Five GOP state lawmakers, in a brief filed Monday, say the inquiry has exceeded its authority and is too political.

Palin is the focus of a legislative investigation into allegations she abused her power by firing her public safety commissioner. The commissioner says he was pressured to dismiss a state trooper who was involved in a messy divorce with Palin's sister.

Investigators are scheduled to submit a report on the investigation Friday. Oral arguments are scheduled for Wednesday.

Top officials with the firm that contracts to run Metrolink trains made their first public comments Sunday night about last month's deadly head-on collision of a passenger train with a Union Pacific freight train in Chatsworth.

"Words cannot express how saddened we are over the loss of life and injuries suffered in this terrible accident," said Veolia Transportation Chief Executive Mark Joseph in a written statement given to The Times. "Our hearts are broken and our entire company is stricken with grief."

"Whether the result of human error, system failure, or other causes, we will share in the broad responsibility of finding solutions to lessen the risks inherent in passenger rail service," Joseph added. "Public transportation is an essential service for everyday life in this country, and this tragedy underscores more than ever before the need of improving our public transportation systems."

In an interview in San Diego, where Veolia officials are attending a mass transit convention this week, Joseph emphasized the firm's safety record and said Veolia is participating in the investigation of the crash by the National Transportation Safety Board.

Veolia officials said that the NTSB has asked them not to discuss the crash while the probe continues, and they declined comment on all questions relating to potential causes of the crash, which killed 25 people. They also declined to discuss the personnel record of Robert Sanchez, the engineer of the Metrolink train who was an employee of Veolia and who was killed in the crash.

The NTSB has said the Metrolink train ran a red signal intended to stop the train before entering a stretch of single track in use by an eastbound Union Pacific freight train.

In addition, the NTSB has said preliminary data indicates that 57 text messages were sent from or received by Sanchez's cellphone while he was on duty on the day of the crash, including one sent 22 seconds before the collision. The agency, however, cautioned that the precise timing of the messages needed to be verified.

"I think up to this accident, we had the strongest [cellphone] policy in the business given the ones I'd seen," said Ronald J. Hartman, an executive vice president for rail for Veolia.

Hartman said Veolia's policy prohibits cellphone use by engineers and requires that devices be turned off and out of reach while engineers are in the cab of a locomotive. He said Veolia engineers encounter supervisors on a daily basis and that supervisors check for cellphone usage.

He added that Veolia supervisors sometimes call engineers' cellphones -- when the numbers for those phones are available -- to see if engineers are using phones while operating trains.

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The justices did not comment Monday in turning down a dozen individuals and two groups that oppose abortion rights. The court turned down similar appeals in 2003 and 2006.

Four physicians and abortion clinics sued in 1995 after the activists released a Wild West-style poster that named a dozen abortion doctors underneath the headline, "Wanted." A related Web site, titled the "Nuremberg Files," declared the doctors guilty of crimes against humanity, and listed their addresses and telephone numbers.

In 1999, a jury awarded the doctors and clinics more than $100 million under racketeering laws and a 1994 federal law that makes it illegal to incite violence against abortion doctors. Courts reduced the judgment to more than $16 million.

The activists say the verdict violated their free speech rights under the Constitution.

Without comment, the justices declined to consider Englewood, Colo.-based Dish's appeal.

In January, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit agreed with a lower court that digital video recorders distributed by Dish, formerly known as EchoStar Communications Corp., violated the software elements of Alviso,Calif.-based TiVo's patent. The ruling overturned the lower court's finding that Dish also infringed on the patent's hardware elements.

TiVo issued a statement saying it was "extremely pleased" with the Supreme Court's decision and said company lawyers would press for Dish to pay financial damages.

TiVo sued in 2004, alleging that EchoStar, a satellite broadcaster, infringed on TiVo's patented technology that allows viewers to record one program while watching another. EchoStar Communications changed its name to Dish in late 2007.

TiVo pioneered digital video recorders that allow viewers to pause, rewind and fast forward live television shows.

The lower court had ordered Dish to shut down the 3 million digital video recorders used by its customers because they use TiVo's technology, but that order was put on hold pending appeal.

Dish Network has said that the ruling would not affect its customers because the company had developed and distributed new DVR software that "does not infringe the Tivo patent at issue in the Federal Circuit's ruling."

Without comment, the justices declined to consider whether the jury foreman's conduct violated the rights of Jimmie Lucero, an Amarillo, Texas, man sentenced to death after being convicted in the shotgun slayings of three neighbors at their home in 2003.

The state of Texas argued that the Bible passage merely duplicated instructions of the trial court. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals found the introduction of the Bible into the jury room to be "harmless error."

A Texas jury took about five hours to decide on the death penalty for Lucero.

The two jurors who switched their votes said the reading of the scripture and its content had no impact on their votes.

During deliberations, the foreman read aloud from Romans 13:1-6, which states that everyone must submit to authority and that those who do wrong should be afraid, for a ruler is "God's servant, an agent of wrath to bring punishment to the wrongdoer."

Lucero was convicted in the killings of 71-year-old Pedro Robledo, his 72-year-old wife, Maria, and their daughter, Fabiana, 31.

Violators could be fined or removed from their jobs under the Federal Railroad Administration rule, which comes as the National Transportation Safety Board investigates why Metrolink engineer Robert Sanchez ran through a red light and into a freight train, killing 25 people.

Preliminary evidence released Wednesday by the NTSB on the timing of the messages appears to rule out that he was unconscious at the time and could show that Sanchez, who was among the dead, was distracted at the time of the crash, experts said.

"They know what's probable, that he was distracted while sending a text message or getting ready to send one," said Ron Schleede, who retired from the NTSB after 28 years as an accident investigator. "He was not incapacitated, but he was also not alert and paying attention."

NTSB investigators have found no indication of mechanical error, signal malfunction or problems with the track. While the NTSB has not made a finding about the cause of the crash, Metrolink has already said Sanchez went through the stop light.

An NTSB spokeswoman would not comment further Thursday about the investigation, which could take more than a year.

In issuing the order, the Railroad Administration noted that rail workers are increasingly using cell phones and other electronic devices that could distract them at critical moments during railroad operations.

It noted six train accidents, four of them resulting in deaths, between 2000 and 2006 in which cell phone use was involved.

"These obviously unsafe practices reflect the powerful influence of pervasive use of cell phones and other electronic and electrical devices," the report said.

While most railroads prohibit or restrict use of electronic devices by rail workers on duty, the Railroad Administration said the rules have not proved effective in preventing train accidents.

Wireless phones provide an extra means of communication among engineers, conductors and dispatchers in the event of a radio failure, but Metrolink decided to prohibit cell phones outright in the locomotive cabin, said Keith Millhouse, vice chairman of the regional rail system's board of director.

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