QUICK HITS

Man executed for the 1996 killing of dance student: A man convicted of the 1996 killing of a University of Oklahoma dance student has been executed. Fortyfour-year-old Anthony Sanchez was pronounced dead following a lethal injection Thursday. Sanchez was convicted in 2006 of raping and killing 21-year-old Juli Busken. The Benton, Arkansas, native was abducted Dec. 20, 1996, from the parking lot of her Norman apartment complex.

Bank of England keeps rates steady: The Bank of England left interest rates unchanged Thursday, the first time in nearly two years it opted to not raise rates during a long-running battle against stubbornly high inflation. The decision came a day after data showed inflation in Britain had unexpectedly slowed. Policymakers at the central bank kept interest rates at 5.25%, the highest since early 2008, pausing after 14 consecutive rate increases. But it was a close-run decision; just five of the bank’s nine rate-setters voted to hold rates.

Auto strikes are expected to expand today: The United Auto Workers and the Detroit’s Big Three automakers spent Thursday in negotiations as union leaders warned that an ongoing labor strike could spread to new facilities as soon as midday today. An expanded work stoppage over wages and benefits for some 150,000 autoworkers could exacerbate disruptions to an industry that makes up about 3% of the nation’s gross domestic product.

Bus carrying high school students to band camp crashes: One person is dead and dozens more hurt after a charter bus carrying high school students to a band camp hurtled off a New York highway and down an embankment. The wreck happened on Interstate 84 in the town of Wawayanda. Officials say 43 people were taken to hospitals. The bus was one of six in a caravan carrying students from Farmingdale High School on Long Island to Pennsylvania.

Singer-songwriter says he lost ability to walk from GuillainBarré syndrome: Sufjan Stevens, an indie-rock singersongwriter, said in a statement on his website Wednesday he was in recovery from a rare neurological condition called Guillain-barré syndrome that had taken away his ability to walk, saying he had been hospitalized for several weeks but was expected to recover.