Thursday, Feb 05th
Last update08:43:35 AM GMT
Domestic Glance
Arkansas has wrapped up an aggressive execution schedule, putting to death its fourth inmate in eight days, hours after a last minute motion to halt his execution failed before the US Supreme Court.
Kenneth Williams, 38, received a lethal injection on Thursday night at the Cummins Unit prison at Varner for the killing of a former deputy warden in 1999.
He was pronounced dead at 11:05pm, 13 minutes after the execution began.
Arkansas had initially held off on executing Williams, who was scheduled to die at 7pm local time, as officials awaited word from the Supreme Court. His death warrant was set to expire at midnight.
The Russian “superhacker” who stole and sold millions of credit-card numbers, reportedly causing more than $169 million worth of damage to businesses and financial institutions, was sentenced Friday to 27 years in prison.
As The Daily Beast previously reported, Roman Valeryevich Seleznev, 32, aka Track2, son of a prominent Russian lawmaker, was convicted last year on 38 counts of computer intrusion and credit-card fraud.
Former New England Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez killed himself in prison Wednesday, the Massachusetts Department of Corrections said.
The department said officers found Hernandez at 3:05 a.m. He hanged himself in his cell in Shirley's Souza Baranowski Correctional Center.
Personnel attempted to save Hernandez, who was transported to the UMass Memorial HealthAlliance Hospital in Leominster where he was declared dead at 4:07 a.m.
San Francisco has asked a federal judge to block President Trump’s order threatening to deny federal funding to sanctuary cities that don’t actively pursue undocumented immigrants. City authorities on Wednesday asked U.S. District Judge William H. Orrick for a preliminary injunction against the president’s executive order until a lawsuit against it can be heard.
The city’s motion argued that Trump’s order infringes on the sovereignty of cities and exceeds the president’s authority. City Attorney Dennis Herrera described Trump as a “bully” for threatening to withhold federal funding for public aid programs.
The Supreme Court ruled on Monday that courts must make an exception to the usual rule that jury deliberations are secret when evidence emerges that those discussions were marred by racial or ethnic bias.
“Racial bias implicates unique historical, constitutional and institutional concerns,” Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote for the majority in the 5-to-3 decision.
The Supreme Court is mainly ruling for African-Americans in Virginia who say lawmakers packed 12 legislative districts with black voters to make other districts whiter and more Republican.
The justices said Wednesday that a lower court that upheld the 12 districts used the wrong legal standard when it determined that race did not play too large a role in creating the districts.
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