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WEST TEXAS (AP) – Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin launched his fiancee Lauren Sanchez into space Monday with an all-female celebrity crew that included Katy Perry and Gayle King.

It was the latest wave in space tourism, where more of the rich and famous than ever before — or lucky and well-connected — can enter the zero-gravity realm traditionally dominated by professional astronauts.

The New Shepard rocket blasted off on the quick up-and-down trip from West Texas. The fringes of space beckoned some 65 miles (105 kilometers) up, promising a few precious minutes of weightlessness.

Sanchez, a helicopter pilot and former TV journalist, invited the others along for the 10-minute, fully automated flight, packing on the star power with singer-songwriter Perry and “CBS Mornings” co-host King.

Also sharing the ride were film producer Kerianne Flynn; Aisha Bowe, a former NASA engineer who started her own companies to promote science education; and Amanda Nguyen, a scientist who studied planets around other stars and now advocates for survivors of sexual violence.

Blue Origin declined to say how much the flight cost or who paid what. The trip came two months before Sanchez and Bezos marry in Venice.

It was the 11th human spaceflight for the Washington state-based company, founded by Bezos in 2000 after making a fortune with Amazon. Bezos strapped in for Blue Origin’s first space tourist flight in 2021 and accompanied the latest crew to the pad.

The celebrity launch was the nation’s first spaceflight where women filled each seat. The only other all-female crew in 64 years of human spaceflight was back in 1963. That’s when Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova launched by herself, becoming the first woman in space. Tereshkova spent three days off the planet.

Even after the latest launch, women represent barely 15% of the more than 700 people who have traveled into space. Sanchez said she deliberately chose women to launch with her, each of them eager to inspire both the young and old to dream big, and even commissioned special flight suits.

“It’s an important moment for the future of commercial space travel and for humanity in general and for women all around,” Perry told The Associated Press last week.

The launch brought out VIPs to West Texas including Oprah Winfrey, Kris Jenner and other members of the Kardashian family, and several women who previously have flown on private flights. Winfrey, a close friend of King, wiped away tears when the capsule reached space and the passengers were heard marveling at the moon and shouting with joy.

As the women were buckling up after a few minutes of weightlessness, Perry sang a few lines of “What a Wonderful World,” King said in a post-launch televised interview.

Bezos opened the capsule’s hatch minutes after touchdown, embracing Sanchez, the first one out. As they emerged, Perry and King kneeled and kissed the ground. “Oh my God, that was amazing,” said King, who considers herself an anxious airplane flyer.

This wasn’t the first Blue Origin launch with marquee names.

“Star Trek” actor William Shatner caught a lift to space with Blue Origin in 2021 at age 90, soon after Bezos’ inaugural trip. He was followed by former New York Giants defensive end and TV host Michael Strahan and Laura Shepard Churchley, the eldest daughter of Mercury astronaut Alan Shepard, for whom the rocket is named. Two aviation pioneers who missed out on space when they were younger — Wally Funk and Ed Dwight — also rocketed away at ages 82 and 90, respectively.

Most of Blue Origin’s passengers — 58 counting the latest launch — have been business or science types, TV hosts or YouTubers. Ticket prices are not disclosed.

The Russian Space Agency also has launched its share of space tourists, beginning with a California financier in 2001. Two decades later, a Russian actress filmed aboard the International Space Station.

Elon Musk’s SpaceX also sells multi-day trips to private customers. SpaceX’s first client to fly, billionaire tech entrepreneur Jared Isaacman already has launched twice and performed the first private spacewalk. He’s now set to become NASA’s next administrator if confirmed by the Senate.

Chinese-born bitcoin investor Chun Wang just returned from the first spaceflight to carry people over the north and south poles. Wang picked up the whole SpaceX tab for himself and three polar explorers for an undisclosed sum.

“In this exciting new era of commercial spaceflight, the dream of becoming an astronaut is no longer limited to a select few,” Wang said via X last week.

HOUSTON (AP) — Family, friends and the public are preparing to remember boxing legend, pastor and entrepreneur George Foreman during a memorial service in his hometown of Houston.

George Foreman IV, one of five sons of the boxing legend, along with Houston Mayor John Whitmire and former boxer Michael Moorer, who Foreman defeated in 1994 to become the oldest man at age 45 to win the heavyweight championship, are expected to speak at the service Monday.

The service will be hosted by Foreman’s family and the city of Houston at the Wortham Theater Center, a performing arts center that is home to the city’s ballet and opera companies.

