Christa Pike’s attorneys said she is still alive a day after she survived two doses of lethal injection drugs on Wednesday. The inmate, who was given the death penalty after being convicted of first-degree murder in 1996, is in critical condition and receiving life-saving medical care, her legal team told reporters Thursday afternoon.Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee has since paused executions in the state.Pike, 50, remained alive and snoring loudly after being given two doses of pentobarbital, her attorneys and other witnesses said. She was subsequently taken to a hospital. “Last night was not just inefficient, it was cruel, and it was torturous,” attorney Randy Spivey said Thursday. “It was also predictable.”Spivey said Pike’s legal team warned the state of Tennessee and the courts that her medical condition of thrombocytosis “would cause her to suffer an agonizing death.” They said it could increase clotting and pain during the execution process and that her veins are difficult to access. Pike’s attorneys said the state and the court dismissed their client’s concerns. “She was not seeking to delay her execution,” attorney Stephen Ferrell told reporters Thursday. “She was seeking to have that execution performed humanely and as quickly and as painlessly as possible.”Lee ordered “a comprehensive, third-party review to determine exactly what occurred” and said that another scheduled execution later this year had been paused.”There are very few answers this morning. It’s very early,” Lee told reporters Thursday morning. “There are a lot of questions. The people of our state deserve to have those questions answered.”This is a tragedy. There is no one who wanted what happened last night to happen. It’s deeply disturbing to me that this has happened in this state.”Pike’s attorneys said Thursday that the governor’s independent review doesn’t go far enough after being in solitary confinement for more than 20 years and the botched execution attempt. “Christa has endured punishment greater than any other person in the history of the American death penalty,” Spivey said. “The governor must commute Christa’s sentence now.”Spivey said the execution team tried to establish an IV line for over an hour and that he counted at least seven needles used in her left arm alone, one of which appeared to be bent when it was pulled after an unsuccessful attempt.May Martinez, the mother of Pike’s victim, Colleen Slemmer, told NBC News the execution attempt had been a “mess,” adding, “They didn’t say anything, and then, all of a sudden, they asked all the victims to leave. We didn’t know anything until we got up to the office and saw the commissioner. And he said that it didn’t work … and she’s on her way to the hospital.”In a statement posted on Facebook, Sen. Marsha Blackburn called for the state to return to the electric chair as a means of execution. “This situation is tragic,” she said. “Christa Pike should have been executed long ago. Now, this botched process is extending the pain for the family of Colleen Slemmer. While there should be a thorough review of what happened and why the process failed, the answer is simple: bring back the electric chair and deliver justice for these victims swiftly.”Pike had been scheduled for execution at 10 a.m. Wednesday for killing Slemmer in 1995, at the age of 18. She would have been the first woman executed in Tennessee in more than 200 years.An appeals court stopped the lethal injection just an hour before it was to start, a stay that was subsequently overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court.Media witnesses said officials raised the curtains to the execution chamber at 7:27 p.m., showing Pike strapped to a gurney. “I’m going to leave this world the way I spent most of my life, and that is in love,” she said in her “last” words. However, Pike remained conscious after the first dose. Nashville Banner reporter Steven Hale said she lifted her head off the gurney at 7:54 p.m. She also reportedly asked prison officials if her arm was supposed to feel that way. Tori Gessner, a journalist with WKRN News 2 in Nashville, said Pike was seen pointing at her arm and asking, “Does this happen like that?”By 8:26 p.m., witnesses reported that the second dose of pentobarbital had been administered.Pike continued to be heard snoring behind the closed curtain until the microphone was cut off at 8:53 p.m. At that time, an announcement was made to escort media witnesses out of the area.Christa Pike, pictured in January 2023.Tennessee Department of Correction via APPike’s legal team said in a statement to the Tennessean newspaper, “Tonight the State of Tennessee once again failed to carry out a lawful execution.”We take no pleasure in being right, but the concerns raised by Ms Pike proved to be true: difficult vein access, blown veins, degraded pentobarbital, no emergency medical care available when things inevitably go wrong, all under a protocol that remains veiled in secrecy.”Gov. Lee said he had paused another execution scheduled for Dec. 3 this year. “Carrying out a lawfully imposed sentence is among the state’s most serious responsibilities, and the people of Tennessee expect it to be done in a manner that is not only legal and constitutional, but is effective,” he said.Robin M. Maher, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, said what Pike experienced was “singular and unparalleled.”Seven other