Complaints

I'm an 84-year-old man on Social Security with original Medicare and Mutual of Omaha gap insurance. My insurance premium was raised from $262 to $363 a month, a 39% jump. After all my monthly expenses, I have just $240 left. What can I do in the event of another increase in my premiums? If you've had your current Medicare supplement plan for years, it's not surprising that you've seen your costs steadily rise, says Steve Zaleznick, senior Medicare advisor at PlanPrescriber, a Maynard, Mass.-based online provider of Medicare education and plan comparison tools.

Gov. Jerry Brown's administration disputes complaints that the governor's vocal legal challenges to orders to improve prison conditions has brought progress to a halt. The federal court-appointed medical receiver in charge of prison healthcare filed a progress report Wednesday that said the result of remarks by top state officials that California has spent "too many resources and too much money" on prisons "has been to freeze and ossify" his own progress with the state. Corrections officials responded late Wednesday with their own public statement.

In a push to simplify mortgage modifications, federal regulators announced a streamlined process that doesn't require borrowers to prove a hardship. "This new option gives delinquent borrowers another path to avoid foreclosure," Edward J. DeMarco, acting director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, said in a statement announcing the modifications Wednesday. The new modifications, however, would not include reducing the loan balance, a move promoted by housing advocates and others but resisted by DeMarco, who says it would end up costing taxpayers money and would encourage defaults.

Students and activists joined together Wednesday to file complaints against colleges and universities nationwide, alleging that the schools have failed to follow federal laws, including those involving the reporting of sexual assaults and discrimination. Attorney Gloria Allred announced that complaints were filed against Swarthmore College, Dartmouth College, USC and UC Berkeley on Wednesday morning. Some of these were Title IX complaints alleging a hostile environment for women.

Bank of America Corp., which handles customer service on about 15% of U.S. home loans, has accounted for 30% of the mortgage complaints logged by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, according to a new database made public by the federal watchdog. The level of customer discontent - far greater than at home-lending rivals Wells Fargo & Co. and JPMorgan Chase & Co. - reflects BofA's struggles since its 2008 acquisition of Countrywide Financial Corp. in Calabasas. Countrywide had become the No. 1 mortgage firm by specializing in subprime and other high-risk loans.

Most of us consume milk. We put it on cereal and add it to coffee. We give it to our children by the glassful to build up their bones. Women are encouraged to drink it throughout adulthood to maintain those bones. We select this milk from an ever-expanding range. Milk comes in whole, reduced-fat, low-fat and no-fat versions. We have organic milk and milk labeled as coming from farms that do not use hormones. But to Northern Californian dairy farmer Ron Garthwaite, these milks aren't milk at all.

Can you say "yanked?" That is what Nike did this week to one of its commercials featuring NBA basketball star David Robinson that parodies "Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood." In the TV spot for the company's Force line of basketball shoes, Robinson ties his shoes, then looks at the camera and asks: "Can you say, 'Kick some butt?' " The commercial premiered on CBS during the World Series.

In a push to simplify loan modifications, many borrowers who become 90 days or more past due on mortgages backed by Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae will be offered lowered payments without having to prove hardship, the federal regulator of the home-finance giants said. The streamlined modification program, to be put into effect in July, would reduce monthly payments by about 30% on average, officials said in announcing the program Wednesday.  Eligible borrowers would receive letters explaining the modification offer and specifying the reduced payment.

The other day, my 9-year-old son came in from throwing the football with his dad, sobbing in pain. My husband told me that he'd twisted his neck when he went out for a long pass; he assured me that there'd been no rough tackles or hard falls. I was initially sympathetic, dispensing a hug and comforting words. It was only when my son insisted that he couldn't possibly eat dinner at the table and needed to be served on the couch that I started to laugh. I had no doubts that his neck hurt him; in fact, I was sure that it did. But as a doctor, I was convinced that it was a minor injury, probably a muscle strain that couldn't hurt too badly.

Caltech President David Baltimore sent an e-mail to members of his Pasadena campus community on Friday morning to say that the school will not accept artist Richard Serra's hotly debated design for a massive sculpture. "This is not a judgment about the quality of the proposal, but rather a judgment about the needs of the campus," Baltimore wrote. Debate over the proposed 80-ton zigzagging steel wall planned for a lawn in front of the school's biological sciences buildings began months earlier.

