Executions

Iran's chief judge has decreed that executions will no longer be held in public, the IRNA news agency reported. Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi, a moderately conservative cleric, also banned publishing pictures or broadcasting video of executions, the report said. Since the start of this year, Iran has publicly hanged more than 20 people convicted of murder, rape or drug smuggling.

High-end outdoor clothier and gear maker Patagonia Inc. is out to prove that a company can generate strong sales while being nearly fanatical about environmental concerns. The Ventura company was the first major clothier to make fleece jackets out of recycled bottles. Nearly a third of the power for its headquarters and adjoining child-care center comes from solar. And it donates 1% of its sales to environmental causes. With Patagonia being a privately held company, its finances are not public, but it says it's riding a growth curve.

California is set for a major debate on the death penalty following qualification Monday of a November ballot measure that would replace capital punishment with a life term without possibility of parole. If passed, the measure would make California the 18th state in the nation without a death penalty. During the last five years, four states have replaced the death penalty and Connecticut is soon to follow. Growing numbers of conservatives in California have joined the effort to repeal the state's capital punishment law, expressing frustration with its price tag and the rarity of executions.

In a setback for federal regulators, a federal judge threw out many of the fraud allegations against former IndyMac Bancorp Chief Executive Michael W. Perry in a case stemming from the collapse of the onetime Pasadena mortgage lender. U.S. District Judge Manuel Real tossed five of seven public filings late Monday that had supported civil claims filed by the Securities and Exchange Commission. He also ruled that Perry could not be forced to repay allegedly ill-gotten gains. Perry's lead attorney, Jean Veta of Covington & Burling in Washington, said the SEC suit "should never have been filed" and that she would contest the remaining accusations at a non-jury trial scheduled for June 26 before Real.

On the September night that the state of Georgia put Troy Davis to death, a crowd of several hundred gathered at the Supreme Court in Washington to protest America's continued practice of capital punishment. But they were in the wrong place. The protesters should have assembled 600 miles southeast, in Atlanta. The Constitution does not empower the Supreme Court to proscribe capital punishment or to regulate it out of existence, and those who ignore that point have made it increasingly expensive and less effective.

California prison officials executed 76-year-old murderer Clarence Ray Allen at the state prison here early today after his final appeal was turned down by the U.S. Supreme Court. His death was announced at 12:38 a.m. by Elaine Jennings of the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. Allen, who turned 76 Monday, was by far the oldest of the 13 convicts executed in the state since California restored the death penalty in 1977 and the second oldest in the nation.

So obscure that his conviction for four murders barely made headlines, death row inmate Stanley Tookie Williams owes his notoriety as much to a determined woman who stood by him and to committed death penalty opponents as to his shift from gangster to anti-gang activist. During a jailhouse visit in 1993 to research a book on gangs, writer Barbara Becnel discovered that Williams, who is scheduled to be executed Dec. 13, had renounced his gang past.

Who says there are no executions in California? The police in this state have killed as many people in the last month as were executed in a single year when capital punishment was the rule. How could the gas chamber be a greater deterrent than the slaughter reported almost daily by The Times? J.K. TURNER San Dimas

Why not Iran? Egypt and Tunisia have overthrown repressive regimes. Citizens in Syria, Yemen and other Middle East countries are demanding change. Yet in Iran, where a wave of 2009 demonstrations helped spark the movements we are now witnessing elsewhere in the Middle East, the populace is strangely silent. What accounts for the relative quiet in Iran? The answer, at least in part, is that one of the great human rights tragedies of the modern era is underway in Iran. From the moment the first protesters hit Tahrir Square in Cairo, Iran's leadership has cracked down hard, instituting a brutal campaign of terror against its own people.

Over the course of two hours, nurses attempted 18 times last month to find a vein in Romell Broom in which to inject the convicted murderer with a lethal combination of drugs. Broom even tried to help them, massaging his arms and straightening tubes. Finally, Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland called off the execution -- for the day, at least. A rare occurrence? Ohio, 2006: The execution of Joseph Lewis Clark took close to 90 minutes after executioners had trouble finding a vein. "It don't work, it don't work," Clark told them.

