley, the former N.B.A. player, said that if Anthony had eaten a vegetarian diet correctly, he would have felt invigorated and anything but depleted.

And not just for two weeks but for the entire season.

For Salley, many of his salad days in the N.B.A. really were salad days. Particularly kale salad.

Salley, a 6-foot-11 power forward and center, became a vegetarian in January 1991 after he felt he had to make changes in his lifestyle, much like Anthony’s stated desire for “clarity in his life.”

Vegetarians do not eat meat, fish or poultry, but may eat dairy products like cheese, eggs, yogurt or milk.

Salley had read a story about the Celtics’ Robert Parish, whom he had always admired, and his interest in yoga and a red-meat-free diet.

While Parish’s regimen was not total vegetarian, he recently said that it made a difference in his career, helping him withstand the rigors of playing center against behemoths in the paint.

“My diet consisted of chicken, fish, seafood, salad, pasta and organic when possible,” he said. “I had very little sugar and drank a gallon of water every day. I also ate rice and beans, peas, cabbage, mustard, collards greens and assorted nuts. I would always focus on healthy eating. My success depended on my body and I tried to do right by it. ”

His body responded with 20 years of service in his Hall of Fame career. Parish retired at 43.

Salley was striving for similar health and success.

“I was 27, and I felt I had to change my life,” Salley said. “My knees were sore, my joints ached, I had back problems and my cholesterol was 275. ”

When he was with the Pistons, Salley visited a nutritionist in Detroit who advised him to eliminate fried foods and adopt a macrobiotic diet (grains and vegetables).

Salley, invigorated and healthy, had his best season in 1991. A defensive specialist, he had more energy and quickness and averaged a career best 9.5 points a game.

He kept his healthy diet a secret from his burly Bad Boy Piston steak-and-pork-chop teammates, who included Bill Laimbeer, Rick Mahorn and Dennis Rodman.

“I would tell them all the time,” Salley said, “if you go into a steak house it’s not that they have a certain thing inside the dead flesh or they cook it differently. They make it the same way everybody else does. All you’re doing is eating dead food.”

Salley would search out health food restaurants with a few tables or just counter service for his diet staples of quinoa, kale, spinach, stir fried vegetables, brown rice and wheatgrass on the menu.

“It was hard to find places in 1991,” he said. “So many times I would go into restaurants and ask the cook to steam my vegetables and make me the lightest fish.”

But it was worth it.

“I was playing so well it was crazy,” he said.

During his career, Salley, who retired in 2000, won four championships with the Detroit Pistons, the Chicago Bulls and the Los Angeles Lakers.

He now follows a vegan diet, which eliminates all dairy foods in addition to animal products.

“I’m eating raw,” said Salley, 48. “And I make all my food with no sugar, no salt and no oil.”

Salley is familiar with Anthony’s foray into vegetarian living. The Knicks star followed the Daniel Fast based on the book of Daniel in the Bible, which espouses a diet of mainly liquid and vegetables.

“He felt depleted because you need to find a natural source of vitamin B12,” Salley said.

B12 is not found in any significant amounts in plant food, and a deficiency can cause fatigue, weakness and tingling in the legs.

It can also cause irritability. Anthony said his diet might have caused him to lash out at Kevin Garnett in a game against the Boston Celtics.

“He didn’t take any supplements to help his body,” Salley said. “He did not get his body to heal. It’s like cutting yourself and not putting a Band-Aid on. He just got part of the plan right.”

Salley is working to make sure children get the plan right with food choices. He spreads the word about healthy eating in the community, having lobbied Congress for more vegetarian options in school lunches.

Although Anthony may have struggled to maintain his vegetarian diet, other N.B.A players and athletes have embraced it.

James Jones of the Miami Heat and Anthony’s teammate A’mare Stoudemire are vegetarians.

Baseball’s Prince Fielder, the triathlete Brendan Brazier, the mixed martial artist Mac Danzig, the bodybuilder Derek Tresize and the tennis player Serena Williams are among athletes who are vegans or vegetarians.

Dr. Joel Kahn, a clinical professor of medicine at Wayne State University School of Medicine and medical director of wellness programs, preventive cardiology, and cardiac rehabilitation at Detroit Medical Center, has counseled Salley and other athletes about the benefits of vegan and vegetarian diets.

“A plant-based, whole-food diet low on sugar and gluten is very anti-inflammatory and ideal for rapid recovery from workouts,” he said.

