The Brief

Tennessee officials were unable to execute Christa Pike by lethal injection on Wednesday after administering two doses of the lethal drug; a witness said she was "clearly very alive" afterward. She was taken by ambulance to a hospital, where her lawyer said she remains in critical condition. Her attorneys, who say they had warned the execution could be botched in exactly this way, called the attempt "torturous" and "predictable," and have asked that her death sentence be commuted.

Gov. Bill Lee halted the state's remaining scheduled executions for the year after the attempt — the second failed execution in Tennessee this year, intensifying scrutiny of the state's lethal injection protocols. Pike, convicted in 1996 for a 1995 murder she committed at 18, had her execution halted by a federal appeals court days earlier over claims her allegations of childhood abuse weren't fully considered at sentencing, before the Supreme Court cleared the way for the execution to proceed.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth used a 'State of the Force' address to troops to confirm the Pentagon will cut roughly 20% of the military's generals and admirals, part of what he described as a broader cultural shift in the armed forces. He leaned heavily into culture-war themes during the speech, which came the same day the U.S. completed its troop withdrawal from Iraq.

Roughly 20 admirals and generals have already resigned or been fired since Hegseth took over the Defense Department, according to BBC reporting. Beyond the personnel and culture changes, Hegseth is also accelerating the military's adoption of autonomous weapons and other emerging technologies.

A woman identified as Jane Doe alleges she was gang-raped by seven members of a Cornell University fraternity in 2024 and accuses the university of failing to protect her. Her attorney says she told Cornell campus police in 2024 that she was certain she had been raped — contradicting local prosecutors' characterization of her statement — and that Tompkins County District Attorney Matthew Van Houten's office never saw a transcript of that interview before deciding not to bring charges. New documents reviewed by CBS News show she told investigators she felt "like bait" the night of the alleged assault.

Doe's lawyer also says she told a university doctor she had contracted an infection "in a traumatic way" but that the school's health care system failed to follow up, according to the New York Times. Cornell has since agreed to hire outside counsel for an independent investigation, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said, as the case draws scrutiny to New York's sexual assault law, which treats intoxicated victims differently depending on whether they willingly consumed alcohol or drugs.

The Supreme Court agreed to hear a case, Rhoney v. Barbosa da Cunha, over whether the Trump administration can continue to detain tens of thousands of immigrants without giving them access to bond hearings while their immigration cases proceed.

A federal judge in Washington permanently dismissed criminal charges accusing former Olympic canoeist David Hearn of vandalizing the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, ruling that prosecutors cannot refile the case. Prosecutors had already moved in August to drop the charges after determining the damage was actually caused by a contractor's botched installation work.

The judge cited "exceptional circumstances" in blocking the government from reviving the case despite pressure from President Trump to do so, saying Trump might have targeted Hearn because he was politically active and had donated to Democrats.

The family of Renee Good, a 37-year-old woman fatally shot in January by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer in south Minneapolis, has filed two civil lawsuits against the federal government and Trump administration officials. Good was shot Jan. 7 as protests against immigration raids flared across the city.

Lawyers for Good's family allege recklessness and civil rights violations, saying federal officials created "an unprecedented environment for state-sponsored violence" in Minneapolis. Good's partner spoke publicly for the first time since her death as the suits were announced.