people have survived medical problems caused by an execution team’s failure to access a vein to administer lethal injection drugs, but no one has remained alive after receiving the drugs used in such executions, she said.”I’ve witnessed, I believe, five executions in Tennessee,” Gessner said. “Nothing about today was normal, typical at all, and the court delay was just the tip of the iceberg.”The Tennessee Department of Correction said that it “followed every step of the state’s lawful, established execution protocol approved by the attorney general’s office.”The state’s execution protocol calls for a secondary set of drug syringes to be administered “if the inmate is not deceased” after the first set. It does not specify what happens if the subject is still alive after the second set.Lawyers for Pike filed an emergency motion late Wednesday with the Tennessee Supreme Court seeking to immediately halt and stay the execution, saying she was in “unnecessary agony” and that the execution was violating her right to be free from cruel and unusual punishment. They also filed motions in the Sixth Circuit and a district court.Pike was sentenced to death in 1996 after being convicted of first-degree murder of Colleen Slemmer the previous year on the University of Tennessee Agricultural campus. According to legal documents filed with the Supreme Court, Pike “tortured, and killed Colleen Slemmer” on Jan. 12, 1995 because Pike “just felt mean that day.” Pike is reported to have cut Colleen’s throat multiple times and crushed her skull with a piece of asphalt.Pike was also convicted of attempted first-degree murder after trying to strangle fellow inmate Patricia Jones in 2001.How common are botched executions?According to the Death Penalty Information Center (DPI), there have been 64 well-known botched execution attempts between 1982 and the first half of 2026 across the U.S. Most of these were executions that went wrong in some way, but still ended in death. It acknowledges that the number is an approximation. It has listed the individual cases on its website.Of those 64, the DPI says seven execution attempts resulted in failure. It said the execution of Tennessee inmate Tony Carruthers — which failed when staff were unable to find a vein to administer a lethal drug — was the most recent it had documented before Pike.The DPI, which says it does not take a position on the death penalty itself but is critical of problems in its application, cites figures showing that, historically, around 3% of attempted executions between 1890 and 2010 were flawed. Lethal injection has drawn particular scrutiny, with 7.2% of attempted executions being botched, the DPI said, compared with the rate of 3.15% across all methods, including electrocution, hanging and gas. Experts have pointed to difficulties establishing intravenous lines, questions about the drugs used and the ethical role doctors can play in executions, since their ethics code requires them to swear to preserve life. Such figures on botched executions have been questioned by some, including Michael Conklin, an assistant professor of business law at Texas A&M University–Central Texas. In a 2020 paper, he argued that some of the cases classified as botched attempts included those in which the prisoner resisted, those in which there were difficulties inserting the IV, and those in which prison officials opened the curtain too early.The state of Tennessee has experienced recent issues that predate Pike’s case. In April 2022, Lee called off the execution of Oscar Smith about an hour before it was scheduled to begin after the state discovered that its lethal injection drugs had not been properly tested. An independent investigation found that the state had repeatedly failed to follow its own drug-testing protocols between 2018 and 2022.Tennessee then revised its protocol, resuming executions in May 2025 and using a single, lethal drug, pentobarbital.Tony Carruthers was scheduled to be executed on May 21, 2026.Tennessee Department of Correction via APPike’s failed execution was Tennessee’s second this year. Carruthers, who was convicted of the kidnapping and murders of three people in Memphis, was scheduled to be executed on May 21, 2026, but officials abandoned the attempt after they were unable to establish the intravenous access needed to administer the drug. The ACLU, which was part of his legal team, said witnesses reported more than an hour of attempts to establish a line while Carruthers groaned in pain. Families of victims, however, may feel differently. The family of Slemmer, Pike’s victim, traveled to Nashville expecting to witness the execution. Her mother, May Martinez, told the Associated Press she had waited decades to see it happen, “Every time I think about it, I think about Colleen feeling that pain and trying to get up and run,” she said.There were 47 executions in 2025, according to the DPI, higher than the recent average of fewer than 30 per year. These included the lethal injection of South Carolina inmate Marion Bowman, who received twice the intended drug dose, and Tennessee inmate Byron Black, who reportedly showed sustained cardiac activity for nearly two minutes after prison staff pronounced him dead.This article originally appeared on Yahoo News at https://www.yahoo.com/news/us/article/tennessee-death-row-inmate-christa-pike-survives-2-doses-of-execution-drugs-081613268.html

