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Are banks and distressed home sellers getting rooked on a massive scale in the booming short-sale arena — leaving hundreds of millions of dollars on the table for white-collar criminals? A comprehensive new study estimates that they will lose more than $375 million this year when they sell undervalued houses to tag teams consisting of realty agents and investors. Worse yet, the trend appears to be growing at the rate of 25% a year. CoreLogic, a large real estate and mortgage data research firm in Santa Ana, studied 450,000 short-sale transactions across the country during the last two years and offered these examples of how lenders are losing big bucks: • A house in Kings Beach, Calif., was purchased near the height of the boom in 2005 for $530,000.

Under mounting pressure to keep its massive budget in check, the Pentagon is looking to cheaper, smaller weapons to wage war in the 21st century. A new generation of weaponry is being readied in clandestine laboratories across the nation that puts a priority on pintsized technology that would be more precise in warfare and less likely to cause civilian casualties. Increasingly, the Pentagon is being forced to discard expensive, hulking, Cold War-era armaments that exact a heavy toll on property and human lives.

Reporting from Arlington, Texas — Maicer Izturis has sat out nearly as many games as he has played over the last three seasons, leading some to conclude that the 30-year-old infielder may be too fragile to be an everyday player in the major leagues. That's a conclusion to which the usually reserved Izturis takes exception. Strong exception. "Those are ignorant people who say that," Izturis said. "They don't know the game. I could play 140 games at 90%, 80%. But that's not the way I play.

The Museum of Contemporary Art expected to make some waves when it launched "Art in the Streets," billed as the first major U.S. museum survey exhibition on graffiti and street art. But the LAPD said the show has also become a target of taggers who want to leave a mark of their own outside the Little Tokyo exhibition space where the show opened Sunday. In a city considered one of the birthplaces of street art, the exhibit at the Geffen Contemporary at MOCA has intensified an already fierce debate about whether something that is illegal can also have artistic value.

For years Cristian Gheorghiu craved the thrill of the chase. Spray-paint can in hand, he lived on the edge, always a step ahead of the law. His canvas was L.A.'s lampposts, brick walls and concrete riverbeds where he scrawled ragged images and his own nickname, "Smear" ? probably thousands of times. The graffiti made him a subculture sensation. Fans compared his art to that of another graffiti artist, the critically acclaimed Jean-Michel Basquiat. But just as the East Hollywood graffiti artist's career was taking off, his past has threatened to overtake him. First came jail and a whopping fine.

The Doorganizer ($11.99) is a 12-by-5-inch canvas tag with pockets that hangs on the doorknob on the interior side of a hotel room door. One side has three pockets that can hold a cellphone, tickets, cash or other small essentials, and there's a clip for keys. The other side has an open loop strip for holding mail or a folded newspaper. The tag bears the warning: “Do Not Forget!” Info: The Container Store , (888) 266-8246.  

A decade in the automotive industry is like the passing of the Mesozoic era; a lot changes. In 2001, Hyundais were questionable and Toyota was infallible. Pontiac, Oldsmobile and Plymouth existed. Scion did not. So it may come as a bit of a surprise that it's been 10 years since Volvo pulled an all-new S60 out of the oven. With the exception of an ornery transmission and navigation system, the 2011 S60 was worth the wait. Volvos have always been long on safety and (with a few exceptions)

After nine days in jail, Julian Assange was released on bail Thursday by a British judge who ruled that the controversial WikiLeaks founder could fight extradition to Sweden over sex-crimes allegations from the confines of a friend's country estate. Assange was released Thursday evening after paying nearly $375,000 in cash up front in bail and giving other financial assurances. In a sign of how politically charged the case is, the courthouse in downtown London stayed open late so the 39-year-old Australian could complete the required paperwork and emerge a free man. "It's great to smell [the]

After nine days in jail, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was granted bail Thursday in a politically charged case concerning alleged sex crimes in Sweden. A high-court judge in London upheld an earlier decision to allow Assange to remain free while he fights extradition to Sweden, where authorities want to question him over allegations of molestation, unlawful coercion and rape stemming from encounters he had with two women in August. Assange, 39, can now swap what his lawyer calls the "Dickensian conditions" of a south London jail for the tony comforts of a country mansion owned by a friend, where the high-court judge agreed that he could stay while out on bail.