oil rig

Barclay said she, not a PR firm, organized a recent Gulf event in which retired Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, who is overseeing the government's response to the spill, released the first oiled turtles to be rehabilitated.

WASHINGTON - The federal government hired a New Orleans man for $18,000 to appraise whether news stories about its actions in the Gulf oil spill were positive or negative for the Obama administration, which was keenly sensitive to comparisons between its response and former President George W. Bush's much-maligned reaction to Hurricane Katrina.

The government sent BP a new invoice for $128.5 million last week.

Rice told the AP that he compiled print and video news stories and offered his subjective appraisal of the tone of the coverage.

Jim Ketchum, owner of the Andree's Wine, Cheese & Things restaurant in Fairhope, Ala., said the roughly $32,000 the Army paid his restaurant to serve breakfast and dinner to military police deployed to help with the spill response helped him make up for business lost due to the poor economy and the spill.

The contracts the government has disclosed so far include at least $5.8 million for helicopter services, $3.2 million for hotel rooms, $1.4 million for boat charters, $33,000 for oil-measuring devices aboard ships, $441,621 for cellular and satellite phone services, $25,087 for toilets, $23,217 for laundry services and $109,735 for refrigerators and freezers.

WASHINGTON - The federal government hired a New Orleans man for $18,000 to appraise whether news stories about its actions in the Gulf oil spill were positive or negative for the Obama administration, which was keenly sensitive to comparisons between its response and former President George W. Bush's much-maligned reaction to Hurricane Katrina.