Number of executions continued to fall this year but many were botched, report says
CBSN
Public support and use of the death penalty in 2022 continued their more than two-decade decline in the U.S., and many of the executions that were carried out during the year were "botched" or highly problematic, an annual report on capital punishment says.
There were 18 executions in the U.S. in 2022, the fewest in any pre-pandemic year since 1991. There were 11 executions last year. Outside of the pandemic years, the 20 death sentences handed out in 2022 were the fewest in any year in the U.S. in a half-century, according to the report by the Washington, D.C.-based Death Penalty Information Center.
"All the indicators point to the continuing decline in capital punishment and the movement away from the death penalty is durable," said Robert Dunham, executive director of the nonprofit, which takes no position on capital punishment but has criticized the way states carry out executions.
President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden were honored at a state dinner in Paris at the Presidential Elysee Palace on Saturday, hosted by French President Emmanuel Macron and first lady Brigitte Macron marking the 80th anniversary of D-Day two days prior and the strength of the countries' long alliance.
President Joe Biden said France was America's "first friend" at its founding and is one of its closest allies more than two centuries later as he was honored with a state visit Saturday by French President Emmanuel Macron aimed at showing off their partnership on global security issues and easing past trade tensions.
The Consumer Federal Protection Bureau last week launched an inquiry into what the agency is calling "junk fees in mortgage closing costs." These additional fees, involving home appraisal, title insurance and other services, have spiked in recent years and can add thousands of dollars to the final cost of buying a home.
Retired Maj. Gen. William Anders, the former Apollo 8 astronaut who took the iconic "Earthrise" photo showing the planet as a shadowed blue marble from space in 1968, was killed Friday when the plane he was piloting alone plummeted into the waters off the San Juan Islands in Washington state. He was 90.