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Condemned Alabama prisoner asks US Supreme Court to stop rare second execution attempt

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Condemned Alabama prisoner asks US Supreme Court to stop rare second execution attempt

By Jonathan Allen

(Reuters) – An Alabama death row prisoner who survived a botched execution attempt by lethal injection asked the U.S. Supreme Court on Friday to halt the state’s planned second attempt next week, this time by the novel method of asphyxiation with nitrogen gas.

Lawyers for Kenneth Smith, convicted for a murder-for-hire committed in 1988, are arguing that for a government to make a second attempt to execute a prisoner after painfully botching a first attempt violates the U.S. Constitution’s Eighth Amendment ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

Such a scenario has happened only once before in U.S. history, in 1947, Smith’s lawyers told the Supreme Court.

They said that if courts allow execution to proceed on Thursday, “states will be free to engage in serial execution attempts regardless of the reasons or circumstances of the previous failed attempt – and regardless whether that failed attempt caused (and continues to cause) physical and emotional pain.”

“With respect, that is the very definition of torture,” the lawyers wrote.

Alabama officials have said they are required to carry out a sentence and a death warrant issued by state courts.

In separate proceedings on Friday before the Atlanta-based 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Smith also challenged the constitutionality of Alabama’s new gassing method. The state’s Department of Corrections has said it expects the method will kill a condemned prisoner swiftly, within a few minutes, and without undue suffering.

“Alabama has adopted the most painless and humane method of execution known to man,” Alabama Solicitor General Edmund LaCour told the three-judge 11th Circuit panel that is considering Smith’s request for an order to delay his execution to allow his legal challenges to continue.

Smith’s lawyers argued that the department’s decision to gas Smith by strapping to his face a commercially made industrial-safety breathing mask connected to a canister of pure nitrogen comes with risks of botching their second attempt to execute Smith.

In past decades, some governments, including in the United States, have used toxic gases such as hydrogen cyanide to carry out executions. Alabama’s method uses nitrogen, which makes up about 78% of breathable air, in a pure form to displace any oxygen the prisoner can inhale.

Lawmakers in Oklahoma and Mississippi also have approved gassing methods in recent years as lethal-injection drugs become more difficult to obtain, though they have not used the method yet.

Smith’s lawyers have said that the seal between the mask’s rubber edges and Smith’s face could break, allowing in at least some oxygen that could prolong the execution or result in him surviving it but with serious brain injury from oxygen deprivation.

They also have said that some people who have tried to use masks to gas themselves in assisted suicides have vomited, and that there is a risk that Smith, who will be strapped to a gurney, could end up choking to death on his own vomit.

Smith’s lawyers told the 11th Circuit on Thursday they would propose that Alabama instead use a hood filled with a high flow of nitrogen, which they said has become the preferred approach in assisted suicides using inert gases.

Smith, according to his lawyers, has been suffering from nausea as a symptom of post-traumatic stress disorder since his first time in the execution chamber in November 2022, where officials spent hours trying to insert a needle into various parts of his body before abandoning the attempt.

Alabama has said it will not stop the execution if Smith vomits once the pure nitrogen is running. LaCour said Smith’s claims about the risks of the mask are speculative, and told the 11th Circuit that if the prisoner is concerned about vomiting into the mask then he could opt “to have his last meal earlier in the day, or the day before the planned execution.”

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Palantir, Anduril join forces with tech groups to bid for Pentagon contracts, FT reports

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(Reuters) – Data analytics firm Palantir Technologies (NASDAQ:) and defense tech company Anduril Industries are in talks with about a dozen competitors to form a consortium that will jointly bid for U.S. government work, the Financial Times reported on Sunday.

The consortium, which could announce agreements with other tech groups as early as January, is expected to include SpaceX, OpenAI, autonomous shipbuilder Saronic and artificial intelligence data group Scale AI, the newspaper said, citing several people with knowledge of the matter.

“We are working together to provide a new generation of defence contractors,” a person involved in developing the group told the newspaper.

The consortium will bring together the heft of some of Silicon Valley’s most valuable companies and will leverage their products to provide a more efficient way of supplying the U.S. government with cutting-edge defence and weapons capabilities, the newspaper added.

Palantir, Anduril, OpenAI, Scale AI and Saronic did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment. SpaceX could not be immediately reached for a comment.

Reuters reported earlier this month that President-elect Donald Trump’s planned U.S. government efficiency drive involving Elon Musk could lead to more joint projects between big defense contractors and smaller tech firms in areas such as artificial intelligence, drones and uncrewed submarines.

Musk, who was named as a co-leader of a government efficiency initiative in the incoming government, has indicated that Pentagon spending and priorities will be a target of the efficiency push, spreading anxiety at defense heavyweights such as Boeing (NYSE:) , Northrop Grumman (NYSE:) , Lockheed Martin (NYSE:) and General Dynamics (NYSE:) .

Musk and many small defense tech firms have been aligned in criticizing legacy defense programs like Lockheed Martin’s F-35 fighter jet while calling for mass production of cheaper AI-powered drones, missiles and submarines.

Such views have given major defense contractors more incentive to partner with emerging defense technology players in these areas.

