Virginia voters will head to the polls Tuesday to choose party nominees for U.S. Senate, congressional seats and local offices, with the commonwealth’s only congressional district featuring contested primaries in both parties helping shape the November ballot.
It’s the first time the DOJ is asking the court to remove a foreign national from the U.S. who “supported a plot by ISIS-sympathizing family members to commit an act of terrorism in America,” FBI Director Kash Patel said.
Dozens of medical professionals sign letter asking Gov. Bill Lee to halt executions until process is reformed.
Dr. Robert Quinn did not personally know Tony Carruthers, the Tennessee inmate whose execution was called off in May after an attempt, but he's been to Tennessee's Death Row.
Quinn is one of dozens of medical professionals signing a letter asking Gov. Bill Lee to halt executions until the Tennessee Department of Corrections can reform the process.
He began visiting Death Row as part of a ministry with his church and knew people who were very close to Carruthers.
"The fascinating thing is that Death Row is the safest unit in the prison system," Quinn said. "The average stay, at least in Tennessee, is 20 to 30 years, so it becomes a really tight family. So when somebody's killed or executed, it's like you're losing your brother."
Tennessee's next execution is scheduled for Aug. 13, when Anthony Darrell Hines is set to die for the 1985 murder of Catherine Jenkins, a motel maid in Kingston.
Jenkins' daughter spoke to Nashville's WKRN about the effect of Hines continuing appeals 40 years after her mother's murder.
“The criminal gets all of the focus because they are the ones still alive walking around,” Melissa Jenkins told the television station. “Everybody forgets about the victim and the victims’ families.”
Quinn said the person he is assigned in ministry said there is not enough attention paid to the victim's families.
"So the paradigm, the formula is, you kill my son, I get you killed, I'll be fine," Quinn said. "But buried beneath there is a mountain of pain, a mountain of hurt, a mountain of grief that needs to be processed."
Hines' attorneys cite Carruthers' failed execution in their petition for clemency for their client.
"After you wisely paused executions after the botched attempted execution of Oscar Smith, TDOC assured us that corrective action and a new protocol would ensure the competent execution of prisoners. That has not proved true," Hines' attorneys said in their clemency letter to Lee.
TDOC is the acronym for Tennessee Department of Corrections.
Smith was scheduled to be executed in April 2022. Lee paused all executions to review the state's lethal injection protocols. Smith, convicted of murder for killing his estranged wife and her two children, was executed in May 2025.
A survey released this week by the Manhattan Institute, a New York-based public policy research organization focused on urban policy and economic issues, shows that 58% support the death penalty for what are deemed egregious crimes.
Regardless of how doctors feel about the death penalty, the American Medical Association's policy cautions physicians from participating in executions. Physicians are unlikely to lose their licenses if they do, according to Quinn.
"An individual’s opinion on capital punishment is the personal moral decision of the individual," the statement says. "However, as a member of a profession dedicated to preserving life when there is hope of doing so, a physician must not participate in a legally authorized execution."
The doctor involved in Tony Carruthers' attempted execution in May is facing a medical malpractice complaint filed by Carruthers' sister. A primary IV line was already inserted into Carruthers, but medical personnel could not find a required second line for a backup, according to a statement from the Tennessee Department of Corrections.
The American Medical Association's statement can make it difficult to find a "good team" to assist in an execution, according to Quinn.
"The other thing that happens is that as a physician, you dedicate your professional life to preservation and protection and improving," Quinn said. "And then to be asked to step across the line is a tough, moral hurdle to clear."
The Center Square was unsuccessful prior to publication getting comment from Lee. He gave Carruthers a one-year reprieve after Carruthers' failed execution.
"If I could, I would ask Governor Lee to come and spend a Monday night with us in that room," Quinn said. "I would invite him to see the humanity."
Health system pays fired physician assistant $410,000, introduces religious accommodations to opt out of "gender affirming care," preferred pronouns. Michigan "conversion therapy" law falls and Washington's is back in court.
“We have crippled British industry, hammered consumers and pushed the grid to the brink of blackouts,“ newspaper declared.
Climate and energy analysts say that British publication The Telegraph’s admission that strict climate policies have had a disastrous impact on their nation is “better late than never,” with some welcoming the newspaper to the “reality” that even if a climate crisis existed, humans are powerless to stop it.
President and co-founder of The Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow Craig Rucker told The Center Square that “it’s refreshing to finally see the editor of a major British newspaper state the obvious: net zero has been an abysmal failure.”
