Paperwork

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.

The Italian government has been persistent, tenacious and very effective in forcing repatriation of its looted antiquities. Seizing the ethical high ground, then playing legal and diplomatic hardball, it has extracted scores of prized objects from American museums. None was hit harder than L.A.'s Getty Museum, which has bid adieu to 40 pieces Italy was able to prove had been illegally dug from its soil. But last week, the tables turned. This time, the Italian government was the party caught owning an ill-gotten prize, "Christ Carrying the Cross," painted around 1538 by Renaissance master Girolamo Romanino.

Distancing himself from Republicans on housing issues, President Obama pitched a $5-billion to $10-billion plan to help a key segment of struggling homeowners — those still making monthly payments, but on underwater mortgages. Obama proposed Wednesday to help about 3.5 million people with good credit who are unable to refinance at historically low rates because their homes are worth less than their mortgages. He argued that those homeowners — and the country — couldn't afford to let the housing market bottom out, as many Republicans, including presidential candidate Mitt Romney, have advocated.

Four years after Countrywide Financial became a symbol of the mortgage meltdown, the company and its questionable dealings have become a potent political issue in the Santa Clarita congressional district held by Republican Howard "Buck" McKeon. Congressional investigators allege that McKeon and Rep. Elton Gallegly, a Republican colleague whose neighboring district includes much of Ventura County, got cut-rate home loans under a Countrywide VIP program known as "Friends of Angelo," named for the now-defunct Calabasas lender's former chief executive, Angelo Mozilo.

We've all heard that government paperwork is a drag on productivity and a backdoor tax on the economy. Here's a case where it may actually be helping to improve people's lives. The paperwork at issue is a questionnaire of up to 38 pages nursing homes now have to fill out for every resident upon admission. The form has to be filled out again periodically during the resident's stay, and again upon the resident's discharge, no matter whether he or she is being sent home to live with family, or sent to a hospital by ambulance in the middle of the night.

Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty filed paperwork with federal elections officials Monday to become a formal candidate for president, the first major Republican to take that step in what is expected to be a multi-candidate field against President Obama. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich recently announced his interest in the presidency and formed a fund to begin collecting money, but he has not yet filed a formal statement of candidacy. Pawlenty already has put together a team in Iowa and New Hampshire and has visited both states repeatedly.

When David Bloom of Los Angeles shipped to Iraq in 2005 with the U.S. Army Reserves, the last thing he expected to find there was a wife. But the first time he set eyes on an Iraqi woman named Zee, who worked for U.S. forces as a translator, Bloom told a buddy he was going to marry her one day. Marriage, as we know, can be a complicated undertaking. All the more so when international complexities and military rules are thrown in. Here now, just in time for Memorial Day, is the saga of Sgt. Bloom, 41, and 24-year-old Zee, who asked that I not use her last name because of concerns about her family's safety in Iraq.

Re: "Billing fraud crackdown is dealt setback," Aug. 19: Workers' compensation insurers don't want to send notices to injured workers to check whether the workers received all the medical services insurers are being billed for. They say the "high cost of increased paperwork" makes sending notices "prohibitively expensive." As if billions of dollars being funneled through these insurance companies to pay fraudulent claims isn't "prohibitively expensive"? Katie MacMahon Orange

JPMorgan Chase & Co. plans to lift its 40-state freeze on home foreclosures later in November but said it would take several months to redo improperly filed paperwork. The company, the No. 3 U.S. mortgage lender, imposed the freeze on about 127,000 delinquent home loans last month to assess whether they were being handled correctly. The loans were made in states that require court orders for foreclosures and states with relatively complicated nonjudicial processes, but not in California and other states with streamlined procedures.

All MarkAir Planes Get OK to Fly: All six of the carrier's jetliners have been cleared by the Federal Aviation Administration to resume flying, nine days after the agency grounded the discount airline because of safety concerns. None of the planes required repairs, MarkAir spokesman Tom Medland said. The last two MarkAir planes got the green light to resume service late Thursday. The other four had been cleared earlier in the week and had resumed flights to the 11 cities served by MarkAir.

