Candidates

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.

GREENSBORO, N.C. — For a fourth day Wednesday, the jury in the John Edwards trial deliberated without reaching a verdict in a case focused on an illicit affair and federal campaign finance laws. The jury of eight men and four women must decide whether Edwards violated election laws when payments from two wealthy donors were used to cover up his affair with videographer Rielle Hunter during Edwards' failed run for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination. Prosecutors contend that Edwards solicited $925,000 in illegal contributions from the donors in order to hide the affair and keep his campaign from collapsing in scandal.

washington -- Mitt Romney twice emphasized his unique business background when he and eight other Republican presidential candidates faced off in a debate last week in Iowa. "I've spent the last, as I've told you, 25 years in the private sector," former Massachusetts Gov. Romney declared at one point. "I understand why jobs come and why jobs go. I've done business in 20 countries."

LAKE ARROWHEAD - A hiss rose from the front row as the Republican-turned-independent took a swing at his grand old party. Voters in Southern California's vast frontier of mountains and desert can break from the GOP's "tyranny of the minority" in the June 5 primary, congressional candidate Anthony Adams told the crowd. A hundred or so people, ranging from "tea party" adherents to gay-marriage defenders, had come to hear him and other hopefuls at a forum inside the Lake Arrowhead Resort.

Most voters have by now received their sample ballots, and those who plan to vote by mail are sending in their applications. The June 5 election is underway right now. It is noteworthy for several reasons. Los Angeles County voters will be selecting a new district attorney, and this is the first time since 1964 that there is no incumbent trying to hold onto the seat. The field is wide open. To win outright in this nonpartisan race, a candidate must get more than 50% of the vote.

CINCINNATI - The Rev. Chris Beard is a theological conservative, make no mistake about it. He believes the Bible is the word of God. He believes the Holy Spirit speaks to him directly. He believes, as an article of faith, that abortion and same-sex marriage are wrong. Still, when a group of religious leaders in Ohio held two days of meetings in Cincinnati recently to talk about economic and racial justice, issues usually associated with the political left, there was Beard, a fourth-generation Pentecostal preacher with a disarming smile, a shaved head and a set of convictions that knock holes in the stereotypes about white evangelical Protestants.

Homeowners more deeply underwater on mortgages handled by five major U.S. banking firms are prime candidates for getting help from a $25-billion nationwide settlement over alleged foreclosure abuses. That's because the settlement gives the nation's largest mortgage servicers more incentives to help those who owe 40% to 75% more than the value of their homes, according to details of the settlement filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Washington. In a complex series of formulas designed to maximize the effect of the deal reached last month, banks will get more than six times the credit for reducing loans for severely underwater borrowers than they would for helping those who owe 5% to 15% more than the value of their homes.

The June 8 primary ballot includes 21 candidates competing for six positions on the Los Angeles County Superior Court. That's a fraction of the court's more than 400 judges, the vast majority of whom are appointed by the governor. It's too small a number for the electorate to be able to correct any perceived political, gender or racial imbalances on the court, or to try tinkering with the proportion of prosecutors, criminal defense lawyers or civil practitioners who come to the bench. This allows voters to focus on one basic question: Which candidate in each race would make the best judge?

After years in which California Republican lawmakers took their marching orders from out-of-state anti-tax groups, some GOP candidates are now refusing to sign no-tax pledges. It's a welcome development. The candidates should be applauded for their independence. The difference between today and two years ago is stark, as Times staff writers Michael J. Mishak and Anthony York reported Saturday. Back then, candidates seeking the Republican nomination for the Assembly and state Senate weren't serious contenders unless they signed the so-called taxpayer protection pledge, which was enforced by Grover Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform.

The morning after Pastor Rick Warren interviewed both major presidential candidates at his evangelical church in Orange County, he delivered a Sunday sermon urging his congregation to judge Sens. Barack Obama and John McCain on how their characters would affect their decisions as leaders. "Don't just look at issues, look at character," Warren said to a crowd of nearly 3,000 during one of two morning sermons at Saddleback Church in Lake Forest. "Look at the candidate and say, 'Does he live with integrity, service with humility, share with generosity, or not?

Barack Obama and Mitt Romney are both smart and accomplished individuals. That's why it is so disappointing that neither candidate has taken a truly responsible position when it comes to the nation's fiscal future. That's not to say that both men haven't advanced some good ideas. Romney, for example, is pushing to limit federal spending, and he's showing political backbone in putting Social Security and Medicare reforms on the table. But Romney also signed the Americans for Tax Reform pledge to "oppose and veto any and all efforts to increase taxes.