“We’re going to celebrate the life of George Foreman, two-time heavyweight champion of the world and certainly the face of how great Houston is,” Whitmire said.

Foreman died on March 21 at age 76. Foreman’s family has not disclosed his cause of death, only saying on social media that he “peacefully departed … surrounded by loved ones.”

Born in Marshall, Texas, Foreman was raised in Houston’s Fifth Ward, one of the city’s historically Black neighborhoods.

He began his boxing career as an Olympic gold medalist in 1968, turning pro the next year.

Foreman became the heavyweight champion of the world when he beat Joe Frazier in 1973. But he lost the title the following year when Muhammad Ali beat Foreman in the famous “Rumble in the Jungle” fight in Zaire.

Foreman then gave up boxing and after a religious awakening, became an ordained minister in 1978. He began preaching in Houston, later founding The Church of the Lord Jesus Christ in 1980.

The middle-aged fighter returned to the ring after a 10-year absence and in 1994 pulled off one of the most spectacular knockouts in boxing history, flooring Moorer — 19 years his junior — with a surgical right hand to claim Moorer’s two heavyweight belts.

Foreman retired in 1997 with a 76-5 career record.

He then moved to the next chapter in his life as a businessman, pitchman and occasional actor.

He became known to a new generation as the face of the George Foreman Grill. The simple cooking machine sold more than 100 million units and brought him more wealth than boxing. A biographical movie based on his life was released in 2023.

Foreman had 12 children, including five sons who are all famously named George Edward Foreman.

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Follow Juan A. Lozano on X at juanlozano70.

McALLEN, Texas (AP) — Federal judges in New York and Texas ruled Friday that temporary restraining orders in place to stop the removal of Venezuelans from the U.S. would be expanded to protect more people in both states.

The rulings come in class-action lawsuits filed to stop the government from removing Venezuelans accused of being gang members under the Alien Enemies Act. The judges granted temporary restraining orders earlier this week that prevented the U.S. government from removing Venezuelans held at a detention facility in Raymondville, Texas, and those held within the federal jurisdiction of the Southern District of New York.

On Friday, Judge Fernando Rodriguez Jr. in Texas broadened his ruling to protect all Venezuelans detained in his judicial district, which includes the cities of Houston, Galveston, Laredo, McAllen, Brownsville, Corpus Christi and Victoria. Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein in the Manhattan federal court amended his initial order to include protection for “individuals subject to the Presidential Proclamation who are in state or local custody.”

The judicial activity happened after the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday ruled the administration can resume removals under the Alien Enemies Act, but detainees must be afforded some due process before they are flown away, including reasonable time to argue to a judge that they should not be removed.

Judge Rodriguez asked the government on Friday if it will be providing proper notice to affected Venezuelans facing removals as the Supreme Court had ordered. “We’re not prepared to say that we would be giving more than 24 hours notice,” Sarah Wilson, the lead attorney for the government, said and added that they are working to determine that.

“It would be proper to give 30 days notice as it was done in World War II,” Lee Gelernt, ACLU’s attorney, said. “Our concern is that the government has not said what the notice will look like.”

The lawsuits filed by the ACLU and ACLU of Texas tried to stop removals like those of more than 100 people who were sent to a notorious prison in El Salvador without letting them challenge their removals in court. The ACLU is also asking the court to rule whether it is lawful to use the Alien Enemies Law when the country is not at war.

Preliminary injunction hearings were scheduled in both states later this month.

U.S. measles cases topped 700 as of Friday, capping a week in which Indiana joined five others states with active outbreaks, Texas grew by another 60 cases and a third measles-related death was made public.

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. claimed in a televised Cabinet meeting Thursday that measles cases were plateauing nationally, but the virus continues to spread mostly in people who are unvaccinated and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention redeployed a team to West Texas.

The U.S. has more than double the number of measles cases it saw in all of 2024, and Texas is reporting the majority of them with 541.

Texas’ cases include two unvaccinated elementary school-aged children who died from measles-related illnesses near the epicenter of the outbreak in rural West Texas, which led Kennedy to visit the community Sunday. The third person who died was an adult in New Mexico who was not vaccinated.

Other states with active outbreaks — defined as three or more cases — include New Mexico, Indiana, Kansas, Ohio and Oklahoma.

The multistate outbreak confirms health experts’ fears that the virus will take hold in other U.S. communities with low vaccination rates and that the spread could stretch on for a year. The World Health Organization has said cases in Mexico are linked to the Texas outbreak.

