My domain recently expired. I want to transfer my domain to yahoo! domain hosting but it has already expired and my previous domain host parked a search website on it. How long will they hold my domain name?

Is there somewhere on the web I can find out who the previous owner of a certain domain name was, and what kind of site it was origionally?

I own a domain name that I bought recently, and I’m finding it listed on some sites as having expired in January of 2008. Is there a place on the web I can get more info?