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washington -- Mitt Romney twice emphasized his unique business background when he and eight other Republican presidential candidates faced off in a debate last week in Iowa. "I've spent the last, as I've told you, 25 years in the private sector," former Massachusetts Gov. Romney declared at one point. "I understand why jobs come and why jobs go. I've done business in 20 countries."

A 23-year-old gang member who shot and killed a high school football star he mistook for a rival gangster in 2008 should be put to death, a Los Angeles jury decided Wednesday. Jurors reached the verdict after about a week of testimony in the penalty phase of the trial for Pedro Espinoza, a member of the 18th Street gang. The panel was asked to decide what punishment Espinoza should receive for the slaying of 17-year-old Jamiel Shaw II. Prosecutors said Shaw was killed execution-style because he was a young black male carrying a red Spider-Man backpack, which led Espinoza to believe he was a Bloods gang member.

A federal administrative judge ruled that pomegranate juice maker Pom Wonderful used deceptive advertising when it implied its products could treat or prevent serious diseases and other medical conditions. Judge D. Michael Chappell upheld much of a 2010 Federal Trade Commission complaint against the Los Angeles company owned by Lynda and Stewart Resnick. The judge said in his decision issued Monday that Pom used "insufficient" evidence to back its claims that Pom products "treat, prevent or reduce the risk of heart disease, prostate cancer or erectile dysfunction.

Miami Heat forward Udonis Haslem was suspended by the NBA for Game 6 of his team's series against Indiana. Haslem committed a flagrant foul against Indiana's Tyler Hansbrough during the second quarter of Game 5 on Tuesday night, shortly after Hansbrough struck Miami's Dwyane Wade and opened a cut over his right eye. Haslem and Hansbrough were assessed flagrant-1 fouls on the respective plays. If they had been issued flagrant-2 fouls, they would have been ejected.

First of three parts Tiffany Lee wanted a car. She was weary of the two-hour bus ride to her job at a UCLA Health System clinic. She hated having to ask friends to drive her 7-year-old son to his asthma treatments. But as a single mother with three children, bad credit and a $27,000-a-year salary, she couldn't find a bank or dealership willing to give her a loan. Then a friend steered her to Repossess Auto Sales in Hawthorne. Another buyer might have balked at the deal she was offered.

Watching Alzheimer's disease steal away the memory, talents and very selves of its victims is hard enough for the people who love them. Now, a new pill formulated by a respected pharmaceutical company and approved by the Food and Drug Administration will do little to help most patients and will bring misery to some, say two medical investigators. The drug, Aricept 23 mg, is no more effective on the whole than the disappointing ones already on the market - but is more likely to cause gastrointestinal problems, wrote Drs. Steven Woloshin and Lisa Schwartz of Dartmouth Medical College in an article published Thursday in the medical journal BMJ. The new formulation was devised to serve commercial objectives, they say, and was approved despite a poor showing in company-sponsored tests.

"Battleship"is not the first major motion picture to be based on a board game - who could forget 1985's benighted "Clue"? - but it is surely the most expensive. With every superhero more celebrated than Amazing-Man or the Chameleon already spoken for (ditto for hot toys like Transformers), Hollywood has fallen back on popular games as likely fodder for action epics. If "Scrabble: The Movie" or "Qwirkle or Death" appears on a future marquee, don't say you weren't warned. As its north-of-$200-million budget indicates, "Battleship" has been expanded considerably from its origins as a pre-World War I pencil and paper game to include a major alien invasion that puts the very fate of the human race at stake.

Los Angeles County Juvenile Court will be opened to press coverage regularly, with certain exceptions intended to protect the interests of children, under an order issued Tuesday by the court's presiding judge. FOR THE RECORD: Juvenile Court: In the LATExtra sections of Feb. 1 and Feb. 8, articles about a decision to open Los Angeles County children's courts to reporters erred in some instances in headlines and in text by referring to access by media. The order by Judge Michael Nash specified that those courtrooms be open to the press.

Mickey Rooney's stepson was ordered Thursday to turn over all of the 90-year-old actor's identification cards ? including his passport, state ID card, various insurance cards and his Screen Actor's Guild membership ? and to continue to abide by a temporary restraining order that a Los Angeles Superior Court judge issued 10 days ago. Rooney has alleged in court papers that his stepson, Christopher Aber, 52, of Westlake Village and Aber's wife, Christina Aber, 42, have been physically and emotionally abusing him for several years by depriving him of food and medications, prohibiting him from leaving his house and taking control over his finances.

WASHINGTON - The Obama administration ordered tariffs of 31% and higher on solar panels imported from China, escalating a simmering trade dispute with China over a case that has sharply divided American interests in the growing clean-energy industry. The Commerce Department announced the stiff duties Thursday after making a preliminary finding that Chinese solar panel manufacturers "dumped" their goods - that is, sold them at below fair-market value. The widely anticipated ruling, if affirmed by U.S. trade officials this fall, is expected to have significant implications for both the global production of solar cells, now largely in China, and the growth of the solar energy industry in the U.S., which employs about 100,000 people in manufacturing, installation and services.

