* The state's universities and colleges are being hit hard with cases of flu, most likely of the H1N1 variety.

A type of influenza easily passed among young people, H1N1 is circulating so commonly that health officials don't even test for it specifically. They simply say students have "influenza-like illness" and assume the strain is H1N1.

The largest numbers are at UNC-Chapel Hill, which through last week had nearly 700 cases. That's more than twice the 309 cases reported by N.C. State over essentially the same period, and NCSU is a larger institution.

Most other universities report far lower numbers. Wake Forest has seen about 200 cases, and Duke has had about 170. At Peace, the small women's college in Raleigh, Murray is one of 13 students to get it.

The totals are likely higher. These numbers represent only students who seek help from a campus health office. The cases are mild and so far have not led to mass absences.

More hand washing could help slow the virus spread. One professor says students need to hear how unpleasant the illness is to get them to wash up. (N&O)

* A program set up last year to help North Carolina homeowners with subprime loans avoid foreclosure has been expanded to include those with traditional mortgages.

Two North Carolina Congressmen went across party lines on a housing bill.

The U.S. House of Representatives voted 234-191, primarily along party lines, to pass a housing bill that aims to prevent foreclosures by helping struggling homeowners. 

One of the bill's provisions would allow bankruptcy judges to modify the existing terms fo mortgages for homeowners, allowing them to pay off debts over three to five years' time.

U.S. Rep. Walter Jones, a Republican, voted with the Democrats in favor of the bill, while Rep. Larry Kissell, a Democrat, voted with the GOP against it. 

The bill includes language that was written by U.S. Rep. Brad Miller, a Raleigh Democrat, while working with the Center for Responsible Lending in Durham.

The bill now goes to the Senate. (N&O)

U.S. Rep. Brad Miller will testify this afternoon before the House Judiciary Committee on his housing foreclosure bill.

The Emergency Homeownership and Equity Protection Act would allow judges to alter the terms of housing loans for some families who have had to file for bankruptcy. It is supported by many housing advocates, but opposed by the mortgage lending industry, Barb Barrett reports.

Miller has been pushing strongly for such provisions for more than a year but has yet to successfully see it become law. He will try again with the economic stimulus package now being debated in Congress.

If that doesn’t work, Miller may try to include his bill in larger legislation focused on housing issues.

U.S. Rep. Brad Miller of Raleigh held a news conference in Washington today to promote legislation that would allow home mortgages to be restructured in bankruptcy like other types of personal debt.

Miller appeared at the Capitol Visitors Center with U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois and representatives of a coalition of groups supporting the measure, including AARP, AFL-CIO, NAACP, Consumers Union and other civil rights, union and consumer groups.

The two said they would make passage of their bill, The Helping Families Save Their Homes in Bankruptcy Act, the first priority of the new Congress, according to Miller's office.

Durbin introduced the bill in October 2007, and Miller introduced a similar bill. Miller's office said he and Durbin, both Democrats, tried over the past year to pass the proposal over the resistance of the Mortgage Bankers of America and Senate Republicans.

"Middle-class families have seen their life’s savings evaporate with the collapse in the value of their homes," Miller said at the press conference. "We are not going to stop the downward spiral of our economy until we stop the collapse of home values. And, we are not going to stop the collapse of home values until we get control of foreclosures."

One in 10 homeowners, or roughly 4.6 million, are either delinquent in their mortgage payments or are in the process of foreclosure, Miller's office said.

Gov. Mike Easley is discussing foreclosure, education and the law this week.

According to a schedule provided by the governor's office today, Easley had several stops in Washington after going to an economic summit with President-elect Barack Obama in Philadelphia Tuesday.

During a three-hour stopover, he was interviewed by BBC America about the summit, met with state and federal education experts interested in the state's Learn and Earn and 21st Century Skills programs and met with 20 of his colleagues at the Democratic Governors Association.

