6A ❚ TUESDAY, JULY 14, 2020 ❚ USA TODAY
Fire continues on USS Bonhomme Richard
Firefighters are still battling a blaze on the Navy’s USS Bonhomme Richard more
than 24 hours after flames were first reported. ORLANDO RAMIREZ/USA TODAY NETWORK
1st federal
execution
in 17 years
delayed
Judge issues new ruling
in ongoing legal battle
Kevin Johnson
USA TODAY
A judge in Washington ordered a
delay Monday of the first federal exe-
cution in 17 years, along with two other
executions scheduled this week, con-
cluding that the condemned inmates
had not exhausted their challenges to
the government’s execution protocols.
The decision came hours before
Daniel Lewis Lee was set to die by le-
thal injection at the federal prison
complex in Terre Haute, Indiana.
“Because the public is not served by
short-circuiting legitimate judicial
process, and is greatly served by at-
tempting to ensure that the most seri-
ous punishment is imposed in a man-
ner consistent with our Constitution,
the court finds that it is in the public
interest to issue a preliminary injunc-
tion,” U.S. District Judge Tanya Chut-
kan wrote.
“The public is not served
by short-circuiting legitimate
judicial process.”
U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan
In a decision ordering a delay of the executions
Friday, an Indiana federal judge
blocked Lee’s execution, citing the
threat posed by the resurgent corona-
virus.
U.S. District Judge Jane Magnus-
Stinson acted on a legal challenge
brought by family members of the vic-
tims who asserted that the pandemic
posed an unreasonable health risk to
them as prospective witnesses.
An appeals court reversed that de-
cision Sunday night, concluding that
the challenge “lacks any arguable legal
basis and is therefore frivolous.”
Lawyers for Earlene Peterson, 81,
and other family members not only
cited the health risks involving their
planned travel to Indiana but claimed
that federal prison officials could not
provide adequate assurances once
they arrived at the prison complex.
The family planned to attend Lee’s
execution, even though they are op-
posed to his death sentence for the
murders of William Mueller, his wife,
Nancy, and her daughter, Sarah Pow-
ell.
Peterson, Sarah’s grandmother,
said Lee’s co-defendant was the un-
questioned ringleader in the robbery-
murder in 1996 yet was sentenced to
life in prison.
The Arkansas judge who presided
at trial and the lead prosecutor in the
case also have expressed their opposi-
tion to Lee’s death sentence.
Two other inmates, Wesley Purkey
and Dustin Honken, were scheduled
for execution Wednesday and Friday,
respectively, at the federal Terre Haute
complex.
Visitors crowd a beach in Santa Monica, Calif., Sunday despite the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. MARCIO JOSE SANCHEZ/AP
Southern US scorched by
record-breaking heat wave
Doyle Rice
USA TODAY
Extreme, record-breaking heat will
bake a large portion of the southern
tier of the USA early this week.
After a sweltering weekend, heat
advisories and excessive heat warn-
ings remained in place Monday across
the southern USA all the way from
Southern California to the Florida Pan-
handle, and there was the potential for
more record high temperatures and
very dangerous heat indices, the Na-
tional Weather Service said.
Temperatures could come within a
few degrees of record highs set as far
back as the Dust Bowl era of the 1930s,
AccuWeather said.
“Excessively hot temperatures and
high humidity may cause heat ill-
nesses to occur,” the weather service
NY 18-year-old dies saving 2 friends at beach
Ryan W. Miller
USA TODAY
A New York high school graduate
was praised as a hero after he died off a
New Jersey beach saving two friends’
lives while swimming.
Jalan Alston, 18, went missing Fri-
day after he went in the water at Vent-
nor Beach to help his two friends who
were struggling, the U.S. Coast Guard
said in a statement.
Alston pushed the swimmers to-
ward the land but could not make it out
of the water himself, the Coast Guard
said. One of his friends called 911, and
soon Coast Guard personnel were
searching for the teen.
Alston’s body was found Saturday
57 firefighters injured in
blaze aboard Navy vessel
Tom Vanden Brook
USA TODAY
WASHINGTON – Firefighters, backed
by helicopters, were still battling the
blaze raging Monday aboard the Navy’s
USS Bonhomme Richard, more than 24
hours after flames were first reported at
its pier in San Diego.