Measles is caused by a highly contagious virus that’s airborne and spreads easily when an infected person breathes, sneezes or coughs. It is preventable through vaccines, and has been considered eliminated from the U.S. since 2000.

Here’s what else you need to know about measles in the U.S.
How many measles cases are there in Texas and New Mexico?

Texas’ outbreak began in late January. State health officials said Friday there were 36 new cases of measles since Tuesday, bringing the total to 541 across 22 counties — most of them in West Texas. A total of 56 Texans have been hospitalized throughout the outbreak.

Of the confirmed cases, state health officials estimated Friday that about 5% are actively infectious.

Sixty-five percent of Texas’ cases are in Gaines County, population 22,892, where the virus started spreading in a close-knit, undervaccinated Mennonite community. The county has logged 355 cases since late January — just over 1% of the county’s residents.

Last week’s death in Texas was an 8-year-old child, according to Kennedy. Health officials in Texas said the child did not have underlying health conditions and died of “what the child’s doctor described as measles pulmonary failure.” A child died of measles in Texas in late February — Kennedy said age 6.

New Mexico announced two new cases Friday, bringing the state’s total to 58. State health officials say the cases are linked to Texas’ outbreak based on genetic testing. Most are in Lea County, where two people have been hospitalized, two are in Eddy County and one is in Chaves County.

New Mexico reported its first measles-related death in an adult on March 6.
How many cases are there in Kansas?

Kansas has 32 cases in eight counties in the southwest part of the state, health officials announced Wednesday. Two of the counties, Finney and Ford, are new on the list and are major population centers in that part of the state. Haskell County has the most with eight cases, Stevens County has seven, Kiowa County has six, and the rest have five or fewer.

The state’s first reported case, identified in Stevens County on March 13, is linked to the Texas and New Mexico outbreaks based on genetic testing, a state health department spokesperson said. But health officials have not determined how the person was exposed.
How many cases are there in Oklahoma?

Cases in Oklahoma increased by two Friday to 12 total: nine confirmed and three probable cases. The first two probable cases were “associated” with the West Texas and New Mexico outbreaks, the state health department said.

A state health department spokesperson said measles exposures were confirmed in Tulsa and Rogers counties, but wouldn’t say which counties had cases.
How many cases are there in Ohio?

The Ohio Department of Health confirmed 20 measles cases in the state as of Thursday: 11 in Ashtabula County near Cleveland, seven in Knox County and one each in Allen and Holmes counties.

Ohio is not including nonresidents in its count, a state health department spokesperson told The Associated Press. The Knox County outbreak in east-central Ohio has infected a total 14 people, according to a news release from the county health department, but seven of them do not live in Ohio. In 2022, a measles outbreak in central Ohio sickened 85.

The outbreak in Ashtabula County started with an unvaccinated adult who had interacted with someone who had traveled internationally.
How many cases are there in Indiana?

Indiana confirmed six connected cases of measles in Allen County in the northeast part of the state — four are unvaccinated minors and two are adults whose vaccination status is unknown.

The cases have no known link to other outbreaks, the Allen County Department of Health said Wednesday. The first case was confirmed Monday.
Where else is measles showing up in the U.S.?

Measles cases also have been reported in Alaska, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Vermont, and Washington.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention defines an outbreak as three or more related cases. The agency counted seven clusters that qualified as outbreaks in 2025 as of Friday.

In the U.S., cases and outbreaks are frequently traced to someone who caught the disease abroad. It can then spread, especially in communities with low vaccination rates. In 2019, the U.S. saw 1,274 cases and almost lost its status of having eliminated measles. So far in 2025, the CDC’s count is 712.
Do you need an MMR booster?

The best way to avoid measles is to get the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine. The first shot is recommended for children between 12 and 15 months old and the second between 4 and 6 years old.

People at high risk for infection who got the shots many years ago may want to consider getting a booster if they live in an area with an outbreak, said Scott Weaver with the Global Virus Network, an international coalition. Those may include family members living with someone who has measles or those especially vulnerable to respiratory diseases because of underlying medical conditions.

Adults with “presumptive evidence of immunity” generally don’t need measles shots now, the CDC said. Criteria include written documentation of adequate vaccination earlier in life, lab confirmation of past infection or being born before 1957, when most people were likely to be infected naturally.

A doctor can order a lab test called an MMR titer to check your levels of measles antibodies, but experts don’t always recommend it and health insurance plans may not cover it.

Getting another MMR shot is harmless if there are concerns about waning immunity, the CDC says.

