
Gunman who killed 23 at El Paso Walmart offered plea deal to avoid death penalty
CBSN
The gunman who killed 23 people in a racist attack targeting Hispanic shoppers at a Walmart near the U.S.-Mexico border in 2019 would avoid the death penalty under a plea offer announced Tuesday, abruptly ending years of efforts by prosecutors to see that he face execution by lethal injection.
El Paso County District Attorney James Montoya said his decision in the prosecution of Patrick Crusius for one of the deadliest mass shootings in U.S. history was driven by victims' families who wanted the case behind them.
"I could see a worst-case scenario where this would not go to trial until 2028 if we continued to seek the death penalty," he said.

The entire staff of the federal government's Office of Infectious Disease and HIV/AIDS Policy is expected to be laid off, multiple federal health officials told CBS News Friday. The moves are part of a broader restructuring plan ordered by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. that involves cutting 20,000 HHS positions.

Pabrade, Lithuania — Lithuania's president said Friday that he hoped for "a miracle" as he visited the site of a rescue operation to recover four missing U.S. Army soldiers from their submerged vehicle. The four soldiers, assigned to the Army's 1st Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division, went missing early Tuesday morning during a maintenance mission to recover another U.S. Army vehicle in the Pabrade training area, near Lithuania's border with Belarus, during a scheduled training missing, the Army has said.