Databases

The Senate Judiciary Committee is just beginning its markup of the bipartisan immigration bill, but already opponents and supporters of the sweeping legislation are fighting over which immigrants should be allowed to legalize their status and which should be deported. Clearly it makes sense to refuse legal status to immigrants who have been convicted of serious crimes. But some lawmakers, including Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), are backing a provision that goes too far, excluding immigrants who have no criminal history simply because their names appear in a database of gang members or on a gang injunction.

The Senate Judiciary Committee is just beginning its markup of the bipartisan immigration bill, but already opponents and supporters of the sweeping legislation are fighting over which immigrants should be allowed to legalize their status and which should be deported. Clearly it makes sense to refuse legal status to immigrants who have been convicted of serious crimes. But some lawmakers, including Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), are backing a provision that goes too far, excluding immigrants who have no criminal history simply because their names appear in a database of gang members or on a gang injunction.

The sharp cracks echoing from the East Bakersfield street were loud enough to jolt Ruben Ceballos from a midnight slumber. Then he heard screams. The 19-year-old jumped from his living room sofa and hurried to the kitchen door, which offered a view of the violent scene outside - Kern County sheriff's deputies repeatedly striking a man in the head with batons as he lay on the pavement. "I saw two sheriff's deputies on top of this guy, just beating him," Ceballos said in an interview Monday.

TUCSON - The harsh Sonoran Desert claims the lives of hundreds of people crossing the U.S.-Mexico border each year. Many of the dead - about 1 in 3 - go unidentified. Now there may be an easier way to put a name to some of the suspected border crossers who died north of the international boundary. On Monday, the Pima County Office of the Medical Examiner and the human rights organization Humane Borders Inc. started an online system that will allow the public to identify the deceased found in southern Arizona - more than 2,000 deaths over 13 years.

President Obama may have given credence to a relatively new but questionable law enforcement practice that the rest of the developed world is starting to shun: taking and retaining DNA samples from individuals arrested for a crime but not convicted. That is, putting innocent people's DNA in criminal databases. During an interview with the president last month on the television program "America's Most Wanted," host John Walsh enthusiastically supported the expansion of this practice in the United States, saying, "We now have 18 states who are taking DNA upon arrest.

Educators and a state legislator are calling on Gov. Jerry Brown to restore funding to two computer databases that track the performance of students and teachers and could provide insight into the effectiveness of key academic programs. In his latest proposed budget, Brown called for cutting nearly $3.5 million in funding for the two programs, which have long been in development. The student database, known as CalPADS, went online almost two years ago and was about to start producing statistics on the number of students who dropped out over the last four years.

The National Institutes of Health quietly blocked public access to databases of patient DNA profiles after learning of a study that found the genetic information may not be as anonymous as previously believed, The Times has learned. Institute officials took the unusual step Monday and removed two databases on its public website. The databases contained the genetic information of more than 60,000 cooperating patients. Scientists began posting the information publicly eight months ago to help further medical research.

They are selling secrets along the shining corridors of the Savyolovsky Market: Unlisted numbers. Tax returns. Customs declarations. Wanted lists. Police reports. Car registrations. Business permits. Wrenched from the bowels of government by the forces of runaway capitalism and corruption, the hush-hush databases have made their way to this market in central Moscow where the windows of tiny shops glitter with cellphones, pirated DVDs and porn. Compressed on discs, frozen in Cyrillic letters, is a trove of petty squabbles and personal tragedies that make up the fabric of this vast and often lawless land.

Counter-terrorism analysts still lack the data-search tools that might have kept a bomb-wearing Al Qaeda operative from boarding a Detroit-bound airliner nine months ago, and probably won't have them any time soon, U.S. officials acknowledge. At the same time, officials say the terrorist threat against the U.S. is becoming more complex, with a greater risk from home-grown militants whose low profiles makes sophisticated intelligence analysis more important than ever. "It frustrates me," said former Republican New Jersey Gov. Tom Kean, who co-chaired the Sept.

Consumers looking to compare doctors and hospitals are getting a new resource as the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation launches an online state-by-state directory of healthcare providers. The directory features an interactive map of the 50 states that consumers can click on to access 197 state-level and 27 national quality databases set up by nonprofits, health plans and government agencies nationwide. Though some of these databases have been available for years, such directories have been proliferating as patient advocates, healthcare leaders and public officials intensify efforts to improve the quality of care that Americans receive.

