Letting strangers live rent-free in his house: cool or crazy?

When Tony Tolbert turned 50 last year, he marked the occasion by moving in with his mother. The decision wasn't about money. He's a Harvard-educated attorney, on the staff of UCLA's law school. And it wasn't because his mother wanted or needed him home. It was Tolbert's response to the sort of midlife milestone that prompts us to take stock. Instead of buying a sports car, he decided to turn his home — rent free — over to strangers.

He'd been inspired by a magazine article about a family that sold their house, squeezed into a tiny replacement and donated to charity the $800,000 proceeds from the sale.

"It just struck me how powerful a gesture that was," Tolbert said. "It challenged me to think about what I could do, where I might have some overflow in my life."

His overflow was a modest home on a quiet tree-lined street a short walk from Crenshaw Boulevard. He'd lived there alone for 10 years. Last January, he moved out and a young single mother with three little children moved in. A South Los Angeles domestic violence program chose the family from its shelter and brokered the deal.

He agreed to let her pay one dollar a month, and imposed on her only one rule: "Whatever has to happen to keep things drama free, that's what I need you to do."

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Judge OKs settlement in BP class-action suit

(CNN) -- A federal judge signed off on BP's settlement with businesses and people hard hit by the 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier in New Orleans issued a 125-page ruling Friday night on a class-action suit. He gave the settlement preliminary approval in May and overruled questions and criticism of the agreement in his Friday ruling.

 
2010: BP: Oil flow has stopped

BP has estimated a settlement of about $7.8 billion paid from a $20 billion trust. Thousands of businesses and individuals made claims in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, some coastal counties in eastern Texas and western Florida and adjacent Gulf waters and bays.

With the exception of seafood claims, there is no cap on the amount BP will pay to those who agree to the settlement.

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