MOST VIOLENT: Alabama last night carried out the first execution in the US by nitrogen gas suffocation. Kenneth Smith, 58, one of three men who had been hired to kill the wife of a pastor in 1988, was pronounced dead at 8:25 pm in an execution chamber in Atmore, Alabama.

  In a lengthy final statement, Smith said, “Tonight, Alabama caused humanity to take a step backward.”

  Reporters who witnessed the execution said Smith was conscious for several minutes after the gas started to flow despite the claim by state lawyers that he would be out within seconds. The witnesses said Smith was pulling against the restraints. They said he began shaking and writhing for at least two minutes before he started breathing heavily and finally stopped.

  One reporter said, “This was the fifth execution that I’ve witnessed in Alabama, and I have never seen such a violent reaction to an execution.”

  Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall hailed the execution as “humane and effective.” 

ECON 101: The economy grew at a rate of 3.3 percent in the fourth quarter of 2023, what economists call a healthy rate while unemployment remains low, inflation is down, and the overall economy dodged a much feared recession.  

  Economists had once predicted that the Federal Reserve’s aggressive interest rate hikes would tip the economy into a hole. But wages are once again rising faster than prices even though much of the country is still in sticker shock at the grocery.

  Reflecting the good news, the S&P 500 hit another record high yesterday at 4839.81

ORANGE ALERT: Donald Trump testified briefly yesterday in his own defense at the E. Jean Carroll defamation trial. 

  Trump had called the former advice columnist “a liar” after she claimed he had raped her in a dressing room at the Bergdorf Goodman department store decades ago. A previous jury found that Trump had in fact sexually assaulted Carroll and awarded her $5 million. Now she’s suing for $10 million in damages.

  Asked by his lawyer Alina Habba whether he stood by his “liar” charge, Trump said, “100 percent, yes,” and that, “She said something I considered a false accusation.”

  The judge struck that second remark because Trump has been legally found to have committed the act. Habba then asked Trump whether he intended to hurt Carroll and he said, “I just wanted to defend myself, my family and, frankly, the presidency.”

THE PARENT TRAP:  The criminal trial began yesterday for Jennifer Crumbley, 45, whose 15 year-old-son killed four students and wounded seven others in a 2021 high school shooting. She faces four counts of involuntary manslaughter.

  Her son, Ethan, pleaded guilty and is spending life in prison.

  It’s a unique case in which prosecutors in Pontiac, Michigan are trying to hold the parents responsible for the actions of their son.  James Crumbley, 47, has also been charged and will be tried separately. 

  The defense has portrayed Mrs. Crumbley as a “hypervigilant” mother who was unaware of her son’s mental troubles until it was too late. The prosecution claims that despite warning signals of her son’s violent intentions, she failed to take “ordinary care,” which makes her criminally liable. 

  A week before the shooting, James Crumbley took his son to buy him a 9 millimeter handgun, and Mrs. Crumbley took him for target practice. The morning of November 30th, the day of the shooting, both parents were called to the school because Ethan had drawn violent images of a shooting on some class work. Against the suggestion of a school counselor, they did not take their son out of school to get immediate help. It turns out Ethan had taken his gun to school that day in his backpack. 

  Prosecutor Marc Keast said in opening statements, “Jennifer Crumbley didn’t pull the trigger that day, but she is responsible for those deaths.”

CHANNELING: The two-hour premier of Masters of the Air, the follow-on to the hit HBO World War II series Band of Brothers and The Pacific, streams tonight on Apple TV+. So much for the days when television had six channels.

  The new series by Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks chronicles the air war and it’s getting tepid reviews. The Washington Post says that despite spectacular scenes of aerial combat, the series “aims high and bombs.” 

THE OBIT PAGE: Bill Hayes, an actor and singer who appeared in 2,141 episodes of the daytime soap opera “Days of Our Lives” over five and a half decades, died earlier this month at his home in Studio City, California. He was 98.

  His character, Doug Williams, was a slippery con artist who had spent time in prison. 

  Less known — or maybe less remembered about Hayes — was that he had a hit single in 1955 with “The Ballad of Davy Crockett,” an anthem for the baby boomers.” 

  “Davy, Davy Crockett …. King of the wild frontier.”  

THE SPIN RACK: Peter Navarro, a former aide to Donald Trump who assisted in the plot to overturn the legitimate election of Joe Biden to the presidency, was sentenced to four months in prison for defying a subpoena to appear before the House January 6^th investigating committee. — Social media have been flooded with fake sexually explicit images of pop star Taylor Swift probably generated with artificial intelligence. One image posted on Twitter/X was viewed 47 million times before the account was shut down. 

BELOW THE FOLD: As public higher education is whipped into line with prevailing political sentiments in Florida, a sociology course will no longer count toward students’ graduation requirements at state universities. It will be replaced with a class officials say will teach “factual history” in a course called “Introductory Survey to 1877,” which will include a “historically accurate account of America’s founding, the horrors of slavery, the resulting Civil War, and the Reconstruction Era.”

  “Factual history” …. Is there any other kind?

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