Easley, a former North Carolina attorney general, is meeting today and tomorrow with the National Association of Attorneys General conference in Florida about the state's predatory lending laws and home foreclosure reduction laws, which other states are considering as a model.

He will make a formal speech in the morning.

"The National Association of Attorneys General winter conference is an all business, non-press event, which is why they asked the Governor not to publicize his speech," wrote spokeswoman Renee Hoffman in an e-mail to Dome.

She added that Easley reimburses the state for any trips "of a political nature."

Previously: Why is Easley stopping in D.C., Florida?

Gov. Mike Easley made his case for foreclosure help in Philadelphia today.

During an economic summit with President-elect Barack Obama and other governors, Easley gave a short presentation on the state's foreclosure reduction program, which some would like to use as a model for federal legislation.

"It will help if we can get that program passed on the federal level because then we don't have 50 different rules that the banks have to figure out," he said in a statement to Dome. "If the federal government will pass what we have, then each governor could either opt in or opt out."

Easley said he discussed the issue with Obama during the summer. He said the National Governors Association will be promoting the legislation as well.

He also attended an informal governors get-together last night, eating across the table from Georgia's Republican Gov. Sonny Perdue.

A new ad from the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee criticizes U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole for not taking a more active role on banking issues.

What the ad says: The ad shows a U.S. Senate seat with a sign reading "Elizabeth Dole, Wall Street." Images of trading floors and a couple looking at their monthly bills. "Our economy in meltdown. Elizabeth Dole. Six years on the banking committee. Sixty hearings. Silence. Not one question. Not one statement. But she was busy, raising $850,000 from Wall Street. But for us, she voted against helping families keep their homes. Newspapers called her "ineffective," "with Bush ... not North Carolinians." Elizabeth Dole, fighting for Wall Street — but what about us? The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee is responsible for the content of this advertising."

The background: The ad makes several claims about Dole's record.

BANKING COMMITTEE: Dole has served on the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs since 2003.

According to transcripts of committee hearings collected by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, Dole did not ask any questions or make comments at 65 hearings held between Sept. 16, 2003, and July 29 of this year.

Dole spokesman Dan McLagan said the DSCC's list included some wrong committees and times when she was speaking on the Senate floor, but he would not give a detailed explanation.

"At first glance their list is riddled with errors," he said. "I am not going to devote staff time going through their list line-by-line."

According to campaign finance data collected by the Center for Responsive Politics, the Salisbury Republican has raised $906,905 from several different parts of the financial sector, including $270,985 from securities and investment firms, $247,377 from insurance companies, $242,075 from commercial banks and $146,468 from miscellaneous finance companies.

McLagan noted that those companies include North Carolina-based banks such as Wachovia, BB&T and Bank of America.

FORECLOSURES: Earlier this year, Congress considered a comprehensive bill reforming housing and mortgage regulations in order to address the rising number of foreclosures.

One version of the bill would have allowed bankruptcy judges to reduce the amount owed or changed the interest rate on a mortgage as part of a debt restructuring.

According to a Feb. 29 story in The New York Times, the Bush administration and Republican senators, including Dole, blocked the bill in a party-line vote to eliminate that and other provisions.

"That provision, supported by a wide range of consumer and civil rights groups, drew intense opposition from the mortgage industry, whose lobbyists argued that it would increase risks for lenders and drive up mortgage rates in the future," the Times wrote.

McLagan said the measure would have caused more problems than it solved.

"In a tight credit market, it would have tightened the market further," he said.

Dole voted against a measure in April to provide $100 million for foreclosure counseling, since the measure was not accompanied by an equivalent spending cut elsewhere in the budget.

NEWSPAPERS: Endorsing Democratic Senate candidate Kay Hagan, the Asheville Citizen-Times said Dole was not able to persuade her colleagues to tackle lending reforms.

