David R

The head of Metrolink could be moved aside and a new, interim chief executive named to run Southern California's regional commuter rail service as early as today, The Times has learned. The agency's board has scheduled a special, closed-door session to discuss Chief Executive David R. Solow's position, as well as a new management job being created to oversee a major safety improvement project, records and interviews show. Details of the potential shake-up remained under wraps, and the board still must take action to proceed.

David R. Ellis, 60, a journeyman director and former stuntman whose credits include the 2006 thriller "Snakes on a Plane," died Monday morning in Johannesburg, South Africa, where he was in pre-production on the upcoming film "Kite" with Samuel L. Jackson. The cause of death was unknown, said his agent, David Boxerbaum. Ellis most recently served as the second unit director on several upcoming high-profile films including "47 Ronin," starring Keanu Reeves; "R.I.P.D. " with Ryan Reynolds; and the adaptation of Mark Helprin's novel "Winter's Tale.

The head of Southern California's regional commuter rail service was replaced Friday in a management shake-up that officials hope will better position the agency to tackle major safety and financial challenges in the wake of last year's Chatsworth disaster. FOR THE RECORD: Metrolink collision: An article in Saturday's Section A about the demotion of Metrolink Chief Executive David R. Solow said last year's Chatsworth train accident, which killed 25 and injured 135, was the worst in modern California history.

Journeyman director and former stuntman David R. Ellis died Monday morning in Johannesburg, South Africa, where he was in pre-production on the upcoming film "Kite" with Samuel L. Jackson. The cause of death is unknown, said his agent, David Boxerbaum. Ellis was 60. Ellis most recently served as the second unit director on several upcoming high-profile films including the Keanu Reeves-starrer "47 Ronin"; "R.I.P.D. " with Ryan Reynolds; and the adaptation of Mark Helprin's novel "Winter's Tale.

A highly unpopular fare increase proposal and a host of other Metrolink management challenges are intensifying questions about the future leadership role of David R. Solow, the executive in charge of Southern California's sprawling commuter rail service, The Times has learned. At least one high-profile Metrolink board member, Los Angeles County Supervisor Michael Antonovich, says it may be time for a change. Antonovich believes the struggling five-county agency "needs almost a Gen. Patton-type or even a Rudy Giuliani-type person who comes in, provides leadership, sees a problem and fixes it," said Michael Cano, the supervisor's transportation deputy.

David R. Ellis, 60, a journeyman director and former stuntman whose credits include the 2006 thriller "Snakes on a Plane," died Monday morning in Johannesburg, South Africa, where he was in pre-production on the upcoming film "Kite" with Samuel L. Jackson. The cause of death was unknown, said his agent, David Boxerbaum. Ellis most recently served as the second unit director on several upcoming high-profile films including "47 Ronin," starring Keanu Reeves; "R.I.P.D. " with Ryan Reynolds; and the adaptation of Mark Helprin's novel "Winter's Tale.

Journeyman director and former stuntman David R. Ellis died Monday morning in Johannesburg, South Africa, where he was in pre-production on the upcoming film "Kite" with Samuel L. Jackson. The cause of death is unknown, said his agent, David Boxerbaum. Ellis was 60. Ellis most recently served as the second unit director on several upcoming high-profile films including the Keanu Reeves-starrer "47 Ronin"; "R.I.P.D. " with Ryan Reynolds; and the adaptation of Mark Helprin's novel "Winter's Tale.

David R. Migliorini, a former salesman and propane company service manager, died March 24 at Community Memorial Hospital in Ventura after a series of illnesses. He was 54. He was born Dec. 5, 1946, in Raton, N.M. His family moved to Ventura in the early 1950s, and he attended Holy Cross School, Santa Clara High School and Ventura High School, from which he graduated in 1964. He attended Ventura College and served four years in the Air Force.

The Autobiography of an Execution David R. Dow Twelve: 274 pp., $24.99 You support the death penalty -- almost two-thirds of the country did, in a 20096 Gallup Poll. You may consider it retributive justice or perhaps a deterrent. You do not find racial disparities or irregularities in its application overly troubling. You believe most attorneys and judges act dispassionately and in accord with the dictates of law and the Constitution. Still, there is the Texas problem.