The Treasury Department said that over 60 million children have been automatically enrolled in Trump Accounts, according to guidance filed with the Federal Register. “Millions of children have already enrolled in Trump Accounts. With automatic enrollment, over 60 million more eligible children now have an account ready to be claimed,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a statement.Why are children being automatically enrolled? The idea behind Trump Accounts is to give children a head start on building wealth. The accounts are a new type of tax-deferred individual retirement account for children. Any eligible child under 18 with a valid Social Security number can open an account, while U.S. citizens born between 2025 and 2028 may also qualify for a one-time $1,000 contribution from the government. Until now, parents or guardians were required to sign up for accounts on their children’s behalf. Participation has been low, however.According to a study by the national nonprofit Commonwealth, participation rates remain low, with families citing concerns about the tax implications of these accounts, confusion about how to set one up, a lack of clarity about eligibility, and a lack of trust in the administration as reasons for not opening an account.So far, just 5% of low- to moderate-income families eligible for a 530A Trump Account have actually opened one. Read more: Trump Accounts could help lower-income families most. Few have signed up.”The complexity of eligibility criteria, contribution limits, income phaseouts, and withdrawal rules across more than a dozen accounts discourages participation, particularly among households with limited time, low financial literacy, or insufficient outside savings for emergencies,” said Adam Michel, director of tax policy studies at the Cato Institute, in a policy analysis. “The result is a system used primarily by those best equipped to navigate it.”Read more: Trump Account investment options, rules, and guidelines: What you need to knowWho is automatically enrolled, and how to claim your account Every eligible child under 18 with a valid Social Security number now has a Trump Account. It’s up to parents and guardians to claim their child’s account. Parents can claim an account and the $1,000 seed contribution for eligible children by downloading the official Trump Accounts app, verifying their identity and relationship to the child, reviewing the child’s information, and accepting the account terms.Read more: Trump Accounts app: How to sign up and get startedKeep track of your finances for free with My MoneyThis article originally appeared on Yahoo Personal Finance at https://finance.yahoo.com/personal-finance/investing/article/treasury-says-over-60-million-children-have-been-auto-enrolled-in-trump-accounts-171631006.html

A memorial at the site of the fatal shooting of Renee Nicole Good by an ICE agent in January.Photograph: Shannon Stapleton/Reuters The family of Renee Good, the woman killed by immigration agents in January in Minneapolis, filed two federal lawsuits against the agent who shot her and several top officials in the Trump administration on Thursday. In the lawsuits, Good’s partner, Becca Good, and her brother, Brent Ganger, alleged wrongful death and other violations of federal law, according to a press release issued by their lawyers. Good was a US citizen and mother of three who, on 7 January, joined her wife in protesting against the deployment of thousands of ICE agents in their city as part of the Trump administration’s mass deportation policy. The 37-year-old woman was shot and killed in her car by an agent who claimed he acted in self-defense, and the Department of Homeland Security claimed that she had engaged in “an act of domestic terrorism”. Multiple video clips of the encounter, however, show that Good was steering her vehicle away from the agent as she tried to drive away. Related: ‘Unimaginable loss’: Renee Good family urges ‘empathy’ in call for justice Her death and that of Alex Pretti, an American nurse who was also shot and killed by an immigration agent during Minneapolis protests two weeks later, sparked outrage and a wave of anger across the country. Shortly after Good’s killing, Todd Blanche, then the deputy US attorney general, said he saw no grounds for opening a civil rights investigation. Days later, the justice department opened an investigation into the relationship between Becca Good, the deceased’s partner, and protest groups. At least 10 prosecutors resigned following the fatal shootings. Now these lawsuits have become some of the first major civil litigation actions filed against Trump’s deportation campaign in Minnesota. In one of them, the attorneys for Good’s wife and brother allege wrongful death and seek to recover – receive damages – for the “immense suffering Renee endured in the final moments of her life and for the profound and permanent losses that her death has inflicted upon her family”. “The complaint also seeks to recover for Becca Good, who was standing feet from the couple’s vehicle when Ross fired three rounds into it, and she watched her partner die,” the complaint says. “Peaceful assembly, speech and even dissent are protected rights. However, the government has distorted the exercise of these rights as violence against our republic and acted with extreme and unconstitutional force, causing egregious harm. Many of these illegal uses of force resulted in death – including