Forty-five-year-old John Fautenberry of Oregon was pronounced dead at 10:37 a.m. Tuesday at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville.

Fautenberry was sentenced to death for the slaying of Joseph Daron Jr., who picked him up while he was hitchhiking on Feb. 17, 1991.

Fautenberry also confessed to killing a four people in three other states — Alaska, Oregon and New Jersey — during a five-month period in late 1990 and early 1991.

Fautenberry is the first inmate executed in Ohio since June 3.

Ohio has put 30 men to death since it reinstated the death penalty in 1999.

A lawyer says the artist who created the "Hope" poster of President Barack Obama will plead guilty to some of the vandalism charges he faces in Boston, while other charges will be dropped.

Shepard Fairey was in Boston Municipal Court on Friday. His attorney Jeffrey Wiesner says they are finishing details of the agreement with prosecutors, but says Fairey will plead guilty to some of the 13 vandalism charges.

Fairey, of Los Angeles, was arrested in February when he was in Boston to kick off an exhibit.

Prosecutors have already dropped 14 charges that claimed the 39-year-old artist placed stickers on public property.

Fairey says he dramatically changed an Associated Press image to make the "Hope" poster. The AP has said the uncredited and uncompensated use violates copyright laws.

Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor has endured weeks of insults, obnoxious questions and unwelcome drilling into her work as a judge and a lawyer — and it was all on purpose, essentially a dress rehearsal for her confirmation hearings.

In a series of faux hearings, Sotomayor has been barraged by hostile questions thrown her way by allies preparing the federal appeals judge for the interrogation that will begin Monday. She's been reviewing her past writings, speeches, cases and legal opinions while gaming questions she is likely to hear next week when the Senate Judiciary Committee takes up her nomination.

And Sotomayor also has been learning the quirks of senators who will do the questioning, and developing a thick skin for the barbs that might come her way.

The point is to ensure that no question comes up that Sotomayor hasn't heard and hasn't answered in the mock exercises.

"Judges are not accustomed to being judged," said Ed Gillespie, a White House counsel for President George W. Bush who helped prepare John Roberts and Samuel Alito for their confirmation hearings. "Helping them to understand the nature of the confirmation process and the nature of the Senate is important."

Sotomayor has faced Senate questioning before — when she was nominated by President George H.W. Bush for a federal trial judgeship in 1992, and again in 1997 when President Bill Clinton nominated her for a seat on the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Brooke Astor's son is back at his Manhattan trial, a day after he fell and hit his head in a courthouse restroom.

Anthony Marshall, who's 85, had heart surgery last fall. He takes blood thinners and walks unsteadily with a cane. He also has reportedly suffered a mild stroke.

Marshall denies charges that he exploited his mother's dementia to loot her $198 million fortune.

On Thursday, a prosecution witness waited to resume her testimony as lawyers held a conference with the judge.

Pearline Noble of the Bronx was Astor's nursing assistant. She started working for the philanthropist in mid-2003, helping her with grooming and other personal tasks.

Dole Food Company Inc filed a defamation lawsuit on Wednesday against Swedish film makers it accuses of knowingly including "patent falsehoods" in a documentary about Nicaraguan banana workers who sued Dole for allegedly exposing them to pesticides on its plantations.

Dole said it repeatedly "implored" director Fredrik Gertten and producer Margarete Jangard to revise the film "Bananas!*" to show that the bananeros' lawsuits against Dole were thrown out in April by a Los Angeles judge who found a "pervasive conspiracy" to defraud U.S. courts by plaintiffs attorneys and Nicaraguan judges.

Gertten "refused to make any meaningful changes to the film, and persisted in publicly screening it and touting its accuracy in the face of court rulings that the story was false ...," said the suit, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court.