Obama Administration

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.

It's come to this: Joe Biden compared Mitt Romney to a horse. The vice president, campaigning in New Hampshire on Tuesday, argued that Romney has it wrong when he tells voters that things "have gotten much worse" and that Obama administration policies are to blame. Biden was armed with a chart that showed monthly job losses that grew in the final months of the George W. Bush administration began to diminish after President Obama took office, and eventually turned into job growth.

New figures from Gallup place President Obama's reelection bid in a precarious gray zone between the one-term exit of presidents like George H.W. Bush, and successful second-term victories like those of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. Combining Obama's job approval rating with several evaluations of public sentiment on the economy, Gallup's indicators show that the president is performing better than he was just a year ago, but his numbers are nonetheless lackluster compared with those of his predecessors.

When the White House sent a last-minute invitation for Asif Ali Zardari to attend the two-day NATO summit, they were taking a highly public gamble. Would sharing the spotlight with President Obama and other global leaders induce the Pakistani president to allow vital supplies to reach alliance troops fighting in Afghanistan? But long before the summit ended Monday, the answer was clear: No deal. Zardari's refusal to reopen the supply routes left a diplomatic blot on a summit that NATO sought to cast as the beginning of the end of the conflict in Afghanistan.

When the White House sent a last-minute invitation for Asif Ali Zardari to attend the two-day NATO summit, they were taking a highly public gamble. Would sharing the spotlight with President Obama and other global leaders induce the Pakistani president to allow vital supplies to reach alliance troops fighting in Afghanistan? But long before the summit ended Monday, the answer was clear: No deal. Zardari's refusal to reopen the supply routes left a diplomatic blot on a summit that NATO sought to cast as the beginning of the end of the conflict in Afghanistan.

The most ambitious federal mortgage program to date aimed at millions of underwater homeowners is poised to take off in the coming two weeks, yet some key issues could hinder borrower participation. One of them involves something most owners know nothing about: Who was your mortgage insurer on your underwater loan? Though it was announced by the Obama administration late last year, "HARP 2.0" — the second version of the Home Affordable Refinance Program — will finally hit full stride around the middle of this month, when Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac finish tweaking their automated underwriting systems to accept applications, and lenders and mortgage insurance companies start handling large volumes of requests.

President Obama on Tuesday said he was confident in Chicago's ability to host the G8 gathering of world leaders and played down the notion that security concerns had anything to do with the decision to move the May meeting from Chicago to Camp David. In response to a question during a news briefing in Washington, Obama noted that the NATO summit scheduled for the same weekend will still be held in Chicago, bringing him and other world leaders to the city. "I always have confidence in Chicago being able to handle security issues," said Obama, whose 2008 presidential election night victory party was held in Grant Park with a massive crowd in attendance.

If you give millions of seriously underwater homeowners a new equity position in their properties by reducing their principal mortgage debt, will they keep paying on their loans and avoid foreclosure? Call it a pipe dream or a significant model for other lenders and investors, but one company says it has found an important combination: Modify underwater borrowers' loans so that their payments are reduced to a manageable amount and cut their principal debt over time, but make the deal dependent on their scrupulous on-time monthly payments of the new amount plus sharing of a portion of any future profit they make on the house sale.

When Jesse Goodman and his Argentine fiance left the United States in 2006 after an unsuccessful immigration battle, they expected that one day they would be able to return home to New York. Goodman and Max Oliva had become used to finding temporary ways to be together. They had fallen in love quickly and planned on marrying but soon learned that, unlike similar situations with straight couples, their relationship wouldn't help Oliva stay in the country. For a time, they relied on a mix of work permits and tourist visas to stay together.

The Obama administration is appealing a judge's decision in Alabama that upheld key parts of the nation's strictest state immigration law, including requirements for the police and school officials to question the status of persons, including children, who may be in the country illegally. U.S. District Judge Sharon Blackburn cleared the way Wednesday for much of Alabama's new law to take effect. School officials now face the task of determining the citizenship of newly enrolled students.

