Information Storage And Retrieval

ABOUT THIS SERIES This is the second in a series of occasional articles that will examine how DNA evidence is transforming criminal justice. -- State crime lab analyst Kathryn Troyer was running tests on Arizona's DNA database when she stumbled across two felons with remarkably similar genetic profiles. The men matched at nine of the 13 locations on chromosomes, or loci, commonly used to distinguish people.

A review of computer systems around the country has yielded potential information-sharing fixes that might prevent deaths or injuries in the child-welfare system here, Los Angeles County officials said Friday, but none can be put in place without legislative changes. Among the likely contenders to replace the county's much-maligned computer system, known as the Family and Children's Index, is a Web-based portal, similar to a search engine, that would allow authorized users to freely exchange information.

Different people want to know different things when you tell them you're having lunch with Michael Lewis. Financial guys who read his "Liar's Poker" wonder whether he regrets becoming an ink-stained wretch when he could have remained a bond salesman and been filthy rich by now. MTV fans want to know what it's like being married to Tabitha "Rock the Vote" Soren.

Federal officials have removed the management team overseeing a national database of dangerous or incompetent caregivers after questions were raised about its accuracy. The reassignments of the division director and four managers came in response to a joint ProPublica-Los Angeles Times story last month that found the repository was probably missing thousands of serious disciplinary cases against health providers. Congress ordered up the database more than 20 years ago. It was supposed to provide an alert system for hospitals, flagging them to disciplinary actions taken in any state against nurses, therapists, pharmacists and other licensed health professionals.

Accused of child abuse by a vindictive ex-girlfriend 22 years ago, Bakersfield stockbroker Scott Whyte ceased contact with their son for years, fearing that another allegation would land him in prison, before a court cleared him. Craig and Wendy Humphries went to jail after a rebellious teenage daughter fled to Utah and told police there that her father and stepmother had abused her.

Mortgage shoppers will have a new tool that will go a long way toward protecting them from being ripped off by unscrupulous loan originators when they gain admission this month to a growing nationwide database of companies and individuals who offer home loans. By clicking onto NMLS (Nationwide Mortgage Licensing System) Consumer Access, would-be borrowers will have entry to a single source of information, updated nightly, that will tell them whether the loan officer or broker with whom they are working is licensed, the company he or she is licensed with, the branch where the originator works and his or her employment history going back 10 years.

Despite the Internet's reputation as privacy's gravest modern threat, consumers are increasingly finding more safeguards on the Net than off. A study released Wednesday offers new evidence of this trend, showing a sharp rise in the number of Web sites that post policies telling people what information is collected from them and how it is used.

A priest's diary of private conversations with Jacqueline Kennedy after her husband's assassination should never again be seen in public, the head of Georgetown University's Jesuit community said Monday. The Rev. Brian McDermott said the papers, which detailed Kennedy's anguish and thoughts of suicide, should have been destroyed long ago. The decision to show them to reporters last month further eroded the public's trust in priests, he said.

Rising over the battered surface of the moon, Earth loomed in a shimmering arc covered in a swirling skin of clouds. The image, taken in 1966 by NASA's robotic probe Lunar Orbiter 1, presented a stunning juxtaposition of planet and moon that no earthling had ever seen before. It was dubbed the Picture of the Century. "The most beautiful thing I'd ever seen," remembered Keith Cowing, who saw it as an 11-year-old and credited it with eventually luring him to work for NASA.

Los Angeles County authorities on Thursday announced an electronic system for sharing information on suspected child abuse among social workers, police agencies and prosecutors, a move they said would reduce the number of abused or neglected children whose cases fall between the cracks. Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley called the Web-based Electronic Suspected Child Abuse Report System a "giant leap forward" and said it is the first of its kind in the nation. Since its launch in April, police agencies in L.A. County have been signing onto the system, and now all are onboard, officials said.

Mortgage shoppers will have a new tool that will go a long way toward protecting them from being ripped off by unscrupulous loan originators when they gain admission this month to a growing nationwide database of companies and individuals who offer home loans. By clicking onto NMLS (Nationwide Mortgage Licensing System) Consumer Access, would-be borrowers will have entry to a single source of information, updated nightly, that will tell them whether the loan officer or broker with whom they are working is licensed, the company he or she is licensed with, the branch where the originator works and his or her employment history going back 10 years.

Eight years of American history is meticulously cataloged, wrapped, stored and guarded in a climate-controlled warehouse. Sixty-eight million pages of documents, a surfboard, 175 million e-mails, countless cowboy hats, 3,845,912 photographs, Stan "The Man" Musial's autograph, gold and silver swords, handmade quilts, diamond jewelry, cowboy boots, classified files, a gift from the pope and the 9-millimeter Glock Saddam Hussein was armed with when...

The Orange County district attorney's office has nearly quadrupled its DNA database over the last nine months, to about 15,000 individual profiles, and officials say they hope to start using it to identify criminal suspects by early next year. The agency's effort to build a database exempt from the rules that govern state and national DNA repositories has made Orange County unique among local governments in California. Much of the rapid growth has come from cases in which prosecutors drop charges against low-level offenders who agree to submit DNA samples.

Orange County, which already has one of the nation's most aggressive programs for taking DNA samples from convicts, has quietly begun offering a deal to some people who have only been arrested: give a DNA sample and have your charges dropped. The district attorney's office, which runs its own database, has started expanding its program by handling some cases "informally," Orange County Dist. Atty. Tony Rackauckas told the Board of Supervisors this week. In those cases, if a person who has been arrested agrees to give a DNA sample, "we would not even file" charges.

State officials on Tuesday unveiled improvements to their prescription medication tracking system, including the capability to instantly flag whether patients are abusing those drugs -- an issue highlighted with the deaths of celebrities Anna Nicole Smith and Michael Jackson. The Controlled Substance Utilization Review and Evaluation System, known as CURES, includes more than 100 million entries for controlled substances prescribed in California. But doctors and pharmacists had to wait days to find out whether a patient was seeking a prescription legitimately or not. The upgraded system allows healthcare professionals to instantly track a broad range of controlled substances, including anti-anxiety medications, painkillers and sedatives, through the Internet.

A man suspected of being a serial killer was arrested and freed three times in the last several years because the FBI's computerized fingerprint system failed to correctly identify him. During that period, authorities believe, the man killed four women. Jeremy Bryan Jones, 32, gave an alias -- John Paul Chapman -- when he was arrested on trespassing charges outside Atlanta in January 2004.

Salomon Bros. plans to sell to investors the information that helped make the firm the world's biggest bond trader. Salomon said it formed Salomon Analytics Inc., a subsidiary that will market its "Yield Book" to customers. The Yield Book is a computer system and database full of confidential information on the $20-trillion world bond market. The 86-year-old securities unit of Salomon Inc.

Frustrated by a slow and antiquated computer system, the city of Los Angeles is weighing a plan to replace its e-mail and records retention software with a service provided by Google, a move that could allow the Internet giant to retain sensitive records transmitted by the police and other municipal agencies.

A proposal that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has been pushing in closed-door budget talks would tie the state, with little oversight or review, into a multibillion-dollar computer system likely to be run by the private sector to enroll low-income Californians in welfare, food stamp and healthcare programs. A draft of the plan obtained by The Times shows that Schwarzenegger would replace existing county-run processes, which use four different computer systems across the state, with a single one.