"Though ... she was one of a handful of senators raising the alarm about the need for more oversight of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac for the last five years, she was ineffective in persuading her fellow senators to take action," the paper's editorial board wrote.

In its endorsement of Hagan, The Charlotte Observer said Dole had been ineffective generally.

"Dole should be a terrific senator," the paper's editorial board wrote. "That's why her ineffectiveness in representing North Carolina is such a surprise and such a disappointment."

The Winston-Salem Journal said in its endorsement of Hagan that Dole spent too much time on partisan issues.

"No one questions Dole's work ethic," the paper's editorial board wrote. "She's a vibrant woman. But while in Washington, Dole has reserved her best efforts for issues of importance to the national Republican Party and the Bush administration, not North Carolinians."

Is it accurate? Mostly. The claims quotes from newspapers are accurate. Most observers agree the measures Dole voted against would have helped homeowners, though there is disagreement on their negative effects. It is hard to gauge the truth about the claim about her silence at committee hearings, although it is clear she did not talk as much as other senators.

How did U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole vote on housing reform?

Earlier this year, Congress considered a comprehensive bill reforming housing and mortgage regulations in order to address the rising number of foreclosures.

One version of the bill would have allowed bankruptcy judges to reduce the amount owed or changed the interest rate on a mortgage as part of a debt restructuring. 

According to a Feb. 29 story in The New York Times, the Bush administration and Republican senators, including Dole, blocked the bill in a party-line vote to eliminate that and other provisions.

"That provision, supported by a wide range of consumer and civil rights groups, drew intense opposition from the mortgage industry, whose lobbyists argued that it would increase risks for lenders and drive up mortgage rates in the future," the Times wrote. 

A recent TV ad by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee says that Dole "voted against helping families keep their homes," citing the vote. 

Dole spokesman Dan McLagan said that the measure would have caused more problems than it solved.

"In a tight credit market, it would have tightened the market further," he said. "It would have been counterproductive."

He said that Dole worked closely on the bill and voted for the final version. 

U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole voted against providing more funding for housing counseling.

In April, Sen. Patty Murray of Washington proposed spending another $100 million on foreclosure counseling in an amendment to a bill on renewable energy.

At the time, Congress had already budgeted $180 million for credit counselors.

Murray argued that spending more to prevent homeowners from going into foreclosure was "a smart investment," although it would require suspending the pay-go provision of an earlier budget bill.

Senate Republicans argued that they needed to investigate whether the money was being spent appropriately before budgeting more. If more was spent, they argued it should be done through the regular budget process, not an amendment.

The amendment failed 44-40, with Dole voting against it.

Dole spokesman Dan McLagan said it was "a laudable amendment," but there were too many problems with it for her to support it. For one, it was not matched by a similar spending cut elsewhere in the budget.

The ad is "saying we should have gone $100 million more in debt to teach people to be responsible with their credit," he wrote Dome. "That would have been bizarre."

A recent TV ad by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee criticizes Dole for her vote on the amendment. 

State legislators and Gov. Mike Easley said Tuesday they've come up with a plan that could keep as many as 25,000 homeowners out of foreclosure in the next few years.

At a news conference, they promoted legislation that would give some borrowers more time to work with lenders before the foreclosure process begins, David Ingram reports. The legislation would require lenders to notify the N.C. Banking Commission before beginning foreclosure, allowing the commission to help arrange counseling, negotiations and legal advice.

"In a foreclosure, the one thing you can say is everybody loses," Easley said.

A House committee held a hearing on the legislation Tuesday morning. A limited number of borrowers would be eligible for the program, depending on the date that the loan began and other factors.

"They have to be owner-occupied homes," said state Rep. Dan Blue, a Raleigh Democrat and the sponsor of the legislation. "This program is not aimed at speculators."

Industry representatives, consumer advocates and state regulators attended the news conference.

Banking Commissioner Joseph Smith said the program could be in effect by November. He said about 20 commission staff members will work on the program, using current funding.