Mistakes

GTE Corp., the state's second largest phone company, said it mistakenly printed tens of thousands of unlisted residential phone numbers and addresses in directories that are leased to telemarketers. GTE, which has not yet informed customers of any errors, has reprinted the 19 affected editions--which only cover California--and this week quietly sent employees to collect and replace the flawed books. State regulators said GTE told them about the problem last week.

The head of the Los Angeles City Council's Public Safety Committee said Tuesday that she will ask top police and fire officials to respond to allegations that a bank robber in last year's North Hollywood shootout was allowed to bleed to death. Council member Laura Chick said a Times investigation of the incident "raises concerns in terms of both policy and procedural issues and fiscal liability."

GTE Corp.'s inadvertent publication of unlisted phone numbers and addresses in directories leased to telemarketers has left the company struggling to contain the damage and has triggered privacy and safety concerns among the up to 50,000 affected customers. The blunder has resulted in about 25,000 calls and 400 e-mails to GTE and 1,500 requests for new phone numbers.

In January 1997, a company of 125 California National Guard soldiers went to Germany as part of the United States peacekeeping effort in Bosnia. In September, 124 returned. Spec. Mason Jacques Karl O'Neal of Sunnyvale was not among them. His strange disappearance has triggered an odd and bitter war of words between two powerful governmental entities, the Army and the National Guard.

Four-hundred-and-ninety-eight business owners were thrilled to make Working Woman magazine's list of the 500 largest woman-owned companies. But for No. 25 Lynn Johnson and No. 387 Gale Burkett, the rankings caused some chagrin. Those who knew them well were quick to point out that each failed one key criterion: They are decidedly male. "I've been called a lot of things, but never chairwoman," Burkett said. In Johnson's case, perhaps the name of company should have been a clue: Johnson Brothers.

The U.S. Army has reopened its investigation into the disappearance last year of a California National Guard soldier trained in Los Alamitos and assigned to Germany as part of the peacekeeping effort in Bosnia, officials said Thursday. The new probe was ordered after Army officials found that the initial investigation into the disappearance of Spec. Mason Jacques Karl O'Neal was mishandled, military sources in Washington said. National Guard spokesman Lt. Col.

A new mother who was sent home with the wrong baby is refusing to pick up the newborn the hospital now insists is her real child, saying she isn't convinced the mix-up has been straightened out. The Regional Medical Center said Wednesday it has correctly matched the baby boys to their mothers. But LaDonna Harris, 23, is not buying it. "I just can't understand how they can give me the wrong baby. I know that's my baby," she said.

A woman who has regular mammograms and clinical breast exams will almost certainly have at least one false alarm during her lifetime that will require stressful, time-consuming and expensive further testing to rule out breast cancer, according to a new study reported today.

When Thomas Holder got the first citation in the mail, he didn't realize that it was the beginning of a bureaucratic quagmire worthy of Kafka. The ticket imposed a $20 penalty for illegally using the 91 Express Lanes, the automated toll road connecting Orange County and Riverside. Holder, 61, wasn't worried because he knew it wasn't true. Although he takes the toll road to work every day, he has a toll road account, pays for the trips and has the statements to prove it.

You'd think they'd know all there is to know about flag etiquette at Los Angeles' Boy Scout headquarters. Scout leaders teach it, after all. Copies of the Boy Scout Handbook there offer instruction on the proper care of and respect for the Stars and Stripes on Page 473. And the booklet sold in the headquarters bookstore, "Your Flag--Everything You Want to Know About the Flag of the United States of America," is crammed with details.