Amazon has begun taking pre-orders for the international version of the Samsung Galaxy S III, but the smartphone will come with a steep price to pay for Americans who don't want to wait. Though the 4.8-inch-screen Android phone is set to release in Europe next week, its U.S. arrival is further away. If you want the phone now, you can pre-order from Amazon, but it will cost you $799.99.

State safety regulators have ordered stringent inspections of a downtown Los Angeles rail junction for the newly opened Expo Line because of a serious design flaw that poses an increased risk of train derailments. Officials of the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority insist the intersection of the region's newest light rail service and the older Long Beach Blue Line at Washington Boulevard and Flower Street is safe for now because of small modifications to the tracks.

Short Order A retro-ish mix of blues, bluegrass, rockabilly, unconventional folk and indie rock, to go with burgers, shakes and fries, courtesy of resident "music guy" Josh Pressman. "Meet Me in the City" Junior Kimbrough "Oh Well (Live at the BBC)" Fleetwood Mac "Ten Thousand Words" the Avett Brothers Bazaar Electronic with a lot of European, particularly Spanish, music to match the modern tapas at the Bazaar and "salt air" margaritas at Bar Centro, courtesy of Prescriptive Music.

Los Angeles firefighters are taking longer to get to medical emergencies following steep budget cuts approved by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and the City Council, according to a much-anticipated audit of Fire Department response times released Friday by City Controller Wendy Greuel. Greuel found that "real response times" to medical calls have increased on average about 20 seconds - to seven minutes and eight seconds - since a series of department cutbacks were ordered beginning in 2009.

WASHINGTON - The Obama administration ordered tariffs of 31% and higher on solar panels imported from China, escalating a simmering trade dispute with China over a case that has sharply divided American interests in the growing clean-energy industry. The Commerce Department announced the stiff duties Thursday after making a preliminary finding that Chinese solar panel manufacturers "dumped" their goods - that is, sold them at below fair-market value. The widely anticipated ruling, if affirmed by U.S. trade officials this fall, is expected to have significant implications for both the global production of solar cells, now largely in China, and the growth of the solar energy industry in the U.S., which employs about 100,000 people in manufacturing, installation and services.

Mike Scioscia might be perceived as more old school than computer geek, but the Angels manager does study in-depth batting statistics. "Some of the stuff is very good, and it can help you slot and match guys up," Scioscia said. Scioscia moved second baseman Howie Kendrick from second to sixth in the batting order April 30, and the second baseman has batted .333 in the spot since. The oddity of Kendrick's 26-point leap in batting average was that he went without a run batted in from May 3 until Wednesday.

Lipitor is the most prescribed name-brand drug in America - nearly 3.5 million people take it every day to control their cholesterol. Since the statin entered the market in 1997, it's earned New York-based pharmaceutical giant Pfizer Inc. $81 billion, making it the best-selling prescription drug of all time, according to IMS Health, a Danbury, Conn.-based healthcare information company. So when Lipitor's patent protection came to an end Nov. 30 and a generic alternative became available, an awful lot of patients had a decision to make: Should they stick with the drug they knew or switch to something less expensive?

With conflict brewing over Shell's plans to begin exploratory drilling in the U.S. Arctic this summer, a federal judge in Anchorage has issued a temporary restraining order banning Greenpeace activists from launching operations against the company's two drilling rigs. U.S. District Judge Sharon L. Gleason on Thursday granted the oil company's request for an order preventing activists from repeating their recent stunt off New Zealand , in which Greenpeace drilling opponents mounted the Noble Discoverer drilling rig and impeded its departure for North America.

Gov. Jerry Brown is testy. He's defensive. He's very frustrated. He's only human, after all - not a demigod, not the all-wise, powerful supergov he portrayed himself to be when running for the office. It's hard to know who believed that portrayal the most: the voters, the Sacramento insiders or the candidate himself. Regardless, it hasn't panned out the way most people had hoped, and certainly not the way Brown had envisioned. So on Monday, he was in the governor's press conference room - built by his father, incidentally - trying to explain why the state budget hole had grown 71% deeper since January, expanding from $9.2 billion to $15.7 billion.

Concerns about the Air Force's problem-plagued fleet of F-22 Raptor fighter jets led Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta to restrict flights of the aircraft because of problems with its oxygen systems that can cause its pilots to become disoriented mid-flight. In addition, Panetta wants a monthly progress report on the investigation into the root cause of the F-22's oxygen problems and ordered the Air Force to speed up the installation of an automatic backup oxygen system. Panetta also called on Navy and NASA personnel to find a solution.