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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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At War Blog: A Modern Medal Is Met with Modern Protest

It is only fitting that the announcement of a medal created for the digital age spawned its own Internet memes. As soon as Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta announced the creation of the new Distinguished Warfare medal — immediately dubbed the Drone Medal — images such as the one below began appearing on blog after blog; in tweet after retweet.

The medal, Mr. Panetta explained, is intended to provide “recognition for the extraordinary achievements that directly impact on combat operations, but that do not involve acts of valor or physical risk that combat entails,” such as those piloting Predator or Reaper drones from a remote trailer. The medal has sparked much Photoshopped humor and heated online debate, much of it focusing on the Pentagon’s decision to rank it above the Purple Heart and the Bronze Star, both given to troops in combat.

As the Distinguished Warfare medal heads toward production, more than 13,000 people have signed an online petition demanding that the status of the medal be revised.

“Bronze Stars are commonly awarded with a Valor device in recognition of a soldier’s service in the heat of combat while on the ground in the theater of operation,” the petition states. “Under no circumstance should a medal that is designed to honor a pilot, that is controlling a drone via remote control, thousands of miles away from the theater of operation, rank above a medal that involves a soldier being in the line of fire on the ground.”

This was a sentiment echoed by many on Twitter:

Drone Medal is appropriate…but not ABOVE Bronze Star & Purple Heart! http://t.co/jcfcBT5BF6

— Doug Brower (@Mushbrower) 22 Feb 13

Higher Medal for drone operators? US soldiers fighting on ground demoralized http://t.co/S6QjWd8JvP

— Unity Media News (@unitymedianews1) 22 Feb 13

Similar commentary could be found in opinion pieces on news sites, such as The Business Insider, which called it “The Most Ridiculous Thing The Pentagon Could Do” and in longer anecdotes of protest on the comments section of the United States Air Force announcement:

2/21/2013 12:28:33 AM ET
I don’t like this at all my father was in ground combat from 1944 to 1945 in France Germany and Czechoslovakia his highest medal was the bronze star I have a copy of the award hanging in my living room I can’t even imagine what he went through. Now some guy sitting in an air conditioned building in Nevada is going to get a medal rated higher than the bronze star and the purple heart. I don’t care how many terrorists he killed or how many hours he sat in front of that screen how motivated he is or how well he does his job it is inconcievable to me that he or she can possibly earn a medal rated this high. Giving them a medal is ok but lets not degrade the honor of others who have risked their lives and in some cases actually been wounded in combat serving our country.
–Michael Sharkey, Trier Germany

According to the Defense Department, there is no controversy about the medal among military leaders. Each branch is in the process of drawing up their own specific guidelines and within two for four months, the first Distinguished Warfare Medals will be awarded.

“This is not a medal that will be awarded with the frequency of these other ones,”  Lt. Cmdr. Nate Christensen, a Defense Department spokesman, told At War, when asked why the medal should be above the Bronze Star.

Although there were some forms of recognition for drone operators and cyber operators before, none recognized truly exceptional acts of service, he said.

“This medal is visionary because it fills a void that existed before,” he said.

Although few people other than Pentagon officials came to the defense of the medal, some did circulate a piece by Maj. David Blair in the Air and Space Power Journal outlining the case for medals for drone operators.

For instance, consider a scenario in which Predator crews track a critical high­ value target to a safe house where he is then kinetically struck by a dynami­cally retasked F­16. In this case, both platforms’ crews perform their du­ties with excellence and professionalism. Perhaps that excellence merits decorations, or perhaps “doing your job” shouldn’t merit decoration. Ei­ther way, giving the F­16 pilot an award for heroism while excluding the Predator crews from consideration for the same sends a very clear message about what the institution believes is worth recognizing. This message ripples back into commissioning sources and light ­training pipelines, perpetuating perceptions and relative performance discrepan­cies through selection bias.

Published in July 2012, months before the announcement of the news medal, Major Blair’s piece did not address the flip-side: What happens when a member of the Predator crew receives a medal deemed more prestigious than the one awarded to the the F-16 pilot?

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Oscar Pistorius gets bail as murder trial looms

PRETORIA, South Africa (AP) — Oscar Pistorius walked out of court Friday — free at least for now — after a South African magistrate released him on bail, capping four days of often startling testimony that foreshadowed a dramatic trial in the Valentine's Day slaying of his girlfriend.