Arden Hayes is 5. He loves Legos and running so fast across the living room to flip onto the couch that his feet end up pointing at the ceiling. He also loves the presidents - especially 11 and 33. Arden knows all 44 U.S. presidents. In order. Ask him who was 29 and right away he'll say Warren G. Harding. As for 11 (James K. Polk) and 33 (Harry S. Truman), they're his favorites, he says, because "they're dark-horse candidates. " Also, Polk got us California, which happens to be Arden's home.

WASHINGTON - When a Russian intelligence service told the CIA that Tamerlan Tsarnaev had become an Islamic radical looking to join underground groups, the agency put his name in the government's catch-all database for terrorism suspects. The Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment list, known as TIDE, was the government's attempt after the Sept. 11 attacks to consolidate a hodgepodge of watch lists, and ensure that every law enforcement agency would be alerted when it came into contact with a possible terrorist.

BOSTON -- The FBI on Thursday released images of two men who are suspects in the bombings at the finish line area of the Boston Marathon. The agency, leading the investigation of the bombings that killed three people and injured 170, made public both photographs and video of the men, who were seen in the vicinity of the attack. The images are the first to be released by investigators, who again asked for the public's help in their search for suspects. Officials have asked for photographs and surveillance video taken along the Boylston Street finish-line area for Monday's race.

With this app you can create a tasty, bite-sized primer you can sink your teeth into before - and during - your vacation. Name: Triposo.com What it does: It's a global destination database that lets you download maps, travel information and recommendations on more than 150,000 destinations in 200 countries and use them offline. What's hot: I've never experienced such a quick place-by-place download option from an app. Download your guide and then turn the pages like a magazine, or delve right into practical info in "Things to Do," where you'll find Yelp reviews, WikiTravel descriptions and practical info such as hospitals and grocery stores.

If Couchsurfing.com, which connects travelers looking for a place to stay with those offering to share their home, and Viator.com, which finds and books tours and travel experiences, had a baby, Tripzaar would be their bright and smiley first-born. Name: Tripzaar.com What it does: The website is an online database of friendly hosts who want to give travelers a local's tour of their town, for a price. View and book a trip itinerary complete with a local resident guide before you step off the plane.

SACRAMENTO - After hearing emotional testimony from parents whose children died of drug overdoses, lawmakers in Sacramento called Monday for the Medical Board of California to mine a statewide database of prescriptions to help identify doctors who recklessly prescribe narcotics. "If we are going to take seriously the role of patient protection, then we have to be proactive in determining if there is a pattern of overprescribing," said Assemblyman Richard Gordon (D-Menlo Park), who co-chairs a joint legislative panel that oversees the medical board.

Regarding "Your Shows of Shows," by Rick Du Brow (May 2): I guess the most inspiring thing about Du Brow's prime-time dream team is that in the near future, with 500-channel interactive random-access programming databases to choose from, we will all be allowed to don our thinking caps and formulate our own prime-time lineups. Who needs network programming executives? Now . . . where's "Seinfeld"? ANDREW TILLES Los Angeles

Calling prescription drug abuse an urgent public health problem, California Atty. Gen. Kamala D. Harris is pushing lawmakers to fund an effort to identify physicians who recklessly prescribe addictive medications. Harris said in an interview that she wanted to use a state database of prescriptions, known as CURES, to draw a bead on doctors who abuse their prescribing powers, a controversial step discussed for years but never adopted. CURES, diminished by years of budget cuts, is now used mostly to identify "doctor-shopping" addicts, who feed their habit by obtaining multiple prescriptions from different doctors.

This sturdy Austrian had supporting roles in the recent action movies "Skyfall" and "Zero Dark Thirty," the TV western "Justified" and the military video game "Medal of Honor: Warfighter. " The ubiquitous performer - actually a semiautomatic pistol - is the Glock-17. A kind of Kevin Bacon of firearms, the Glock-17 appears without ceremony in movies and TV shows year after year, largely because it's also popular with the law enforcement officers being depicted. There is one place, however, where the Glock-17 is treated like a star - along with the dainty Walther PPK/S handgun that is James Bond's sidearm of choice, the long-barreled Winchester rifles the Prohibition agents tote on the 1920s-set HBO show "Boardwalk Empire" and the oversized Desert Eagle pistols used in the "Modern Warfare" and "Far Cry" series of video games.