Provision

The new financial reform law has what some lawyers call a secret weapon against fraud on Wall Street and in corporate America: the promise of a million-dollar jackpot to insiders who reveal an illegal scheme to the government. Tucked in the massive bill is a provision that for the first time extends a concept long applied to government contracts to the private sector. It gives whistle-blowers a mandatory 10% — and as much as 30% — of what the government recoups in fines and settlements in financial fraud cases.

WASHINGTON - Wading into the gay marriage debate, the Republican-led House tacked a provision banning same-sex marriages at military chapels onto a sweeping defense bill that is now headed to the Senate. Despite the high-octane public discussion over gay marriage that has intensified since President Obama announced his support for same-sex marriages, the issue has been one that Capitol Hill has largely sought to avoid. But the GOP majority led Congress into the issue by adding the same-sex marriage prohibitions to the defense bill.

Reporting from Sacramento -- California politicians who want to carry weapons will still have to go through the same permit process as everyone else, at least for now. A bill that would have streamlined the state's gun permit process for them was stripped of that controversial provision Tuesday, before a legislative committee passed the rest of the measure. Sen. Roderick Wright (D-Inglewood), author of the bill, said he hoped to revisit the idea later. State residents who apply for a permit to carry a concealed weapon must show good cause for one. That can include dangerous work or threats of violence.

A New York federal judge temporarily blocked enforcement of a provision in the National Defense Authorization Act that opponents contend could subject them to indefinite military detention for political activism, news reporting or other 1st Amendment activities. U.S. District Judge Katherine Forrest in Manhattan ruled Wednesday in favor of a group of writers and activists who sued President Obama, Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta and the Defense Department. Obama signed the bill into law Dec. 31. The complaint was filed Jan. 13 by a group including former New York Times reporter Christopher Hedges.

As I signed my California income tax return and began to search for credit cards to finance the five-figure amount due, I pondered the fate of thousands of other small California businesses such as mine. What is the problem? The elimination by the people working in Sacramento of a provision -- otherwise universally allowed -- called the net operating loss carry-forward. The NOL carry-forward allowed a business that lost money in the preceding year or years to offset taxable gains in a subsequent year.

Brushing aside objections from the White House, the House passed a $690-billion defense spending bill Thursday that would expand the president's authority to pursue terrorists around the world while limiting the government's options for prosecuting detainees. The bill would fund the Pentagon and provide $119 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Senate has yet to pass its own version. The White House supports some parts of the bill, but has threatened a veto over several provisions.

Tucked away in a $690-billion defense spending bill is a little-noticed provision that would expand the president's power to pursue suspected terrorists around the world. The measure builds on legislation passed after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks that allowed President George W. Bush to pursue perpetrators of the attacks and their collaborators without first consulting with Congress. The new provision would no longer require that targets have a connection to Sept. 11, instead granting the president authority to "use all necessary and appropriate force during the current armed conflict with Al Qaeda, the Taliban and associated forces.

Hopefully, the new health-care system will have a provision for gun control. It could fall under the category of "Preventive Medicine." MIKE KAPOWICH Corona del Mar

Our Founding Fathers' provision for checks and balances is working. The executive branch is trying to write the big checks and the legislative branch is trying to balance the checkbook. HAZEL BAAR San Diego

A provision for creating a nonprofit consumer advocacy corporation to fight for "fair" automobile insurance rates was amended into pending legislation by Senate President Pro Tem David A. Roberti (D-Los Angeles). The proposal is a response to a recent state Supreme Court decision that upheld most of the voter-approved Proposition 103, but struck down a provision to create an organization which would represent the consumer in state insurance rate proceedings. Insurance companies would be required to inform their customers that they could become members of the consumer advocacy group, which would be funded by voluntary donations.

WASHINGTON - It's a deal that most businesses would relish: Buy an insurance policy to cover losses or falling prices, and the government will foot most of the bill. Such an arrangement has been enjoyed for more than a decade by the farmers who grow crops such as corn and soybeans, and the companies that insure them. And it's about to get even better. The farm bill now before Congress includes a provision - estimated to cost about $3 billion a year - that would help cover the losses farmers suffer before their crop insurance policies kick in. Those losses, termed deductibles, can run in the tens of thousands of dollars for a typical mid-size farm.

In the heat of a broader financial scandal, the public officials who run the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum have agreed to give up decades' worth of free Trojan football tickets they negotiated for themselves in a proposed lease that would surrender control of the stadium to USC. The Coliseum Commission has also relinquished access to a VIP hospitality area at the taxpayer-owned stadium for Trojan contests as well as a possible bounty of free tickets...

WASHINGTON - U.S. Supreme Court justices strongly suggested they would uphold a provision in Arizona's tough immigration law that tells police to check whether people they stop for some other reason are in this country legally. But several justices also suggested they were troubled by parts of the law that would make it a state crime for illegal immigrants to seek work or not to carry immigration documents. The hourlong oral arguments Wednesday pointed toward a possible split decision: a partial victory for Arizona that would revive its first-in-the-nation state crackdown on illegal immigrants but weaken the impact of its law. The Obama administration won lower court rulings that blocked Arizona's law on the grounds that it conflicted with the federal government's control over immigration.

For nearly two years, Arizona has defended SB 1070, a dangerous law that attempts to turn local law enforcement officers into federal immigration agents. The courts have repeatedly rejected Arizona's arguments that the law isn't an attempt to interfere with federal authority to regulate immigration but rather an effort to work cooperatively with Washington. On Wednesday, state officials will make a final pitch to the U.S. Supreme Court. The justices should strike down the provisions in question as an unconstitutional intrusion into the federal government's exclusive authority to make and enforce immigration laws.

Right about now, the Lakers are glad they didn't use their amnesty provision to cut Metta World Peace last December. It was discussed by the front office, as were other players' names, but the Lakers holstered their ability to waive one player without paying luxury taxes on his salary. Turned out to be a good move. Or non-move. World Peace has been a catalyst the last six games, averaging 18 points and shooting 58%. Lakers fans used to groan whenever he hoisted a three-point attempt.

Who owns your personal information - you or the business you share it with? It's a fundamental question that gets to the heart of whether existing privacy protections are too strict or not strict enough. It also addresses matters of accountability when data go astray, as was the case this week when a major credit card processing company said as many as 1.5 million card numbers may have been stolen by hackers. I wrote on Tuesday about the lack of adequate disclosure rules when people's privacy is violated.

The Senate gave final congressional approval to legislation that authorizes $7.5 billion for education programs over the next five years and, in its most controversial feature, bans all "dial-a-porn" services. The bill, which was approved on a quick voice vote, now goes to the White House, where President Reagan is expected to sign it into law. The basic legislation, which would maintain and in some cases increase federal programs in elementary and secondary schools, provoked little controversy.

Rent control for businesses in Berkeley's Telegraph Avenue shopping district was struck down by a federal judge in San Francisco, who said a provision of the year-old ordinance narrowly limiting the grounds for which a property owner can refuse to renew a lease violates the constitutional ban on impairment of contracts. U.S.

The Affordable Care Act faced a possibly fatal challenge last week when the constitutionality of its individual mandate provision was argued in the Supreme Court. Much of the terrain was easy going. Neither the justices nor the lawyers doubted that the healthcare and healthcare insurance markets involve interstate commerce - insurance and healthcare providers are usually national or at least regional operations, folks who cross state lines get sick and must be cared for away from home regularly, and people are often unable to relocate to another state for fear of losing employer-based coverage.

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court, after three days of arguments on President Obama's healthcare overhaul, appeared ready to strike down not just the requirement that individuals have insurance, but the entire law, invalidating a major piece of domestic legislation for the first time since the Depression. That prospect, unthinkable to many experts as recently as last week, will not be certain until the justices rule on the case, probably in June. But the electric set of arguments that ended Wednesday revealed profound skepticism about the law by the court's five-member conservative majority, which appeared openly hostile to its scheme for mobilizing the federal government to achieve universal healthcare.