AFP USA

US President Donald Trump told rebel Republicans Tuesday to back his so-called “big, beautiful bill,” despite criticism that its tax cuts will increase America’s yawning budget deficit.Trump described talks with lawmakers on Capitol Hill as a “meeting of love” ahead of an expected close vote later this week on legislation that he has placed at the heart of his second-term agenda.The bill pairs an extension of the tax cuts from the billionaire’s first presidential term with steep savings in government spending to pay for them.But the closed-door talks apparently failed to quell concerns among Republican fiscal hawks that it will increase the national debt — and among moderates that it will cut health care for millions of the poorest Americans.Wall Street stocks fell on Tuesday as US markets, already sparked by a ratings downgrade last week, focused on the fate of Trump’s proposal.”There was no shouting, I think it was a meeting of love,” Trump told reporters after his talks, alongside Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson. “We’re going to have a great victory.”Trump says Americans will face huge tax increases if the bill, which also contains provisions for migration and other issues, does not pass.Johnson is eying a vote later this week — but with the Republicans holding only a razor-thin majority in the lower chamber they will need nearly every member to be on side.The speaker was bullish about the bill’s prospects as it headed for final tweaks in the powerful Rules Committee, which scheduled a rare overnight meeting, starting 1:00 am (0500 GMT).The panel, the last hurdle it needs to clear to get a vote of the full House, can throw a wrench in Trump’s plans by denying the package clearance for a floor vote.  “Nothing in Congress is ever easy, especially when you have small margins. But we are going to land this plane and deliver this,” Johnson said.There were signs that stark divisions remained.Conservatives are angling for much deeper spending cuts to tackle the ballooning deficit.- Health care divisions -Moderates say the savings would mean millions of the poorest Americans lose health coverage under the Medicaid program — while hawks are angry that work requirements for Medicaid entitlement would not kick in until the end of Trump’s term.Several US media said Trump told the meeting: “Don’t fuck around with Medicaid.”Moderate Republicans fear overly large cuts in the popular health program could upset the party’s prospects in the 2026 midterm elections.The so-called SALT Republicans — a faction demanding bigger deductions in state and local taxes — are also at loggerheads with the leadership.Several of them reportedly texted Johnson to say they would still vote against the bill, reacting angrily after Trump called out some of them by name.Trump argued that the cuts would only benefit governors in Democratic states.The president has been eager to present the bill as a legislative win early in his second term, after a frenzied first few months where he has governed largely through presidential orders.But independent congressional analysts calculate that the mega-bill’s tax provisions would add more than $2.3 trillion to the US national debt over the coming decade.The bill — which is now formally named the “One Big Beautiful Bill” after Trump initially used it as a nickname — cleared a key hurdle on Sunday when it progressed out of the House Budget Committee.But it now faces a tough ride.Even if the bill passes in the House, it will face challenges in the Senate, where Republicans are demanding major changes.

European and Asian stocks closed higher on Tuesday while Wall Street equities retreated as markets monitored US Treasury yields amid worries about the US budget deficit.Major US indices spent the entire session in negative territory as the S&P 500 finished lower after six straight positive sessions.”The main driver is a consolidation day,” said Briefing.com analyst Patrick O’Hare. “The market has just been so red hot.”US President Donald Trump visited Capitol Hill Tuesday, where he faces challenges to unify a House Republican caucus that includes lawmakers from high-tax Northeastern states seeking a bigger tax deduction and members who are worried about increasing the deficit.Investors have also been fixated on higher yields in the Treasury market. Moody’s highlighted the deficit last week in a downgrade of the US credit rating.In Europe, London and Paris finished higher and Frankfurt’s DAX gained 0.4 percent to go past 24,000 points for the first time.Some of the rise stemmed from hopes of a European Central Bank interest rate cut next month, said Philippe Cohen, portfolio manager at Kiplink.Luxury clothing company Chanel waited until after Paris’s close to report a 28-percent drop in 2024 net profit.Asian stocks closed mostly higher, with Hong Kong rising more than one percent, buoyed by China cutting