Rucker said the author of the Telegraph’s article in question, Allister Heath, “gets it right – Britain’s pursuit of this radical Green fantasy has devastated industry, raised costs, and achieved absolutely nothing for the climate.”
“One only wishes this sort of honesty had come years earlier, long before the crippling damage was done,” Rucker said. “But I guess, it's better late than never."
Similarly, director of The Heartland Institute’s Arthur B. Robinson Center on Climate and Environmental Policy Sterling Burnett responded with “Better late than never, I guess” to the news of The Telegraph’s admission.
“The most telling lines come in the opening paragraphs when they admit that net zero is a ‘despicable con,’ and that the attempt to save the world was a ‘futile gambit,’ from the outset,” Burnett told The Center Square.
“Indeed, futile and unnecessary since the Earth abides regardless of human action; data shows that there is no climate crisis and, despite some academics' and elites' hubris, even if there were a crisis, humans couldn't control or prevent it,” Burnett said.
“Green colonialist actions and policies designed by Western elites to control the weather 50 or 100 years from now was an inane, quixotic quest from the start,” Burnett said. “A waste of scarce resources, that could have been put to better use to reduce hunger and disease, from the start.”
“To the Telegraph, I say, welcome to reality - it's about time,” Burnett said.
The Telegraph Media Group has not yet responded to The Center Square’s request for comment.
The Telegraph article’s author as well as Sunday Telegraph editor Allister Heath said that “climate change is real, but Britain can do almost nothing about it.”
“It’s time to accept this sobering reality, cut our losses, cease tilting at (and building) windmills, ditch the despicable con that is net zero, and learn to cope with, and whenever possible, even enjoy, a warmer, drier, more volatile Mediterranean climate, if that is indeed to be our fate,” Heath wrote.
“We have crippled British industry, hammered consumers and pushed the grid to the brink of blackouts, all with no discernible impact on global emissions and the climate,” Heath wrote.
“Hubris has ruined us, a tiny nation accounting for 0.8 per cent of global CO2 emissions from combustible fuels,” Heath wrote. “We were fooled into believing that we could single-handedly lead the way in saving the world, a futile gambit if there ever were one.”
Chairman of the American Lands Council Myron Ebell told The Center Square that “Heath’s wake-up call is almost 20 years too late.”
“It was obvious to anyone paying attention when the Climate Change Act passed the House of Commons in 2008 with only five no votes that the costs would be staggering and the benefits negligible,” Ebells said.
“Arizona recognizes the serious condition of the Colorado River, and we are prepared to be part of a responsible solution,” Arizona State Senate President Warren Petersen said in a statement sent to The Center Square. “What we will not accept is a federal plan that protects some states while placing a devastating and disproportionate burden on Arizona."
The New Civil Liberties Alliance filed the lawsuit Thursday on behalf of the Silver Spring Jewish Center and Rabbi J. Menashe Shapiro. The lawsuit asks the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland to block the law while the case moves forward.
At issue is a proposal to build multiple 765kV ultra-high voltage transmission lines stretching from deep east Texas to far west Texas.
The top-line race is the Democratic Senate primary, which has seen Rep. Haley Stevens, D-Mich., square off against progressive Abdul El-Sayed.
Michigan is set to hold House and Senate primaries Tuesday whose outcome could likely shape the larger battles for the November contests and tip the scales in the larger battle for both chambers, depending on their outcomes.
Bonta called the challenge to the “unlawful Warner Bros./Paramount merger” a clean-cut antitrust challenge through and through.
(The Center Square) - The coalition of state attorneys general suing over the Warner Bros. Discovery and Paramount Skydance merger has requested a trial date of April 2027.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta is leading the coalition. In a statement to The Center Square, Bonta called the challenge to the “unlawful Warner Bros./Paramount merger” a clean-cut antitrust challenge through and through.
“It is about protecting the vibrancy of an industry, the pockets of consumers, and the quality of films and television programs that take center stage in many of our lives,” said Bonta.
Warner Bros. Discovery operates Warner Bros.' California movie studios in Burbank, and Paramount Skydance owns Paramount Pictures in nearby Hollywood. Both companies own streaming services, and Paramount Skydance owns CBS. Both companies own other TV networks.
The lawsuit from Bonta et al against Paramount-Skydance's $110 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. was announced July 13 and is in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.
On July 20, Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín granted a temporary restraining order requested by the state attorneys general. The TRO pauses the deal while the court considers a preliminary injunction that would block the merger for the duration of the lawsuit. However, on July 29, Paramount Skydance said it would delay the merger until June 2027.