the death of an American mother of three, Renee Good … Today’s legal actions demand accountability for countless violations of the law, the constitution and the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) own rules governing the use of force,” the lawsuit says. The other lawsuit alleges a conspiracy to interfere with civil rights by senior federal officials and federal immigration enforcement agents, and names Jonathan Ross, the immigration officer who shot Good, the former homeland security secretary Kristi Noem, the White House deputy chief of staff and architect of hardline US immigration policies, Stephen Miller, and former US border patrol officer Gregory Bovino, among others, for their “roles in Renee Good’s death”. Backlash against Trump’s anti-immigration campaign following the deaths in January led the president to withdraw agents from Minnesota, and there has been no other deployment of that kind to a major US city since then. However, investigations such as the one by the Guardian are showing that ICE is arresting more people than ever, while the administration shifted its tactics from “siege” to “soft feet”.This article originally appeared on The Guardian at https://www.yahoo.com/news/us/articles/family-renee-good-sues-ice-162224543.html

By Lucia Mutikani WASHINGTON, Oct 1 (Reuters) – New applications for US unemployment benefits drifted close to 57-year lows last week and layoffs decreased in September, suggesting labor market stability persisted even as employers remained cautious about boosting hiring. The report from the Labor Department on Thursday joined a raft of other data, including robust consumer spending in August, in painting a rosy picture of the economy despite ‌rising headwinds from the US-Israeli war with Iran, which has driven diesel prices to record highs. Economists said robust corporate profits growth and resilient domestic demand were shielding workers from layoffs, for now. “At some point, ‌elevated energy costs and material prices will force firms to lay off marginal workers to protect profit margins, but there is no sign of that here,” said Carl Weinberg, chief economist at High Frequency Economics. Initial claims for state unemployment benefits slipped 1,000 to a seasonally adjusted 197,000 for ​the week ended September 26, the Labor Department said on Thursday. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast 200,000 claims for the latest week. Claims have held below the 200,000 level for three straight weeks and are near levels last seen in 1969. Some economists said historically low layoffs, if sustained, could raise questions about the labor market overheating, with monetary policy implications. “We do not appear to be close to that result yet, but this is a new risk that the FOMC appears to be watching,” said Stephen Stanley, chief US economist at Santander US Capital Markets, referring to the Fed’s policy-setting committee. A separate report from global outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas showed layoffs announced by US-based employers dropped 18% to 43,281 in September. They were down 20% ‌from a year ago and fell 43% in the third quarter. Employers are, however, ⁠in no rush to increase headcount. Hiring plans increased by 90,787 last month. While that was sharply up from 12,325 in August, hiring intentions were down 23% from a year ago, and the tally was the lowest for any September since 2011. Challenger, Gray & Christmas said a surge in seasonal hiring typically seen starting in September was absent, adding that “companies are in ⁠a wait-and-see period.” The Federal Reserve last month raised its overnight benchmark interest rate by 25 basis points to the 3.75%-4.00% range, the first hike in three years, and flagged further increases in borrowing costs in the months ahead. The odds of another rate hike this month were diminished by cooler-than-expected inflation readings in August and July. Financial markets priced in a roughly 37.1% chance of further monetary policy tightening at the October 27-28 meeting, down from about 68.6% a week ago, CME’s FedWatch tool showed. But August’s market-friendly inflation readings are ​unlikely ​to be sustained. An Institute for Supply Management survey on Thursday showed inflation pressures building up at the factory gate in September, ​with no commodities reported to have seen price declines. The survey’s measure of input prices ‌jumped to 77.9 last month from 71.1 in August. SUPPLY CHAIN CONSTRAINTS Strong demand is running into capacity constraints, with supply chains stretched because of the war and tariffs. “The longer energy-driven price pressures persist, the greater the risk that they feed through into broader consumer price pressures,” said Thomas Ryan, senior North America economist at Capital Economics. Comments from respondents to the survey were mostly negative and focused on pricing volatility, import tariffs, the Middle East conflict and increasing lead times. Some transportation equipment manufacturers complained that “every month, we are faced with new headwinds created by this administration,” alluding to the trade war with Canada, adding “the only thing that is predictable is the chaos that is created by these trade policies.” Others in the electrical equipment, appliances and components industry said “new tariffs against Canada have drastically increased costs for capital expenses as well as assemblies.” Similar