AP is a not-for-profit organization. Your donation supports independent reporting that serves the public interest, not corporate shareholders. Donate today. |
|
|
Welcome back. In the news today: Whether Tennessee will try again to execute Christa Pike is unclear; RFK Jr’s embrace of AI; and injuries throw spotlight on France’s policing of youth protests. Also, what kind of milk is in your coffee this morning: oat, almond, dairy? Meet the woman behind a buckwheat-based alternative that's making its way onto supermarket shelves, and perhaps, your latte. |
Attorneys for Christa Pike hold a news conference Wednesday after a judge ruled the Tennessee Department of Corrections must preserve all evidence related to the failed execution of Pike, in Nashville, Tenn. (AP Photo/George Walker IV) |
Trying to execute Christa Pike again would push into uncharted legal territory, experts say |
Christa Pike’s prognosis remains uncertain after executioners last week tried to give her two lethal doses of pentobarbital, her legal team said Wednesday. She was sentenced to death for the 1995 beating and stabbing death of classmate Colleen Slemmer. Read more. |
|
|
|
-
Although other states have moved forward with attempting to execute inmates a second time, in those cases, the first try had been halted before any drug actually began flowing. Outgoing Republican Gov. Bill Lee’s office did not immediately respond to emails seeking comment on whether the state would try again to execute her.
|
|
|
RFK Jr.’s embrace of AI confounds some MAHA allies and medical experts |
Last week at a MAHA summit featuring AI and Silicon Valley executives, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. declared that artificial intelligence would free Americans from “medical tyranny” by allowing them to “fact check their own medical advice.” Read more. |
|
|
Kennedy wants to give Americans more control of their own health data by using AI “to help them understand it, interrogate it, compare it with the evidence, and make better decisions with their doctors,” Health and Human Services spokesperson Emily Hilliard said. But some prominent MAHA voices criticized Kennedy’s embrace of AI, saying the movement’s leaders are increasingly cozying up to the corporate interests they once scrutinized. At the same time, medical experts say Kennedy’s vision of AI as a check against the medical establishment is fundamentally flawed.
|
|
|
Gruesome injuries throw spotlight on France’s policing of high school protests |
Adolescents have suffered life-changing injuries blamed on police weaponry during nationwide protests by high school students demanding more funding for run-down schools. A police tear gas grenade shattered a 14-year-old’s jaw, and a 15-year-old lost a hand in an incident involving a police stun grenade. Read more.
|
|
|
According to the Interior Ministry, police have made more than 6,600 arrests — mostly of people under 18 — since protests began snowballing last week, including 488 people detained during nationwide demonstrations Tuesday. The movement started in a Paris-region high school in mid-September.
Amid a growing outcry, Interior Minister Laurent Nunez announced Wednesday that the model of stun grenade suspected of mutilating the 15-year-old will no longer be used against high schoolers. Still, he has also defended police actions as proportionate in “almost all cases.” He says police have been obliged to intervene when protests led to rioting, vandalism and other violence, and have done so mindful that they’re largely dealing with children.
|
|
|
|
