Ill., Calif. investigating Countrywide

The Illinois attorney general launched a probe into the lender's business practices and may expand the investigation to examine how homeowners were approved for mortgages with payments they were unable to afford.

'We're looking at why people who appear to us to not be able to afford the loans they're in are in these loans and how Countrywide contributed to that,' said Deborah Hagan, chief of the attorney general's consumer protection division, on Thursday.