TIME is reporting that Tennessee is reviewing its lethal injection process after a botched execution attempt left 50-year-old Christa Pike in critical condition. It said Pike was receiving lifesaving care at a Nashville hospital Thursday after surviving two shots of the lethal drug pentobarbital, according to her attorneys, who spoke at a press conference. TIME said it is the first time in the modern era of the U.S. death penalty that a person received lethal injection drugs and survived, citing the nonpartisan Death Penalty Information Center. Robin Maher, the center's director, called it the worst failed attempt ever seen and unlike any other botched execution in the modern era. TIME said Pike's case has drawn scrutiny over the state's decision to proceed despite repeated warnings from her attorneys about its lethal injection protocol, which they said subjected her to chemical torture. Republican Gov. Bill Lee ordered an independent investigation late Wednesday and suspended executions in the state until the end of the year, the second such moratorium during his time in office.
TIME is reporting that the next generation of weight-loss drugs is moving closer to market. It said the field has advanced rapidly since medications that mimic GLP-1, a gut peptide hormone, arrived to treat weight issues and diabetes, but side effects that predominantly affect the GI system cause roughly 40% of people who start them to stop within a year. At the annual meeting of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes in Milan, researchers from the pharmaceutical companies behind the most popular weight-loss medications reported encouraging results from studies of a new group of injectable medications that may come with fewer side effects, TIME said. It said amylins are peptide hormones that work similarly to GLP-1s by curbing appetite signals in the brain and encouraging the stomach to empty, but target different cell receptors, making their effect complementary. Unlike incretins, amylins do not appear to cause as many severe side effects such as nausea, vomiting and stomach cramping, TIME said.
TIME is reporting that investigators are examining how a pilot allegedly attacked his captain and tried to seize control of a Flydubai flight to Tel Aviv on Sept. 30. It said the facts of what happened aboard flight 1073 from Dubai to Tel Aviv are not in dispute, but it remains unclear how it happened. TIME said the attacker had been with the airline for eight months, joining before the war in Iran began, and that questions remain over whether he was collaborating with Iran or was a self-radicalized lone wolf. It said experts note that pilots and crew typically pass through a crew member access point rather than standard passenger screening, a process based largely on trust. TIME said criminal history checks and security threat assessments are more rigorous, but psychological profiling is far less strict and largely operates on the honor system.
TIME also reported that the wealthiest 0.1% of Americans have seen their wealth double since the end of 2019, according to new Federal Reserve figures cited by The Wall Street Journal. It said they now hold 15% of the nation's wealth, or $28 trillion.