The newly formed SAG-AFTRA board of directors has confirmed David White as the merged union's sole national executive director. The national board of SAG-AFTRA voted overwhelmingly Sunday to select White for the job, approving a new three-year contract. White, the former Screen Actors Guild executive director, was expected to assume the new position as the chief administrative officer for the union of about 160,000 members. He had been serving as co-national executive director with former American Federation of Television and Radio Artists leader Kim Roberts Hedgpeth, who announced last month that she was resigning.

NEW YORK — Spanish-language media giant Univision Communications touted something that its English-language broadcast rivals cannot: Prime-time ratings at its flagship TV network, Univision, have grown 7% during the current season. Ratings gains in an era of shrinking TV audiences are uncommon as major broadcasters struggle to maintain their standing. Cable channels, social media and advances in technology — including digital video recorders — continue to nibble away at viewership, particularly among younger audiences.

Indiana Pacers President Larry Bird was voted the NBA's executive of the year on Wednesday, becoming the first person to win that award, plus the most valuable player and coach of the year honors. The Pacers went 42-24 and are tied 1-1 with Miami in the second round of the Eastern Conference playoffs. Bird's moves to strengthen the team during the off-season included promoting Frank Vogel from interim to head coach and signing starting forward David West . He acquired point guard George Hill in a draft-night deal with San Antonio, and traded for Lou Amundson and Leandro Barbosa to fortify the bench for the Pacers, who earned the No. 3 seeding in the East and had the fifth-best record in the league.

Yahoo Inc.Chief Executive Scott Thompson resigned from the digital media company Sunday after a dissident shareholder called attention to his apparent misrepresentation of his college credentials. Ross Levinsohn, formerly Yahoo's executive vice president of the Americas region, was named interim chief executive, the company said in a statement. The board of directors also named Alfred Amoroso its new chairman. Amoroso, who is chief executive of Santa Clara software company Rovi Corp., replaces Yahoo board member Roy Bostock, the founder and chairman of Sealedge Investments.

WASHINGTON - JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon acknowledged Sunday that his company's $2-billion trading loss could empower government regulators seeking to place tighter controls on risky trades by large banks. "This is a very unfortunate and inopportune time to have had this kind of mistake," Dimon said in an interview on NBC's "Meet the Press" with David Gregory. But the head of America's largest bank brushed aside the suggestion that the loss underscored the persistent risk posed by mismanagement at large banks more than three years after a financial crisis that forced billions of dollars in taxpayer bailouts.

ARLINGTON, Texas -- Pitcher C.J. Wilson considers himself "straight edge," a subculture whose adherents refrain from using alcohol, tobacco and recreational drugs. Utility player Mark Trumbo would like the Angels to be more hard edge. Trumbo was fired up after Saturday's 4-2 win over the two-time defending American League-champion Rangers, and not just because he put the Angels ahead with a prodigious two-run homer in the fourth inning. He loved the way Wilson and four Angels relievers pitched aggressively and fearlessly to baseball's most potent lineup, and the way the Angels bounced back from Friday night's lopsided 10-3 loss.

As executioners poked his limbs with an IV needle, Romell Broom initially tried to speed along his own demise, flexing his arm and tugging on a rubber tourniquet to better expose a vein on the inside of his elbow. But as prison workers repeatedly failed to find a vein strong enough to take the lethal injections, the convicted rapist-murderer began to despair over his protracted end. Witnesses and the execution-team log from Tuesday describe how the 53-year-old winced and cried as a shunt inserted in his leg also failed to open a pathway for the fatal drugs.

The U-T San Diego newspaper is in talks to buy the daily Orange County Register. U-T Chief Executive John Lynch confirmed that executives at his newspaper, formerly known as the San Diego Union-Tribune, have "had discussions" with Irvine-based Freedom Communications, which owns the Register. But although several recent reports have suggested that a deal is nearing, Lynch stopped short of saying that. "Nothing is certain as we attempt to expand our holding in L.A. and O.C.," Lynch wrote in an e-mail.