Hurricane Sweeping Florida Kills 2, Wreaks Havoc

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Hurricane Sweeping Florida Kills 2, Wreaks Havoc

(Headline USA) Isaias roared onto the Florida Panhandle, ripping roofs off homes and condominiums, before it moved north Saturday, bringing torrential rain and the threat of flash floods and tornadoes across the Southeast.

Two people were killed by fallen trees and about 800,000 customers were without power, mostly in Florida and Alabama.

Isaias came ashore as a Category 2 hurricane on Friday near Destin, Florida, a popular Gulf Coast vacation spot filled with high-rises and quirky tourist shops. The storm weakened overnight and was downgraded to a post-tropical cyclone but remained a threat.

“The risk of flooding is still high,” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said Saturday morning. “Sometimes these things happen a day or two days after the storm goes through. So the flooding story is not over.”

Despite warnings of life-threatening storm surges ahead of the storm, several major routes along the coast remained open and were free of downed trees and power lines typically seen after major hurricanes.

Scattered damage across Florida’s Panhandle

Officials across the Florida Panhandle were still surveying the damage.

In Escambia County, Sheriff Chip Simmons said on Facebook that one woman died after a tree fell on her home. He did not provide additional details.

Hurricane-force winds blew the roof off a hotel in Pensacola and the city’s mayor said the airport “took some damage” while power was out downtown. The storm flattened a boathouse in Destin and flooded streets.

Residents were out early picking through the debris. A worker in a condominium parking lot in Panama City swept up piles of insulation and pieces of metal from the building. Nearby, people were putting back beach chairs that had been tossed about.

Tim Mowry, who lives in Pensacola, acknowledged he had a little “trepidation” as the storm approached. It was the first hurricane of the Atlantic season and his first ever, so he spent hundreds of dollars buying gas and filling his propane tanks.

“For my first one, I’ll take it. It was in the grand scheme of things uneventful,” he said. “I mean it’s a storm, don’t get me wrong, and we had some wind. I got some fence down in my yard,” he continued. “But I was expecting the worst.”

Isaias hits Alabama with devastating winds

Isaias charged north into Alabama with tropical-force winds overnight.

One person died when a tree fell on a house in Birmingham, said Cory Moon, the city’s fire chief. One other person was rescued from the house and treated at the scene, he said.

Along Alabama’s Gulf Coast, authorities in Mobile reported downed trees and power lines and numerous closed roads.

Maranie Adams, who rode out the storm with her husband, two adult sons and their chickens in Gulf Shores, Alabama, said the winds rocked their home, but it was nothing like Hurricane Sally, which left 2 feet (0.6 meters) of water under their elevated house.

“We have a few limbs down, some leaves everywhere, but we’re very spared. So, everything’s open on the island today. Everything’s good,” Adams said. “I feel very much more relieved today.”

Wind and rain still threaten the Southeast

The Atlantic hurricane season has been unusually quiet this year, and Isaias was the first hurricane to hit the eastern U.S. since 2024.

Forecasters say that despite weakening, the storm still could bring 4 to 8 inches of rain across southern Alabama, the Florida Panhandle and Big Bend over the weekend. It was expected to move into the Tennessee Valley and then the mid-Atlantic on Sunday.

“There are still high wind warnings for portions of the Southeast,” Robbie Berg, a warning coordination meteorologist with the National Hurricane Center in Miami. “So even though it has become post-tropical, it still does remain a wind threat, as well as a heavy rainfall threat. We could see some areas of significant flash flooding over the next couple of days.”

Pair of storms in the Pacific Ocean

Meanwhile, in the Pacific, Simon strengthened into a Category 4 hurricane as it approached Mexico’s coast.

Tropical Storm Rachel was also expected to bring heavy winds and rain to northern Mexico and Southern California over the weekend.

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press

9 Dead, Including 2 Kids, from Mass Shooting in Erie, Pennsylvania

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9 Dead, Including 2 Kids, from Mass Shooting in Erie, Pennsylvania

(Headline USA) Eight people were killed Friday in a shooting in Erie, Pennsylvania, police said.

The shooter was also dead, and there was no threat to the public, the city said. Authorities didn’t provide more details.

“I have not seen anything like this in my 28-plus years,” Erie Police Chief Rick Lorah told a local news station. “I’m not sure that the city of Erie has ever seen the loss of life and the devastation that we just witnessed.”

