BREAKING: Tennessee death row inmate still alive after 2 lethal injections, lawyer says ![]()
Tennessee was unable to carry out the execution of Christa Gail Pike on Wednesday night after she survived two lethal injections, according to her attorneys and media witnesses who said state officials could not complete the execution for the 1995 murder.![]()
Pike, 50, is the only woman on Tennessee's death row. In an emergency federal court filing, her lawyers said that at 8:26 p.m. local time, executioners had injected both syringes of lethal injection chemicals and Pike was "still alive and snoring." They said she had not lost consciousness, still had a heartbeat, and the curtains to the death chamber had been lowered twice.![]()
The execution was originally set for 10 a.m. Wednesday at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville. A federal appeals court temporarily halted it to review Pike's history of childhood sexual abuse and neglect, which her lawyers argue was not adequately addressed during the penalty phase of her original trial. The U.S. Supreme Court overrode that order Wednesday night, with Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissenting.![]()
Pike was convicted of first-degree murder in 1996 in the killing of her 19-year-old classmate, Colleen Slemmer. Prosecutors said Pike and her then-boyfriend lured Slemmer to an abandoned steam plant near the University of Tennessee agricultural campus, where she was beaten, tortured and killed. Pike confessed and admitted keeping a piece of Slemmer's skull, according to court documents.![]()
Gov. Bill Lee declined to intervene. Pike would have been the first woman executed in Tennessee in 200 years.![]()
This is a developing story.![]()
#BreakingNews #Tennessee #DeathPenalty
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Secretary Hegseth: “We are no longer the woke department… no fatties no trannies no beardos no weirdos no wimps no radicals. Just warriors."
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A Brevard County man accused of pawning a stolen, professionally graded first edition "Walking Dead" comic book is now in the Brevard County Jail, according to the Brevard County Sheriff's Office.![]()
Deputies say a local comic book store reported in June that the certified comic, which carried a serial number and a value of about $2,000, had gone missing as the store was preparing to take it to an event. Deputies entered the item into the state database as stolen.![]()
In August, Agent Dylan Weber learned the comic had been pawned at a shop in Port Orange. Surveillance video from the pawn store showed John Higgins making the transaction, according to the Sheriff's Office, and employees there told investigators they were familiar with him as a regular customer.![]()
Agent Weber located and questioned Higgins on Wednesday. According to the Sheriff's Office, Higgins claimed he got the comic book from a friend who had died.![]()
Higgins was also wanted on a warrant from the Melbourne Police Department, accused of stealing a high-value Pokémon card and attempting to sell it to another store.![]()
He was arrested on charges of dealing in stolen property and false verification of ownership to a pawnbroker, along with the Melbourne warrant. He is being held without bond.![]()
All suspects are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.![]()
#BrevardCounty #SpaceCoast #BrevardSheriff
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**$500 CHECKS START GOING OUT TODAY: Some Florida Obamacare enrollees are in line for one**![]()
The federal government begins mailing $500 refund checks today to more than 950,000 Affordable Care Act enrollees in 30 states, and Florida is one of them.![]()
President Trump announced the payments in a video on X on Sept. 10. The White House says the money is a refund of excess "user fees" insurers paid to operate HealthCare.gov during the Biden administration, costs it says were passed on to consumers through higher premiums.![]()
WHO QUALIFIES:
You bought your plan through HealthCare.gov.
You did NOT receive premium tax credits or other subsidies, meaning you paid full price.
You live in one of the 30 states that use the federal exchange, including Florida.![]()
That narrows the field considerably. About 19 million people get coverage through ACA marketplaces, but most receive subsidies and will not get a check. Residents of the 20 states that run their own exchanges are also excluded.![]()
No application is needed. Checks come from the Treasury Department with a letter signed by President Trump. If anyone asks you for money, bank information or personal details to "claim" your refund, it is a scam.![]()
KFF's Cynthia Cox challenged the administration's account, saying the surplus could have come from fees collected during President Trump's first term. A KFF analysis estimated his first administration collected about $1 billion more in user fees than it spent. It also remains unclear whether the payments require congressional approval.![]()
The checks arrive about five weeks before the November midterms, and after premiums doubled or tripled for many enrollees when enhanced COVID-era subsidies expired this year.![]()
#Florida #HealthCare #BrevardCounty
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