American Scene

CALIFORNIA

Court says Harvard twins are stuck with Facebook deal

SAN FRANCISCO | A federal appeals court ruled Monday that former Harvard University schoolmates of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg can’t undo their settlement over creation of the social networking site.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said Monday that Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss were savvy enough to understand the agreement when they signed it in 2008. The deal called for a $20 million cash payment and a partial ownership of Facebook. A third classmate, Divya Narendra, was part of the settlement with the twins but did not pursue the second lawsuit seeking to undo the agreement.

The ruling upholds a lower-court decision enforcing the settlement during the six years of litigation that grew so contentious that the dispute was dramatized in the Oscar-nominated film “The Social Network.”

The settlement is now worth more than $160 million because of Facebook’s increased valuation.

GEORGIA

State considers switching execution drug

ATLANTA | Georgia corrections officials are laying the groundwork to swap out a key sedative used for lethal injections after federal regulators took the state’s stockpile of the drug that is in short supply nationwide.

More than 1,000 pages of documents obtained by the Associated Press show Georgia prison officials traveled to two states where a different drug is being used for executions.

State prison officials have prepared lengthy legal files on that drug, called pentobarbital. Several states are using it instead of the scarce sodium thiopental.

The Drug Enforcement Administration took Georgia’s supply of sodium thiopental in March over questions of whether the state circumvented the law to obtain its supply.

Oklahoma, Texas and Ohio have switched to pentobarbital. Arizona and Mississippi are planning a switch.

MAINE

Couple to rebuild after plane hits home

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