Gov. Josh Shapiro said Saturday he offered his administration’s “full support” to Erie Mayor Daria Devlin.

Erie is about 117 miles north of Pittsburgh.

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press

DOJ Says It Won’t Enforce Unconstitutional Restrictions on Silencers

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DOJ Says It Won’t Enforce Unconstitutional Restrictions on Silencers

(Headline USA) The Justice Department moved Friday to allow more people to purchase firearm suppressors — known as silencers — short-barreled rifles and certain other guns without registering them with the federal government following a court ruling that struck down provisions of a key law.

The Trump administration announced the enforcement policy changes after a Texas judge in August ruled the permitting process was unconstitutional. The judge’s ruling was limited to the parties involved in that case, but the Justice Department said Friday it would no longer enforce the registration requirements more broadly.

“The direction from the President, Congress, and the courts is clear,” Rob Cekada, director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, said in an emailed statement. “ATF is now following suit with our enforcement posture while continuing to ensure we remain focused where we are needed the most: combating violent crime in American communities.”

It’s the latest move by the Trump administration to ease restrictions on firearms opposed by gun rights groups. Gun rights activists have long complained that the registration requirements — which meant filling out a form, being fingerprinted, and waiting for government approval — were overly burdensome and a violation of their Second Amendment rights.

At issue in the Texas case were regulations in a 1930s-era law, the National Firearms Act, which was passed in response to concerns about mafia violence.

U.S. District Judge James Hendrix in Texas said the rules for purchasing a silencer, short-barreled rifle, short-barreled shotgun and other certain other firearms must fall after the Republican-controlled Congress and President Donald Trump eliminated a $200 permit tax on the devices. The Justice Department opted not to appeal the judge’s decision.

Cekada said Friday that after the judge’s ruling, federal law enforcement was inundated with questions from the public and members of Congress about how the government was going to handle enforcement nationwide. The Trump administration believed that the “best and fairest thing to do” was to address the rules nationwide to avoid a confusing patchwork of regulations across the country, Cekada said in an interview.

Groups that support gun restrictions decried the judge’s ruling and the Justice Department’s decision to let it stand as reckless and argued that the regulations are important for public safety.

Under the new guidance, ATF will no longer require registration unless the buyer lives in one of about 15 states that have state laws requiring that people go through the federal permitting process. The registration process will still apply for machine guns and what are considered “destructive devices” under federal law, the Justice Department said.

And in all cases, people will still have to fill out the standard firearms purchasing form, which includes questions about things that would disqualify someone from legal gun ownership, and they also have to pass a background check, officials said.

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press

Police Release Footage of Moments before ICE Shooting Criminal Migrant

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Police Release Footage of Moments before ICE Shooting Criminal Migrant

(Headline USA)U.S. Homeland Security officials said Friday that immigration officers feared for their lives when they shot a man driving with his young son in New York, wounding him and sparking protests in the city.

Local police released surveillance camera and body camera footage of the chaotic moments before and after the gunfire, but those videos didn’t immediately answer questions about whether the officers were justified in opening fire.

The 28-year-old Dominican national wounded in the ICE operation was being held at a federal jail in Brooklyn with a bullet still in his body, according to his lawyers.

The federal officers who opened fire weren’t aware that the child was in the car, senior immigration officials said Friday.

New York City police security cameras recorded the start of the encounter, but not the shooting itself.

One video released by the department shows two immigration officers wearing civilian garb running up to a parked vehicle with their guns drawn and pointed at the driver. As one officer bashes the barrel of his gun against the car’s windows, the driver peels away from those officers on the narrow street and out of view of the camera.

A second video taken from a different angle shows the scene a moment later as people scramble and dive for cover on the sidewalk. Only seconds elapsed between when agents first ran up to the car and when it came to rest against a concrete barrier a few yards down the street, with bullet holes in its windshield and a rear-seat window.

Homeland Security officials say driver rammed vehicles

Marcos Charles, the head of enforcement and removal operations for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said the driver had refused orders to exit his vehicle, and then accelerated and smashed into two government vehicles as ICE officers tried to block him from driving away.

“Our officers, using their training and believing that their life and the life of the partners and the general public were in danger, used their training and fired weapons,” he said during a news conference in Washington.

He said the driver was injured “superficially” in the neck.

New York City police and local court records identified the wounded man as Oscar Belgal. His lawyers later gave the spelling of his last name as Bergal. Federal officials spelled his last name Bengal.

