USA

Juan Manuel Alvarez, whose second thoughts about committing suicide appear to have caused a deadly train crash Wednesday in Glendale, Calif., was arrested and charged with multiple counts of murder. He could face the death penalty, prosecutors said. Alvarez was taken to a hospital with self- inflicted slash wounds after he left his sport/utility vehicle on the tracks. The obstruction caused a chain-reaction derailment of two commuter trains that killed 11 people and injured almost 200, some of them critically. A temporary restraining order was issued against Alvarez in December when his estranged wife, who said he's been through drug rehabilitation twice, accused him of threatening harm to family members.

Condoleezza Rice is scheduled to be sworn in ceremonially Friday as secretary of State, with Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg officiating. She already has assumed her post since accepting the oath of office from White House chief of staff Andrew Card late Wednesday. Rice, who has been President Bush's national security adviser, won Senate confirmation earlier in the day despite intense questioning by Democrats, who grilled her about her role in drafting an Iraq strategy. She is expected to take her first foreign policy trip next week, traveling to the Middle East and Europe.

Douglas Feith, the controversial undersecretary of defense for policy and a leading advocate of the war in Iraq, is resigning "for personal and family reasons," the Defense Department announced Wednesday. The Pentagon's third-ranking civilian official has agreed to stay on until sometime this summer.

Bush visited a Cleveland hospital Thursday that is helping the government to develop standards for computerizing medical records, an issue on which he campaigned last year. Within 10 years, Bush would like a majority of Americans to have computerized records in order to reduce costs and errors.

Auto worker Myles Meyers, who was recently disciplined for a minor infraction at a Jeep assembly plant in Toledo, Ohio, entered the facility Wednesday with a concealed shotgun and ordered a co-worker to lure over three others, police said. After killing a supervisor and wounding two others, Meyers then fatally shot himself.

Master architect Philip Johnson, who died Tuesday in New Canaan, Conn., was known as a versatile and controversial designer. Among his most noted projects were the Chippendale-topped AT&T Building in New York and the Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove, Calif.