its interest rates to historic lows, and Tokyo also up.The Chinese central bank move, which had been expected, comes as officials battle to kickstart the economy amid trade tensions with the United States and a persistent domestic spending slump.Elsewhere, the Australian central bank cut its key interest rate to its lowest level in two years, citing steady progress in bringing inflation under control.In corporate news, billionaire Elon Musk said he was pulling back from spending his fortune on politics, and asserted the Tesla electric car company he runs was doing well despite blowback over his support of Trump.Aside from a Tesla sales decline in Europe, “we’re strong everywhere else,” Musk said.Chinese battery giant CATL ended its first day on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange more than 16 percent higher, having raised $4.6 billion in the world’s biggest initial public offering this year.A global leader in the sector, CATL produces more than a third of all electric vehicle batteries sold worldwide.- Key figures at around 2030 GMT -New York – Dow: DOWN 0.3 percent at 42,677.24 (close)New York – S&P 500: DOWN 0.4 percent at 5,940.46 (close)New York – Nasdaq Composite: DOWN 0.4 percent at 19,142.71 (close)London – FTSE 100: UP 0.9 percent at 8,781.12 (close)Paris – CAC 40: UP 0.8 percent at 7,942.42 (close)Frankfurt – DAX: UP 0.4 percent at 24,036.11 (close)Tokyo – Nikkei 225: UP 0.1 percent at 37,529.49 (close)Hong Kong – Hang Seng Index: UP 1.5 percent at 23,681.48 (close)Shanghai – Composite: UP 0.4 percent at 3,380.48 (close)Euro/dollar: UP at $1.1284 from $1.1240 on MondayPound/dollar: UP at $1.3391 from $1.3361Dollar/yen: DOWN at 144.47 yen from 144.86 yenEuro/pound: UP at 84.26 pence from 84.13 penceWest Texas Intermediate: DOWN 0.2 percent at $62.56 per barrelBrent North Sea Crude: DOWN 0.2 percent at $65.38 per barrel

The United States will limit Covid-19 boosters to people over 65 or those at risk of serious illness, while requiring vaccine makers to run fresh clinical trials before offering shots to younger and healthier individuals, officials said Tuesday.Writing in the New England Journal of Medicine, the Food and Drug Administration’s Vinayak Prasad and Commissioner Martin Makary framed the policy shift as “evidence-based” and would align the United States more closely with guidance in Europe.But it comes as Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a longtime vaccine skeptic, pushes to remake federal public health policy.Kennedy previously led a nonprofit that was critical of immunization programs, and during the pandemic petitioned the FDA to revoke Covid vaccine authorizations, citing rare side effects including heart inflammation.Prasad and Makary praised the initial Covid-19 vaccine rollout as “a major scientific, medical, and regulatory accomplishment,” but argued that the benefits of repeated boosters for low-risk individuals are uncertain.They criticized the US approach of recommending boosters for all adults regardless of age or health status, calling it a “one-size-fits-all” model based on the mistaken belief that Americans couldn’t handle more nuanced, risk-based advice. Rather than building public trust, they wrote, it had backfired — fueling vaccine hesitancy that has spilled over into skepticism toward childhood shots, including those for measles.The FDA said it would rely on lab test results to approve boosters for people who are over 65, or over six months old with at least one underlying condition.But for healthy individuals between six months and 64 years, regulators will now require data from randomized trials.”We simply don’t know whether a healthy 52-year-old woman with a normal BMI (body mass index) who has had Covid-19 three times and has received six previous doses of a Covid-19 vaccine will benefit from the seventh dose,” they wrote.Some infectious disease experts welcomed the shift.Amesh Adalja of Johns Hopkins University said it matched with the approach taken by other countries in a population that already carries significant immunity. “For lower-risk individuals, the goal has always been less clear, as protection against infection is transient and they don’t have a high risk of severe disease,” he told AFP.But others voiced concern about the practical consequences. Paul Offit, a leading vaccine expert at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, said it could limit access for people who still want boosters.”Any use, say in a healthy 35-year-old, would be considered off-label, and you wonder whether an insurance company would pay for it,” he told AFP.