Missing Property

Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham said Wednesday that he wanted the FBI to investigate the loss of classified computer disks at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. But FBI officials in New Mexico say they will only monitor the case. Abraham issued a public memo that called on Energy Department officials in New Mexico to "request the FBI Los Alamos Field Office open an investigation." FBI officials said they did not have a Los Alamos field office.

Apple seems to have lost another prototype of its next-generation iPhone. Photographs and a video of an iPhone-shaped device that includes Apple's logo and apparently an Apple-designed processor cropped up Wednesday on a Vietnamese website. The site user who posted the information said the device was an iPhone 4G that was recently brought to Vietnam. Assuming the phone is an authentic Apple prototype, it would mark a second serious breach in Apple's legendary wall of secrecy in as many months.

Mary Oster's office is usually filled with wallets, purses, backpacks, jackets, umbrellas, toys and baby shoes. But recently Oster noticed her collection of bicycles growing. The lost-and-found administrator for the Orange County Transportation Authority used to be able to fit bicycles in her Santa Ana office, but not anymore. "I got a couple at a time," Oster said. "Then one day, I was keeping them in the office with me, and I noticed 10 bikes. Soon, I couldn't walk into my office anymore."

For years, a memorial sign that saluted the life of Officer Harvey "Hobbs" Griswold stood proudly at the California Highway Patrol station in Newhall, a reminder of a life cut short in a 1950 car crash. But now the sign is missing and old colleagues and friends are rushing to find it so that it might be rededicated when the department marks another sad chapter in its history -- the 40th anniversary of the "Newhall Incident," a 1970 shootout in which four CHP officers were killed.

In the winter of 1922, newspaper correspondent and budding author Ernest Hemingway left his wife, Hadley, in Paris to cover an international conference in Lausanne, Switzerland. The plan was for Hadley to join Hemingway in Lausanne and go on a skiing trip with him.

This is where it all ends up, everything from bowling balls and crooked dentures to purses, cell phones and umbrellas. Welcome to the Tokyo Metropolitan Lost and Found, a veritable monument to the misplaced, the abandoned, the rejected. Drop something in a public restroom or in a subway corridor in Tokyo and there's a good chance you'll get it back, here in one of the most honest nations on Earth, even if you don't necessarily want it.

For years, a memorial sign that saluted the life of Officer Harvey "Hobbs" Griswold stood proudly at the California Highway Patrol station in Newhall, a reminder of a life cut short in a 1950 car crash. But now the sign is missing and old colleagues and friends are rushing to find it so that it might be rededicated when the department marks another sad chapter in its history -- the 40th anniversary of the "Newhall Incident," a 1970 shootout in which four CHP officers were killed.

She's navigated the world of Los Angeles' elite for eight decades -- weekending at Hearst Castle at San Simeon with William Randolph Hearst, riding horses with friends at her family ranch above the boulevard that bears her father's name, partying at posh gatherings from Newport Beach to Beverly Hills.

When Henri d'Orleans, count of Paris and pretender to the French throne, died this summer at the ripe old age of 90, the blue-blooded playboy who had been one of France's wealthiest men left behind a puzzling, bizarre legacy. In the bungalow where the Bourbon aristocrat had lived with his mistress, bailiffs found a pair of bedroom slippers and six handkerchiefs embroidered with the royal crest. And nothing else belonging to him. In another residence in the Paris suburbs also owned by the count, there were no paintings and no furniture, although traces on the floors and walls showed they had been there at one time.

The Ronald Reagan Presidential Library is unable to find or account for tens of thousands of valuable mementos of Reagan's White House years because a "near universal" security breakdown left the artifacts vulnerable to pilfering by insiders, an audit by the National Archives inspector general has concluded.

The suit O.J. Simpson wore the day he was acquitted of murder charges hangs in the bedroom closet of a house south of Fresno. Or maybe it doesn't. It depends on the mood of the balding, bespectacled former sports agent who owns the house and maybe the suit. "I've had it in my possession since the morning after the verdict," Mike Gilbert declared at the start of a recent interview. Twenty minutes of circuitous conversation later, he backtracked: "When I told you that before, I wasn't under oath."

An Energy Department investigation has alleviated fears that a significant amount of plutonium was missing from a national laboratory, but it has also heightened concerns about flaws in the system for controlling the U.S. stockpile of weapons materials. The investigation began in February, shortly after a routine inventory at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico found a plutonium shortage estimated at 2.

A family is suing a Placer County cemetery after a man's body was found missing from his Lincoln burial plot and another woman was buried in the space reserved for his wife. The family of Frank Farinha, who died in 1947, is questioning Lincoln Cemetery's record-keeping practices. The lawsuit also names Placer County Cemetery District No. 1, the agency that runs the public memorial park.

Five tons of unexploded Israeli bombs stored in the Gaza Strip under Hamas police guard are missing and believed stolen, U.N. spokesman Richard Miron said. He said a U.N. disposal team had intended to disarm them. The bombs were dropped during Israel's Gaza offensive that ended last month, another United Nations official said. Israeli military spokesman Peter Lerner said the explosives were probably taken by Hamas to another location. Hamas officials said they had no knowledge of the matter.

The Los Alamos nuclear weapons laboratory is missing 69 computers, but no classified information has been lost, spokesman Kevin Roark said. The watchdog group Project on Government Oversight released a memo dated Feb. 3 from the Energy Department's National Nuclear Security Administration that said 67 computers were missing. Roark initially confirmed those figures but later updated them. He said 80 computers were lost or stolen in 2008, but 11 were recovered.

She's navigated the world of Los Angeles' elite for eight decades -- weekending at Hearst Castle at San Simeon with William Randolph Hearst, riding horses with friends at her family ranch above the boulevard that bears her father's name, partying at posh gatherings from Newport Beach to Beverly Hills.

The discovery of a key engine part from a jumbo jet that crashed in July has intensified the search of Iowa cornfields for other pieces to the puzzle of what caused the DC-10's rear engine to fly apart, officials said Wednesday. "We don't know yet whether this is the golden nugget we're looking for," said Jim Burnett, a member of the National Transportation Safety Board, of the discovery of the engine's fan disk. "But we're glad we found it." Spokesmen for General Electric Co.

The folks at UCLA have agreed to pay Teresa Salvato $11,500 for an old violin she says one of her former in-laws found beside a freeway. Not bad. On the other hand, the university feels that's a reasonable amount to part with for the return of the Duke of Alcantara Stradivarius, a cherished instrument with an estimated value of more than $800,000. The deal between Salvato and UCLA was struck on Dec. 1, ending months of sometimes acrimonious negotiation over a treasure believed lost for 27 years.

It's never a good feeling to lose your passport and all your credit cards in the biggest city in the most populous country of the world. It's an even worse feeling when you realize that your country isn't going to lift a finger to help you. Getting back to the U.S. from China, where I was traveling with friends in September, was a week-long saga of closed government offices, stubborn officials and airline personnel, and a constant refrain of "I'm sorry, there's nothing I can do."