But as he was driven away, chased by photographers and cameramen, questions continued to hound the double-amputee Olympian about what actually happened the night he gunned down Reeva Steenkamp inside a locked bathroom in his home.

Pistorius is charged with premeditated murder, and even Chief Magistrate Desmond Nair expressed doubts about his story that he mistook the 29-year-old model for an intruder and fired out of fear.

"Why would (Pistorius) venture further into danger" by going into the bathroom at all, Nair asked.

Cries of "Yes!" went up from Pistorius' supporters when Nair announced his decision to a packed courtroom after a nearly two-hour explanation of the ruling.

Nair set bail at 1 million rand ($113,000), with $11,300 in cash up front and proof that the rest is available. The 26-year-old track star was also ordered to hand over his passports, turn in any guns he owns and keep away from his upscale home in a gated community in Pretoria, which is now a crime scene.

He cannot leave the district of Pretoria without his probation officer's permission and is not allowed to consume drugs or alcohol, the magistrate said. His next court appearance was set for June 4.

Earlier, Pistorius alternately wept and appeared solemn and composed, especially as Nair criticized police procedures in the case and as a judgment in the track star's favor appeared imminent. He showed no reaction as he was granted bail.

Pistorius left the courthouse in a silver Land Rover just over an hour after the bail conditions were set. The vehicle, tailed by motorcycles carrying television cameramen, later pulled into the home of Pistorius' uncle.

"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."

Dozens of journalists and international and local television crews had converged on the red-brick courthouse to hear the decision — a sign of the global fascination with a case involving a once-inspirational athlete and his beautiful girlfriend, a law school graduate and budding reality TV show contestant.

Nair said Pistorius' sworn statement, an unusual written account of what happened during the pre-dawn hours of Feb. 14, had helped his application for bail.

"I come to the conclusion that the accused has made a case to be released on bail," Nair said.

Pistorius said he shot Steenkamp 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 say he intended to kill Steenkamp as she cowered in fear behind the locked bathroom door after a loud argument between the two.

Yet despite poking holes in Pistorius' version of events and bringing up incidents they say highlight his temper, the state's case started to unravel during testimony by the lead investigator, 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 by the hearing briefly Friday.

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 prosecution accepted the judge's decision without protest. "We're still confident in our case," prosecution spokesman Medupe Simasiku said.

Pistorius faced the sternest bail requirements in South Africa because of the seriousness of the charge, which carries a life sentence if convicted. His defense attorneys 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.

Nair questioned whether Pistorius would be a flight risk when he stood to lose a fortune in cash, cars, property and other assets. Nair also said that while it had been shown that Pistorius had aggressive tendencies, he did not have a prior record of offenses for violent acts.

Anticipating the shape of the state's case at trial, he said he had serious questions about Pistorius' account: Why didn't he try to locate his girlfriend if he feared an intruder was in the house? Why didn't he try to determine who was in the bathroom before opening fire? And why did he venture into perceived "danger" in the bathroom when he could have taken other steps to ensure his safety?

"There are improbabilities which need to be explored," Nair said, adding that Pistorius could clarify these matters by testifying under oath at trial.

Sharon Steenkamp, Reeva's cousin, said the model's family would not be watching the bail decision and had not been following the hearing.

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

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

"The sooner he can start working the better," said Louw, who persuaded 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 the carbon-fiber running blades that earned him the nickname "Blade Runner."

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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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Well: Savory Pie Recipes for Health

Pie is an indulgence often saved for holiday time. But this week Martha Rose Shulman shows us how to bake a pie and eat it too, without the guilt. She offers savory vegetable pies, showcased in whole grain crusts. She writes:

This week I slowed down and made pies: savory ones filled with vegetables … I used a number of different crusts for my winter pies. My favorite remains the whole wheat yeasted olive oil crust that I have used before in this column, but I also worked with a simple Mediterranean crust made with a mix of whole wheat flour, all-purpose flour and olive oil. And for those of you who are gluten-free, I made another foray into gluten-free pastry and produced one I liked a lot, which was a mix of buckwheat flour, millet flour and potato starch. It had a strong nutty flavor that worked well with a very savory, very vegan, tofu and mushroom “quiche.” They are all simple to mix together and easy to roll or press out. And if you don’t feel like dealing with a crust, just use Greek phyllo. The important things, after all, are the savory vegetables inside.

Here are recipes for a pie crust and four savory winter vegetable pies.

