Israel’s death penalty law for Palestinian prisoners in the West Bank came into effect on Sunday night, after an Israeli army commander signed a military order applying it to the occupied territory. The law, passed on March 30, applies to those who cause the death of an Israeli citizen “with the aim of denying the existence of the State of Israel,” meaning it effectively applies only to…
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A federal appeals court has temporarily halted Thursday’s scheduled execution of Texas death row inmate Edward Busby, citing concerns over his eligibility for capital punishment because of intellectual disability. The 2-1 decision by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is in place “pending further order” of the court. Busby argued that a federal district court improperly denied the…
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The Justice Department is bringing back the use of firing squads and lethal injection using pentobarbital as it seeks to expedite and expand federal death penalty convictions and executions. No federal executions have been carried out since 2020, when the first Trump administration broke with over a decade of precedent and executed 13 people on death row. The second Trump administration is now…
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On March 30, 2026, Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, wearing a golden noose-shaped pin, popped a bottle of champagne as he toasted the Israeli Knesset’s enactment of a bill making the death penalty the default punishment for Palestinians convicted of “terrorist attacks,” under the pretext of “negating the existence of the State of Israel.” The bill — which passed with 62…
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Leading international human rights groups as well as organizations in Israel swiftly demanded the repeal of a law passed by the Israeli Knesset on Monday that makes death by hanging the default punishment for Palestinians convicted of deadly attacks on Israelis — a law that one group called “discriminatory by design.” Those were the words of the Association of Civil Rights in Israel…
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Edward Zakrzewski’s wife had known him since they were in the fourth grade. Growing up in the same neighborhood in Michigan, she and Zakrzewski had a close friendship. “I always had a crush on him, but I always knew that he was a ladies’ man in high school, and I was a good girl, so I wasn’t having that,” she said. As happens with many childhood friendships, they lost touch when her family moved…
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