Brian

The Obama administration's new plan to stimulate refinancings of FHA mortgages is likely to help large numbers of homeowners — even those who are deeply underwater — cut their monthly costs by switching to a loan with a rate below 4%. Here's a quick overview of the "streamline refi" program and what it will take for you to qualify. First, the baseline criteria: Your current home loan must be FHA-insured and must have been put on the Federal Housing Administration's books no later than May 31, 2009.

A Los Angeles County Superior Court judge has reversed the 2002 rape and kidnapping conviction of former Long Beach Poly football standout Brian Banks. Banks, now 26, was wrongly convicted of the charges based on the testimony of Wanetta Gibson, an acquaintance. Gibson testified that Banks raped her on the Poly campus. Banks said the encounter was consensual. Rather than face a prison term of from 41 years to life, Banks accepted a plea deal that destroyed his dream of playing college football.

Brian Price, once a wrecking ball on UCLA's defensive line, has beaten long odds to return to the NFL after two off-season surgeries aimed at keeping his hamstrings attached to his pelvis, rather than breaking loose and coiling down the backs of his thighs. For Price, who will start at defensive tackle Sunday for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, his excruciating recovery was a 10-step process. Meaning just two months ago, he could run only 10 steps. "You have these doubts in your head at times," said Price, a second-round pick of the Buccaneers in 2010 who, because of his congenitally malformed pelvis, spent the last half of his rookie season on injured reserve.

WASHINGTON - Brian McNamee, the chief accuser of former pitching star Roger Clemens, was left with his credibility hanging in the balance Friday after the latest of four grueling sessions of cross-examination by the defense at Clemens' perjury trial. McNamee, a former trainer, claims he repeatedly injected Clemens with steroids and human growth hormone between 1998 and 2001. In testimony to Congress in 2008 Clemens denied using the drugs, which prosecutors argue was a lie. Clemens lawyer Rusty Hardin worked carefully through the physical evidence of Clemens' alleged drug use that McNamee provided.

Maybe Brian the dog is just a better conversationalist than Steve Lopez's marauding raccoons. Lopez enlisted an animal psychic to persuade the raccoons destroying his yard to lay off. Psychic Dana Miller is trying to reason with them -- as Lopez relayed in his Wednesday column -- but conversing with raccoons isn't as easy as chatting with dogs, it seems. Miller had no trouble connecting with Brian, a tiny white Maltese who disappeared three years ago from his Tujunga front yard.

Ask Brian Viloria how his boxing career has gone and he's likely to mumble something about Death Valley and Mt. Everest. He has been a world champion twice, the first time for a year, starting in September 2005, and now, starting last April. In between was the pits, known in boxing as the Alameda Swap Meet in South L.A. The facts: Viloria is 29, the International Boxing Federation champion at 108 pounds, and will defend his title in Manila on Saturday night against Carlos Tamara.

When the writers of "30 Rock" sent Brian Williams lines earlier this fall for his latest cameo, the NBC News anchor had a couple of suggestions. A scene in which he auditioned to be on the show's fictional comedy sketch series was "too blue" for his taste. In another, in which he approached Tina Fey's Liz Lemon about trying out for the program, Williams adopted an alter ego that paid homage to his late uncle Tony Mortarulo. "I'm not saying I want to audition, but Nicky Mortarulo from Scotch Plains, N.J., might be interested," Williams said with a broad grin and his best Jersey inflection.

Betty Lou Batey, the fundamentalist who once stole away with her son Brian for 19 months rather than let him live with his gay father, said Wednesday that Brian plans to live with her now that his father has died. Her claim--made in a call to The Times a week after she again disappeared with the 16-year-old--contradicted the contention of Craig Corbett, the longtime companion of Brian's father, Frank Batey, who has insisted that the youth wants to continue living with him in Palm Springs.

'What I did was, mostly it was very little, it was amazingly little. I listened to the radio. To go to the bathroom or to get bathed in any way was like a life risk, because you stop breathing. As much as he can sense the ocean's presence from his cottage atop the Malibu bluff, Brian John May is unable to look upon it from his aging steel hospital bed. As morning creeps in through his windows, Brian knows that he cannot, on his own power, rise to meet the day.

"DON'T touch me!" Brian cried at the looming caveman. "Relax, kid," the caveman replied in perfect English. "I'm not going to hurt you." Just then, the man with the walkie-talkie appeared. He stared at the caveman. "Where have you been, Frank?" Frank the caveman? Brian wondered. "I went to the restroom and got lost," Frank admitted. "This place is like a labyrinth." "What's going on?" Brian asked, looking confused. The man with the walkie-talkie knelt down to him and smiled.