Whole Wheat Mediterranean Pie Crust: A simple Mediterranean crust made with a mix of whole wheat flour, all-purpose flour and olive oil.

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Mixed Greens Galette With Onions and Chickpeas: A tasty way to use bagged greens in a dish with Middle Eastern overtones.

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Goat Cheese, Chard and Herb Pie in a Phyllo Crust: A garlicky mix of greens and your choice of herbs inside a crispy phyllo crust.

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Tofu Mushroom ‘Quiche’: A vegan dish with a deep, rich flavor.

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Winter Tomato Quiche: Canned tomatoes can be used in the off season for a delicious dinner.

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F.A.A. Sets Terms for Boeing’s Battery Fixes on 787

After meeting with Boeing executives, top federal aviation officials said on Friday that they would not approve any fix to the battery problems on the 787 jetliner until they were certain that the batteries would not fail again.

“The safety of the flying public is our top priority and we won’t allow the 787 to return to commercial service until we’re confident that any proposed solution has addressed the battery failure risks,” Laura J. Brown, a spokeswoman for the Federal Aviation Administration, said in a statement.

At the meeting on Friday, more than five weeks after the plane was grounded, Boeing executives outlined the company’s latest proposals on how to keep the 787’s new lithium-ion batteries from overheating and how to vent any smoke or hazardous gases out of the plane.

Raymond L. Conner, the president of Boeing’s commercial airplane division, led the group of executives that met with Michael P. Huerta, the administrator of the F.A.A., and John Porcari, the deputy transportation secretary.

The meeting, however, was unlikely to bring about a quick lifting of the 787s’ grounding order. Boeing is asking the F.A.A. to approve the fixes even though safety investigators have not figured out precisely what caused the battery on one plane to ignite and the battery on another to start smoking last month.

After the meeting, federal officials said Boeing would be allowed to conduct a series of test flights to see how the fixes work and to fine-tune its proposals.

Boeing officials say that even though the causes of the battery episodes have not been determined, they have identified the most likely ways in which the new lithium-ion batteries failed. They now want the F.A.A. to approve changes meant to virtually eliminate the odds of future cases and to protect the plane and its passengers if a problem does arise.

In that sense, the meeting on Friday was also aimed at expanding the company’s emphasis from engineering work to the political arena. Besides evaluating the merits of its proposals, Mr. Huerta and the transportation secretary, Ray LaHood, might have to make difficult decisions about how well the fixes minimize the safety risk. Mr. LaHood said last month that the planes “won’t fly until we’re one thousand percent sure they are safe to fly.”

But battery and aviation-safety experts say that it could be hard to meet that standard if the causes of the recent episodes are not totally clear. And the F.A.A. often has to walk a delicate line in balancing its role in promoting aviation as well as ensuring safety.

Engineers at the agency have worked closely with Boeing in developing the possible fixes, and their general support for the concept was crucial in enabling the company to bring those proposals to Mr. Huerta and Mr. Porcari.

But Peter Goelz, a former managing director of the National Transportation Safety Board, an independent board that is investigating the battery problems, said: “These kinds of things always raise the basic question: Is the F.A.A. really a participant or a regulator in this, and how does it play the role of regulator when the only way to get to a solution is by being a partner? It’s always a fine line.”

Mr. Goelz and other former safety officials said Boeing’s proposals were on the right track. But some battery experts said they would like to hear more details about how Boeing would keep the batteries from overheating before judging how well the plans would work.

Boeing has delivered 50 787s so far to eight airlines. The company has much riding on the innovative planes. They are the first commercial jets to be built mostly out of lightweight composite materials that reduce fuel costs. Boeing has orders for 800 more of these planes, nicknamed the Dreamliner.

Investigators at the safety board said a battery that ignited on a 787 parked at Logan Airport in Boston in January had suffered thermal runaway, a chemical reaction that leads the battery to overact. They said the problem started in one of the eight cells in the batteries and spread to the others.

On Friday, Boeing proposed adding insulation between the cells to minimize the risk of a short-circuit cascading through most or all of them.

The company also proposed to add systems to monitor the temperature and activity inside each cell. It would enclose the batteries in sturdier steel boxes to contain any fire, and it would create tubes to vent hazardous gases outside the plane.

Boeing said the redesigned batteries would fit in the same space. After the meeting, it also said in a statement that it was “encouraged by the progress being made toward resolving the issue and returning the 787 to flight for our customers and their passengers around the world.”

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