Investigations

Los Angeles County sheriff's detectives hope to question a man who was spotted tending a small fire in the vicinity of the Station fire almost one week before that deadly blaze erupted in the Angeles National Forest. At a news conference Monday, homicide detectives requested the public's help in locating a 25-year-old homeless man who was caught "feeding" a small, uncontrolled fire in the early afternoon of Aug. 20 -- six days before the start of the devastating Station fire. The man, Babatunsin Olukunle, a Nigerian national, was reportedly caught tending a fire near mile marker 36 of the Angeles Crest Highway.

As federal authorities press their case against a Tustin man accused of lying about ties to Al-Qaeda, they disclosed this week that some evidence came from an informant who infiltrated Orange County mosques and allegedly recorded the defendant discussing jihad, weapons and plans to blow up abandoned buildings.

The request for drugs for Anna Nicole Smith slid off the fax of a Valley Village pharmacy five days after the model's son had died in the Bahamas. A psychiatrist wanted 300 tablets of methadone, two types of sedatives, a muscle relaxer, an anti-inflammatory drug and four bottles of a painkiller nicknamed "hospital heroin," unsealed court records show. The amount and combination alarmed the pharmacist, who later recalled thinking, "They are going to kill her with this." He phoned Smith's internist and said he had no intention of filling a prescription that amounted to "pharmaceutical suicide," according to court documents.

If there is ever to be an answer to what caused Air France Flight 447 to fall from the sky, the best clues probably lie on the floor of the Atlantic Ocean amid rugged volcanic ridges and steep trenches, some plunging deeper than the Grand Canyon. Search planes scouring the area Tuesday spotted a seat, an orange buoy, a tank and a fuel slick about 400 miles off the Brazilian coast.

Before its portfolio of bad loans helped trigger the housing crisis, mortgage giant Freddie Mac was the focus of a major accounting scandal that led to a management shake-up, huge fines and scalding condemnation of passive directors. One of those board members was Rahm Emanuel, now chief of staff to President Obama. Emanuel earned at least $320,000 for his 14-month stint at Freddie Mac.

FBI officials confirmed Wednesday that they are investigating possible civil rights violations alleged by officers at the Burbank Police Department. FBI spokeswoman Laura Eimiller would not comment on specifics of the probe by the agency's civil rights division or how long the probe would last. At least seven lawsuits alleging a pattern of racial discrimination and retaliation, as well as unlawful demotions or firings, have been filed by officers against the department. Burbank Mayor Gary Bric said he was confident that the investigations into the department, which also includes an independent probe by the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, would be thorough and complete.

Activists and Los Angeles city officials questioned Thursday how it was possible that an apartment building that collapsed Sunday was deemed in compliance by the housing department within the last year. "It's mind-boggling to me how it could have been passed just a few months earlier and now it has collapsed," said Albert Lowe of the tenants' rights group Strategic Actions for a Just Economy.

An independent examination of how the Los Angeles Police Department investigates officers accused of profiling people based on race, gender or sexual orientation found serious problems with a third of the sampled investigations, the inspector general for the L.A. Police Commission reported Tuesday. In six of 20 LAPD investigations into allegations of "biased policing" -- the department's new name for what has traditionally been termed racial profiling -- police failed to interview witnesses, did not ask important questions or made similar mistakes, concluded Andre Birotte, the inspector general, in the 41-page report.

The downside, if one can call it that, of being out in front on a reform issue is that occasionally you get asked to put your principles in action. So it is with Phil Angelides, who as California's Democratic state treasurer from 1999 to 2007 pressed for disclosure and transparency for investments by CalPERS, the state pension fund. He also threatened to stop giving state business to Wall Street firms that didn't meet conflict-of-interest standards.

Descending through a snowy mist toward Buffalo Niagara International Airport, the crew of a Continental commuter flight noticed a significant ice buildup on the windshield and wings of the plane, despite having turned on the craft's de-icer.