In Tennessee, Christa Pike remains in critical condition and hospitalized after surviving two lethal injections Wednesday. Her legal team is calling on Republican Governor Bill Lee to reduce Pike’s sentence to life in prison, and called the botched execution “cruel and torturous.”

Christa Pike was still breathing after she was strapped to a gurney and injected with two syringes of pentobarbital as prison officials attempted to end her life for more than two hours. This is Pike’s attorney Randy Spivey speaking Thursday.

Randy Spivey: “The state of Tennessee has shown us again that they are not capable of carrying out an execution consistent with basic human dignity. Last night was not just inefficient; it was cruel, and it was torturous. It was also predictable. Christa’s legal team told the state of Tennessee and the court that her medical conditions would cause her to suffer an agonizing death. The state and the court dismiss Christa’s concerns.”

Pike would have been the first woman executed in Tennessee in 200 years. Her story has renewed debate on sentencing reform, as Pike was just 18 years old when she was convicted of murder in 1995 and sentenced to death. She is also a survivor of childhood sexual abuse. The U.N.’s Human Rights Office has urged Tennessee not to pursue another execution attempt. This is Ravina Shamdasani, U.N. human rights spokesperson.

Ravina Shamdasani: “The death penalty has no place in any society, and Christa Pike’s case lays bare the multiple reasons why capital punishment should be abolished. Her prolonged suffering is abhorrent and cruel. Key fair trial questions remain unresolved. We call on the state authorities not to pursue any further attempts to execute Christa Pike.”

The Pentagon is deploying a third aircraft carrier strike group and up to 10,000 sailors and Marines to the Middle East. The USS Theodore Roosevelt carrier and the USS Makin Island Amphibious Ready Group left the port of San Diego this week and are expected to be positioned near Iran by the end of November. They’ll add to about 50,000 U.S. military personnel already in the region. In an interview with Time magazine published Thursday, Trump said renewed large-scale strikes on Iran were “possible” after the November midterm elections.

Meanwhile, ships continue to come under fire while transiting the Strait of Hormuz, with five vessels reportedly struck by projectiles in just 72 hours. On Thursday, a supertanker with a capacity of 2.5 million barrels of oil caught fire after it was hit off the coast of Oman.

The Saudi-led military alliance fighting Houthi militias in Yemen said Thursday it had intercepted ⁠four drones ⁠launched over southern Saudi Arabia. The alliance accused the Houthis of targeting an electric power station in the holy city of Medina, a charge the Houthis denied. Meanwhile, there were reports of loud explosions in the Houthi-controlled city of Sana’a overnight as Yemeni government forces carried out airstrikes. The International Organization for Migration warns more than 145,000 people have been displaced in Yemen since the conflict escalated in June.

Police in the United Kingdom said Thursday they had arrested a 25-year-old British Iranian dual national in London following a security incident at RAF Fairford air base on Sunday. The U.K. has allowed the U.S. to launch attacks on Iran from the air base since March. Authorities have not named the man, who’s being held on suspicion of preparation of terrorist acts — the same charge levied against five British nationals who were arrested outside RAF Fairford, then released on bail.

On Thursday, British Prime Minister Andy Burnham said his government had “strong indications” of Iranian involvement in the incident. But exactly what took place outside the air base remains unclear. A police search of vans being used by the men turned up no signs of explosives. However, the vans did contain empty barrels, large tanks, siphoning pumps and fuel, leading to widespread speculation that the men were stealing petrol rather than plotting an attack.

In Texas, Wilber Rafael Garcés Pérez, the 28-year-old Venezuelan asylum seeker who was shot by an ICE agent in Austin, has finally received surgery to remove the bullet from his back. The bullet remained jammed in his body for 11 days, causing severe pain. Garcés Pérez was transferred between an ICE jail and the hospital multiple times and had lost movement on his left side. The shooting by ICE agents earlier this month came as Garcés Pérez made deliveries for DoorDash. Garcés Pérez now faces federal criminal charges.

In related news, the Associated Press reports ICE has banned high-speed car chases. Vehicle pursuits and traffic stops involving ICE officers have been under heavy scrutiny, as agents have fired their guns more than a dozen times in these encounters since Trump returned to office. At least four people have been killed, including 52-year-old Mexican father Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, fatally shot in Houston in July, and several others wounded.

In Minneapolis, the family of Renee Good filed a pair of federal civil rights lawsuits Thursday over her fatal shooting at the hands of ICE agent Jonathan Ross during mass deportation sweeps in January. One lawsuit seeks to hold the U.S. government accountable under the Tort Claims Act, alleging wrongful death, negligence and emotional distress. A second lawsuit names ICE agent Jonathan Ross and several top current and former Trump administration officials, including Stephen Miller and Kristi Noem. It accuses them of a conspiracy to interfere with the civil rights of Renee Good, as well as Somali and Spanish-speaking immigrants in the Twin Cities. On Thursday, Renee Good’s partner Becca Good spoke publicly for the first time since the fatal shooting on January 7.