California judicial leaders, responding to budget slashing by state lawmakers, voted Friday to approve cutbacks that will close some courthouses, reduce court hours, and delay civil trials, custody decisions and divorces in some counties. Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye, presiding over the meeting of top judicial policy makers, told the packed auditorium that the courts were in an "unprecedented crisis" and warned that no program would be spared scrutiny. The Judicial Council, the court's governing body, which consists primarily of judges and court officials appointed by the chief justice, approved cuts of $350 million from a statewide court budget of $1.5 billion.

Senior Circuit Judge David R. Thompson, a registered Republican named to the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals reportedly to "balance" the court's perceived liberal bent, died Saturday after 25 years on the bench that earned him a reputation as a moderate and "a quiet force of common sense and fairness. " He was 80. Thompson, who lived in San Diego, died at a San Francisco hospital after suddenly taking ill while in the city for 9th Circuit hearings last week. A lawyer in private practice before President Reagan nominated him to a new seat on the 9th Circuit, Thompson came from a San Diego legal dynasty spanning more than a century.

The Autobiography of an Execution David R. Dow Twelve: 274 pp., $24.99 You support the death penalty -- almost two-thirds of the country did, in a 20096 Gallup Poll. You may consider it retributive justice or perhaps a deterrent. You do not find racial disparities or irregularities in its application overly troubling. You believe most attorneys and judges act dispassionately and in accord with the dictates of law and the Constitution. Still, there is the Texas problem.

The head of Southern California's regional commuter rail service was replaced Friday in a management shake-up that officials hope will better position the agency to tackle major safety and financial challenges in the wake of last year's Chatsworth disaster. FOR THE RECORD: Metrolink collision: An article in Saturday's Section A about the demotion of Metrolink Chief Executive David R. Solow said last year's Chatsworth train accident, which killed 25 and injured 135, was the worst in modern California history.

The head of Metrolink could be moved aside and a new, interim chief executive named to run Southern California's regional commuter rail service as early as today, The Times has learned. The agency's board has scheduled a special, closed-door session to discuss Chief Executive David R. Solow's position, as well as a new management job being created to oversee a major safety improvement project, records and interviews show. Details of the potential shake-up remained under wraps, and the board still must take action to proceed.

A highly unpopular fare increase proposal and a host of other Metrolink management challenges are intensifying questions about the future leadership role of David R. Solow, the executive in charge of Southern California's sprawling commuter rail service, The Times has learned. At least one high-profile Metrolink board member, Los Angeles County Supervisor Michael Antonovich, says it may be time for a change. Antonovich believes the struggling five-county agency "needs almost a Gen. Patton-type or even a Rudy Giuliani-type person who comes in, provides leadership, sees a problem and fixes it," said Michael Cano, the supervisor's transportation deputy.

State parole officials missed many chances to capture convicted sex offender Phillip Garrido and find Jaycee Dugard, whom he is accused of kidnapping 18 years ago and harboring in his Antioch backyard, a prison watchdog has concluded in a highly critical report to be released today. Inspector General David R. Shaw said a two-month investigation found that the state parole division supervising Garrido for the past decade could have discovered Dugard, and her two children fathered by him, much earlier than August, when he was arrested.

Senior Circuit Judge David R. Thompson, a registered Republican named to the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals reportedly to "balance" the court's perceived liberal bent, died Saturday after 25 years on the bench that earned him a reputation as a moderate and "a quiet force of common sense and fairness. " He was 80. Thompson, who lived in San Diego, died at a San Francisco hospital after suddenly taking ill while in the city for 9th Circuit hearings last week. A lawyer in private practice before President Reagan nominated him to a new seat on the 9th Circuit, Thompson came from a San Diego legal dynasty spanning more than a century.

SOMEWHERE between a dorm-room poster of Monet's waterlilies and the Robert Rauschenberg painting owned by Eli Broad is another level -- the beginnings of an art collection that can be built by anyone with a few grand to spend.

He is one of those well-paid technocrats who makes sure things run smoothly, someone few people have heard of but so many depend on. Then something happens, and that cloak of invisibility disappears. For David R. Solow, that moment occurred Sept. 12, when a Metrolink train crashed into a freight train in Chatsworth. Twenty-five people died and 135 were injured in the worst rail accident in modern state history.

ISOBEL ENGLISH died of leukemia in 1994 at 73, little known beyond her immediate circle of friends and fellow writers in Britain. Her novel "Every Eye," published there in 1956, is being printed for the first time in the United States. English (June Braybrooke's pseudonym) was a writer whose work shows how much deeper and richer fiction can be in the hands of a well-read author.