A convicted Virginia serial killer’s legal efforts to avoid execution on Thursday were rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court and a federal appeals court. Alfredo Prieto, a 49-year-old native of El Salvador, had been scheduled to be executed at 9 p.m. at the Greensville Correctional Center. Prieto was convicted in two 1988 Virginia murders and had been on death row in California.
By Jeff Mason PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) – President Barack Obama will call for a 7 percent rise in U.S. domestic and military spending in his budget that would end caps known as “sequestration,” the White House said on Thursday, setting up a new conflict with Republicans in Congress. The fiscal 2016 budget, which the administration plans to unveil on Monday, would fund a host of programs that Republicans are unlikely to support. It is the latest salvo by the Democratic president lobbed at a Congress controlled by the opposition party, and follows a defiant State of the Union address last week that critics said betrayed an unwillingness to seek compromise. Obama maintained that tone during remarks to congressional Democrats in Philadelphia, promising not to remain on the sidelines during the last two years of his presidency and urging lawmakers to be unapologetic about backing progressive policies.
(Reuters) – An American nurse who was exposed to Ebola while volunteering in Sierra Leone was released from the National Institutes of Health's Clinical Center in Maryland on Friday without showing signs of the disease, NIH said. “The patient has shown no clinical or laboratory evidence of Ebola infection and will complete 21 days of monitoring at a private residence in Virginia under the direction of the Virginia Department of Health,” NIH said in a statement. …
By Rodrigo Campos NEW YORK (Reuters) – The Republican takeover of the U.S. Senate on Tuesday could lead to new legislative measures that directly affect the energy sector and other slices of the equities market. Republican Senate candidates picked up formerly Democratic seats in Iowa, North Carolina, Montana, Colorado, West Virginia, South Dakota and Arkansas, more than the six gains needed for a majority in that chamber. …