Credit

'V': The review of the television series "V" in Tuesday's Calendar section said the pilot was written by Kenneth Johnson and Scott Peters. As the writer of the original miniseries, Johnson was given a "story by" credit. Peters wrote the pilot.

Cover art: The illustration of Raymond Chandler on the cover of the Dec. 30 Sunday Opinion section lacked an artist's credit. It should have been credited to Scott Lauman.

A unit of Ambac Financial Group Inc. lost a crucial top AAA credit rating Friday, raising questions about the bond insurer's ability to win new business and possibly forcing some investors to sell billions of dollars of municipal bonds and other securities guaranteed by the company. Fitch Ratings cut Ambac Assurance Corp.'s top rating after the bond insurer, citing weak demand, scrapped plans to sell $1 billion of new equity. Ambac, the world's No.

Placentia officials vowed Friday to fight claims by Caltrans that the small north Orange County city owes the state more than $36 million. The money was spent for a controversial rail corridor project that devastated the town's finances. "Our understanding of the contract is that the state has no legal right to ask for money back unless there is an erroneous or mistaken payment," Mayor Scott Nelson said during a news conference at City Hall.

New York state insurance regulators confirmed Wednesday that they met with some major U.S. banks to discuss raising fresh capital for struggling bond insurance companies. Talks with the unnamed banks were part of New York State Insurance Superintendent Eric Dinallo's effort to stabilize the bond guarantors and bolster the industry's finances, agency spokesman Andrew Mais said.

As a credit crunch squeezed borrowers during the last three months of 2007, Los Angeles bucked the national downward slide in loans backed by the Small Business Administration. Driven by a higher number of smaller deals, loan volume here increased 3.5% to 1,319 from 1,275 in the year-earlier period, according to agency figures. But the amount lent fell $15.3 million, or 5.5%, to $265.2 million.

Blackstone Group's $6.6-billion leveraged buyout of credit card payments processor Alliance Data Systems Corp. may collapse because bank regulators have placed what Blackstone called "unacceptable" requirements on the acquisition. Alliance Data's shares plunged 35% after Blackstone said conditions requested by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency would impose "unlimited and indefinite" liability on the firm. It would try to keep the deal alive, the New York-based company said.

Singleton estate photo credit: The credit with a photo of an interior room at the Henry Singleton estate in Holmby Hills that accompanied the Feb. 3 Hot Property column misspelled the last name of photographer Lee Brubaker, of BrubakerPhotography.com, as Brubak.

Orange County's latest investments in complex financial deals took a turn for the worse Wednesday when a fund in which the county placed $80 million neared default after a major U.K. bank aborted plans for a bailout. County officials said they expect the fund to miss a principal and interest payment to another investor today. That, in turn, would drive down the market value of Orange County's holdings.