OSCAR SMITH

Newly released records show at two least two people connected to a planned Tennessee execution that was abruptly put on hold April 21 knew the night before that the lethal injection drugs the state planned to use hadn’t undergone certain required testing.

Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee is pausing executions for the rest of the year after the state failed to ensure that its lethal injection drugs were properly tested.

Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee is declining to provide any new information surrounding why they had to call off the state’s first execution since the pandemic began.

The governor said the execution will not move forward Thursday night.

The governor said the execution will not move forward Thursday night.

Tennessee’s governor has called off what was to have been the state’s first execution since the start of the pandemic.

Tennessee is set to execute its first inmate since the start of the pandemic.

Republican Gov. Bill Lee declined a request for clemency from Smith's attorneys.

The Tennessee Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear the appeal of an inmate facing execution this week who sought to have his case reopened after an unknown person’s DNA was found on one of the murder weapons. The one-sentence order comes as the state prepares to kill Oscar Smith, 72, by lethal injection on Thursday. The court also denied his request to vacate his execution date.

A Tennessee court on Monday declined to reopen the case of an inmate set to be executed later this month for the 1989 killings of his estranged wife and her two sons. Inmate Oscar Smith had filed the motion to reopen last week, saying DNA from an unknown person was detected on one of the murder weapons.

A man and woman from Detroit are accused of murdering a woman they knew and leaving her body in the woods, officials said.

Here’s what’s happening Wednesday with the pandemic in the U.S.:THREE THINGS TO KNOW TODAY— Some of the nation’s governors are growing impatient for hospitals and other health care organizations to vaccine their front-line workers. New York’s governor is threatening to fine hospitals that don’t use their allotment of COVID-19 vaccine fast enough. His counterpart in South Carolina says hospitals and health care workers have until Jan. 15 to get a shot or move to the back of the line. Since the pandemic began, the 400-member House has met indoors in an ice arena and outside on an athletic field. ___Find AP’s full coverage of the coronavirus pandemic at https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-pandemic