Supreme Court holds execution
The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday put on hold Tennessee’s plans to carry out an execution just hours after it put an inmate to death for only the second time in more than 45 years.
The court denied a request from the state attorney general to allow the execution of convicted murderer Paul Dennis Reid. His execution had been delayed by a federal judge who said a hearing was needed to determine whether the inmate was mentally competent to give up appeals of his seven death sentences.
The state had scheduled back-to-back executions for Reid and Sedley Alley. Alley, 50, was executed earlier Wednesday. He had confessed to killing 19-year-old Marine Suzanne Collins in 1985 while she jogged near a Navy base north of Memphis.
New York
Some Anglicans edge toward split
NEW YORK – Three conservative Episcopal dioceses that oppose consecrating gay bishops voted Wednesday to reject the authority of the denomination’s presiding bishop, but stopped short of a full break with the Episcopal Church.
In separate meetings, the Dioceses of Pittsburgh; South Carolina and San Joaquin, Calif., asked the spiritual head of the Anglican Communion, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, to assign them an alternative leader.
The decision by the three dioceses came on the same day that the liberal Diocese of Newark, N.J., tested the new Episcopal call for restraint on choosing gay bishops by naming a gay priest as one of four nominees to become its next leader.
The Episcopal Church and its fellow Anglicans worldwide are struggling to prevent differences over the Bible and sexuality from escalating into a permanent break.
ATLANTA
Sick Iraqi infant returns to family
An Iraqi infant brought to the United States to be treated for severe birth defects has returned to her family in Iraq, according to the Atlanta organization that helped arrange for her medical care.
Nine-month-old Noor al-Zahra left Atlanta on Monday, after six months of medical care. Confirmation of her safe return came Wednesday morning, said Christina Porter, spokeswoman for Childspring International.
U.S. troops found Noor during a raid on a home in Iraq in December and noticed paralysis and a growth on her back. They arranged medical care in the United States for her condition, spina bifida, in which the backbone and spinal cord do not close after birth.
She had surgery at an Atlanta hospital in January to reposition her spinal cord. Doctors say Noor is likely to remain paraplegic but otherwise healthy.