Indiana

TERRE HAUTE, Ind. (AP) — A Kansas girl’s killer Friday became the fifth federal inmate put to death this year, an execution that went forward only after a higher court tossed a ruling that would have required the government to get a prescription for the drug used to kill him.

Questions about whether the drug pentobarbital causes pain prior to death had been a focus of appeals for Keith Nelson, 45, the second inmate executed this week in the Trump administration’s resumption of federal executions this summer after a 17-year hiatus.

CLAYTON, Mo. (AP) — After a third review failed to uncover enough evidence to charge the officer who fatally shot Black 18-year-old Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, some prosecutors and civil rights leaders agree it’s time to focus on changing the laws that shield police.

TERRE HAUTE, Ind. (AP) — A meth kingpin from Iowa who killed five people, including two young girls, is scheduled Friday to become the third federal inmate to be executed this week, following a 17-year pause in federal executions.

Dustin Honken, 52, was sentenced to death for killing government informants and children in his effort to thwart his drug trafficking prosecution in 1993.

TERRE HAUTE, Ind. (AP) — A U.S. district judge on Monday ordered a new delay in federal executions, hours before the first lethal injection was scheduled to be carried out at a federal prison in Indiana. The Trump administration immediately appealed to a higher court, asking that the executions move forward.

Late Monday, the federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., refused to allow the executions to proceed. The administration has asked the Supreme Court to step in.

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — The FBI said Tuesday it’s investigating the reported assault of a Black man by a group of white men at a southern Indiana lake.

Vauhxx Booker, a civil rights activist and member of the Monroe County Human Rights Commission, said the men pinned him against a tree, shouted racial slurs and one of them threatened to “get a noose” at Monroe Lake near Bloomington over the Fourth of July weekend.

Much of the assault was captured on cellphone video by Booker’s acquaintances.

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Protesters crowded the streets of Indianapolis on Thursday to voice concerns about police treatment after officers shot and killed two men and fatally struck a pregnant pedestrian in three separate incidents just hours apart.

Officials said both men exchanged gunfire with officers, adding that the second shooting early Thursday morning could have been an ambush on police. Police did not have body camera or dash camera footage of either shooting. Both of the men were black, as were most of the protesters.

MOORESVILLE, Ind. (AP) — Severe storms with high winds, hail and tornadoes swept across the Midwest and caused damage to dozens of homes and businesses in parts of Indiana and Arkansas, authorities said.

A few injuries were reported following Wednesday night’s storms and the threat of more severe weather was forecast for the coming days throughout much of the United States.

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — President Donald Trump’s choice of Vice President Mike Pence to oversee the nation’s response to the new coronavirus threat is bringing renewed scrutiny to the former governor’s handling of an HIV outbreak in southern Indiana when he was governor.

Pence reluctantly agreed to authorize a needle exchange program in Scott County in March 2015 after the epidemic centered there saw the number of people infected with HIV skyrocket, with nearly 200 people eventually testing positive for the virus that year.

SOUTH BEND, Ind. (AP) — Karen DePaepe had been waiting all day for a call back from Pete Buttigieg.

It was March 2012, and the 30-year-old mayor of South Bend, Indiana, had just decided to replace the city’s first African American police chief over complaints that he illegally wiretapped police officers’ phone calls.

SOUTH BEND, Ind. (AP) — Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg faced criticism Sunday from angry residents of South Bend, Indiana, at an emotional town hall meeting a week after a white police officer fatally shot a black man in the city where he is mayor.

Buttigieg (BOO’-tuh-juhj) said he would call for an outside investigation of the shooting of 54-year-old Eric Logan by Sgt. Ryan O’Neill.