In addition to Bonta, who is a Democrat, the plaintiffs are Democratic attorneys general from Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon and Washington.
“This challenge deserves careful and thorough review, and today my office and attorneys general across the country asked the court for a trial date next spring,” said Bonta in Friday’s statement to The Center Square. “We are eager to continue to make our case and look forward to a final determination of the schedule by the court."
Writers Guild of America, the union representing TV and movie writers, is also suing over the merger. That lawsuit is also in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.
“With fewer competitors, the merged Paramount-Warner Bros. entity would have both the incentive and the ability to lower costs by suppressing writers’ wages and reducing output,” the WGA complaint states. “Writers will be paid less and have fewer employment opportunities.”
When the WGA lawsuit was announced, the California Department of Justice, led by Bonta, told The Center Square in an email that it welcomes enforcement partners in fighting for fair competition and looks forward to litigating this alongside WGA.
Not everyone is a fan of the lawsuits. Michael Gates, a lawyer who is the Republican candidate for California attorney general, said Bonta is running for reelection and “jumping on this as an opportunity to make headlines” in an election year.
“He's trying to appear as though he’s taking on Big Business, but what he’s totally missing is that the federal government has already evaluated this merger, and the federal government under federal antitrust laws deems this merger as proper and nothing violative of antitrust law,” Gates told The Center Square during a phone interview.
The Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice gave its blessing on June 12. The European Commission signed off on the merger on July 21.
It is for these reasons that Wayne Winegarden of the Pasadena, Calif.-based Pacific Research Institute thinks the merger is fine.
Winegarden also told The Center Square that Bonta’s lawsuit relies on an outdated view of the media industry, which Winegarden described as rapidly evolving.
“There are good reasons to expect the evolution will continue for years,” said Winegarden, PRI’s senior fellow in business and economics, in an email to The Center Square. “Both Paramount and Warner Bros are struggling to compete in this environment. The merger is an attempt to fix that problem for both companies.”
The majority of the justices on Friday denied the request, but two - Kevin Dougherty and Sallie Updyke Mundy - disagreed with the majority.
(The Center Square) - The state Supreme Court on Friday afternoon denied the Allegheny County district attorney's request to extend a stay on a ruling that declared unconstitutional language in the state's second-degree murder sentencing framework, setting the stage for a legislative fight and many county murder case reviews.
The action came eight days after Allegheny DA Stephen Zappala filed a petition seeking an extension of the original 120-day stay on the ruling, issued four months earlier. The majority of the justices on Friday denied the request, but two - Kevin Dougherty and Sallie Updyke Mundy - disagreed with the majority.
The denial throws a cloud of uncertainty around the status of life sentences pertaining to second-degree murder being served by inmates around the state. More than 1,000 cases could be involved.
"We are disappointed, but on the other hand we are hoping this decision will force the Legislature to take action" and come up with new sentencing language, said Berks County District Attorney John Adams, a spokesman for the Pennsylvania District Attorneys Association. "The fact that the Legislature has not acted is a detriment to the safety of our communities."
Some elected leaders have raised alarms that hundreds of inmates convicted of felony murder could start seeking release. Others have said the process will take considerable time.
The original March ruling was stayed by the Supreme Court for 120 days in order to give the Legislature time to put in place a new approach. That created a deadline of July 24.
In late June and early July, the main focus of lawmakers appeared to be the state budget, which was approved on July 12. After its passage, they left Harrisburg.
The Democratic-controlled House returned for an unusual late July session day last week, but made major changes to a bill that had cleared the Republican-controlled Senate before once again heading home. Without passage of the same language by both chambers, a bill cannot be signed by the governor.
In the dissenting opinion issued Friday, Dougherty wrote that the court's March ruling "was a seismic event in criminal jurisprudence in Pennsylvania" and "upended decades of sentencing practice in this Commonwealth."
Dougherty said it appeared "the Legislature has made significant headway in responding to our opinion" and there does not appear to be "an irreconcilable legislative impasse." Lawmakers, he said, should "be afforded more time to complete their vital work" and get an additional 120 days.
Spokespersons for leaders in the House and Senate were not immediately available for comment late Friday afternoon.
Newly released personal notes contradict the former NIAID director's public testimony under oath about the virus' severity.
Dr. Anthony Fauci privately believed that the death rate of the COVID-19 was much lower than he told Congress just one month later, according to a record kept by the health official from February 2020.
