Pentagon sets December public execution for Fort Hood gunman

The Pentagon plans to carry out a public execution in December of Nidal Hasan, the former Army major convicted of killing 13 unarmed service members in the 2009 Fort Hood shooting in Texas. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the military would put Hasan to death by firing squad, and the Pentagon later said the execution would be livestreamed. Public executions in the United States largely disappeared nearly a century ago, with Kentucky banning them after the 1936 hanging of Rainey Bethea drew an estimated crowd of 20,000 in Owensboro. Capital punishment scholar Michael Radelet told the BBC he was shocked by the move, noting support for the death penalty has fallen in recent decades.