- Not like annual flu shot -Under the revised framework, companies like Pfizer and Moderna will be encouraged to test updated boosters in adults aged 50 to 64.These studies should measure whether the vaccines reduce symptomatic infections, hospitalizations and deaths.Rather than comparing new shots to earlier formulations, Prasad and Makary suggested placebo-controlled trials — with saline as the comparator — to better evaluate both benefit and potential side effects.The proposal, first floated by Kennedy earlier this month, has proved divisive. Critics argue that using a placebo — when authorized vaccines already exist — could expose participants to unnecessary harm.”Imagine if there was a death or two in the placebo group,” said Offit. “I don’t see how you conscience that.”Supporters of continued Covid-19 boosters often draw parallels to annual flu shots.But Makary and Prasad pushed back on that comparison, arguing the genetic changes in Covid variants haven’t been significant enough to justify automatically updating the vaccine each year.The FDA officials also sought to reassure Americans concerned they might lose access to boosters under the new framework.The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) definition of risk factors is “vast, including obesity and even mental health conditions such as depression,” they wrote, noting that between 100 million and 200 million Americans would likely still qualify.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned Tuesday that Syria could be weeks away from a fresh civil war of “epic proportions,” as he called for support to the transitional leadership.The top American diplomat blamed a resurgence of the Islamic State extremist group in areas outside of the transitional government’s control, as well as Iran.He told a US Senate hearing that the government, “given the challenges they’re facing, are maybe weeks — not many months — away from potential collapse and a full-scale civil war of epic proportions, basically the country splitting up.”Rubio spoke after a series of bloody attacks on the Alawite and Druze minorities in Syria, where Islamist-led fighters in December toppled then-president Bashar al-Assad, capping a brutal civil war that began in 2011.US President Donald Trump last week on a visit to Saudi Arabia announced a lifting of Assad-era sanctions and met with the guerrilla leader who is now Syria’s transitional president, Ahmed al-Sharaa.Sharaa, clad in a suit and complimented by Trump as a “young, attractive guy,” was until recently on a US wanted list over jihadist connections. Rubio quipped: “The transitional authority figures, they didn’t pass their background check with the FBI.”But he added: “If we engage them, it may work out, it may not work out. If we did not engage them, it was guaranteed to not work out.”Rubio, who also met with Syria’s foreign minister in Turkey on Thursday, said Iran was looking to work with remnants of the fallen ally Assad, a largely secular leader who hailed from the Alawite sect.Rubio acknowledged concerns about Syria’s direction in Israel, which has kept pounding military sites in the neighboring country.But Rubio, who has spoken twice in recent days to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said a more stable Syria that did not serve as a “launchpad for attacks” would be an “extraordinary achievement for Israel’s security.”- EU ends sanctions -European Union countries, which had already suspended economic sanctions on Syria, gave the green light on Tuesday to lift all restrictions.”We want to help the Syrian people rebuild a new, inclusive and peaceful Syria,” top EU diplomat Kaja Kallas wrote on X after the bloc’s foreign ministers met in Brussels.EU diplomats said that move would unfreeze central bank assets and help reintegrate Syrian banks to the global system, although sanctions would remain on individuals over stirring ethnic tensions.Syria’s foreign ministry hailed the EU decision, saying it marked “the beginning of a new chapter in Syrian-European relations built on shared prosperity and mutual respect.”Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani, welcoming his Jordanian counterpart to Damascus, said at a joint news conference that “the doors are open” for investment in Syria with the lifting of sanctions.The United States had previously insisted on key steps from Syria’s transitional authorities, including protection of minorities.Trump’s move on Syria was encouraged by Turkey — the main patron of the Islamist fighters who had battled Assad, an ally of Iran and Russia — and Sunni regional power Saudi Arabia.”The nations in the region want to get aid in, want to start helping them, and they can’t because they’re afraid of our sanctions,” Rubio said.Rubio has said Trump plans to waive the Caesar Act, which imposed sanctions for investment on Syria in an effort to ensure accountability regarding abuses under Assad.But such waivers would be temporary, and Syria remains classified by the US as a state sponsor of terrorism, a major impediment to business dealings.Rubio, asked if the administration sought to delist Syria from its terrorism blacklist, replied: “Yes, if they meet the standard.”

