Death penalty opponents make one more plea to President Biden to spare life of Pittsburgh synagogue shooter

WASHINGTON— Death penalty opponents on Thursday launched a new effort to spare Pittsburgh synagogue shooter Robert Bowers and two others remaining on death row from being executed.

Death Penalty Action submitted a letter to the White House signed by almost 450 organizations, asking President Joe Biden to commute the sentences of the three federal inmates facing execution plus four others on military death row.

Biden on Monday granted clemency to 37 federal prisoners who were sentenced to death. That left just three people facing execution for federal crimes: Bowers; Dylann Roof— who killed nine worshippers at the Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, S.C., in 2015, and who, like Bowers, espoused white supremacist and bigoted rhetoric before carrying out a mass killing — and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, convicted for his role in the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing that killed three people.

"You said you granted clemency because you wanted to 'prevent the next administration from carrying out executions,'" the letter said. "This gives us hope. Unless you finish the job by granting clemency to the three men remaining on federal death row and extending your mercy to the four men on military death row, you will leave those seven men vulnerable to execution under Donald Trump's administration. This would seem counter to your intent."

—Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Marianne Williamson announces bid for DNC chair

NEW YORK— Failed presidential hopeful Marianne Williamson announced Thursday that she plans to run for chair of the Democratic National Committee.

Williamson, 72, is best known for her unconventional, long-shot presidential campaigns in 2020 and 2024, both of which ended with her dropping out early. Before that, she penned a series of self-help books and ran as an independent for a congressional seat in California.

“I feel that I can help transform the party, reinvent the party, because the politics of the past will not be enough to take on the politics of the present and the future,” Williamson said in a YouTube video posted Thursday.

The race for DNC chair was already crowded before Williamson threw her hat in the ring to potentially replace outgoing leader Jamie Harrison. Other candidates include ex- Maryland governor and presidential candidate Martin O’Malley, New York state Sen. James Skoufis, Minnesota Democratic Party Chair Ken Martin and Wisconsin Democratic Party Chair Ben Wikler.

—New York Daily News

Texas leads nation in population growth. Here’s what’s driving the gains

Texas gained more new people than any other state between July 2023 and July 2024, according to Census data.

Texas population jumped by 562,941 people. Florida saw the second highest numeric growth with 467,347 new people and California the third with 232,570.

Washington, D.C., and Florida both topped Texas percentage growth, with D.C.’s population increasing by 2.2% and Florida’s increasing by 2%. Texas saw a 1.8% increase in its population.

The latest estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau show that the nation’s population has topped 340 million people and is growing the fastest it has since 2001. The growth is primarily driven by net international migration, defined by the bureau as “any change of residence across U.S. borders.”

—Forth Worth Star-Telegram

Manmohan Singh, premier who unleashed Indian economy, dies at 92

Manmohan Singh, the Gandhi family confidant who freed India’s economy from Soviet-inspired controls and was one of the country’s longest serving prime ministers, has died. He was 92.

Singh was admitted to AIIMS Delhi hospital on Thursday in a critical condition, local media reported earlier. He was one of India’s “most distinguished leaders” and the country mourned his loss, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in a post on social media platform X.

Singh, a Sikh who studied economics at Oxford and Cambridge universities, is the only Indian to have served as central bank governor, finance minister and prime minister, the latter as the first from a religious minority. From 1991 to 1996, he scrapped quotas for state companies, abolished a complex system of permits and opened the door to foreign companies, cutting loose an economy that increased seven times in size in more than two decades to become Asia’s third-largest.

Born in what is now Pakistan, Singh, usually clad in his trademark sky-blue turban and white tunic, was respected for his simple lifestyle in a nation plagued by political scandals. For a decade, he ran the world’s largest democracy for Sonia Gandhi’s Indian National Congress party.

—Bloomberg News