The housing crisis has been very good for Florida's biggest processor of foreclosure lawsuits: Its revenues have skyrocketed to $260 million since the housing bust began.

In recent years, the Law Offices of David J. Stern, a Broward County-based foreclosure law firm, has become the largest filer of foreclosure suits in Florida. It also is the biggest filer in Hillsborough County, according to local court records.

Stern has taken an unusual step by separating his firm's lawyers from its back-office clerks, title insurance workers and other non-legal staff. Stern spun this back-office staff into a publicly traded company called DJSP Enterprises, which must file financial reports with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

While it's separate from Stern's law practice, Stern is still chairman and chief executive officer of DJSP Enterprises, and Stern's law practice relies on DJSP for everything that doesn't require a lawyer's hand.

Already thwarted by a Fresno judge, a conservative legal organization is pressing its case that federal rules to protect delta smelt are unconstitutional.

In an appeal filed Monday in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco on behalf of Valley farms, the Pacific Legal Foundation argues that the government cannot enact the regulations because smelt are not involved in interstate commerce.

U.S. District Judge Oliver W. Wanger rejected the complaint last year, ruling in favor of the federal government. The lawsuit was filed on behalf of three San Joaquin Valley farms that say the smelt rules have led to water pumping cutbacks that have hurt their operations.

The government argued that the "relevant regulated activity" did not concern the smelt, but rather the operation of the state and federal water systems, which "substantially affect interstate commerce."

The Supreme Court has stepped into a property-rights dispute over plans to rebuild eroded beaches on Florida's Gulf coast.

The court agreed to decide whether the Constitution imposes limits on governments' authority to combat beach erosion when beachfront private property would be affected.

Beachfront property owners in the area of Destin, Fla., are trying to block an effort by local and state officials to add sand to beaches eroded from three hurricanes and a tropical storm since 1995. The project would span nearly seven miles of shoreline and widen the beach by 210 feet.

The widening would give the state ownership of some of the beach, and the homeowners argue that their beach access would be limited without proper compensation.

The Florida Supreme Court said the state has a constitutional duty to protect the beaches. A Florida law allows the state to add sand to beaches without disturbing beachfront properties or by compensating property owners in some cases, the court said.

Sales of new U.S. single-family homes in August fell to its lowest point in more than 17 years while prices hit four-year lows, a government report on Thursday showed, in a sign of continued weakness in the housing sector.

The annual sales pace was down 11.5 percent from July to 460,000 homes and was sharply off the 510,000 pace expected by economists. The August decline was the biggest since November 2007.

The median sales price of $221,900 was off 5.5 percent from July, the lowest since $211,600 in September 2004.

The August sales pace was the weakest since 401,000 in January 1991.

The U.S. dollar extended losses on the bleak home sales report. However, U.S. 30-year bond prices and U.S. stocks were higher on hopes that a financial bailout package will be approved by Congress. That plan would give Washington $700 billion in buying-power to acquire soured investments -- mostly tied to failed mortgages -- that have shaken credit markets.

The 515,000 annual pace originally reported for July was revised to 520,000 homes.

The inventory of homes available for sale in August shrank 4.4 percent to 408,000, the lowest since August 2004. However, sales weakened so much that the months' supply at the current sales pace rose from 10.3 months in July to 10.9 months in August.

Home sales in the West fell to an annual rate of 78,000 -- the lowest April 1982. Sales in the Midwest were the only region to rise, up 7.2 percent.

The sales pace for existing homes fell to 4.91 million in August, according to a Wednesday report that showed more weakness for home resales than economists had expected.

 A former senior analyst for Countrywide Home Loans and another man have pleaded not guilty in an alleged scam to download and sell customer data from the mortgage lender.

Ex-Countrywide employee Rene L. Rebollo Jr. of Pasadena and Wahid Siddiqi of Thousand Oaks entered their pleas Monday in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles.

Rebollo could face five years in federal prison if convicted on charges of unauthorized access to Countrywide's computers. Siddiqi could face 15 years if convicted of fraud.

A message left for Rebollo's defense attorney, Michael Severo, was not returned. Attempts to locate a lawyer for Siddiqi were not successful.

Construction spending took its biggest nosedive in 14 years and manufacturing activity contracted, fresh trouble signs for a struggling economy.

The Commerce Department reported Monday that construction spending plunged by 1.7 percent in January. Builders slashed spending on residential projects, but the weakness spread beyond that ailing sector. There were cutbacks in spending on, among other things, hotels and motels, highways and various projects by state and local governments.

Another report showed fallout from housing and credit problems cutting deeper into manufacturing. The Institute for Supply Management 's manufacturing index clocked in at 48.3 in February. That was the weakest reading in nearly five years. A reading above 50 indicates expansion. Anything below that shows contraction. Still, the reading was a bit better than the 48.1 that economists were forecasting.

On Wall Street, stocks were down in morning trading. The latest showing on construction activity was worse than economists were expecting. They were forecasting a smaller decline of around 0.8 percent.

The 1.7 percent plunge in total construction spending came after a 1.3 percent decline in December. It was the largest drop since January 1994, when construction spending plummeted by 3.6 percent.

The one-two punch of the housing and credit crises is threatening to push the country into a recession or possibly has done so already.

Harder-to-get credit has thwarted some would-be home buyers and record-high foreclosures are adding to the glut of unsold homes. That's aggravating the housing industry's woes.

Spreading problems are slowing other sectors of the economy and causing employers to restrain hiring.

To bolster the economy, the Federal Reserve has been cutting a key interest rate since September. It recently turned more forceful, slashing rates by an aggressive 1.25 percentage points over the span of just eight days in January. Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke has signaled another reduction when the Fed meets next on March 18.

The economy's troubles are making people and businesses more cautious in their spending and investing, thus weakening the economy.

Soaring energy prices also are hurting the economy. Oil prices marched to a new record — past $103 a barrel. Those lofty prices are spreading inflation and crimping consumer spending.

Home sales and home prices continued to trend down in January, according to figures released this morning.

Sales of existing homes in January fell 0.4% compared to December and were off 23.4% below the pace in January 2007.

The National Association of Realtors said that a seasonably adjusted annual rate of 4.89 million units were sold in January, compared to the 4.91 million sold in December and the 6.44 million sold in January 2007.

The national median existing home price fell by 4.6% to $210,100 from last January.

Total housing inventory rose 5.5% at the end of January to 4.19 million existing homes for sale, or a 10.3-month supply at the current sales pace.

The national realtors group said that as limits for FHA loans increase that should stimulate sales growth later this year.