Google on Tuesday said it was beefing up online searches with even more generative artificial intelligence, as it presses on with embracing AI despite fears for its ad-based business model.CEO Sundar Pichai, speaking at the company’s annual developers event, said Google’s search engine would feature a new AI mode, as he boasted that “decades of research” were reaching fruition with the new technology.The search engine’s nascent AI mode goes further than the already launched AI Overviews which display answers to queries from the tech giant’s generative AI powers, above the traditional blue links to websites and ads.”New AI mode is a total reimagining of search with more advanced reasoning,” said Pichai, kicking off the conference in Silicon Valley.”You can ask longer and more complex queries… and you can go further with follow-up questions.”Google head of search Liz Reid described the freshly unveiled AI mode, now available in the United States, as a powerful tool with advanced reasoning, multi-modality, and the ability for users to dive deeper into searches.”It searches across the entire web, going way deeper than the traditional search,” she said.Since Google debuted AI Overviews in search results at its developers conference a year ago, it has grown to more than 1.5 billion users across several countries, according to Pichai.”That means Google Search is bringing Gen AI to more people than any other product in the world,” Pichai said.Google’s push into generative AI comes amid intensifying competition with OpenAI’s ChatGPT, which has itself incorporated search engine features into its popular chatbot. Both companies are rapidly releasing new AI products despite ongoing challenges with preventing misinformation and establishing clear business models, and with no clear sense of how the tech will affect society.Analysts have expressed concerns that shifting away from pages of “blue links” to AI-generated summaries in Google search would mean fewer opportunities to serve up money-making ads at the heart of the company’s business model.This has also caused alarm among website publishers, such as news organizations or Wikipedia, who face a massive drop in traffic with the potential demise of Google search links that have been the main gateway to the internet for the past two decades.Fueling those concerns, Apple executive Eddy Cue testified in federal court recently that Google’s search traffic on Apple devices declined in April for the first time in over two decades.Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of services, told the Washington antitrust trial that Google was losing ground to AI alternatives like ChatGPT and Perplexity, sending Google’s shares plummeting.Investors were also unsettled when Cue added that Apple might soon offer AI alternatives as default search options on its devices, heightening concerns that Google’s advertising revenue could face serious threats from AI competitors.This testimony occurred during a critical trial where a federal judge could potentially order Google to divest key businesses following a previous ruling that its search engine constitutes an illegal monopoly.- ‘Ultra’ -At its annual developers conference, known as Google I/O, the company nurtures relationships with creators of apps, platforms or online services, hoping to keep them inspired to sync with its offerings.Beyond search, the conference showcased numerous AI innovations being developed or deployed.These include real-time speech translation, virtual clothing try-ons using personal photos, and technology that can automatically search for desired items and make purchases when prices drop.Google is also introducing “agent” capabilities to Chrome and the Gemini AI app, allowing AI to handle online tasks independently. These features will initially launch for paying subscribers.The company announced that its most advanced AI tools would be available through a new “Ultra” subscription tier priced at $250 monthly.

President Donald Trump’s administration has reversed its halt on a giant offshore wind project in New York led by Norwegian company Equinor, US officials confirmed Tuesday.New York Governor Kathy Hochul and Equinor had announced the policy shift in statements Monday night, saying construction on the massive Empire Wind project would be able to resume following a month-long stoppage.An Equinor spokesman told AFP last week that the company might abandon the project if a solution were not found soon.Trump, who has repeatedly expressed opposition to wind energy — claiming turbines are unsightly and dangerous — signed a series of executive orders targeting the sector shortly after returning to the White House in January.Those included a temporary freeze on federal permitting and loans for offshore and onshore wind projects.Interior Secretary Doug Burgum announced in mid-April that his department was ordering construction halted “immediately” on the Empire Wind project, saying predecessors in the administration of former president Joe Biden had not performed “sufficient analysis.”In a social media post Monday night, Burgum did not mention Empire Wind but praised Hochul for “her willingness to move forward on critical pipeline capacity.”Burgum and Energy Secretary Chris Wright, a former oil industry executive, have emphasized the need to streamline pipeline permitting, calling the issue a major impediment to natural gas development.”Energy Dominance is the foundation of America’s economic and national security,” Burgum said on X.”Americans who live in New York and New England would see significant economic benefits and lower utility costs from increased access to reliable, affordable, clean American natural gas.”A Department of Interior spokesperson confirmed on Tuesday that the wind project halt had been lifted.Hochul thanked Trump in her statement, calling the project “critical” in terms of jobs and clean power.”New York’s economic future is going to be powered by abundant, clean energy that helps our homes and businesses thrive,” Hochul said. “We appreciate the fact that construction can now resume on Empire Wind, a project which underscores our commitment to deliver energy while supporting local economies and creating jobs,” Equinor CEO Anders Opedal said separately.Valued by Equinor at $2.5 billion, the Empire Wind 1 project includes 54 turbines designed to deliver 810 megawatts of energy into Brooklyn, powering 500,000 homes.