SACRAMENTO -- Mexican telecom billionaire Carlos Slim is punching back at an advocacy group that's been criticizing him across the country and on the steps of the California Capitol building. Slim's Miami-based subsidiary, TracFone Wireless Inc., on Monday filed a complaint with California's political watchdog agency against an organization called Two Countries One Voice. The group has been protesting and pressing for legislation that could slow the expansion of TracFone's pre-paid cellphone network in the United States.

A Westside activist who has previously complained to authorities about   former lawmaker Mike Feuer and his campaign for Los Angeles   city attorney has filed additional documents with state and local government watchdog agencies accusing Feuer of more alleged transgressions. Laura Lake, an ally of City Atty. Carmen Trutanich, whom Feuer is challenging in next week's election, said she lodged complaints Friday with the state Fair Political Practices Commission and the city Ethics Commission.

SAN FRANCISCO -- A privacy watchdog group is going after Snapchat for deceiving users about self-destructing messages that don't actually self-destruct. The smartphone app has become popular with young people for sending messages that a few seconds later disappear. That clever disappearing act has made the Los Angeles start-up a hit with users and some prominent investors in Silicon Valley. But it turns out that photos sent over Snapchat have a longer shelf life than people think.

The federal Office of Defects Investigation is probing complaints of sudden engine stalls in approximately 192,000 model year 2006 Chrysler 300C luxury sedans, Dodge Charger sports cars and Dodge Magnum wagons. All of the related complaints about stalls that have been filed with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration involve cars that were equipped with either the 5.7-liter or the 6.1-liter HEMI engines. Several of the drivers who have filed complaints reported multiple stall incidents, according to documents filed with NHTSA.

Occidental College faculty Monday overwhelmingly voted resolutions of no confidence against the campus attorney and another high-ranking administrator for what critics contended was their inadequate responses to allegations of sexual assaults against women at the Los Angeles liberal arts school. The symbolic vote comes two weeks after a group of Occidental students, faculty and alumni filed a civil rights complaint with the U.S. Department of Education, alleging that the school failed to protect women from sexual assaults over the last few years.

The Los Angeles Police Department opened an internal investigation into its response at an off-campus house party near USC amid complaints from some students that the department showed racial bias and used heavy-handed tactics. The incident occurred early Saturday morning during an end-of-semester party at a house a few blocks from campus. A neighbor called police complaining about the noise. Police arrived, and the situation escalated with the arrival of dozens of more officers donning riot gear.

U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters on Tuesday led about 20 angry residents of the Imperial Courts housing project to the Los Angeles Police Commission, where they accused police of continually harassing and abusing tenants in the sprawling complex. "Please call off the dogs," the Los Angeles Democrat told commission members. "Keep them from abusing the people." Waters and the residents alleged that, since the Nov.

Southwest Airlines, the nation's largest domestic carrier, agreed to pay a $150,000 fine for failing to give timely responses to passenger complaints. The U.S. Department of Transportation announced the fine Wednesday, saying Southwest did not respond in writing within 30 days to complaints related to access for the disabled, as required by federal regulations. Southwest officials said the airline inadvertently missed the complaints because of a technical glitch. The Department of Transportation said the airline didn't learn of the problem until seven months after it began.

Los Angeles police arrested six people at a party near USC that they say got out of hand after some partygoers began pelting officers with debris, authorities said Monday. One police officer was injured in the early Sunday morning incident, said LAPD Lt. Andy Neiman. But several USC students told the Daily Trojan that the LAPD's response with dozens of officers in riot gear  was overly aggressive and uncalled for. Students were planning a sit-in Monday from noon to 4 p.m. at the campus.

The jobs of the nation's citizen soldiers are supposed to be safe while they are serving their country: Federal law does not allow employers to penalize service members because of their military duties. Yet every year, thousands of National Guard and Reserve troops coming home from Afghanistan and elsewhere find they have been replaced, demoted, denied benefits or seniority. Government agencies are among the most frequent offenders, accounting for about a third of the more than 15,000 complaints filed with federal authorities since the end of September 2001, records show.