People who have documentation of receiving a live measles vaccine in the 1960s don’t need to be revaccinated, but people who were immunized before 1968 with an ineffective measles vaccine made from “killed” virus should be revaccinated with at least one dose, the agency said. That also includes people who don’t know which type they got.
What are the symptoms of measles?

Measles first infects the respiratory tract, then spreads throughout the body, causing a high fever, runny nose, cough, red, watery eyes and a rash.

The rash generally appears three to five days after the first symptoms, beginning as flat red spots on the face and then spreading downward to the neck, trunk, arms, legs and feet. When the rash appears, the fever may spike over 104 degrees Fahrenheit, according to the CDC.

Most kids will recover from measles, but infection can lead to dangerous complications such as pneumonia, blindness, brain swelling and death.
How can you treat measles?

There’s no specific treatment for measles, so doctors generally try to alleviate symptoms, prevent complications and keep patients comfortable.
Why do vaccination rates matter?

In communities with high vaccination rates — above 95% — diseases like measles have a harder time spreading through communities. This is called “herd immunity.”

But childhood vaccination rates have declined nationwide since the pandemic and more parents are claiming religious or personal conscience waivers to exempt their kids from required shots.

The U.S. saw a rise in measles cases in 2024, including an outbreak in Chicago that sickened more than 60.

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AP Science Writer Laura Ungar contributed to this report.

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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

President Donald Trump’s immigration agenda is playing out in numerous ways Friday, from hearings in key cases on the government’s power to deport people to the start of a registry required for all those who are in the country illegally.

And on Thursday, immigration developments came on multiple fronts as federal officials work on the president’s promise to carry out mass deportations and double down on his authority to do so. The Supreme Court ruled in the case of a mistakenly deported man, and the administration’s classification of thousands of living immigrants as dead came to light.

Here is a breakdown of some of what has happened so far and what is ahead.
Judge says Mahmoud Khalil, Columbia student arrested over Gaza protests, can be deported

An immigration judge in Louisiana decided Friday that Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil can be kicked out of the U.S. as a national security risk.

Immigration Judge Jamee E. Comans presided over a hearing over the legality of deporting the activist who participated in pro-Palestinian demonstrations.

The government’s contention that Khalil’s presence in the United States posed “potentially serious foreign policy consequences” was enough to satisfy requirements for his deportation, Comans said.

Lawyers for Khalil said Khalil will appeal to the Board of Immigration Appeals, and that lawyers can also pursue an asylum case on Khalil’s behalf. And a federal judge in New Jersey has temporarily barred Khalil’s deportation.

Khalil, a legal U.S. resident, was detained by federal immigration agents on March 8 in the lobby of his university-owned apartment, the first arrest under Trump’s promised crackdown on students who joined campus protests against the war in Gaza.
Judge orders daily updates on US plan to return man who was mistakenly deported

The Supreme Court on Thursday said the Trump administration must work to bring back a Maryland man mistakenly deported to a prison in El Salvador.

Kilmar Abrego Garcia is a Salvadoran citizen who had an immigration court order preventing his deportation to his native country over fears he would face persecution from local gangs. But Immigration and Customs Enforcement deported him anyway to El Salvador, where he’s been held in a notorious prison.

At a Friday hearing, U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis said it is “extremely troubling” that a government lawyer couldn’t explain what, if anything, the Trump administration has done to arrange for Abrego Garcia’s return. The U.S. attorneys told Xinis they haven’t had enough time to review the Supreme Court ruling and struggled to provide information about Abrego Garcia’s exact whereabouts.

“I’m not asking for state secrets,” Xinis said. “The government was prohibited from sending him to El Salvador, and now I’m asking a very simple question: Where is he?”

Xinis ordered daily updates on plans to bring Abrego Garcia back.
Judge refuses to block immigration enforcement at places of worship

Also Friday, a federal judge sided with the Trump administration in refusing to block immigration agents from conducting enforcement operations at houses of worship.

U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich found that there have been only a handful of such enforcement actions and that the plaintiffs — more than two dozen Christian and Jewish groups representing millions of Americans — hadn’t shown the kind of legal harm for a preliminary injunction.

The groups argued that the policy violated the right to practice religion. They said attendance has declined significantly since Trump took office.

But Friedrich said they didn’t show the drops were linked to the church policy.
‘I screamed’: Turkish student detained by ICE speaks out

A Tufts University doctoral student from Turkey said she was talking to her mother on her phone at the time she was detained by immigration enforcement officials.

