A 46-year-old man convicted of rape and murder is to be put to death by nitrogen gas in the southern state of Louisiana on Tuesday, the first of four executions scheduled this week in the United States.Jessie Hoffman, who was sentenced to death for the 1996 murder of Molly Elliott, a 28-year-old advertising executive, will be the first person executed in Louisiana in 15 years.A district court judge last week stayed Hoffman’s execution on the grounds that the use of nitrogen gas may amount to cruel and unusual punishment, which is banned under the US Constitution.But the stay was lifted by the conservative-dominated US Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, allowing the execution to proceed.Only one other US state, Alabama, has carried out executions by nitrogen hypoxia, which involves pumping nitrogen gas into a facemask, causing the prisoner to suffocate.The method has been denounced by UN experts as cruel and inhumane.- ‘Plenty of execution methods’ -The vast majority of US executions since the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976 have been performed using lethal injection, although South Carolina executed a man by firing squad on March 7.Hoffman, a parking lot attendant, was convicted in 1998 of abducting Elliott in New Orleans as she went to retrieve her car and join her husband for dinner.Hoffman forced Elliott to withdraw $200 from an ATM machine, before raping and killing her with a single shot to the head.He was 18 years old at the time.Elliott’s nude body was found by a duck hunter the next day on a makeshift dock by the Middle Pearl River.Hoffman’s lawyers have appealed to the Supreme Court to halt the execution on the grounds that the nitrogen gas would “interfere with Jessie’s ability to practice his Buddhist meditative breathing.””The Supreme Court has repeatedly held that prisoners must be allowed to practice their religion as their lives are being taken by execution,” said Cecelia Kappel, one of Hoffman’s attorneys.”There are plenty of execution methods Louisiana could adopt that would not interfere with Jessie’s ability to practice his Buddhist meditative breathing, and only one, nitrogen gas, that makes it impossible for him to do so,” Kappel said.- Arizona, Florida, Oklahoma executions -Three other executions are scheduled in the United States this week — in Arizona, Florida and Oklahoma.Aaron Gunches, 53, is to be executed by lethal injection in Arizona on Wednesday for the 2002 murder of Ted Price, his girlfriend’s ex-husband.Gunches has dropped legal efforts to halt his execution, which would be the first in the southwestern state since November 2022.Wendell Grissom, 56, is to be executed by lethal injection in Oklahoma on Thursday for shooting and killing Amber Matthews, 23, in 2005 during a home robbery.Edward James, 63, is to be executed by lethal injection in Florida on Thursday.James was sentenced to death for the 1993 rape and murder of an eight-year-old girl, Toni Neuner, and the murder of Betty Dick, her 58-year-old grandmother.There have been six executions in the United States this year, following 25 last year.The death penalty has been abolished in 23 of the 50 US states, while three others — California, Oregon and Pennsylvania — have moratoriums in place.President Donald Trump is a proponent of capital punishment and on his first day in office called for an expansion of its use “for the vilest crimes.”

Hit by massive funding cuts and a crackdown on student protesters, Columbia University is under fire from US President Donald Trump, putting the world of higher education on tenterhooks.The arrest of student activist Mahmoud Khalil has crystallized concerns over freedom of speech under the Republican leader’s administration — and fueled warnings that Trump is out to quell dissent.Khalil, a US permanent resident with Palestinian roots, recently earned a graduate degree from the prestigious Ivy League school in New York.But he was detained in early March by plainclothes immigration agents over his role in the student movement protesting Israel’s war on Gaza.Trump has vowed Khalil’s detention is the first in a line of arrests to come.Columbia’s student movement has been at the vanguard of protests that have exposed deep rifts over the war.Activists call them a show of support for the Palestinian people. Trump condemns them as anti-Semitic, and says they must end.The president has cut $400 million in federal funding from Columbia — including research grants and other contracts — on the questionable grounds that the institution has not adequately protected Jewish students from harassment.Experts say the move aims to send a message to other universities: fall in line or face the consequences.”Columbia has been placed in an impossible position,” Lynn Pasquerella, president of the American Association of Colleges and Universities, told AFP.”We can be sure that the other 60 higher education institutions that have been targeted for a perceived failure to comply with federal mandates are paying close attention to Columbia’s response.”- ‘Critical moment’ -Columbia’s interim president, Katrina Armstrong, acknowledged the “critical moment for higher education” in a recent statement.US universities are still reeling from a furor over pro-Palestinian protests that has felled several institutions’ presidents since the Gaza war began, including at Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania and Columbia itself.”The stakes are high not only for Columbia, but for every college and university in this country,” Armstrong said, vowing a commitment to “open dialogue and free debate” as well as “efforts to combat hate and discrimination on campus.”Beyond that cautious official position — which has come under criticism from various sides — Columbia is making moves.Entry to campus is barricaded, though immigration officers have entered for surprise searches, and the university gave police the green light to remove pro-Palestinian activists last spring.Last week, the private university announced a battery of disciplinary measures — including suspensions, temporary degree revocations and expulsions — aimed at student protesters who occupied a campus building last year.Still, in a letter sent to Columbia last week, the Trump administration gave the university one week to agree to a series of drastic reforms if it wants to open negotiations to recover the $400 million.The letter demands Columbia codify a definition of anti-Semitism that includes a focus on anti-Zionism, and insists the Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies departments be put under “academic receivership.”That rare step puts an academic department under outside administrative oversight, and is generally only used to reset — or axe — a department in crisis.