Texas executes killer

Texas executes killer

HUNTSVILLE, Texas

A Texas man was put to death Wednesday for fatally shooting his estranged wife and her boyfriend more than 10 years ago outside Houston.

Keith Thurmond was pronounced dead at 6:22 p.m. — 11 minutes after lethal drugs began flowing into his arms.

The execution of the 52-year-old Thurmond came about an hour after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected arguments to halt the capital punishment, the third this year in Texas.

Va. ultrasounds law

RICHMOND, Va.

Abdominal ultrasounds for women seeking abortions in Virginia will become mandatory under a bill signed into law Wednesday by the state’s Republican governor, who had faced a national uproar when earlier versions of the measure had sought to make the exams medically invasive.

The law conservative Gov. Bob McDonnell signed requires all Virginia abortion providers to comply starting July 1 or pay a $2,500 fine for each violation.

Shooting rampage

TULSA, Okla.

A deputy sheriff, a suspected gunman and a bystander were wounded Wednesday afternoon during an exchange of gunfire outside a Tulsa courthouse, sending people scattering from a crowded plaza as an employee at a nearby library used his camera to chronicle the events.

Police spokesman Leland Ashley said authorities responded to a report of a person firing into the air between the Tulsa County Courthouse and the library. Deputies, including the one who was wounded, exchanged gunfire with the shooter, Ashley said.

Meth-lab fire ruling

COLUMBUS

A man killed by a methamphetamine-lab fire at an Ohio nursing home was burned over 90 percent of his body, and his death was accidental, a medical examiner said Wednesday.

The Cuyahoga County Medical Examiner’s office said it could not release further details about Shaun Warrens, 31, of Ashtabula. Warrens was hospitalized after the fire Sunday in a resident’s room at the Park Haven facility in Ashtabula, east of Cleveland, and he died Monday. Police have said he wasn’t a resident or employee at the facility.

Bin Laden’s last days

RAWALPINDI, Pakistan

Osama bin Laden spent his last weeks in a house divided, amid wives riven by suspicions. On the top floor, sharing his bedroom, was his youngest wife and favorite. The trouble came when his eldest wife showed up and moved into the bedroom on the floor below.

Others in the family, crammed into the three-story villa compound where bin Laden would eventually be killed in a May 2 U.S. raid, were convinced that the eldest wife intended to betray the al-Qaida leader.

The picture of bin Laden’s life in the Abbottabad compound comes from Brig. Shaukat Qadir, a retired Pakistani army officer who spent months researching the events and says he was given rare access to transcripts of Pakistani intelligence’s interrogation of bin Laden’s youngest wife, who was detained in the raid.

Syrian town deserted

BEIRUT

The U.N. humanitarian chief toured the shattered Syrian district of Baba Amr on Wednesday but found most residents had fled after a bloody military siege, while activists accused the government of trying to cover up evidence of atrocities there. The monthlong crackdown on the rebellious Homs neighborhood brought international condemnation.

Associated Press

, and the top U.S. military leader said Wednesday that President Barach Obama has asked the Pentagon for a preliminary review of military options in Syria.

These include enforcement of a no-fly zone and humanitarian airlifts, Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the Senate. However, both he and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Obama still believes that economic sanctions and international diplomatic isolation were the best ways to pressure Syrian President Bashar Assad into handing over power.