The fire and efforts to contain it have
injured 57 firefighters, including 34 sail-
ors. Most of the injuries have been mi-
nor, including heat exhaustion and
smoke inhalation. Five personnel re-
main hospitalized in stable condition,
said Rear Adm. Philip Sobeck, com-
mander of Expeditionary Strike Group
3, at a briefing for reporters Monday.
Damage has been extensive, includ-
ing to the ship’s upper decks and super-
structure. The ship is listing, and sailors
are working to keep it stable, Sobeck
said.
The fire erupted well below the deck
and generated extreme heat, reaching
in New Orleans warned.
Dozens of record highs were set
across the Southwest on Sunday.
Sunday, Phoenix had its hottest day
since July 25, 2018, soaring to a record
116 degrees, weather.com said. The city
is threatening its record-long streak of
daily low temperatures that did not drop
out of the 90s.
Palm Springs, California, hit a record
high of 121, the weather service said.
California’s notorious hot spot, Death
Valley, soared to 128 degrees Sunday,
and its overnight low was a searing 100
degrees, according to the weather ser-
vice.
In the South, temperatures near 100
degrees and high humidity will make it
feel like it is 105 to 115 in some areas this
week, ABC News reported.
“When combined with higher humid-
ity levels, it could feel worse to some
after hours of searching, his family said.
The Coast Guard said the search along
with Ventnor City Police Department
spanned 58 square-miles
over 13 hours.
“Our deepest condo-
lences go out to the fam-
ily and friends of Jalan,”
said Capt. Jonathan
Theel, commander of
Coast Guard Sector Dela- Alston
ware Bay. “It’s always dif-
ficult to suspend a case, and it weighs
especially heavy on our hearts knowing
that he was helping others.”
Mark Alston, 23, told USA TODAY
that his brother was always “really car-
ing.”
“He would do things for you, so it’s
NEWS
1,000 degrees, Sobeck said. The top pri-
ority is preventing heat and flames from
reaching the ship’s fuel tanks, which
hold 1 million gallons of petroleum.
Plastic, rags, drywall and cardboard
stored in a vast hold have fueled the
flames.
Helicopters and tug boats are pour-
ing water on the ship to cool it and ex-
tinguish the fire.
“We’re still using helos to dump wa-
ter,” said Lt. Cdr. Nicole Schwegman, a
Navy spokeswoman.
It’s unclear how long it will take to
control the fire.
The cause of the fire aboard Bon-
homme Richard, an amphibious assault
vessel, is unknown, Sobeck said. The
ship was undergoing maintenance
when the fire began. All crew members
have been accounted for.
Sailors reported the fire at about 8:30
a.m. PDT Sunday. Firefighters from the
Navy, federal and local departments
have worked in shifts to deal with ex-
treme heat.
The Navy sent two destroyers, the
USS Fitzgerald and USS Russell, away
from their berths to avoid damage.
people when compared to that of the
Southwest, especially in heavily urban-
ized areas where there is little breeze
during the afternoon and early evening
hours,” AccuWeather meteorologist
Alex Sosnowski said.
This dangerous heat is the result of a
large ridge of high pressure that stretch-
es from the Desert Southwest to the
Deep South; the center is anchored over
the southern Rockies, according to
WeatherBug.
Southerly winds associated with this
system will pump very warm air north-
ward, resulting in the mercury climbing
to levels 5 to 20 degrees above normal
for this time of year, WeatherBug said.
According to weather.com, the dome
of high pressure responsible for the
Southwest heat wave will expand and
stretch east across much of the rest of
the country late this week.
not far out there that he did this,” Mark
Alston said.
Alston said his brother and the two
people he saved were all in the water
amid rough conditions from Tropical
Storm Fay. Jalan was close to the beach
and could have run to the land and
called for help but instead went deeper
into the water to save his friends, Mark
Alston said.
“He’s not here because he wanted to
save people,” Alston said.
Alston said his brother, who just
graduated from George Westinghouse
High School in Brooklyn, wanted to be-
come an engineer and planned to take
the civil service exam in the fall. A Go-
FundMe was started to help the family
cover funeral costs.