Government Officials

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.

Two former executives of an Orange County company pleaded guilty to foreign corruption charges for bribing overseas government officials in order to win sales contracts. Stuart Carson, former president of Control Components Inc., and Hong "Rose" Carson, the Rancho Santa Margarita company's former director of sales in China and Taiwan, are scheduled to be sentenced in October. The Carsons, who are married and live in San Clemente, pleaded guilty to bribery charges Monday during a hearing in Santa Ana before U.S. District Judge James V. Selna.

WASHINGTON - The Obama administration ordered tariffs of 31% and higher on solar panels imported from China, escalating a simmering trade dispute with China over a case that has sharply divided American interests in the growing clean-energy industry. The Commerce Department announced the stiff duties Thursday after making a preliminary finding that Chinese solar panel manufacturers "dumped" their goods - that is, sold them at below fair-market value. The widely anticipated ruling, if affirmed by U.S. trade officials this fall, is expected to have significant implications for both the global production of solar cells, now largely in China, and the growth of the solar energy industry in the U.S., which employs about 100,000 people in manufacturing, installation and services.

This place used to sell itself. The sun-kissed coastline, the glassy waves and the tens of millions of visitors who descended onto the spacious sand like clockwork. They were the magical ingredients that beach cities in California could bank on to bring in a steady stream of corporate dollars. For exclusive rights to put company logos on lifeguard towers, trash cans, warning signs, vending machines and volleyball nets up and down the Los Angeles County coast, the bidding would start at $700,000.

David Joyce marched his way to the front of the U.S. immigration line using his pocketbook, sinking half a million dollars into a Vermont ski resort. The British citizen had spent years in a futile effort to secure green cards for himself, his wife and their 9-year-old son so they could relocate to sunny Florida. Then, a fellow emigre tipped him off to a little-known federal program that helps foreigners gain permanent U.S. residency by investing in American businesses. Graphic: Number of investors' visas to U.S. "In six months, we had our green cards," said Joyce, 51. "Considering everything we've been through, this was easy.

A newly declassified document has added to long-standing questions about whether Henry Kissinger, while secretary of State, halted a U.S. plan to curb a secret program of international assassinations by South American dictators. The document, a set of instructions cabled from Kissinger to his top Latin American deputy, ended efforts by U.S. diplomats to warn the governments of Chile, Uruguay and Argentina against involvement in the covert plan known as Operation Condor, according to Peter Kornbluh, an analyst with the National Security Archive, a private research organization that uncovered the document and made it public Saturday.

Culver City Police Chief John Montanio, accused of giving a city councilman's son special treatment during a traffic stop, signed a letter this year urging leniency for the same man in an earlier concealed weapon case. Montanio went to bat for Albert Vera Jr., 39, who received probation after pleading no contest to illegal possession of a handgun. The gun was discovered when the son of Culver City Councilman Albert Vera Sr. was arrested for petty theft last year.

The leader of a rebellious Black Sea region resigned early today in the face of sweeping protests against his rule, giving Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili an important victory in his attempt to consolidate his fractured country.

The number of swine flu cases continued its slow climb, reaching 263 in the United States and at least 937 in 19 countries worldwide, but both Mexican and U.S. authorities expressed cautious optimism Sunday that the outbreak may not be as severe as originally feared. U.S. officials continued to express confidence that the H1N1 virus was not unusually virulent, but they cautioned that the number of cases and deaths would rise. In Mexico, however, officials said the disease was on the decline.

Police who raided a birthday party thrown by a Chinese gangster got a surprise gift: 45 government officials among the guests. The raid targeted the leader of a gang implicated in a dozen killings and other crimes in Shaoyang, a city in Hunan province, according to police and the Communist Party newspaper People's Daily. Officials caught at the June 6 party thrown by Yao Zhihong for his son are suspected of protecting him, the report said.

What is the status of medical marijuana in California? May people possess it, use it, distribute it, sell it? Those ought to be easy enough questions to answer, but because of state and local fumbling on the issue, they're not. And now, after last week's announcement by federal authorities of a crackdown on dispensaries, the answers may be harder than ever to nail down. So complicated are the legal and enforcement issues surrounding medical marijuana that the attempt by California's four U.S. attorneys to bring some clarity — just like earlier attempts by federal Justice Department officials — actually makes things murkier.

