Cash America International, a major owner of U.S. pawn shops and payday loan shops, has agreed pay $19 million in consumer refunds and fines for robo-signing documents used in debt collection, issuing improperly high loans to military members and destroying records sought by a federal regulator.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau imposed the penalties Wednesday under a consent order with the Fort Worth-based company. The penalties marked the agency's first enforcement action against a payday lender, one of the industries the regulator has examined since its 2010 creation under the Dodd-Frank financial reform act.

"If the bureau had not gone on site at Cash America, these problems might never have been uncovered," said CFPB Director Richard Cordray, who said the case highlighted the watchdog agency's mandate to oversee non-bank firms that affect millions of Americans "and make sure they're following the law."

Cash America CEO Daniel Feehan said the firm cooperated with examiners. "Now that we have completed the initial CFPB review process and entered into this settlement, we will continue to focus on serving our customers while working to develop additional compliance programs," he said.

According to the consent order, workers in Cash America's Ohio-based collections department improperly stamped their manager's signature on loan collection affidavits for nearly five years "without the manager's prior review of the affidavits or supporting documentation." An unidentified in-house collection attorney also directed workers to stamp the lawyer's name on Ohio court pleadings that had not been reviewed, the order said.

More than 14,000 Ohio consumers targeted in debt-collection lawsuits from 2008 to Jan. 2013 were affected, said Cordray. Cash America has already started repaying $6 million to the consumers, and will pay an additional $8 million in refunds, he said. The company also worked with the consumer watchdog to cancel improper Ohio debt-collection judgments.

Separately, investigators found that Cash America's online payday loan subsidiary in Chicago for nearly a year gave active-duty service members loans above the 36% annual interest rate maximum allowed by the Military Lending Act. More than 300 military members or their dependents received the loans.

Cash America has refunded $33,550 in loans and related fees to those customers, according to the order.

WASHINGTON — Veterans unemployment has dropped steadily over the last two years, but no one knows whether the jobs they are finding are any good.

A new survey aims to track that. On Monday, officials from Syracuse University’s Institute for Veterans and Military Families and the behavioral health firm VetAdvisor launched a job retention survey looking at troops’ first postmilitary employment, and how long they stayed in those jobs.

Researchers said the goal is to help veterans get on career paths quicker and help companies better retain talented employees with a military background.

“We don’t want veterans just to become ‘starter employees,’” said Dan Frank, CEO of VetAdvisor. “The companies we’re talking to are realizing it’s not just about hiring veterans but keeping them, too.”

Overall veterans unemployment has remained at or below the national rate for the last five years.

KABUL — If Mohammed Ibrahim Caravan smells fear about Afghanistan’s future, he doesn’t show it.

He strolls around like a country squire in the glittering new gated community he helped build, dressed in a spotless white shalwar kameez tunic, stylish shades and polished wingtips.

"Worried?" the 28-year-old asked. "Hah — not me. I’m confident in the future. If you don’t invest in your own country, who will?"

Caravan’s company is plunging $160 million into the family-run Saleem Caravan City, with its rows of salmon-colored villas with balconies and rose gardens, like some ersatz Miami Beach condo community. He’s moved his family into a lavish 7,500-square-foot mansion with a pool, hot tub and guest kitchen.

Two hundred of the 300 homes in the 160-acre complex have already sold, Caravan says. Buyers love the swimming pool, the two mosques, the school, the shopping arcade — and especially the security walls, augmented by a high-tech security system and armed guards.

Many Afghans are panicking at the prospect of U.S. combat troops pulling out next year. Their confidence is battered by lingering uncertainty over a U.S.-Afghan security pact that, if rejected, would leave no U.S. troops in the country and cut billions of dollars in aid. As the Taliban insurgency roils the countryside, many investors are fleeing. Businessmen send their families to Turkey, Pakistan and Dubai, United Arab Emirates, for safety.

But Caravan is betting big on Afghanistan. He’s among a new breed of entrepreneurs here, young and energetic, in contrast to the paunchy warlords who dominated Kabul after the Taliban government was toppled in 2001.

Rising from the gray dirt on the capital’s gritty eastern shoulder, Caravan City’s walls protect the people who have the most to lose if Afghanistan’s government collapses. Many of the buyers of the homes — at $250,000 to $300,000 a pop, cash only — are top officials in the government, army and police.

These elites live in fear of car bombs, snipers, assassinations, kidnappings and roadside explosives. Unlike most Afghans, they can afford a secure gated community.

Caravan chooses to portray their home purchases as signs of confidence, not fear.

LOS ANGELES — Mark Tyree was chasing death.

The 25-year-old Marine veteran drank heavily and drove fast — often at the same time. Tyree had walked away from two serious accidents that demolished his cars.

On a foggy November morning in 2011, he slammed his pickup truck into a power pole, became tangled in a power line and was electrocuted to death.

“He was so reckless at times,” said his father, Mark Sr. “He had no fear whatsoever.”

Tyree belonged to a generation of young veterans whose return to civilian life has been marked by an unusually high death rate, primarily boosted by accidents and suicides.

The death rate for California veterans under 35 surpasses that of both active-duty service members and other civilians of the same ages, according to a Los Angeles Times analysis of state mortality records.

Scattered across the state, the veterans’ deaths — 1,253 men and 110 women between 2006 and 2011 — are barely noticed in the mayhem of modern life.

A 27-year-old in San Diego crashes his motorcycle at 100 mph while drunk. A 32-year-old hooked on heroin overdoses in a restaurant bathroom in Tarzana. A 28-year-old in Humboldt County shoots himself in the head in front of his best friend.

When viewed together, however, patterns emerge.

Veterans were more than twice as likely as other civilians to commit suicide. They were twice as likely to be a victim of a fatal motor vehicle crash and a quarter more likely to suffer other deadly accidents.

The phenomenon has been largely unstudied by the government, which has concentrated its research on active-duty service members.