Crime Prevention

In a three-day sweep of a Santa Ana neighborhood, police arrested 85 people, many of them alleged gang members suspected of violating parole or possessing weapons and drugs, authorities said Friday. The operation started early Tuesday with dozens of officers saturating a two-square-mile area southwest of the Civic Center, a show of force that was carried out in response to a recent increase in violence in central Santa Ana neighborhoods.

Three very big and very different computer security breaches that have dominated recent headlines did more than show how badly the Internet needs major repairs. They also exposed the huge rift between corporate America and the federal government over who should fix it, cyber-security experts say.

By next year, about 40% of Orange County's buses will be equipped with cameras to monitor passengers and record onboard incidents. The cameras, purchased with grant money from the federal Department of Homeland Security beginning two years ago, were intended to serve as a digital watchdog against crime and a deterrent to potential threats.

When Terri Tippit opened the door of her Rancho Park home last week, a man stood before her and introduced himself as part of a "literacy program." Then he asked if she was a teacher like her neighbor. Tippit, who was home alone, was suspicious -- how did a stranger know her neighbor was a teacher? "I told him, I don't do door-to-door [solicitations]," she said. "Then I did an e-mail blast immediately to my people and said there's someone going through the neighborhood right now.

Daniel, 15, lives on a tree-lined street at the northern tip of the San Fernando Valley. It is a place of whiplashing contradiction. In one direction there are elegant Craftsmans, their roots as deep as the area's historic olive groves, and tidy cul-de-sacs with driveway basketball hoops. In the other there is a poor, old-world barrio -- barren lots overtaken by weeds, a tiny house with a hand-painted sign hung from a coat-hanger that reads: "RANCH EGGS." Daniel is no less confounding.

The hardened women of San Luca want you to know a thing or two about their notorious town. Not everyone belongs to the mob, they will tell you. And many who do are driven to it by poverty and neglect. It's a tough sell, no doubt. San Luca, a remote hilltop town in southern Italy, is the ancestral home and principal headquarters of a criminal organization that has emerged as the country's most powerful and dangerous mafia, the 'Ndrangheta.

The modest junior hockey arena in this small eastern Washington agricultural hub is an ideal gathering place for local families. It's also a crucial front in the Department of Homeland Security's war against suicide bombers. During the tests of crowd surveillance technology, an array of surveillance cameras, infrared cameras, and millimeter-wave radar is used to scan fans of the Western Hockey League's Tri-City Americans, who play at the town's 6,000-seat Toyota Center.

Attempting to stem a wave of street violence, authorities Wednesday arrested nine gang members on suspicion of crimes that include racketeering, weapons violations, assaults, drug sales and murder. Officers from local police and sheriff's departments, the FBI, the DEA and other agencies picked the men up after a federal grand jury in Los Angeles last week issued a 74-page indictment against members of the Eastside gang. According to the indictment, the 150 members of the Eastside gang took orders from the Mexican Mafia prison gang.

Britain began an identity card program for foreign nationals, six years after heated debate over whether the costly plan is an effective tool against terrorism, identity theft and welfare fraud. The program will start with about 50,000 foreign students and spouses of permanent residents who will receive cards if they qualify for visa extensions. Other foreign nationals living and working in Britain will eventually need cards as the program is expanded.

Top Los Angeles law enforcement officials and leaders told residents Monday not to fire any weapons to celebrate the new year, warning revelers that they will make every effort to track down shooters. The appeal for safety has become an annual tradition. "We do this every year," Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca said at a news conference in Lynwood attended by Los Angeles Police Chief William J. Bratton and County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas.