Identification

MEXICO CITY - Mexico's giant Popocatepetl volcano may generate lava flows, explosions of "growing intensity" and ash that could reach miles away, the National Center for Disaster Prevention said Monday. Officials were preparing evacuation routes and shelters for thousands of people who live in the shadow of Popocatepetl, located 40 miles southeast of Mexico City. Officials have created a 7.5-mile restricted zone around the cone of the volcano. Popo, as the volcano is known, has displayed a "notable increase in activity levels" in the last few days, including tremors and explosive eruptions, according to a statement from the federal government.

The San Mateo County coroner's office Tuesday released the names of five women killed on the San Mateo-Hayward Bridge when their limousine became engulfed in flames. They are: Neriza Fojas, 31, and Michelle Estrera, 35, of Fresno; Jennifer Balon, 39, of Dublin, Calif.; Anna Alcantara, 46, of San Lorenzo, Calif.; and Felomina Geronga, 43, of Alameda. Four others survived. Other than Geronga, the close-knit Filipina friends were all nurses who had met while working at Oakland's Fruitvale Healthcare Center, bonding like "sisters," one survivor told a local television station.

Compelled by Congress to craft a plan to try to keep guns out of the hands of felons, a Justice Department task force published an options study in the Federal Register that outlines dozens of variations on two major approaches, the Washington Post reported. One would target potential gun owners by requiring pre-sale certification that they have no criminal record. The other would target gun dealers, requiring them to check with police agencies that would be equipped to search criminal records quickly.

In the wake of last week's shooting on campus, USC on Tuesday announced heightened security measures that will restrict late-night entrance to the university and require identification checks for all visitors between 9 p.m. and 6 a.m. In addition, outside promoters will be banned from working on USC social events at campus facilities or on nearby Fraternity Row, according to USC President C. L. Max Nikias. The shooting, in which four people were wounded — none of them USC students — occurred outside a Halloween party promoted by a non-USC firm that invited people from across the city.

Remember the days when acquiring fake ID meant scissors, glue and a good typewriter? These days fake IDs have gone high-tech. And the stakes are high as well. Gone is the time of the lumpy driver's license with a 17-year-old's face pasted to a 28-year-old's driving vitae. The state made things harder in 1991 by adding holograms and magnetic strips to licenses. But enterprising teen-agers eager for beer are never far behind.

Gustavo Rodriguez holds a job, paid for a car on the installment plan and even owns a home filled with furniture bought on credit. None of this comes easy for illegal immigrants such as Rodriguez, who use their ingenuity to find their place in American life without identification or credit. Credit agencies have no history on them. Insurance companies cannot insure their cars because they can't get a driver's license. Even a trip to the video store can be a challenge.

YOU'VE made a travel list, checked it twice. But at the airport, you discover something not so nice: Your photo ID is missing. Can you still fly? Much to my surprise, I recently boarded a flight to New York while my driver's license stayed home. Checking in with an American skycap, I realized the license was AWOL. Digging through my overstuffed purse, I prayed it was hiding with the lipsticks and loose change. Nada.

The Social Security Administration has sent a record number of warnings to employers that have reported incorrect employee Social Security numbers. In an effort to reduce errors in its system, the agency this month sent 750,000 letters to companies throughout the United States telling them they had reported invalid numbers, Social Security spokeswoman Mariana Gitomer said. About 30% are in California.

For 21 years, Darrell Forbis lived with anger and resentment against a mother he thought had abandoned him. "I couldn't understand why she had left without even leaving me a note," said Forbis, who was 12 when his mother mysteriously disappeared one day from their Marysville motel room. Part of that mystery was solved last week when authorities identified skeletal remains found in a 1980 Ford Thunderbird submerged in a Northern California lake. They were those of his mother, Mary Jane Gooding.

Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies sought help from the public Friday in identifying a woman whose body was found New Year's Day in Malibu Creek State Park. The woman's body was discovered Thursday afternoon about two miles from the end of Corral Canyon Road by someone walking in the park, said homicide Det. Ike Aguilar. The woman appears to have been white and in her late 20s, he said.

A state judge has blocked Pennsylvania's new photo ID requirement from being enforced in the November election, ruling state officials failed to assure that all the eligible and registered voters would have the needed identification. The decision did not strike down the photo ID law, but puts it on hold until the next election. However, state officials can appeal to the state Supreme Court. The ruling is a victory for civil rights advocates who said the newly required photo ID could prevent tens of thousands of older and minority voters from casting a ballot this year.  While the vast majority of Pennsylvanians can use their drivers license as a valid identification, several hundred thousand registered voters who do not drive did not have an acceptable ID card under the terms of the state's strict law. “We are very glad voters will not be turned away from the polls this November if they do not have an ID,” said Advancement Project Co-Director Judith Browne Dianis.

WASHINGTON - Pennsylvania's strict new photo ID requirement, which critics said could prevent tens of thousands of eligible voters from casting ballots, will not be enforced in the November election. A state judge blocked the new rule Tuesday after deciding state officials had failed to take steps to make sure all registered voters would be able to get the identification card they would need. "In the remaining five weeks before the general election, the gap between the photo IDs issued and the estimated need will not be closed," said Judge Robert Simpson.

Nearly 300 American men and women wrongly convicted of crimes have been exonerated by DNA testing. And in the bulk of those cases - almost 75% - the convictions were based in part on faulty eyewitness identifications. Witnesses are often asked to identify suspects from photo lineups, which are typically conducted by the officers investigating a crime. But numerous scientific studies on memory and identification have demonstrated that witnesses can be influenced, intentionally or not, by the person conducting a lineup.

Los Angeles officials are considering a plan to turn the library card into a form of identification that the city's large illegal immigrant population could use to open bank accounts and access an array of city services. The City Council last month voted unanimously to study the plan, which would have Los Angeles join the growing number of cities across the nation that offer various forms of identification to undocumented workers and others who cannot get driver's licenses because of their immigration status.

A hacker group's claim that it obtained from an FBI laptop a file with more than 12 million identification numbers for Apple iPhones, iPads and other devices has set off widespread speculation about why a federal agency would possess such information. But the FBI disputed the allegation Tuesday, saying that "at this time, there is no evidence indicating that an FBI laptop was compromised or that the FBI either sought or obtained this data. " If the FBI's denials prove correct, the agency may have been the victim of a clever hoax by the group known as AntiSec that spurred thousands of headlines around the Web and left readers wondering how and why the FBI could have gotten access to Apple customer records.

WASHINGTON - For the second time this week, a federal court here has blocked a Texas election law as discriminatory under the Voting Rights Act. A three-judge federal court said Texas may not enforce its strict voter identification law, ruling it would discriminate against poor and minority voters and have the effect of barring them from voting. The judges said the new law would require tens of thousands of registered Texas voters who are poor and do not drive cars to travel to a state motor vehicle office to obtain the required state photo ID card.

The County coroner's office is asking the public's help in identifying a man who killed himself with a gun at a park in July. The man was found dead on a park bench at the Granada Hills Recreation Center, 16730 Chatsworth St., shortly after 7 a.m. July 19, coroner's spokesman Scott Carrier said. The man was white or Latino, about 30 years old, and 6 feet tall and 246 pounds, Carrier said. He had brown eyes and black hair, balding on the front, and also a scar in the upper left area of his chest.

Pet identification in the city of Los Angeles went high-tech Wednesday, as the City Council approved a program that would electronically tag pets to better reunite them with their owners. By implanting an electronic device the size of a rice kernel into the scruff of a pet's neck, animal regulation officials are hoping to reduce the number of dogs and cats euthanized because shelters are unable to find their owners.

Without a personal identification card issued by some level of government, you are a second-class citizen. You cannot board an airplane, ride an Amtrak train, buy a six-pack of beer or a pack of cigarettes, open a checking account, enter many public and some private office buildings or even attend an NAACP convention without proving that you are who you say you are. You cannot even qualify for means-tested public support programs such as Medicaid without...

Re "A poll tax in disguise," Opinion, July 15 Bruce Ackerman and Jennifer Nou say a Texas law will block the poor from voting because it requires voters to provide valid documentation that they are U.S. citizens, and because they would have to pay to obtain such documentation. I agree that a citizen should not have to pay money to vote and that the poor should be provided appropriate identification at public expense. However, I wonder how many of the poor drive automobiles, receive welfare or perform activities that require (or should require)