Rumeysa Ozturk said in a document filed Thursday by her lawyers in federal court that she had just left her Massachusetts home on March 25 when she was surrounded by several men, and “I screamed.”

Ozturk, 30, has since been moved to a detention center in Louisiana. Her lawyers say detention violates her constitutional rights, including free speech and due process.

Ozturk is among several people with ties to American universities who attended demonstrations or publicly expressed support for Palestinians during the war in Gaza and who recently had visas revoked or have been stopped from entering the U.S.
Temporary reprieve for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans a
nd Venezuelans?

A federal judge said Thursday that she will prevent the Trump administration from ordering hundreds of thousands of Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans with temporary legal status to leave the country later this month.

More than 500,000 people came to the country under the Biden-era program. They were facing an April 24 deadline by which their work permits would be terminated, and they could be subject to deportation.

The program was launched as the Biden administration was generally trying to alleviate pressure on the southern border by creating new pathways for people to come to the U.S. and work, usually for two years on humanitarian parole.

The government is likely to appeal.
Temporary restraining orders to stop the removal of Venezuelans under the Alien Enemies Act broadened

Federal judges in New York and Texas ruled Friday that temporary restraining orders to stop the removal of Venezuelans from the U.S. would expand to protect more people in those states.

The rulings come in class-action lawsuits filed to halt the government from removing Venezuelans accused of being gang members under the Alien Enemies Act. The judges granted temporary restraining orders earlier this week that prevented the U.S. government from removing Venezuelans held at a detention facility in Raymondville, Texas, and those held within the federal jurisdiction of the Southern District of New York.

On Friday, Judge Fernando Rodriguez Jr. in Texas broadened his ruling to protect all Venezuelans detained in his judicial district, which includes the cities of Houston and Galveston, among others. Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein in the Manhattan federal court changed his order to include protection for “individuals subject to the Presidential Proclamation who are in state or local custody.”

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday ruled the administration can resume removals under the Alien Enemies Act, but detainees first must be afforded due process, including reasonable time to argue to a judge that they should not be removed.
The start of a registry for people in the country illegally

Friday marks the launch of a requirement for people who are in the country illegally to register with the federal government.

Homeland Security announced Feb. 25 that it was mandating all people in the U.S. illegally register with the federal government, and said those who didn’t self-report could face fines or prosecution. People will be required to carry registration documents with them.

Opponents sued to stop the registry from taking effect, saying the government should have gone through the more lengthy public notification process, and that it’s enforcing this simply to facilitate Trump’s aim of mass deportations.

On Thursday, a federal judge sided with the administration. Officials had argued they were simply enforcing a requirement that already existed for everyone who is in the country but isn’t an American citizen and have emphasized that going forward, the registration requirement would be enforced to the fullest.

The Trump administration has said between 2.2 million and 3.2 million people could be affected.
Classifying immigrants as dead?

In an effort to make more migrants voluntarily go home, the Trump administration is classifying more than 6,000 immigrants — who are alive — as dead. Officials are canceling the immigrants’ Social Security numbers and effectively wiping out their ability to work or receive benefits in the U.S. That is according to two people familiar with the situation who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the plans had not yet been publicly detailed.

The move will make it much harder for those affected to use banks or other basic services where Social Security numbers are required.

The officials said stripping Social Security numbers will cut the immigrants off from many financial services and encourage them to “self-deport.”

It wasn’t clear how the immigrants were chosen. But the Trump White House has targeted people in the country temporarily under Biden-era programs.

Earlier this week, the departments of Homeland Security and Treasury signed a deal allowing the IRS to share immigrants’ tax data with Immigration and Customs Enforcement to identify and deport people illegally in the U.S.

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Associated Press reporters Rebecca Santana, Jake Offenhartz, Will Weissert, Fatima Hussein, Mark Sherman, Michael Kunzelman, Lindsay Whitehurst and Michael Casey contributed.

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — A firing squad on Friday executed a South Carolina man who killed an off-duty police officer, the second time the rare execution method has been used by the state in the past five weeks.

Mikal Mahdi gave no final statement and did not look to his right toward the nine witnesses in the room behind bulletproof glass and bars once the curtain opened.

He took a few deep breaths during the 45 seconds between when the hood was put over his head and when the shots rang out, fired by three volunteers who are prison employees at a distance of about 15 feet (4.6 meters).

Mahdi, 42, cried out as the bullets hit him, and his arms flexed. A white target with the red bull’s-eye over his heart was pushed into the wound in his chest.