U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin blamed the man for putting his son at risk by trying to evade officers.

ICE previously tried to detain Belgal

Belgal associated with a robbery gang that used mopeds and weapons, and was convicted of grand larceny last year and sentenced to five years of probation, Charles said, adding that he evaded officers in September when ICE tried to arrest him for deportation.

Belgal has pleaded not guilty to narcotics-sale charges in an ongoing case. The Legal Aid Society, which represents him in that case, called Friday for a “full and transparent” investigation of the shooting, but declined further comment.

Attorneys representing Belgal filed an emergency petition challenging the legality of his detention, and a judge issued an order temporarily barring the government from removing him from the U.S.

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, both Democrats, said late Thursday that they had unsuccessfully pressed Mullin and Trump to release Belgal. They also urged the administration to immediately release ICE officers’ body camera footage of the shooting and to halt immigration enforcement operations in the city.

Body camera footage could answer questions about shooting

Mullin said ICE would release ICE body camera footage from the shooting, but declined to say when. Under agency policy, bodycam video can be released within 72 hours if “determined that it is in the best interests of the agency.”

NYPD body camera footage released Friday shows the scene after the arrival of local police, who had not been involved in the immigration operation. Belgal is seen sitting on the pavement with his hands behind his back as federal officers attend to his injury. The police officers then lift Belgal, place him into their SUV and drive him to a nearby hospital.

“Yo put pressure. Put pressure,” an officer can be heard saying as the SUV reverses down the block.

New York City Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said Thursday that the federal immigration officers fired seven rounds during the incident.

Mamdani called the shooting an “outrage.”

“There is no justification for what we have seen today,” he said late Thursday.

Bronx District Attorney Darcel Clark said Friday that her office is investigating the shooting and working to determine “the appropriate course of action.”

Trump administration officials blame ‘sanctuary’ policies for violence

Mullin accused New York officials of creating an unsafe atmosphere for immigration detentions.

Under laws in place for years, the city’s jails don’t honor most immigration detention requests, meaning people awaiting trial for minor crimes, or who have finished serving jail sentences, are regularly freed even if they are being sought for deportation.

“Why would they release these individuals back onto the streets?” Mullin said.

Homeland Security officials have cited the “weaponization” of vehicles in calling other shootings justified, though video footage has sometimes called those claims into question.

ICE agents have fired their guns during more than a dozen vehicle stops since last year, killing at least four people and wounding others. 

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press

JD Vance Says He Won’t Watch Terrorist’s Public Execution

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JD Vance Says He Won’t Watch Terrorist’s Public Execution

Vice President JD Vance cast doubt on Friday whether the Pentagon will livestream the execution of Fort Hood shooter Nidal Malik Hasan in December but told reporters that if it is livestreamed, “I’m not going to be watching it.”

The Republican vice president said, “I don’t know that that’s actually going to happen,” when asked about the plans that the Pentagon confirmed on Thursday. But Vance then tried to set aside the controversy over the shocking plans for a public execution and said Hasan’s crimes should not be forgotten.

Hasan was convicted of killing 13 people and injuring 32 others in a shooting spree at the military base in 2009.

“So whatever the controversy is about the method of the execution, I hope that people don’t forget that this is a guy who brutally murdered a lot of innocent people,” Vance said.

“Now, that said, I mean, look, if it’s ultimately livestreamed, I’m not going to be watching it,” he added.

Vance is a convert to the Catholic Church, which has long opposed capital punishment.

Earlier Friday morning, the head of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops condemned the U.S. government’s decision to livestream Hasan’s execution.

“It is with shock and great sorrow that I have learned of the Department of War’s decision to publicly livestream the execution of Nidal Hassan. Our God is the God of life. In no way can Hassan’s actions be condoned but this decision is a barbaric promotion of a culture of death and must be reconsidered,” said Archbishop Paul S. Coakley, president of the Conference, in a statement.

Earlier, President Donald Trump told a White House event that Hasan will be getting “the death penalty through firing squad. And he deserves it.”

Trump, who approved Hasan’s execution, called him “a maniac.”

The president approved the method of execution by firing squad days after a failed attempt to execute Christa Pike by lethal injection late last month pushed Tennessee’s governor to halt further executions in that state this year.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the military hasn’t executed a service member by firing squad since World War II. The last military execution took place on April 13, 1961, when Army Pvt. John Bennett was executed by hanging.