New figures from Gallup place President Obama's reelection bid in a precarious gray zone between the one-term exit of presidents like George H.W. Bush, and successful second-term victories like those of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. Combining Obama's job approval rating with several evaluations of public sentiment on the economy, Gallup's indicators show that the president is performing better than he was just a year ago, but his numbers are nonetheless lackluster compared with those of his predecessors.

WASHINGTON - By the time the Supreme Court wrapped up the last of its public arguments for this term, it had been an unusually rough first year for U.S. Solicitor Gen. Donald Verrilli Jr., the Obama administration's chief courtroom lawyer. A respected, reserved corporate attorney, Verrilli also had a passion for defending inmates on death row. But he had not handled high-stakes, politically charged cases in the high court. He seemed repeatedly caught off guard when his liberal arguments were met with skepticism and even scorn from the justices, a majority of whom lean to the right.

The Obama administration threatened California on Thursday with rescinding $3.3 billion in federal grants to start construction of a bullet train if the Legislature does not act by June to appropriate the state's share of funding. In a series of meetings with key lawmakers in Sacramento, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said that the recent proposal by state Senate leaders to delay a $2.7-billion decision on the high-speed rail project until August is not acceptable. "We need the Legislature to make the strongest commitment possible," LaHood said in an interview.

WASHINGTON - Vice President Joe Biden gave a nod to same-sex marriage Sunday by saying he is comfortable with the idea of "men marrying men" and "women marrying women" having the same rights as heterosexual couples. In an interview on "Meet the Press," Biden declined to rule out the possibility that, in a second term, President Obama might move from his position of supporting civil unions to backing same-sex marriage. Biden prefaced his comments with the caveat that the president sets administration policy, and then said: "I am absolutely comfortable with the fact that men marrying men, women marrying women, and heterosexual men and women marrying one another are entitled to the same exact rights, all the civil rights, all the civil liberties.

In recent weeks, a parade of top officials has given sober, underpublicized speeches explaining why President Obama not only considers "targeted killing" drone strikes against terrorists legal but has massively expanded their use, even approving a strike against a U.S. citizen, the New Mexico-born Al Qaeda preacher Anwar Awlaki, in Yemen last year. Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr. gave a lecture arguing that the government has a right to kill U.S. citizens who practice terrorism as long as it observes some form of "due process" in its secret decision-making.

COLUMBUS, Ohio - President Obama officially kicked off his reelection campaign on Saturday by blasting the economic policies of likely Republican nominee Mitt Romney and arguing that Americans would be better off under four more years guided by his own vision for the country. Speaking at Ohio State University, Obama blamed the trickle-down policies of the past for the current economic situation and questioned whether a return to the Republican school of thought was a good idea.

The Times' Politics Now blog reports that the Obama administration has rejected a permit for the controversial Keystone XL pipeline project. The decision was due by Feb. 21, under provisions voted in by Congress as part of the payroll tax cut extension in December, but the president and his appointees are expected to announce a decision as early as Wednesday. This does not mean, however, that the project is dead. The pipeline's parent company TransCanada will need to propose an alternative route to avoid putting the pipe over a large aquifer in Nebraska, and then it can resubmit its permits.

WASHINGTON -- The Obama administration moved to control the injection of millions of gallons of diesel deep underground during hydraulic fracturing, the controversial oil and gas development technique that avoided oversight by the Environmental Protection Agency because of a loophole created under President George W. Bush. Under the Energy Policy Act of 2005, hydraulic fracturing got an exemption from EPA regulation under the Safe Drinking Water Act because of what many have called the Halliburton Loophole.

A day after Mitt Romney spoke of a "day of shame for the Obama administration" for its role in protecting a dissident in China who sought shelter at the American Embassy, the presumptive GOP presidential nominee on Friday appeared to be softening his words about the handling of Chen Guangcheng. "Some recent reports coming from China suggest we may not have been as effective in protecting his freedom as we should have been and if those reports are true that would be a very dark day for freedom, but let's wait and see what those reports finally show,” Romney said on the Fox & Friends show on Fox News.