BP banned from US govt contracts

British oil giant BP was temporarily banned from winning new US government contracts Wednesday after agreeing to plead guilty to criminal charges in the deadly 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill disaster.
Two weeks after BP agreed to pay $4.5 billion to settle criminal charges in the case.
The blowout and sinking of the Deepwater Horizon drilling platform left 11 people dead and spewed some 4.9 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico over 87 days, blackening beaches in five states.