US Supreme Court denies another stay in Ga. execution

US Supreme Court denies another stay in Ga. execution

ATLANTA

The only woman on Georgia’s death row was set to be executed Tuesday evening, despite pleas from her children, a former state Supreme Court justice and the pope to spare her life.

Kelly Renee Gissendaner was scheduled to die by injection of pentobarbital at 7 p.m. Tuesday at the state prison in Jackson. Gissendaner, 47, was convicted of murder in the February 1997 slaying of her husband. She conspired with her lover, who stabbed Douglas Gissendaner to death.

At 11 p.m., in yet another attempt to keep their client alive, lawyers for Kelly Renee Gissendaner filed yet another stay of execution with the United States Supreme Court. An earlier stay had been denied by the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday.

In the latest filing Gissendaner’s lawyers ask, “Have societal standards of decency evolved to the point that the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments now prohibit the execution of a capital defendant who did not physically participate in the murder of her victim?”

Father of shooter faces gun charges

SEATTLE

A federal jury on Tuesday found a Washington state man guilty of illegally owning firearms, including the handgun his son used to kill four of his friends and himself last year in a high school cafeteria.

Raymond Fryberg was convicted of six counts of unlawful possession of a firearm. He was the subject of a 2002 domestic-violence protection order that prohibited from having firearms.

The jury rejected Fryberg’s claim that he didn’t know about the protection order and therefore didn’t know he couldn’t have guns.

Fryberg’s son, 15-year-old Jaylen Fryberg, killed three 14-year-old girls and a 15-year-old boy who was his cousin after inviting them to lunch. He injured another one of his cousins, a 14-year-old boy, in the Oct. 24 shooting at Marysville-Pilchuck High School north of Seattle.

Yemen officials: 131 die from airstrikes

SANAA, YEMEN

The death toll from Saudi-led airstrikes that hit a wedding party in Yemen has risen to 131, making it the deadliest single incident since the start of the country’s civil war, medical officials said Tuesday.

The U.N. says at least 2,355 civilians have been killed in fighting since March, when the coalition began launching airstrikes against Shiite Houthi rebels and allied army units, who control the capital and are at war with the internationally recognized government as well as southern separatists, local militias and Sunni extremists.

The Saudi-led and U.S.-backed coalition apparently struck the wedding party by mistake Monday in al-Wahga, a village near the town of Mokha and the strategic Strait of Bab al-Mandab, Yemeni security officials said.

Snowden joins Twitter, follows NSA

NEW YORK

Edward Snowden, who has confounded U.S. officials since his abrupt departure from the country two years ago, has just found a new megaphone in Twitter.

The former National Security Agency worker who leaked classified documents about government surveillance started tweeting Tuesday. He had more than 185,000 followers an hour after his first tweet, “Can you hear me now?” Six hours later, he was up to 625,000 followers.

Snowden is following just one account: tweets from the National Security Agency.

Like other high-profile people on the messaging service, Snowden’s account has a blue and white check mark, indicating that it was verified by Twitter.

Associated Press