About one-fourth of the cases filed so far against Occupy Los Angeles protesters have been dismissed because of paperwork errors by police. In seven of the 26 cases filed as of last week by the Los Angeles city attorney's office, the arresting officer was misidentified in the police report, according to William Carter, chief deputy city attorney. Prosecutors requested the dismissal of six of the cases, and a judge dismissed the seventh on similar grounds, he said. Without the correct name of the arresting officer, prosecutors are not able to call police to testify, he said.

Foreclosures by major banks jumped 21.1% in the third quarter as voluntary holds for paperwork problems were lifted, according to federal regulators. But the number of homes en route to being seized fell 15.8% in October, a research firm said. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency said new foreclosures initiated by eight large national banks and One West Bank federal savings association in Pasadena rose from the second three months this year as mortgage servicers lifted holds they instituted as federal and state authorities investigated faulty paperwork.

It's fast becoming the money-laundering method of choice for Mexican drug traffickers, U.S. and Mexican officials say, and it involves truckloads not of cash, but of fruit and fabric. Faced with new restrictions on the use of U.S. cash in Mexico, drug cartels are using an ingenious scheme to move their ill-gotten dollars south under the guise of legitimate cross-border commerce. U.S. and Mexican authorities say trade-based money-laundering may be the most clever — and hardest to detect — way in which traffickers are washing and distributing their billion-dollar profits.

USC quarterback Matt Barkley said Wednesday that he has submitted paperwork to the NFL. Remain calm, USC fans. Barkley, at Coach Lane Kiffin's direction, simply made the standard evaluation request that most draft-eligible players file after their junior seasons. Nevertheless, it was the first step in what will be a weeks-long process as Barkley decides whether to turn pro or return for a final college season. "There's not really a timetable," he said in an interview on campus.

Oaktree Capital Management took another step forward in its planned initial public offering, but analysts believe volatile economic conditions could stall its market debut until next year. The Los Angeles investment giant filed more paperwork Monday with the Securities and Exchange Commission as it moves toward an IPO that could total more than $100 million. It is one of the world's largest money managers, with $73 billion of assets under management. The regulatory filings did not specify when Oaktree might pursue a public listing.

A proposal to allow some creditworthy homeowners to refinance underwater mortgages has become part of settlement talks between government officials and major banks over botched foreclosure paperwork. California would be a major beneficiary of such a plan because it leads the nation with 2.1 million mortgages in which the homeowner owes more than the value of the home, according to Santa Ana industry research firm CoreLogic Inc. The proposal has been floated in hopes of luring state Atty.

The frequently ticketed daughter of Assemblywoman Cathie Wright (R-Simi Valley) entered Ventura County Jail to begin a 30-day sentence for violating conditions of her traffic offense probation. Victoria Wright, 24, was conditionally accepted for the county work furlough program two weeks ago, but failed to submit the required paperwork until Monday, said program manager Richard Humeston. He said he expects to make a final decision today.

In reference to the "Melrose Place" location shooting in Oxnard: For more than a year a while back, "Melrose Place" did location shooting at Monteria Estates in Chatsworth. As a security guard working for the Monteria Estates Homeowners Assn., I can say that "Melrose Place" was always totally professional in every regard to shooting on location in Monteria Estates, from permit and insurance paperwork to after-shoot cleanup. They were/are welcome any time there. I received no complaints and they treated everyone royally, every time.

It's the first rule of thumb for any aspiring UFO investigator: Keep an open mind. "We all want to believe, we all want to believe bad," said David MacDonald, a certified investigator with the Mutual UFO Network. "But you've got to look at the evidence. You've got to come at this like a scientific researcher. " On Friday, MacDonald and dozens of like-minded individuals filled an Irvine hotel conference room to discuss the finer points of investigating the inexplicable — or at least that which cannot be explained in terrestrial terms.

The highest-paid state employee in California last year, a prison surgeon who took home $777,423, has a history of mental illness, was fired once for alleged incompetence and has not been allowed to treat an inmate for six years because medical supervisors don't trust his clinical skills. Since July 2005, Dr. Jeffrey Rohlfing has mostly been locked out of his job -- on paid leave or fired or fighting his termination -- at High Desert State Prison in Susanville, state records show.