Trump, who has long been a vocal supporter of capital punishment, didn’t mention the plans that the Pentagon has announced to livestream the execution so that the broader public can see it.

FBI Seizes Tools Used by Chinese Hackers, Officials Say

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FBI Seizes Tools Used by Chinese Hackers, Officials Say

(Headline USA) The FBI has seized scanning and phishing tools used by a group of hackers that officials say is associated with the Chinese government and is believed responsible for disruptive cyber operations in the United States and abroad, including against the power industry, academia and critical infrastructure.

The seizure of the tools, announced Thursday by the FBI and Justice Department, represents the latest law enforcement effort in recent years to go after a broad-based hacking campaign known to the private sector as Flax Typhoon.

The tools at issue, called “Microscan” and “FishHub,” were used by the hackers to scan, phish and hack targets that included U.S. and foreign critical infrastructure, officials said. Microscan was used to target, among other entities, an unnamed power company in the U.S., Japanese and Polish airports, Taiwanese universities, a multinational, nongovernmental organization and Taiwanese critical infrastructure companies. And “FishHub” facilitated phishing activity that gave hackers remote access to victim networks, the FBI said.

The latest operation has rendered the tools inoperable in what FBI and Justice Department officials said was a blow to the hacking operation.

“We aim to remove the capability from the threat actors. We target their infrastructure, their money, and their tools,” FBI Cyber Division Deputy Assistant Director Jason Bilnoski said in an interview with The Associated Press, calling the hacking operation “indiscriminate and reckless.”

The tools were operated by a Chinese-based information security company called Integrity Technology Group, which the FBI says has contracts with the Chinese government. The company is regarded by the FBI as the true identity of Flax Typhoon.

In Beijing, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said China has always cracked down on hacking activities in accordance with the law. Mao said Beijing also firmly opposes spreading disinformation and creating confusion for political purposes, adding that maintaining cybersecurity is a shared concern of both countries.

“We urge the U.S. to abandon its double standards and political manipulation, and work with China through equal dialogue and consultation to jointly address cybersecurity risks,” she said.

In September 2024, the FBI announced that it had disrupted a massive botnet associated with Flax Typhoon that installed malicious software on more than 200,000 consumer devices, including cameras, video recorders and home and office routers, to create a massive botnet. The botnet, or network of infected computers, was used to facilitate cyber crimes, such as the theft of sensitive information from victims’ networks.

FBI San Diego Supervisory Special Agent Brett Lally said that the department would continue to monitor for ways that the company might rebuild its infrastructure.

“It’ll be interesting to see what this round of disruption actions have in terms of their ability to operate as a company in China,” Lally said.

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press

FBI Arrests Person Who Allegedly Hacked FBI Database

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FBI Arrests Person Who Allegedly Hacked FBI Database

(Headline USA) The FBI has arrested an accused co-conspirator of a criminal hacking group that said last month that it had breached the bureau’s jobs portal and obtained sensitive and personal data on nearly all employees of the law enforcement agency, Director Kash Patel said Friday.

The arrest was the latest targeting ShinyHunters, the group that claimed responsibility for the hack, as the FBI continues a global investigation into the breach of its network, which Patel said “occurred on a platform managed by a third-party vendor.”

“We will continue to work closely with our partners to disrupt what’s left of the ShinyHunters group and their associates, no matter where they operate,” Patel said in a statement.

The identity of the person arrested was not immediately clear, nor what charges they might face.

In a message taking responsibility for the hack and announcing the collection of sensitive information, ShinyHunters said it had taken action over false allegations contained in an FBI public advisory from May that described the organization as a “cyber criminal group specializing in large-scale data breaches and extortion.”

That advisory characterized ShinyHunters as “threat actors” who often “use their real or exaggerated claims of access to sensitive or personal information to prompt payment from victims,” commonly harass or threaten people and “may falsely claim to have sensitive or compromising information, including embarrassing photographs or videos of victims, which frequently do not exist.”

Experts said that although the data that appeared to be compromised was the type of personal information that is routinely accessed during a breach, the hack nonetheless had alarming national security implications given that it could expose agents and their families to extortion, swatting and other harassment and because the identities of spouses were also said to have been obtained.

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press

ICE Fatally Shoots Purported Gang Member Who Drove At Them

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ICE Fatally Shoots Purported Gang Member Who Drove At Them

(Headline USA) Federal immigration officers opened fire on a Dominican man in New York because he drove his car into officers’ vehicles and they believed their lives were in danger, a senior Immigration and Customs Enforcement official said Friday.