Mahdi groaned two more times about 45 seconds after that. His breaths continued for about 80 seconds before he appeared to take one final gasp.

A doctor checked him for a little over a minute, and he was declared dead at 6:05 p.m., less than four minutes after the shots were fired.
Firing squad executions resume

Mahdi’s execution came a little over a month after Brad Sigmon was put to death March 7, in the first U.S. firing squad death in 15 years and the fourth since 1976. The others all occurred in Utah.

The firing squad is an execution method with a long and violent history around the world. It has been used to punish mutinies and desertion in armies, as frontier justice in America’s Old West and as a tool of terror and political repression in the former Soviet Union and Nazi Germany.

But South Carolina lawmakers saw it as the quickest and most humane method, especially with the uncertainty in obtaining lethal injection drugs.

In a statement Mahdi’s attorney, assistant federal public defender David Weiss, called the execution a “horrifying act that belongs in the darkest chapters of history, not in a civilized society.”

Mahdi had the choice of dying by firing squad, lethal injection or the electric chair.

“Faced with barbaric and inhumane choices, Mikal Mahdi has chosen the lesser of three evils,” Weiss said. “Mikal chose the firing squad instead of being burned and mutilated in the electric chair, or suffering a lingering death on the lethal injection gurney.”

Mahdi is the fifth inmate executed by South Carolina in less than eight months as the state makes its way through prisoners who ran out of appeals during an unintended 13-year pause on executions in the state.

Mahdi’s is the 12th execution in the U.S. this year. Twenty-five prisoners in nine states were killed in all of 2024. Alabama and Louisiana have killed inmates by nitrogen gas. Florida, Oklahoma, Arizona and Texas have executed men by lethal injection, while South Carolina has used both the firing squad and lethal injection.

Mahdi’s last meal was ribeye steak cooked medium, mushroom risotto, broccoli, collard greens, cheesecake and sweet tea, prison officials said.
The crime

Mahdi admitted killing Orangeburg Public Safety officer James Myers in 2004, shooting him at least eight times before burning his body. Myers’ wife found him in the couple’s Calhoun County shed, which had been the backdrop to their wedding 15 months earlier.

Myers’ shed was a short distance through the woods from a gas station where Mahdi tried but failed to buy gas with a stolen credit card and left behind a vehicle he had carjacked in Columbia. Mahdi was arrested in Florida while driving Myers’ unmarked police pickup truck.

Mahdi also admitted to the killing three days earlier of Christopher Boggs, a Winston-Salem, North Carolina, convenience store clerk who was shot twice in the head as he checked Mahdi’s ID. Mahdi was sentenced to life in prison for that killing.
Final appeal

Mahdi’s final appeal was rejected this week by both the U.S. and South Carolina Supreme Courts. His lawyers said Mahdi’s original attorneys put on a shallow case trying to spare his life that did not call on relatives, teachers or others who knew him and ignored the impact of months spent in solitary confinement in prison as a teen.

The defense’s case to spare Mahdi’s life before a judge lasted only about 30 minutes. It “didn’t even span the length of a Law & Order episode, and was just as superficial,” Mahdi’s lawyers wrote.

Mahdi’s earliest memory was his father slamming his mother through a glass table and later lying to his son and saying his mother was dead. Mahdi’s father pulled him out of school in fifth grade when officials suggested he needed behavioral help, defense lawyers said.

Prosecutors said Mahdi constantly used brutality to solve his problems. As a death row prisoner, he stabbed a guard and hit another worker with a concrete block. Mahdi was caught three times with tools he could have used to escape, including a piece of sharpened metal that could be used as a knife, according to prison records.

“The nature of the man is violence,” prosecutors wrote.

Weiss, Mahdi’s attorney, said his client died in full view of a system “that failed him at every turn — from childhood to his final breath.”
Busy death chamber

Mahdi’s death is the end of a busy time in South Carolina’s death chamber. He is the fifth inmate killed since September after the state had not had any executions since 2011. No other inmates are out of appeals but several are close.

The state was able to restart executions after lawmakers allowed the firing squad and passed a bill allowing suppliers of the pentobarbital to remain secret, along with the exact procedures used to kill inmates and the names of prison employees on execution teams, including the firing squad shooters.

Along with Sigmon’s firing squad death last month, three other South Carolina prisoners have been executed via lethal injection since September.

The state now has 26 inmates on its death row. Just one man has been sentenced to death in the past decade.