complaints were voiced by some makers of computer and electronic products who reported that the “US tariff schedule is providing ‌challenges.” Food, beverage and tobacco products manufacturers complained about higher fuel prices driving up “transportation costs and the overall cost of goods.” While some ​makers of fabricated metal products reported strong orders, they said labor and steel shortages were “limiting our production output to meet demand.” Stocks on Wall ​Street were trading lower. The dollar advanced versus a basket of currencies. US Treasury prices fell, with the ​yield on the benchmark 10-year note hitting the highest level in 24 years. The claims report showed the number of people receiving unemployment benefits after an initial week of aid, a proxy ‌for hiring, dropped 11,000 to a seasonally adjusted 1.701 million during the week ended September ​19. That was the lowest level in the so-called continuing ​claims since April 2023. Still, some people who have lost their jobs are experiencing long spells of unemployment. A survey from the Conference Board on Tuesday showed the share of consumers saying jobs were “plentiful” dropped in September to the lowest level since February 2021, while the proportion who viewed jobs as “hard to get” was the highest in more than 5-1/2 years. The claims data have no bearing on September’s employment report as they fall ​outside the survey period. Nonfarm payrolls likely increased by 90,000 jobs last month after ‌advancing 162,000 in August, a Reuters survey of economists showed. The unemployment rate is forecast holding steady at 4.1% for a third straight month, in part held down by a smaller labor force ​because of retirements and an immigration crackdown. “We continue to think the pace of layoffs will rise next year, in response to the recent tightening of financial conditions and growing adoption of AI by ​firms,” said Samuel Tombs, chief US economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics. (Reporting by Lucia Mutikani; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Andrea Ricci) This article originally appeared on Reuters at https://finance.yahoo.com/economy/articles/us-weekly-jobless-claims-fall-124022508.html

President Donald Trump said in an interview out Thursday that he would be open to pardoning members of his administration, pointing to former President Joe Biden’s blanket pardon to relatives and members of the administration out of concern they would be politically targeted after he left office. “Yeah, sure, I’d do that,” the president answered when asked by TIME magazine earlier this week if he was “considering pardoning members of your administration prior to the end of your term?”The president further said that Biden “gave pardons to everyone.”Kent Nishimura/AFP via Getty Images – PHOTO: President Donald Trump answers questions from reporters during an announcement in the Oval Office at the White House, September 28, 2026 in Washington.Biden issued preemptive pardons to several close family members in the final minutes of his presidency in 2025, saying that his family “has been subjected to unrelenting attacks and threats, motivated solely by a desire to hurt me” and that he had “no reason to believe these attacks will end” after he left office.Those pardons included James Biden, Joe’s younger brother; Sara Jones Biden, James’ wife; Valerie Biden Owens, Joe’s younger sister; John T. Owens’, Valerie’s husband; and Francis W. Biden, Joe’s younger brother.In 2024, Biden pardoned his son, Hunter Biden, who was convicted on tax evasion and federal gun charges.Trump’s pardon comments mark the first time he has publicly said he would consider pardoning members of his administration.Last year, he issued pardons to some to his political and financial supporters as well as several high-profile individuals allegedly involved in his attempt to overturn the election. In his first term, he pardoned several advisers, members of his campaign and one former member of his administration, former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn.Trump’s flurry of pardons include some to campaign contributorsIn the interview, Trump expressed his belief that if the Democrats emerge victorious in the midterm elections, “they’ll probably go after” him, but he said he will also target them back. Trump still expressed confidence that Republicans will “do okay” in November, as long as he is on the campaign trail. “No, I think we’ll do okay if I campaign, and I intend to,” he said, when asked if he believes that Democrats will take control of Congress.He then went on to tout some of his endorsement victories including for Republicans Darline Graham and Ed Gallerin — who defeated Rep. Thomas Massie in the primary for Kentucky’s 4th Congressional District.Asked about his record low poll numbers, Trump called them “fake” and insisted that he could easily beat anybody who ran against him.”They’re fake numbers. I would beat anybody running today by 20 points,” Trump said. “Your numbers that you have are fake.”Trump’s cover of TIME magazine will mark his 56th such appearance, according to the outlet. That’s more than any other figure in history, surpassing former President Richard Nixon’s record.Trump’s interview will be the cover story for TIME’s Oct. 26 issue.This article originally appeared on Good Morning America at https://abcnews.com/Politics/trump-pardoning-administration-members/story?id=136915372