The 28-year-old man, whom New York City police identified as Oscar Belgal, was shot “superficially” in the neck as ICE officers attempted to arrest him, Marcos Charles said. Belgal reportedly has gang associations and a lengthy criminal record, and was under federal investigation at the time of the incident.

Officers used their vehicles to block the man as he attempted to drive away, but he accelerated toward them, Charles said during a news conference with U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin in Washington. The Department of Homeland Security said the news conference was about the “dangerous consequences of sanctuary city policies.”

“Our officers, using their training and believing that their life and the life of the partners and the general public were in danger, used their training and fired weapons,” Charles said.

Belgal had a 5-year-old boy in the car with him when the shooting happened, officials said.

Mullin said ICE agents didn’t know the child was in the car, but that Belgal “was aware” and chose to knowingly put the boy at risk by trying to evade officers.

ICE had issued a detainer on Belgal, who runs with a gang known for thefts using weapons and mopeds, Charles said.

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, both Democrats, said late Thursday that they had pressed Mullin and Republican President Donald Trump to release Belgal, to no avail. They also urged the administration to immediately release body camera footage of the shooting and to halt immigration enforcement operations in the city.

Mullin said Belgal is being held in a facility outside New York City but declined to provide the location. He confirmed ICE officers were wearing body cameras that were activated, but didn’t say when any footage would be released.

New York City Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said Belgal was pulling into a parking space when a federal officer in plainclothes approached with gun drawn, followed by another federal officer who also wasn’t in uniform. Belgal started to pull the car forward, and at least one of the officers fired seven rounds, hitting the man below his left ear.

Much of Mullin’s remarks Friday were reserved for excoriating Mamdani and his immigration policy.

“Sanctuary politicians, they create an environment for criminal activity to thrive, not for the American citizens to be safe,” he said.

Mullin said ICE has asked local officials in New York to hold onto more than 14,000 people for federal officers to collect and place in immigration detention.

“Silence. Absolute silence is what we have gotten back,” he said. “Why would they release these individuals back onto the streets?”

“We’re enforcing our nation’s laws. We’re not picking and choosing,” Mullin continued. “Why is that controversial? We should all want law and order on our streets.”

Mullin also criticized the attention surrounding the case.

“This was a thug. The absolute worst of the worst,” he complained. “We’re giving so much attention to this thug.”

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press

Gun-Wielding Maniac Reportedly Shot at Nashville Courthouse

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Gun-Wielding Maniac Reportedly Shot at Nashville Courthouse

(Headline USA) A man armed with a pistol and knife was fatally shot by a security officer Thursday just inside the busy entrance of a federal courthouse in Tennessee’s largest city, authorities said.

The 42-year-old man tried to fire his gun but failed and then pulled out a knife around 9:30 a.m., said Don Aaron, spokesperson for Metro Nashville Police.

“The security individual fired on the armed individual,” Aaron said, adding that the man was taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

He was later identified by the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation as Jack Henson II. No hometown was released, though police earlier said he was from out of state.

Investigators didn’t immediately know why he was at the courthouse, and a search of his car found “nothing threatening,” Aaron said.

Courthouse visitors must go through a security checkpoint, which is common at all federal courts. The entrances are typically staffed by armed former police officers contracted by the U.S. Marshals Service.

“That’s the entrance that most people in this courthouse use,” First Assistant U.S. Attorney Rob McGuire told reporters outside.

The library next door was closed as a result, and officers with dogs were circling the perimeter while workers in nearby buildings gathered to watch.

McGuire noted that the local U.S. Attorney’s Office is inside the courthouse, as are the offices of Tennessee’s U.S. senators.

There have been “security instances where a person acts up or acts inappropriately and has to be removed from the premises, but nothing even approaching this kind of situation,” he said.

Reports of the shooting immediately stirred anxiety and concern.

“People are calling their families to let them know they’re OK,” McGuire said. “I called my wife, called my son, called people that I knew were wanting to know if I was OK. We’re all doing that.”

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press

Fort Hood Shooter’s Execution to be Livestreamed

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Fort Hood Shooter’s Execution to be Livestreamed

(Headline USA) The firing squad execution of Fort Hood shooter Nidal Malik Hasan will be livestreamed, the Pentagon said Thursday, a stunning revelation about plans for the first military execution in more than 65 years after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had described it as being “public.”

