Grease Monk said:like funky said, the right circle in the first picture and the second picture are your heat level (wanted status). It increases while you are being chased by cops. At level 1 it increases by just being chased, while at higherlevels, you would have to be causing sufficient destruction/infractions for it to increase. The number is the only thing of coincern to you, what degree you are within the level is of no consequence (apart from your closness to the next level). It starts to flash when you are nearing the next heat level.
Heat levels reflect extent of police activity to stop you. something like this:
level 1 : regular cops chase you. easy to lose. cool down is very fast.
level 2 : occasionally bring in rhinos (suv cops) to ram you head on.
level 3 : introduce road blocks
level 4 : Helicopter joins the chase and spike strips are added to some road blocks
level 5 : helicopter starts getting more involved in chase and activly swoops down to knock you off. State cruisers come after you (think they are corvettes). Also, at this level, Seargent cross (the black cop at the start) has a possibility of chasing you.
Level 6 : only appears on the last level after you defeat blacklist #1. Cross actively chases you.
Level 7 : available as the last level of the challenge series if you have the black edition. You drive a camero (pretty slow) and only rhinos chase you, so its a pretty simple heat level.
With increasing heat, the cooldown time significantly increases, and you gain a lot more bounty during chases and when you destroy cop vehicles.
YOu can reduce heat by changing visual and body upgrades, or by keeping it in your garage for some time.
As for the left circle in the first picture, the ! reffers to the fact that the part has become available to you just then (cos you just defeated a member in the blacklist) its meant to help you quickly idntify recently unlocked items. A tick means you have the item on your current car, a shopping cvart means you bought that part this shopping session, and a lock means its locked.