US President Donald Trump told rebel Republicans Tuesday to back his so-called “big, beautiful bill,” despite criticisms that its tax cuts will increase America’s yawning budget deficit.Trump described the talks with lawmakers on Capitol Hill as a “meeting of love” ahead of an expected close vote later this week on legislation that he has placed at the heart of his second-term agenda.The bill pairs an extension of the tax cuts from the billionaire’s first presidential term with steep savings in government spending to pay for them.But the closed-door talks apparently failed to quell concerns among Republican fiscal hawks that it will increase the national debt — and among moderates that it will cut health care for millions of the poorest Americans.Wall Street stocks fell on Tuesday as US markets, already sparked by a ratings downgrade last week, focused on the fate of Trump’s proposal.”There was no shouting, I think it was a meeting of love,” Trump told reporters afterwards alongside Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson. “We’re going to have a great victory.”Trump says Americans will face huge tax increases if the bill, which also contains provisions for migration and other issues, does not pass.Johnson is reportedly eying a vote later this week — but with the Republicans holding only a razor-thin majority in the lower house they will need every member to be on side.Democrats are united against the bill.”Nothing in Congress is ever easy, especially when you have small margins. But we are going to land this plane and deliver this,” Johnson said.There were signs that stark divisions still remained.Conservatives are angling for much deeper spending cuts to tackle the ballooning deficit.- Health care divisions -Moderates say the savings would mean millions of the poorest Americans lose health coverage under the Medicaid program — while hawks are angry that work requirements for Medicaid entitlement would not kick in until the end of Trump’s term.Several US media said Trump told the meeting: “Don’t fuck around with Medicaid.”Moderate Republicans fear overly large cuts in the popular program could upset the party’s prospects in the November 2026 midterm elections.The so-called SALT Republicans — a faction demanding bigger deductions in state and local taxes — are also at loggerheads with the leadership.Several of them reportedly texted Johnson to say they would still vote against the bill, reacting angrily after Trump called out some of them by name.Trump argued that the cuts would only benefit governors in Democratic states.Trump has been eager to present the bill as a significant legislative accomplishment early in his second term, after a frenzied first few months where he has governed largely through presidential orders.But independent congressional analysts calculate that the mega-bill’s tax provisions would add more than $2.3 trillion to the US national debt over the coming decade.The bill — which is now formally named the “One Big Beautiful Bill” after Trump initially used it as a nickname — cleared a key hurdle on Sunday when it finally progressed out of the House Budget Committee.But it now faces a tough ride.Even if the bill passes in the House, it will face challenges in the Senate, where Republicans are demanding major changes.The fate of Trump’s budget bill has renewed market jitters over the spiralling US debt, particularly amid wider global uncertainty over Trump’s sweeping tariffs on trading partners around the world.Patrick J O’Hare, analyst at Briefing.com, said investors were “waiting to see if the Treasury market can keep its cool” as the bill is debated, given it “is expected to add trillions to the budget deficit”.

The father of one of two Mexican cadets killed when a naval sailing ship crashed into New York’s Brooklyn Bridge paid tribute to his daughter as a “wonderful” person Tuesday.Dozens of friends and relatives attended a funeral for 20-year-old America Yamileth Sanchez, who died along with Adal Jair Maldonado, 23.Around 20 other crew members were injured when the training ship, which visits foreign ports on goodwill voyages, crashed into the iconic New York bridge on Saturday, snapping the masts.Sanchez’s coffin was received with flowers, candles and tears at her home in Xalapa in the eastern state of Veracruz after a procession through the city.Mourners shouted the name of the young cadet, who was pictured in her navy uniform.”She is an example for future generations to come — an excellent person, a wonderful human being,” her father Herminio Cosme Sanchez said.Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum offered her “love and solidarity” to the family.Numerous sailors were positioned among the Cuauhtemoc ship’s rigging at the time of the crash.It had begun a seven-month voyage in April from its base in the Pacific coastal city of Acapulco.The vessel had been departing New York at the time of the accident with flags fluttering from its rigging and an enormous Mexican flag waving off its stern.The US National Transportation Safety Board said Monday that a preliminary report into the collision was expected within 30 days. 