The Army announced this week that the execution would take place at Fort Hood on Dec. 3 after Hasan was convicted of killing 13 people and injuring 32 others in a shooting at the military base in 2009.

Hegseth, speaking to the conservative TV outlet Real America’s Voice on Wednesday, said, “We’ll make sure that people are able to watch it, that it’s public.” Officials in the Pentagon clarified Thursday that the execution would be livestreamed and that more details would follow.

The revelation from Hegseth about the public nature of the execution — let alone one as violent as a firing squad — has raised further questions about how the death penalty is carried out in the U.S., especially after the botched lethal injection of Christa Pike in Tennessee.

Experts offer mixed reactions on the plan

Hasan could choose to resist execution and file a habeas petition — a legal request to review the legality of a detention — in civilian court, which could significantly delay the execution, experts said.

“It frankly might outlast the current administration, and who knows if the next one will have the same penchant for executions,” said Eugene R. Fidell, a visiting lecturer at Yale Law School specializing in military law.

Deborah Denno, a death penalty expert and law professor at Fordham University, said livestreaming an execution could make the process “much more transparent” and inform the public about all that capital punishment entails. Those are benefits that she said would be useful at a time when Pike’s botched execution has raised fresh questions about the manner by which criminal defendants are put to death for their crimes.

“I think it could possibly be a good idea because it would be transparent and the public would be fully aware that it’s happening,” she said.

Elisabeth Semel, co-director of the Death Penalty Clinic at UC Berkeley Law, said Hegseth’s announcement raises a host of legal and public policy questions, including concerns for the dignity of the defendant, who will be eligible to view the execution and what the Trump administration has in mind in opting for an unusual spectacle.

Though there has been long-running discussion about the idea of televising an execution, “I don’t recall a situation in which it was instigated by the government. I think that also raises serious questions about what is the motivation of the government,” she said.

It’s not clear if Hasan will try to appeal

Hasan, an Army psychiatrist who held the rank of major, walked into a medical building on Nov. 5, 2009, where soldiers were waiting in long lines to receive immunizations and medical clearance for deployment. He shouted “Allahu akbar” — Arabic for “God is great!” — and opened fire with a laser-sighted handgun. He also shot at the backs of soldiers fleeing toward the parking lot.

Hasan said it was an effort to stop them from going to Afghanistan and killing his fellow Muslims. A military judge barred him from presenting that as a defense during his 2013 trial. Hasan was left paralyzed from the waist down after being shot in the back by law enforcement, and he now uses a wheelchair.

Hasan could seek a lengthy delay of his execution, though given his behavior at trial, he may not want to.

After firing his lawyers and representing himself, Hasan began his portion of the trial by telling jurors he was the gunman. He said little else over the next three weeks, which convinced his court-appointed standby lawyers that Hasan’s only goal was to get a death sentence.

The military called nearly 90 witnesses, but Hasan rested his case without calling a single person to testify in his defense and made no closing argument. Yet he leaked documents during the trial to journalists that revealed him telling military mental health workers that he could “ still be a martyr ” if executed.

Attorney John Galligan, a former military judge who had represented Hasan in several civil matters following his criminal trial, spoke with Hasan on Wednesday but is barred from offering much detail about that conversation. He is not representing Hasan in his criminal case but said he’s worried about his physical health under the plan laid out by officials, and that Hasan has not yet had access to legal counsel.

Galligan said that according to Hasan, the commandant of the facility brought a chaplain but no attorney from either the Trial Defense Service or from his civilian defense when he was notified that Trump had signed off on his execution. Galligan called that a breach of Army regulations.

A spokeswoman for the Army said Thursday that multiple attempts were made to contact Trial Defense Service attorneys, saying they made every reasonable effort and adhered to policy.

“The civilian counsel was not reasonably available to be physically present for the notification on the 5th,” the spokeswoman said, adding that counsel was located in Virginia but did not provide a name.

The spokeswoman also said Hasan has not been kept from contacting and communicating with his counsel.

Hegseth said the military hasn’t executed a service member by firing squad since World War II. The last military execution took place on April 13, 1961, when Army Pvt. John Bennett was executed by hanging.

Amnesty International said in its report on executions in 2025 that it knew of at least 17 public executions — 11 in Iran and 6 in Afghanistan.

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press

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