
Why Virginia's abolition of the death penalty is a big deal for the state and the US
CNN
Virginia's decision to abolish capital punishment is a move that experts and death penalty abolition advocates is emblematic not only of the nationwide decline of capital punishment, but also a reckoning with its history as a tool of racial oppression.
It was the first recorded execution in what would later become the Commonwealth of Virginia, and the first for the fledgling American colonies. Over the next 400 years, more than 1,300 people would be executed in the state, according to the non-partisan Death Penalty Information Center.
A federal judge on Friday blocked President Donald Trump’s administration from enforcing most of his executive order on elections against the vote-by-mail states Washington and Oregon, in the latest blow to Trump’s efforts to require documentary proof of citizenship to vote and to require that all ballots be received by Election Day.

A Border Patrol agent shot two people in Portland, Oregon, during a traffic stop after authorities said they were associated with a Venezuelan gang, another incident in a string of confrontations with federal authorities that have left Americans frustrated with immigration enforcement during the Trump administration.











