Report faults

ICE facility

WASHINGTON (AP) — A new report alleges that mismanagement at a massive Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Texas produced unsafe conditions that contributed to detainees’ deaths and suffering even as millions of tax dollars were wasted on contractors.

The U.S. Government Accountability Office report released Tuesday documents serious problems at Camp East Montana, a tent facility at Fort Bliss in El Paso where three detainees have died in little more than six months. The report found that key evidence in one of those deaths was “missing or destroyed.”

It also found that ICE rushed to open the camp before construction was complete and failed to conduct required oversight to ensure detainees were held in sanitary conditions and receiving adequate medical care.

Texas teen

convicted

MCKINNEY, Texas (AP) — A Texas teenager who fatally stabbed a 17-year-old athlete from a rival track team has been found guilty of murder. Jurors on Tuesday convicted 19-year-old Karmelo Anthony in the death of Austin Metcalf.

The killing last year stunned the booming Dallas suburb of Frisco. Both teens attended different schools there. Prosecutors accused Anthony of egging on a confrontation after being asked to leave the tent of Metcalf’s team. Anthony’s attorney claimed the stabbing was self-defense. The case drew wide attention, in part because of social media posts about race.

Anthony is Black. Metcalf was white. But prosecutors and defense attorneys said the case had nothing to do with race.

Judge bars

execution

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — A federal judge has permanently blocked Alabama from executing an inmate with nitrogen gas, declaring the method violates the ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

U.S. District Judge Emily C. Marks issued the decision after an appeals court reversed her earlier ruling. Jeffery Lee was scheduled for execution Thursday. A spokesman for Alabama’s attorney general is reviewing the decision and considering an appeal. Marks noted the state has other execution methods, like lethal injection and the electric chair.

She also mentioned the state could switch to a firing squad, which Lee prefers. Lee was convicted of capital murder in 1998.

NASA unveils

astronauts

NEW YORK (AP) — NASA has revealed the crew for its Artemis III mission, the next step in eventually landing astronauts on the moon.

NASA’s Randy Bresnik, Frank Rubio, Andre Douglas and the European Space Agency’s Luca Parmitano won’t fly to the moon or land on the surface. Instead, they’ll orbit Earth while practicing docking their Orion capsule with lunar landers.

The demo is targeted for 2027. NASA’s Artemis program aims to land astronauts on the moon for the first time since the 1970s.