Dismayed by one City Council member's repeated whistle-blowing about the embattled city, Montebello City Council members are slated Wednesday to discuss rules on how council members communicate and use city letterhead. The move comes after some city officials expressed outrage that Councilwoman Christina Cortez used city letterhead to ask the Los Angeles County district attorney and the state controller to investigate the city. One rule would call for council members to provide for the printed agenda "a brief general description" of what they plan to discuss during public comments, "expressed in complete sentences.

Only in hindsight does earthquake prediction work with real accuracy. Seismologists can assess long-term risks and likely scenarios, but they'd be the last ones to say they can foretell the time, date and epicenter of the next Big One. Yet in Italy, a trial is underway for a group of seismologists and a government official accused of manslaughter for being overly reassuring about underground rumblings that preceded a killer quake in 2009. The charges they face for doing their job aren't just ludicrous but potentially damaging to scientists worldwide.

Meyaan Ahamad dips his head into the shed where his prized fighting dog barks ferociously at the end of a chain. The dog, a Kuchi breed, has weightlifter shoulders, a massive head, the heft of a black bear and the growl of a cougar. If Michael Vick, the American quarterback convicted of participating in an illegal dogfighting operation, were from Afghanistan, he'd probably be a national hero. In this country, canine bouts — literally "dog wars" in Dari — are keenly followed even by celebrities and government ministers.

At a glance, it is clear this is no run-of-the-mill farm: A 6-foot spiked fence hems the meticulously planted vegetables and security guards control a cantilevered gate that glides open only to select cars. "It is for officials only. They produce organic vegetables, peppers, onions, beans, cauliflowers, but they don't sell to the public," said Li Xiuqin, 68, a lifelong Shunyi village resident who lives directly across the street from the farm but has never been inside. "Ordinary people can't go in there.

A popular anti-corruption activist who was arrested this week and refused to leave his prison cell until India's government met his terms for a hunger strike left prison Friday morning to a triumphant welcome from thousands of supporters, some of whom have camped out for three days. "Victory to mother India," said septuagenarian activist Anna Hazare, waving an Indian flag. "The fight is far from over, it has just begun. " The end of the unusual standoff occurred when government officials granted him the right to continue his protest for up to two weeks at a large venue, rather than three days at a smaller field they'd originally insisted on. His fast began in jail.

Toyota Motor Corp. created a panel of former U.S. government officials to advise Japan's largest auto maker as it seeks to promote more women and minority managers and add minority-run dealerships in the biggest auto market. The seven-member North American Diversity Advisory Board will be chaired by Alexis Herman, Labor secretary in the Clinton administration, Toyota Senior Vice President Doug West said.

Los Angeles Councilman Richard Alatorre's illegal City Hall intervention on behalf of a company founded by his wife "goes to the heart" of the reason voters approved a landmark ethics reform law seven years ago, a top investigator in the case said Thursday.

The Venezuelan government tried to strike a confident pose Friday after the revelation that President Hugo Chavez had a cancerous tumor removed in Cuba unleashed anxiety and uncertainty across the South American country. Government officials said Chavez would be able to manage the affairs of state during his convalescence, with Vice President Elias Jaua declaring that the president was in "full condition to stay in charge as head of state, and I see no need to replace him. " Yet key questions about Chavez's future — and the nation's — remained unanswered.

He is a man of peace, the Libyan government says, one of a group of junior officers who, with Moammar Kadafi, overthrew Libya's king more than four decades ago and set out to create a more egalitarian society. Rebels fighting to oust Kadafi say Khweldi Hamedi is something else: a ruthless henchman who oversaw the brutal suppression of an anti-Kadafi revolt and amassed enormous wealth and a vast estate. On Monday, Hamedi's estate lay in smoldering ruins — the aftermath of a NATO aerial blitz that killed 15 people, including three children, according to the Libyan government.