State kills Dominick Occhicone, 80, and James Duckett, 68, as Ron DeSantis pushes executions before term ends

Florida on Tuesday became the first state in nearly a decade to carry out two executions in a single day, putting to death an 80-year-old man who was the second-oldest inmate known to receive a lethal injection in modern US history.

Hours earlier, the state executed a former police officer convicted of the killing of a young girl.

Three men were arrested for ‘repeated beatings with canes and paddles’ causing near-fatal injuries to two pledges

A US Secret Service agent and two others have been arrested after Florida state investigators uncovered evidence of “alleged hazing incidents involving prolonged and repeated beatings with canes and paddles” in Miami.

Investigators arrested Marquez Christopher Pinder, 29, on Sunday. Two other men – Jared Lamar James, 26, and Elijah Delano Dyous, 29 – were also arrested for allegedly helping to orchestrate the beatings, purportedly as part of a fraternity hazing ritual in April that left two people hospitalized with severe injuries.

Rights groups condemn secrecy surrounding killings and say hurry to execute raises chance of ‘torturous’ deaths

Florida is preparing on Tuesday to carry out the state’s first double execution within a single day since the start of the modern era of the US death penalty in 1976.

Barring last-minute legal intervention, James Duckett, 68, is scheduled to die by lethal injection at noon on Tuesday at Florida state prison near Starke. Six hours later, Dominick Occhicone, 80, faces the same fate.

Connor Read, who is married and has two children, was detained in June during residency permit interview

A British-born man who has lived in the US since he was nine years old has been held in an ICE detention facility for more than a month and a half under threat of deportation, it has been reported.

Connor Read, 29, was taken by ICE agents after he was invited to a green card (residency permit) interview in Tampa, Florida, on 3 June, and separated from his wife, Jaelin, 25, and his thre-year-old twin sons Ryder and Ozzie.

Juan Jairo Coronilla Durán ran into traffic and killed by semi after federal officials approached him at Florida gas station

The Mexican man who was hit and killed by a semi-truck in Florida when running away from federal immigration officials was vacationing in the US with a tourist visa, according to news reports this week.

The 28-year-old, Juan Jairo Coronilla Durán, was killed on 14 July after an “encounter” with federal officials, including those with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), a state highway patrol spokesperson said last week.

Storm warnings stretch from Florida to Louisiana as Bertha brings heavy rain, flooding risk and possible tornadoes

Tropical Storm Bertha strengthened in the Gulf of Mexico on Tuesday but was expected to weaken this week as it chugs closer to the US, potentially bringing coastal flooding and heavy rain from the Florida Panhandle to Louisiana.

Those areas along the northern Gulf coast were under a tropical storm warning through Wednesday and could see rain and flooding into Thursday morning, the Miami-based National Hurricane Center said. New Orleans also was under a tropical storm warning.

Bertha could bring heavy rain on US Gulf coast, with its center located 110 miles south of Panama City, Florida

Tropical Storm Bertha formed Monday evening in the Gulf of Mexico south of the Florida Panhandle as it drifts erratically toward populated coastal areas, bringing a threat of heavy rain, storm surge and damaging wind gusts.

Meanwhile, in the eastern Pacific Ocean, Hurricane Fausto formed far from Mexico’s Baja California peninsula and posed no threat to land Monday night.