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The Pentagon’s plan to livestream the execution of Fort Hood mass killer Nidal Hasan has sparked international outrage, with even Republican lawmakers denouncing the proposed broadcast.
The Trump administration is facing international condemnation over plans to turn the execution of Fort Hood mass murderer Nidal Malik Hasan into a public livestream, a spectacle critics say belongs in the darkest chapters of authoritarian history. Hasan, 56, killed 13 people and wounded 32 others at the Texas military base in 2009. He was sentenced to death in 2013 and is scheduled to face a military firing squad on December 3. The execution itself is not the principal controversy. It is Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s extraordinary decision to broadcast the killing to the world.
The United Nations warned that livestreaming the execution would violate the prohibition against torture, while Catholic leaders called the proposal barbaric. Republican Sen. Thom Tillis described the idea as “beyond disgusting,” despite supporting Hasan’s execution. Vice President JD Vance, himself a practicing Catholic, refused to criticize the plan but said he would not watch. “Whatever the controversy is about the method of the execution, I hope the people don’t forget that this is a guy who brutally murdered a lot of innocent people,” he told reporters. “That said, if it’s ultimately livestreamed, I’m not going to be watching it.”
Hegseth has shown considerably less restraint. Asked about Hasan’s final requests, he replied, “Don’t care. We’ll see him on December 3.” Yet Trump now appears less certain, saying Saturday that he would personally decide whether the broadcast proceeds. “There are two thoughts: don’t show it and show,” the president said, suggesting the spectacle might deter future killers. The controversy follows Tennessee’s catastrophic attempt to execute Christa Pike, who survived two doses of lethal injection drugs and spent days hospitalized.
The United States has not conducted a public execution in nearly 90 years, and no country is currently known to televise judicial executions. Even Iran and Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, responsible for public executions condemned by human rights organizations, do not routinely livestream them. The last American military execution took place in 1961. Broadcasting Hasan’s death would establish an extraordinary precedent, transforming a state killing into a worldwide spectacle available to anyone with an internet connection.
Hot Take: Thirteen people are dead, and Hasan deserves the punishment the law has handed him. But Hegseth wants a television audience for the firing squad, complete with a front-row seat to a man’s final seconds. Even the Taliban hasn’t thought to put its executions on pay-per-view. Somewhere in the Pentagon, the lights are on, the cameras are ready, and nobody seems particularly interested in finding the brakes.
Manhattan prosecutors insist their case involves different crimes and legal interests, rejecting claims that trying Mangione again would violate double jeopardy protections.
New York prosecutors are fighting to preserve their murder case against Luigi Mangione, arguing that his federal guilty plea does not prevent the state from prosecuting him separately over the December 2024 killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.
Mangione pleaded guilty in August to federal stalking and cyberstalking charges, admitting he traveled to Manhattan and shot Thompson from behind. His attorneys now argue that proceeding with state murder and weapons charges amounts to prosecuting the same defendant twice for the same killing. Manhattan prosecutors disagree, insisting the two cases concern “different harms, different evils, different purposes, different crimes.”
The dispute centers on America’s dual-sovereignty doctrine, which permits separate state and federal prosecutions arising from the same conduct under certain circumstances. Mangione already faces a lengthy federal sentence, while a state conviction would potentially add decades behind bars. A ruling on whether the Manhattan prosecution proceeds is expected later this autumn.
Hot Take: Two prosecutors, two courtrooms, one dead CEO. Mangione has already confessed to the feds, but Manhattan wants another crack at him. Double jeopardy used to sound like something a man might understand without hiring three lawyers and a constitutional scholar. In America, it turns out the same bullet has enough mileage for two separate prosecutions.
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The Republican congressman says his latest transparency bill would strengthen enforcement of the original disclosure law and open new avenues for prosecuting Epstein’s associates.
Rep. Thomas Massie is closing in on another congressional showdown over Jeffrey Epstein, announcing that his latest bipartisan transparency legislation needs only two additional signatures to force a House vote.
Massie’s discharge petition has collected 216 signatures, two short of the 218 required to bypass House leadership and bring legislation directly to the floor. His Epstein Files Transparency Act II would give state attorneys general additional authority to prosecute crimes involving Epstein’s alleged co-conspirators and allow survivors, lawmakers and state officials to challenge Justice Department noncompliance in court.
Massie says two absent Democrats have promised to sign, although he has invited Republicans to supply the final signatures immediately. Three Republicans have joined him so far: Ralph Norman, Nancy Mace and Brian Fitzpatrick. Attorney General Todd Blanche maintains that the Justice Department has complied with the original Epstein disclosure law. Congress is currently out of session until after November’s election.
Hot Take: Epstein’s been dead seven years, but his secrets still have a better security detail than most living people. Massie has 216 signatures and needs two more to kick open another door at the Justice Department. Somewhere in Washington, a filing cabinet is sweating.
Women & Infants Hospital has rejected allegations that inadequate psychiatric treatment contributed to the killings of Cora, Dawson and Callan Clancy.
Women & Infants Hospital in Providence, Rhode Island, has denied all allegations in Lindsay Clancy’s civil lawsuit, rejecting claims that failures in her psychiatric treatment contributed to the deaths of her three children.
Clancy alleges that medical professionals overmedicated her, mishandled her treatment and failed to arrange appropriate psychiatric care before she strangled Cora, 5, Dawson, 3, and Callan, 8 months, in January 2023. According to her lawsuit, she entered the hospital’s partial hospitalization program about a month before the killings but was discharged after one day when clinicians concluded her symptoms were medication-related rather than postpartum depression.
The hospital has now formally rejected the allegations. Clancy’s criminal trial ended in an 11-1 mistrial, with most jurors favoring a finding of not guilty by reason of insanity. Her attorney Kevin Reddington has since questioned whether prosecutors proved she killed the children at all, despite the defense conceding the killings during trial. Prosecutors have not announced whether they will pursue a retrial.
Hot Take: First it was the medication. Then it was the doctors. Then the defense started asking whether Clancy killed the children at all. Now the hospital is washing its hands of the whole affair. Three little coffins, a growing stack of legal papers, and everybody pointing toward somebody else’s desk.
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The convicted murderer is receiving medical treatment inside prison after surviving two doses of lethal injection drugs and an extraordinary hospitalization.
Christa Pike has returned to prison after surviving Tennessee’s failed attempt to execute her on September 30, ending a medical ordeal that included reports she had been declared brain dead before unexpectedly recovering.
Pike, 50, was given two doses of pentobarbital during an execution that witnesses described as deeply abnormal. She reportedly complained that her arms were burning before losing consciousness. She was subsequently hospitalized, with her attorneys later revealing she was awake, walking and recovering despite lingering confusion and limited use of her arms. No official explanation has been provided for the failure of the lethal injection.
Her lawyers confirmed Saturday that Pike had returned to the Deborah K. Johnson facility, where she has spent roughly three decades imprisoned for the 1995 torture and murder of 18-year-old Colleen Slemmer. Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee has suspended executions for the remainder of 2026, while the state’s top prison official has announced his resignation. Pike’s attorneys say she remains under medical care as they monitor her recovery.
Hot Take: Tennessee gave Pike two doses of poison, watched the ambulance take her away, and somehow ended up with its prisoner back behind bars. The executioner has gone home, the death warrant has expired, and the condemned woman is still breathing. Somewhere in Nashville, somebody still owes the public one hell of an explanation.
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