Becca Good: “I don’t hate the people who took Renee from us. But what I want them to understand, every single day they get to look at their children and their wives and their sisters and know what they took from our family. They took a mother away from her children. They know that, and they will carry it forever.”

President Trump left the White House for campaign events in Texas and Oklahoma on Thursday, the first of what he says will be 32 days of campaigning right up to Election Day. Trump is opening his tour in states normally considered “safe” territory for Republicans, who fear the president’s dismal poll numbers will drag down their chances in the midterm elections. Trump’s first stop was a Dallas-area truck factory, where he rallied support for Texas attorney general and Republican Senate nominee Ken Paxton, who’s polling behind Democrat James Talarico. No Texas Democrat has won a statewide election since 1994. According to secretly recorded audio published by The New York Times, Paxton told a group of conservative donors and lobbyists last week that Trump’s midterm convention in Dallas had hurt his Senate campaign.

Attorney General Ken Paxton: “When we did that convention, it dropped our numbers. Everybody’s numbers dropped. Right now, yeah, not — not — not good.”

Republican-affiliated groups spent $122 million last month alone in support of Ken Paxton’s Senate run, including $20 million spent by Donald Trump’s super PAC, MAGA Inc. In September, Paxton told a Texas podcaster he would be unable to compete without money from outside groups.

Attorney General Ken Paxton: “And the only thing that really saves us is that the Supreme Court came along and allowed super PACs; otherwise, you could not run a race in Texas.”

In New Jersey, an investigation has revealed that a Microsoft-linked data center emitted large amounts of toxic air pollution for nearly a year before state regulators stepped in. According to public records obtained by Floodlight and The Guardian, the DataOne facility in Vineland operated dozens of gas-fired generators for a combined 46,000 hours in total, without required permits. A Rutgers professor estimated the data center emitted about 140 tons of nitrogen oxides, chemicals that produce smog and are linked to asthma, heart attacks and premature death.

In New York, new details have emerged about Cornell University’s botched internal investigation into the alleged sexual assault of a 20-year-old undergraduate student on campus in 2024. The unsealed documents include a 120-page transcript of Jane Doe’s hourslong sworn statement to Cornell police and a university investigator in which she described feeling increasingly incapacitated and uncomfortable the night she says she was drugged, assaulted and gang raped by seven former and current members of the Chi Phi fraternity. She told the investigators, “There was really no escape.” According to The New York Times, Cornell omitted the rape allegation in its report to prosecutors. The case has been reopened following global outcry.

On Thursday, New York Governor Kathy Hochul named New York Attorney General Letitia James to serve as special prosecutor in the investigation. James had already begun a review of why Tompkins County District Attorney Matthew Van Houten decided not to pursue criminal charges in the case.

Ethiopia shuttered its embassy in Eritrea’s capital Asmara on Thursday and named 10 Eritrean diplomats persona non grata, after accusing its East African neighbor of arming and supporting rebels in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region. Eritrea responded by severing diplomatic ties with Ethiopia. It’s the worst confrontation between the two nations since they signed a peace agreement in 2018 formally ending 20 years of war. The diplomatic conflict erupted hours after drones struck near the headquarters of Ethiopia’s military and other sites in Addis Ababa. Reuters reports a source linked to the Tigray People’s Liberation Front claimed responsibility on behalf of the rebel group, which last week resumed attacks on government forces for the first time since a 2022 ceasefire ended a devastating civil war.

In Brazil, voters are taking to the polls Sunday for a high-stakes election between Brazilian leftist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who is vying for a fourth nonconsecutive term in office, and far-right candidate Flávio Bolsonaro, the son of imprisoned former President Jair Bolsonaro. If no candidate wins more than half of the vote in the first round, they will go to a runoff scheduled for October 25. Lula has warned against attempts to interfere in Brazil’s election and threats to democracy by U.S. President Trump, who’s had a friendly relationship with the Bolsonaros. Though Trump has so far not publicly endorsed Flávio Bolsonaro, he said he’s following the election “very closely.”

In Spain, a fragmented Spanish parliament is set to vote today on a pair of measures to ban evictions until 2030 while protecting the rights of tenants. The measures are expected to fail, since the party of Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez does not hold a majority in the parliament. Sánchez issued the housing decrees in response to public uproar over the eviction of 87-year-old Maricarmen Abascal from her lifelong home in Madrid. Activists have set up a large protest encampment in Madrid’s Puerta del Sol square; their protests have spread to Barcelona and other Spanish cities.

Merce: “It’s very important to protest, because the problem is very big. There are many people that can’t afford rent, many people, young people, old or middle-aged people. Housing is a very big problem. I don’t know why this movement didn’t start before.”