■ United States
Stores trashed in hate crime
A liquor store in Oakland, California, was heavily damaged by an apparent arson fire, just days after it was trashed by well-dressed black men who told the owners to stop selling to black people, authorities said. Police refused to say whether they believed the blaze at New York Market was connected to vandalism last week at the store and another one nearby. Investigators were looking into the incidents as hate crimes because the stores' owners are of Middle Eastern descent and are Muslims, deputy police chief Howard Jordan said.
■ United States
Killer executed after delays
Eric Nance of Arkansas, convicted of murdering 18-year-old Julie Heath in 1993, was executed on Monday, but only after US Supreme Court Associate Justice Clarence Thomas delayed the lethal injection three times to consider last-minute appeals. After dismissing arguments by defense attorneys that Nance, 45, was mentally handicapped and thus ineligible for capital punishment and that DNA analysis could prove him innocent, Thomas allowed the execution to proceed almost 90 minutes after it was scheduled. Vance declined to make a final statement at a state prison in Arkansas.
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