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In this Friday, Aug. 14, 1936 file picture, a large crowd watches as attendants adjust a black hood over Rainey Bethea's head just before his public hanging in Owensboro, Ky. Bethea, a 22-year-old black man convicted of raping a 70-year-old white woman, was the last person killed in a public execution in the United States. America's executions have changed dramatically over the years, morphing from day-long events in the town square to somber and tightly controlled affairs held deep inside prisons. (AP File Photo)

From town squares to prison walls: A history of public executions in America

The Pentagon's plan to livestream the Dec. 3 firing-squad execution of Fort Hood shooter Nidal Malik Hasan revives a spectacle the country largely abandoned in the 1930s. From Jamestown in 1608 to a Kentucky riverfront in 1936, hangings drew crowds of thousands before states moved them behind prison walls.

October 9, 2026
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth speaks before President Donald Trump at an event for Anduril Industries, Inc., at Sparrows Point Shipyard, Tuesday, Oct. 6, 2026, in Sparrows Point, Md. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)

Celebrities, lawmakers decry Pentagon plan to livestream execution

Hegseth's plan to livestream the firing squad execution of Fort Hood gunman Nidal Hasan has drawn condemnation from actors, authors, journalists and lawmakers in both parties. Many of them said they support the death penalty but oppose turning it into a public broadcast.

October 9, 2026
This 2006 colorized scanning electron micrograph image made available by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows the O157:H7 strain of the E. coli bacteria. New research suggests that a worrying number of people in China are infected with bacteria resistant to an antibiotic used as a last resort. Researchers examined more than 17,000 samples from patients with infections of common bacteria found in the gut, in two hospitals in China’s Zhejiang and Guangdong provinces, over eight years. About 1 percent of those samples were resistant to colistin, often considered the last option in antibiotics. The study was published Friday, Jan. 27, 2017 in the journal, Lancet. (Janice Carr/CDC via AP)

Extensively drug-resistant Shigella climbs in U.S., CDC report finds

Extensively drug-resistant strains of Shigella, a gut bacterium long associated with day care outbreaks and travelers' illness, made up 8.5% of U.S. samples with resistance data in 2023, up from none during 2011 through 2015. Doctors and researchers in the U.S. and Britain say sexual contact among gay and bisexual men is helping drive the spread.

October 9, 2026