- ‘Existential threat’ -Pasquerella said Trump’s moves put core principles of higher education at risk, seeking to control the curriculum and “impose a particular definition of anti-Semitism on the university by ostensibly conflating any pro-Palestinian sentiment and activity with unlawful activity.”The administration’s demands “threaten to undermine the democratic purposes of higher education by impeding academic freedom,” she said.For Jameel Jaffer, who directs the free speech-focused Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia, the White House’s bid to control university policies poses an “existential threat to academic life itself.”The undertone of the letter is clear, he said: “It basically says, ‘We’ll destroy Columbia unless you destroy it first.'””The subjugation of universities to official power is a hallmark of autocracy. No one should be under any illusions about what’s going on here,” Jaffer told AFP.Trump’s pressure has also given new life to pro-Palestinian protests, which are again happening virtually every day throughout New York — including a recent one at Trump Tower in Manhattan.But that engagement in the streets is not undoing the damage already done at academic institutions across the nation, Pasquerella said.”Many institutions are already engaging in anticipatory or preemptive compliance with requests by the current administration, even if they are not legally required, in order to avoid being targeted,” she said.”The real losers in all of this are the students.”

A pair of astronauts stranded in space for more than nine months were finally headed home Tuesday after their capsule undocked from the International Space Station.The SpaceX craft carrying Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams detached from the orbital outpost at 0505 GMT, ending their prolonged mission that has captivated global attention.The NASA duo are joined onboard by American Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov.The crew are now settling in for the 17-hour journey back to Earth, and were given permission to change from their space suits into more comfortable clothes.If all goes smoothly, the capsule will deploy its parachutes off the coast of Florida for an ocean splashdown around 2157 GMT Tuesday, when a recovery vessel will retrieve the crew.Wilmore and Williams flew to the orbital lab in June last year, on what was supposed to be a days-long roundtrip to test out Boeing’s Starliner on its first crewed flight.But the spaceship developed propulsion problems and was deemed unfit to fly them back, instead returning empty.Ex-Navy pilots Wilmore and Williams, 62 and 59 respectively, were reassigned to the NASA-SpaceX Crew-9 mission, which saw a Dragon spacecraft fly to the ISS last September with a team of two, rather than the usual four, to make room for the “stranded” pair.Then, early Sunday, a relief team called Crew-10 docked with the station, their arrival met with broad smiles and hugs as they floated through the hatch.Crew-10’s arrival cleared the way for Wilmore and Williams to depart, along with Hague and Gorbunov.After big hugs with the crew remaining on the ISS, the quartet entered the capsule and closed its hatch on Tuesday.”Colleagues and dear friends who remain on the station… we’ll be waiting for you. Crew-9 is going home”, Hague said.- ‘Unbelievable resilience’ -Wilmore and Williams’ stay surpasses the standard six-month ISS rotation but ranks only sixth among US records for single-mission duration.Frank Rubio holds the top spot at 371 days in 2023, while the world record remains with Russian cosmonaut Valeri Polyakov, who spent 437 consecutive days aboard the Mir station.That makes it “par for the course” in terms of health risks, according to Rihana Bokhari of the Center for Space Medicine at Baylor College.Challenges such as muscle and bone loss, fluid shifts, and readjusting to gravity are well understood and well managed.”Folks like Suni Williams are actually known for their interest in exercise, and so I believe she exercises beyond what is even her normal prescription,” Bokhari told AFP.Still, the unexpected nature of their extended stay — away from their families and initially without enough packed supplies — has drawn public interest and sympathy.”If you found out you went to work today and were going to be stuck in your office for the next nine months, you might have a panic attack,” Joseph Keebler, a psychologist at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, told AFP.”These individuals have shown unbelievable resilience.”- Trump weighs in -Their unexpected stint also became a political lightning rod, with President Donald Trump and his close advisor, Elon Musk — who leads SpaceX — repeatedly suggesting former president Joe Biden abandoned the astronauts and refused an earlier rescue plan.”They shamefully forgot about the Astronauts, because they considered it to be a very embarrassing event for them,” Trump posted on Truth Social on Monday.Such accusations have prompted an outcry in the space community, especially as Musk offered no specifics and NASA’s plan for the astronauts’ return has remained unchanged since their Crew-9 reassignment.Trump has also drawn attention for his bizarre remarks, referring to Williams, a decorated former naval captain, as “the woman with the wild hair” and speculating about the personal dynamic between the two.”They’ve been left up there — I hope they like each other, maybe they love each other, I don’t know,” he said during a recent White House press conference.