WASHINGTON — Rusty Hardin, lead attorney for Roger Clemens, got the former pitcher's chief accuser to admit to a series of lies in a day of aggressive cross examination, but did not undermine his credibility with a single grand stroke. Clemens is on trial for perjury, accused of lying to Congress about his use of performance enhancing drugs. Brian McNamee, a former trainer who worked closely with Clemens, admitted that in 2007 he lied to federal agent Jeff Novitzky and the Mitchell Commission, which was investigating performance-enhancing drugs in baseball.

WASHINGTON — Brian McNamee, the key prosecution witness in the Roger Clemens perjury trial, said he had never made up details about the pitcher's drug use, but that some of his memories of it had become clearer over time. During cross-examination Wednesday, McNamee, a former strength trainer, described a conversation with Clemens in early 2004 in which the pitcher asked whether McNamee still had a source to obtain steroids. According to McNamee, Clemens told him, "I want to get really huge, I want to get strong.

WASHINGTON — An anxious wife drove Brian McNamee to hold on to evidence of Roger Clemens' steroid use for self-protection, the former trainer testified at the former pitcher's federal perjury trial. "She kept saying in the midst of a battle royale, 'You're going to go down if something ever happens,' " McNamee said. So as a measure of insurance, McNamee said, he held on to a beer can filled with a used needle, a syringe and a glass steroid ampule he had fished out of Clemens' recycling bin in 2001.

Brian Dawkins has decided to retire after 16 seasons in the NFL, he announced Monday on Twitter. But the eight-time all-pro safety still has another decision to make: Does he want to be remembered as an Eagle or a Bronco? Dawkins remains undecided about whether he should retire as a member of the Philadelphia Eagles, the team with which he spent the first 13 years of his career, or the Denver Broncos, the team that showed him love when he felt spurned by the Eagles. The Eagles reportedly have told Dawkins they want him to retire as member of their team.

WASHINGTON — Lawyers for Roger Clemens, seeking to discredit a key government witness in the All-Star pitcher's perjury trial, contend that Brian McNamee is telling lies, on which he is cashing in. McNamee, a former strength coach, has said he injected Clemens with steroids and human growth hormone. Rusty Hardin, the lead Clemens attorney, said in his opening statement Tuesday that the former trainer had become a celebrity as a result of the allegations he made against Clemens.

Comcast Corp.'s highest-paid executives — Chief Executive Brian Roberts and NBCUniversal chief Steve Burke — experienced compensation deflation last year. Roberts' pay package shrank 13.3% in 2011 to $26.9 million. That included a performance-based cash bonus of $5.5 million for the 52-year-old executive. Meanwhile, Burke's compensation dropped a whopping 32% to $23.7 million, which included a performance bonus of $6.7 million. The 53-year-old executive's amount fell dramatically last year, as it was the first time in three years that he did not collect a signing bonus.

Brian Burke's office is surprisingly small for a man of his physical and professional stature. Windows offer a view of a chilly, gray Toronto afternoon but the gloom is brightened by his children's drawings and family photos on his walls. The personal side of his move from Anaheim, where he led the Ducks to the Stanley Cup in 2007, to Toronto and the job of president and general manager of the Maple Leafs has worked out fine. One daughter from his first marriage visited from Boston last weekend.

Jorge Ameer's unwieldy "Sabor Tropical" (Tropical Flavor) is part travelogue and part melodrama, and the two parts don't add up to much more than tedium. Ameer plays an online journalist, accompanying and filming Brian (Matthew Leitch), who's fleeing a romance gone sour, hoping to find sex and fun at Panama's Las Tablas carnival. Ameer takes far too long to get Brian, who comes across as cocky and spoiled, to Las Tablas, where the carnival really is spectacular.

Best Buy Co. has formed a selection committee to find a new chief executive after an internal investigation into former CEO Brian Dunn's “personal conduct” led him to resign. Lisa Caputo, Ronald James and Sanjay Khosla - all members of the electronics retailer's board - will help determine who will replace Dunn after his departure earlier this month . The group will be led by board member Kathy J. Higgins Victor and will consider candidates including interim Chief Executive Mike Mikan.

Brian Wilson's season could be over after an MRI exam on the San Francisco Giants closer's right elbow revealed structural damage and an issue with the ligament. Wilson likely will need surgery, but the Giants will seek at least one other opinion before shutting down the pitcher who led the majors with 48 saves in 2010. "There's definitely some issues there," Giants Manager Bruce Bochy said. "Initially I was just being optimistic he would be fine, but after the test done yesterday it doesn't look very good right now. … Likely he's looking at surgery.