USFN, a nationwide network of mortgage banking attorneys and law firms, has named Steven Staid of Litton Loan Servicing the recipient of its 2007 Servicing Star Leadership Award. Staid, a senior vice president of default administration at Litton Loan Servicing, received the award because of his ongoing contributions to USFN’s educational seminar programs and his willingness to share information, strategies, and processes with other servicers, to create a better and more productive workflow.

Delinquencies nationwide are down for the first quarter and up over last year, according to the latest Mortgage Bankers Association National Delinquency Survey. The survey shows the delinquency rate for mortgage loans on one-to-four-unit residential properties stood at 4.

Irvine, California-based New Century Financial Corp. has terminated the employment contract of chief executive officer Brad A. Morrice, according to the company’s most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Irvine, California-based RealtyTrac®, an online marketplace for foreclosures, says foreclosures rose 90-percent between May 2006 and May 2007, according to the company’s May 2007 U.S. Foreclosure Market Report.

Jacksonville, Florida-based LSI, a division of Fidelity National Information Services Inc., believes its ClosingStream 1.1 product, which is the industry’s first Web-based closing solution for mortgage refinance and home equity lending transactions, will speed up and enhance the overall consumer experience when closing loans.

The Governor of Massachusetts has filed legislation that will further criminalize the act of mortgage fraud in the Bay state. Gov. Patrick Deval’s office said in a press release on Monday that the new ‘Act Implementing the Division of Banks Mortgage Summit Recommendation’ implements recommendations from the Mortgage Summit Working Group that was convened in response to rising foreclosure rates.

Calabasas, California-based Countrywide Financial Corp. reported some good news on Tuesday when it said mortgage loan fundings for the month of May 2006 totaled $44 billion, a 15-percent increase over the same period last year.

The Governor of Maine John Baldacci signed a new anti-predatory lending bill this week to protect homeowners from abusive mortgage lending practices. An Act to Protect Maine Homeowners from Predatory Lending was sponsored by Speaker Glenn Cummings and passed both houses with unanimous support.

Since the onset of the so-called subprime meltdown—everything from homeownership to new home sales has been said to be negatively affected. Now, it looks like cement consumption in the U.S. also is lagging and industry leaders are blaming the subprime crises.

The Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS) says it recently initiated the execution of a Supervisory Agreement with AIG Federal Savings Bank (AIG-FSB) because of the company’s failure to safely control loan originations at affiliate, Wilmington Finance, Inc.