After years in which California Republican lawmakers took their marching orders from out-of-state anti-tax groups, some GOP candidates are now refusing to sign no-tax pledges. It's a welcome development. The candidates should be applauded for their independence. The difference between today and two years ago is stark, as Times staff writers Michael J. Mishak and Anthony York reported Saturday. Back then, candidates seeking the Republican nomination for the Assembly and state Senate weren't serious contenders unless they signed the so-called taxpayer protection pledge, which was enforced by Grover Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform.

Los Angeles County Chief Deputy Dist. Atty. Jackie Lacey gave conflicting testimony under oath during two union grievance hearings, attributing the contradiction to being confused and having problems with her blood sugar level, according to transcripts reviewed by The Times. Lacey, who is running for district attorney and has won major endorsements from newspapers, including The Times, testified under oath in 2009 and 2010 as part of a county employment dispute in which the union representing prosecutors accused the district attorney's office of retaliating against its officers.

Re "Alternative presidential bid falters," May 16 It always seemed quixotic to launch a grass-roots movement from the top. In the unlikely scenario that a candidate was elected president, what sort of clout would she or he have in a Congress that lacked even a single supporter? By contrast, consider the "tea party. " Whether or not you agree with its agenda, it is undeniable that the dozens of representatives it helped elect have made their presence felt. Americans Elect should endorse candidates already running for Congress - whether Democratic or Republican - who meet its criteria, and put up candidates of its own in districts where none do. H.A. Drake Santa Barbara ALSO: Letters: Eugenics in America's past Letters: The media and Mitt Romney Letters: California courts feel the cuts

Handsome, youthful, Cuban American and Republican, U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida has been mentioned repeatedly as a potential running mate for Mitt Romney - in part because of hopes that the presence of the first Latino on a major national ticket would draw that key voting group Romney's way. But outside of his enormously important home state, the prospect for that sort of boost seems less than likely. Some voters would probably be attracted by the idea of a Latino, any Latino, being that close to the White House.

SACRAMENTO - For years, running for office as a Republican in California boiled down to one core pledge, bound by a candidate's signature and enforced with a vengeance: no new taxes. Not anymore. The state's new political landscape, scrambled by freshly drawn voting districts and new election rules, has given rise to a handful of GOP hopefuls proudly bucking the anti-tax orthodoxy. Their candidacies have the potential to end years of partisan gridlock here. It would have been unimaginable in the last election, just two years ago: At least five viable Republican contenders for the Assembly are refusing to sign the no-tax pledge that helped ensure protracted budget negotiations and gimmick-laden spending plans as California limped from one fiscal crisis to another.

Do Los Angeles County prosecutors too often or too seldom use their power under 2000's Proposition 21 to charge an accused juvenile as an adult, without first submitting the question to a judge? Does "direct filing" against juveniles, as it is known, make residents safer? Is it a good escape valve for the justice system now that fewer juveniles can be sent to state youth camps, and now that prison realignment is making county jail space more difficult to come by? Los Angeles voters need to know how well the six candidates for district attorney grasp the facts of direct filing and whether and how often - and why - they would exercise that option.

GREENSBORO, N.C. - Both sides in the John Edwards trial gave detailed closing arguments Thursday to a federal jury that will decide whether the former presidential candidate knowingly violated campaign finance laws in a scheme to hide an extramarital affair. Prosecutors told jurors that testimony and evidence in the nearly four-week trial prove that Edwards solicited and orchestrated secret payments of $925,000 from two wealthy benefactors to save his campaign for the 2008 Democratic nomination from scandal.

GREENSBORO, N.C. - Both sides in the John Edwards trial gave detailed closing arguments Thursday to a federal jury that will decide whether the former presidential candidate knowingly violated campaign finance laws in a scheme to hide an extramarital affair. Prosecutors told jurors that testimony and evidence in the nearly four-week trial prove that Edwards solicited and orchestrated secret payments of $925,000 from two wealthy benefactors to save his campaign for the 2008 Democratic nomination from scandal.

CAIRO - A mechanic hammered a fender and boys wandered amid tin and rust as Adham Bishr, his opinions flaring on an agitated afternoon along the Nile, said Egypt's next president should give him a job, not tell him how to worship God. Men gathered around Bishr in a scrap of shade, arguing over inflation and politics before disappearing into the grit and anger of a neighborhood at Cairo's edge. The men, mostly unemployed drivers, mill hands and laborers, want work; their sons, college students with dim prospects, wonder whether the future will bring enough money to take a wife.