In business news, the company ChoicePoint is notifying almost 145,000 people across the country that it accidentally sold personal and financial details about them to fraud artists apparently behind a nationwide identity theft scheme. ChoicePoint sold them thousands of electronic reports containing names, addresses, Social Security numbers and, in some cases, credit histories of individuals across the country. Officials in California say as many as 500,000 people could be affected by the security breach and at risk of identity theft. Since forming in 1997, ChoicePoint has collected personal data such as property records, financial data and driver’s license information on millions of consumers. It then sells the information to businesses and government agencies for background checks and other purposes. The company claims it now has a collection of 19 billion records.