Executions put on hold:

Plans by the state of Arkansas to execute eight prisoners in 11 days have been halted by a series of court rulings, including one by a federal judge who concluded that the proposed schedule violated the prisoners’ constitutional rights. No state has executed so many people in such a short space of time since the US restored the death penalty in 1976; the last execution in Arkansas was in 2005. Its rushed timetable – drawn up because the state’s supply of one of the drugs used in lethal injections is due to expire on 1 May – had provoked widespread condemnation from opponents of capital punishment. The court rulings saved one man, and granted reprieves to two others. The state is still planning to execute the other five, over eight days, starting this week.