The United States will restrict routine Covid-19 boosters to people over 65 or those at higher risk of serious illness, while requiring new placebo-controlled trials to justify vaccination in healthy individuals under that age, senior officials said Tuesday.The move comes as Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — a longtime vaccine skeptic who has spread doubt about immunization programs — pushes to remake federal public health policy.Writing in the New England Journal of Medicine, the Food and Drug Administration’s Vinayak Prasad and Commissioner Martin Makary framed the policy shift as evidence-based and said it would bring US guidance more in line with that of European nations.They described the initial Covid-19 vaccine rollout as “a major scientific, medical, and regulatory accomplishment” — but argued the benefits of repeated boosters in low-risk individuals remain uncertain.Contrasting the US approach with that of the United Kingdom, France, and Germany, the authors criticized what they called America’s “one-size-fits-all” strategy. They said it was based on the mistaken assumption that Americans cannot understand age- and risk-based recommendations.Rather than building trust, the approach had backfired, contributing to broader vaccine hesitancy — including toward childhood immunizations such as the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine, the officials argued.Going forward, the FDA expects to find a favorable benefit-risk profile for people over 65, and for anyone over six months old with one or more underlying health conditions, based on antibody levels generated by vaccination.However, “for all healthy persons — those with no risk factors for severe Covid-19 — between the ages of 6 months and 64 years, the FDA anticipates the need for randomized, controlled trial data,” the officials wrote.”We simply don’t know whether a healthy 52-year-old woman with a normal BMI (body mass index) who has had Covid-19 three times and has received six previous doses of a Covid-19 vaccine will benefit from the seventh dose,” they added.Vaccine makers such as Pfizer and Moderna will be encouraged to conduct trials involving adults aged 50 to 64. These studies should assess whether boosters reduce symptomatic illness, severe disease, hospitalization, and death.Last week, pharmaceutical company Novavax received approval for its COVID-19 vaccine — but only for adults over 65, and for individuals aged 12 and older with at least one underlying health condition.- New placebo trials -Rather than comparing updated boosters against earlier versions, Makary and Prasad said  “the control group could receive a saline placebo, to permit documentation of the full adverse-event profile.”That approach — using a placebo when a “standard-of-care” vaccine already exists — is contentious within the biomedical community. Covid vaccines were originally granted approval based on large-scale placebo-controlled trials involving tens of thousands of participants.The idea of retesting established vaccines against placebo was first floated earlier this month by Kennedy, according to reports.Supporters of continued Covid-19 boosters often draw parallels to annual flu shots. But Makary and Prasad pushed back on that comparison, arguing the two diseases behave differently in terms of how they mutate over time. They said Covid vaccine-induced immunity may not require yearly updates to protect against the most clinically relevant outcomes.The authors also sought to reassure Americans concerned they might lose access to boosters under the new framework.The Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) definition of risk factors is “vast, including obesity and even mental health conditions such as depression,” they wrote, noting that between 100 million and 200 million Americans would likely still qualify.Prasad, a hematologist-oncologist who now leads the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research (CBER), rose to prominence during the pandemic for publicly questioning widespread booster use.

A man who pleaded guilty to killing a convenience store worker by setting her on fire is to be put to death in Texas on Tuesday in the second of three executions to be carried out in the United States this week.Matthew Johnson, 49, is to executed by lethal injection at the Texas State Penitentiary in Huntsville some time after 6:00 pm Central Time (2300 GMT).Johnson was sentenced to death for the 2012 murder of Nancy Harris, a 76-year-old grandmother.Johnson admitted at trial to pouring lighter fluid on Harris and setting her alight during an early morning robbery of a store in Garland, Texas.Harris suffered severe burns and was taken off life support five days later.Johnson’s execution is scheduled to take place just hours after the midwestern state of Indiana carried out its second execution since 2009.Benjamin Ritchie, 45, was put to death by lethal injection overnight at the Indiana State Prison in Michigan City for the 2000 murder of officer Bill Toney, the Indiana Department of Correction said in a statement.Toney, a father of two, was shot to death after pursuing a van that had been stolen by Ritchie and another man from a gas station in the town of Beech Grove.The other execution scheduled this week is in the southern state of Tennessee.Oscar Smith, 75, is to be put to death by lethal injection on Thursday for the 1989 shooting and stabbing murders of his estranged wife, Judy Smith, and her two sons, Chad and Jason Burnett.There have been 17 executions in the United States this year: 13 by lethal injection, two by firing squad and two using nitrogen gas.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 called on his first day in office for an expansion of its use “for the vilest crimes.”