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Activists Call on President Biden to End the Federal Death Penalty Before Leaving Office

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A conversation with Death Penalty Action Co-founder and Executive Director Abe Bonowitz. Now that Joe Biden is a lame duck president, activists are holding him accountable to make good on his promise to end the federal death penalty during his remaining six months as president. Biden’s election campaign in 2020 had pledged to end the federal death penalty and incentivize the remaining 27 states that still allow executions to do the same. While he made history as the first president in the United States to openly oppose the death penalty, there has been no movement to actually end federal executions during his nearly four years in office.

China | Kindergarten teacher executed for poisoning 25 students, killing 1

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A kindergarten teacher found to have poisoned 25 of her students, killing one, has been executed according to a court in central China Friday.

Wang Yun’s sentence was carried out Thursday according to a notice posted outside the No. 1 Intermediate Court in the city of Jiaozuo in the Henan province.

The 40-year-old was found guilty of lacing her student’s porridge with toxic sodium nitrite while working at the Mengmeng Pre-school Education on March 27, 2019.

The incident occurred after she had a disagreement with a colleague over "student management."

While the majority of the students recovered, one succumbed to the toxic poisoning after suffering from multiple-organ failure despite 10 months of treatment. 

Wang apparently also poisoned her husband with the same substance prior to the March 2019 event at the pre-school, though he too survived with mild injuries. 

The 40-year-old was said to be acting out of revenge in both poisoning cases according to the court notice. 

She was originally sentenced to nine months in prison for causing deliberate harm. Her sentence was later converted to the death penalty despite Wang’s appeal.

It is unclear how she was executed, though Wang was reportedly taken to an execution ground before her sentence was conducted. 

Most death sentences in China are reportedly carried with a bullet to the back of the head, though there have been some instances of lethal injection.

China is believed to carry out more death penalties than the rest of the world combined, though the exact number of state killings each year remains a government secret. 

Attacks in schools have become an increasing trend across China, largely carried out by individuals bearing a grudge on certain people or society, and are said to be "mentally disturbed" persons. 

Gun ownership is illegal in China and most of these attacks have been carried out with the use of knives, including on Monday when a man was arrested after he allegedly killed six people and injured one at a kindergarten in southeast China. 

It is unclear if any of the victims were students. 

Source: The Associated Press, Staff, July 14, 2023


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"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted."

— Oscar Wilde
Location: Jiaozuo, Henan, China
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