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Weakened Iran could pursue nuclear weapon, White House’s Sullivan says

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By Simon Lewis (JO:)

(Reuters) -The Biden administration is concerned that a weakened Iran could build a nuclear weapon, White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said on Sunday, adding that he was briefing President-elect Donald Trump’s team on the risk.

Iran has suffered setbacks to its regional influence after Israel’s assaults on its allies, Palestinian Hamas and Lebanon’s Hezbollah, followed by the fall of Iran-aligned Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Israeli strikes on Iranian facilities, including missile factories and air defenses, have reduced Tehran’s conventional military capabilities, Sullivan told CNN.

“It’s no wonder there are voices (in Iran) saying, ‘Hey, maybe we need to go for a nuclear weapon right now … Maybe we have to revisit our nuclear doctrine’,” Sullivan said.

Iran says its nuclear program is peaceful, but it has expanded uranium enrichment since Trump, in his 2017-2021 presidential term, pulled out of a deal between Tehran and world powers that put restrictions on Iran’s nuclear activity in exchange for sanctions relief.

Sullivan said that there was a risk that Iran might abandon its promise not to build nuclear weapons.

“It’s a risk we are trying to be vigilant about now. It’s a risk that I’m personally briefing the incoming team on,” Sullivan said, adding that he had also consulted with U.S. ally Israel.

Trump, who takes office on Jan. 20, could return to his hardline Iran policy by stepping up sanctions on Iran’s oil industry.

© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: Iranian flag flies in front of the UN office building, housing IAEA headquarters, in Vienna, Austria, May 24, 2021. REUTERS/Lisi Niesner/File Photo

Sullivan said Trump would have an opportunity to pursue diplomacy with Tehran, given Iran’s “weakened state.”

“Maybe he can come around this time, with the situation Iran finds itself in, and actually deliver a nuclear deal that curbs Iran’s nuclear ambitions for the long term,” he said.

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Ukraine says Russian general deliberately targeted Reuters staff in August missile strike

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(Reuters) -Ukraine’s security service has named a Russian general it suspects of ordering a missile strike on a hotel in eastern Ukraine in August and said he acted “with the motive of deliberately killing employees of” Reuters.

The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) said in a statement on Friday that Colonel General Alexei Kim, a deputy chief of Russia’s General Staff, approved the strike that killed Reuters safety adviser Ryan Evans and wounded two of the agency’s journalists on Aug. 24.

In a statement posted on Telegram messenger the SBU said it was notifying Kim in absentia that he was an official suspect in its investigation into the strike on the Sapphire Hotel in Kramatorsk, a step in Ukrainian criminal proceedings that can later lead to charges.

In a separate, 15-page notice of suspicion, in which the SBU set out findings from its investigation, the agency said that the decision to fire the missile was made “with the motive of deliberately killing employees of the international news agency Reuters who were engaged in journalistic activities in Ukraine”.

The document, which was published on the website of the General Prosecutor’s Office on Friday, said that Kim had received intelligence that Reuters staff were staying in Kramatorsk. It added that Kim would have been “fully aware that the individuals were civilians and not participating in the armed conflict”.

The Russian defence ministry did not respond to a request for comment on the SBU’s findings and has not replied to previous questions about the attack. The Kremlin also did not respond to a request for comment. Kim did not reply to messages sent by Reuters to his mobile telephone seeking comment about the SBU’s statement and whether the strike deliberately targeted Reuters staff.

The SBU did not provide evidence to support its claims, nor say why Russia targeted Reuters. In response to questions from the news agency, the security agency declined to provide further details, saying its criminal investigation was still under way and it was therefore not able to disclose such information.

Reuters has not independently confirmed any of the SBU’s claims.

Reuters said on Friday: “We note the news today from the Ukrainian security services regarding the missile attack on August 24, 2024, on the Sapphire Hotel in Kramatorsk, a civilian target more than 20 km from Russian-occupied territory.”

“The strike had devastating consequences, killing our safety adviser, Ryan Evans, and injuring members of our editorial team. We continue to seek more information about the attack. It is critically important for journalists to be able to report freely and safely,” the statement said.

Reuters declined to comment further on the allegation that its staff were deliberately targeted.

The SBU statement said Kim had been named a suspect under two articles of the Ukrainian criminal code: waging an aggressive war and violating the laws and customs of war.

“It was Kim who signed the directive and gave the combat order to fire on the hotel, where only civilians were staying,” it said.

Evans, a 38-year-old former British soldier who had worked as a safety adviser for Reuters since 2022, was killed instantly in the strike.

The SBU statement gave some details about how the strike had occurred, according to its investigation.

“To carry out the attack, the Russian colonel general involved one of his subordinate missile forces units,” the Ukrainian agency said, adding that the strike was carried out with an Iskander-M ballistic missile.

The SBU did not identify the specific unit.

© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: Reuters safety advisor Ryan Evans holds a cat during a news assignment, as Russia's attack on Ukraine continues, during intense shelling in Kramatorsk, Ukraine, December 26, 2022. REUTERS/Clodagh Kilcoyne/File Photo

Ivan Lyubysh-Kirdey, a videographer for the news agency who was in a room across the corridor, was seriously wounded. Kyiv-based text correspondent Dan Peleschuk was also injured.

The remaining three members of the Reuters team escaped with minor cuts and scratches.

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