Donald Trump has ordered the death by US army firing squad for convicted murderer Nidal Hasan, the first of its kind since 1945.
Chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell wrote on social media on Tuesday night that “Secretary of War Pete Hegseth has recommended — and President Donald J. Trump has approved — death by U.S. Army firing squad for convicted terrorist Nidal Malik Hasan the jihadist who opened fire on unarmed American soldiers at Fort Hood in 2009″.
“The Secretary of the Army will set the time and place of the execution. Judgement day for Hasan has finally come.”
The councils where parents could get potty training support
More parents in England are set to receive extra support with toilet training their children before they start primary school.
Here’s what we know.
Potty pilot progress
A pilot, trialled by City of York Council, saw potty-training advice sent to 1,700 families alongside school place offer letters in April, followed by a reduction in the number of children starting reception without being toilet trained compared to last year.
A survey of teachers by charity Kindred Squared, which funded the pilot, suggested around one in four children who started reception in 2025 were not toilet trained.
More about the scheme
Parent workshops and teacher training sessions were arranged to help with toilet training four-year-olds.
Community collaboration
There has been a 42 per cent decrease in the proportion of children starting school not toilet trained in York, the results from the pilot suggest.
‘Teachers losing a day a week’
Felicity Gillespie, chief executive of Kindred Squared, said parents and carers have been calling for “clear, concise, targeted advice” and that on average, teachers have been “losing the equivalent of a day a week of teaching time helping children who are not able to go to the toilet themselves”.
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More classroom time
I think the biggest impact for us has been that we don’t have to spend so much time changing children now.
Jo Mould, a teacher at Robert Wilkinson Primary Academy, one of 55 schools which took part in the pilot, said it allowed teachers to spend more time in the classroom.
Safeguarding measures mean it takes two members of staff to change a child’s nappy, which takes time away from other children.
Making a ‘real difference’
Toilet training can be one of the biggest milestones in a child’s early years, so it’s encouraging to see this pilot helping more children develop the confidence and independence they need before starting school. When children are supported to take these important steps early, it can make a real difference to how they settle in, make friends and start learning.
Paul Waugh, minister for early education
More to follow?
Some 20 councils in England are now looking at following the York pilot, including:
Mortgage rates hit three-year high – here’s what to do
Mortgage rates are at their highest since 2023, with just nine sub-5 per cent fixed deals available.
The average two-year rate has reached 5.98 per cent and the five-year rate 6 per cent – their highest levels since December and September 2023, respectively.
Iran war stokes inflation fears
The past month has seen major banks hike prices several times, as financial traders have begun to expect that inflation will stay higher for longer as a result of the US-Iran war. Barclays increased fixed rates on four occasions, while HSBC, Lloyds Bank, Nationwide, NatWest, Santander and TSB each made three rounds of increases.
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Vanishing act for fixed deals
1,494
There were 1,494 sub-5 per cent fixed deals at the start of September.
However, 1,385 of these have since vanished, according to Moneyfacts.
- Rachel Springall, finance expert at Moneyfactscompare.co.uk, said volatility has had a “brutal” impact on fixed mortgage rates.
- Nick Mendes, of John Charcol brokers, added that further increases “are likely while markets stay this unsettled”.
Huge impact on households
- Borrowers coming off fixed rates face a significant jump in payments.
- On a £250,000 mortgage with a 30-year repayment term, the difference between a five and six per cent rate is about £150 a month.
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If you have a mortgage expiring later this year…
- Compare a wide range of lenders and banks – don’t settle for the one you’re currently with.
- Consider speaking to a broker to help you, as these are professionals who often have access to deals you can’t find online directly.
- Most lenders will let you lock in a rate several months before yours ends, help you avoid going on to a standard variable rate.
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What to do if you’re buying…
Nationwide’s rate reservation tool lets you book a rate for up to 90 days.
Aaron Strutt, of Trinity Financial, said Nationwide’s rate reservation tool offers an exception to the general rule that if you’re buying a home, you need the seller to accept your offer before you can submit a full mortgage application.
Experts say it is still worth considering other lenders, though, to find your best fit.
New James Bond novel in the works from historian Dan Jones
Historian Dan Jones is set to pen a new James Bond novella as part of celebrations for the National Year of Reading.
The story was announced on 5 October, also known as James Bond Day as it was the date the first 007 film, Dr No, which premiered in 1962.
Out this year
Where and when?
The new story will see Bond in Sri Lanka, in 1954 as the British are leaving.
Paying homage
The story, titled will pay homage to Ian Fleming’s fourth Bond novel, , 70 years after it was first published.
Available soon
It will be published as a special edition via ianflemingshop.com on 3 December.
‘A pivotal moment in history’
Being asked to write a story is one of the greatest honours in contemporary fiction. I’m very excited to take to Ceylon at such a pivotal moment in world history – and thrilled that Ian Fleming Publications are trusting me to pay tribute to Diamonds Are Forever, which is one of the great books in the canon.
Dan Jones, historian and author
Fleming’s character lives on
Fleming wrote 12 Bond novels and two short-story collections between 1953 and his death in 1964. Numerous continuation authors have since added to the canon, most recently Charlie Higson with , released in September.
On the silver screen, there has been a long-running search for the next actor to play Bond since Daniel Craig’s departure.
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The five best history books of all time, according to Dan Jones
Dan Jones has spent much of his career bringing some of history’s most colourful characters and turbulent periods back to life. So, when Jones picks up a history book for pleasure, it has a high bar to clear.
The BBC has appointed Rachel Jupp, its former director of documentaries and long-form journalism, as the corporation’s new director of news and current affairs.
It comes nearly a year after the previous chief, Deborah Turness, resigned following the fallout over how BBC edited a speech by Donald Trump.
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Trump-Panorama controversy
The controversy that led to Turness’ resignation centred on a documentary about Trump’s role in the 6 January Capitol riot in 2021.
The documentary was accused of misleading viewers by splicing together parts of his speech delivered at different points. The row prompted a wider crisis over the BBC’s editorial standards.
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Jupp, whose new role starts this month, said she was “honoured” to “lead BBC News”. BBC director-general Matt Brittin described Jupp her as “an outstanding editorial leader”.
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Stepping in as redundancies loom
Sweeping cuts
Jupp will have responsibility for a team of 4,500 people and will be paid a salary of £400,000.
Sweeping cuts
It comes as the BBC continues to make sweeping jobs cuts.
Bid to save £500m
Between 1,800 and 2,000 jobs are set to be axed in an attempt to save £500m over two years amid “significant financial pressures”.
Hegseth retweeted the announcement with the one-word comment “Justice”.
There have only been a handful of firing squad executions in the US since capital punishment was reinstated in 1976. Death penalties from courts-martial are even more rare, and with no military execution at all since 1961, and none by firing squad since 1945.
It comes amid renewed controversy over the US death penalty after the botched execution by lethal injection of Christa Pike.
Terror at Fort Hood
In November 2009, Major Nidal Malik Hasan, an American-born Muslim of Palestinian descent, shredded his birth certificate, drove to Fort Hood army base wearing his fatigues and name tag, shouted “Allahu akbar” and opened fire with his laser-sighted handgun, leaving 13 dead and 32 wounded in one of the deadliest mass shootings at an American military base.
At a court-martial trial in 2013 he faced murder charges rather than terror charges, despite the fact he admitted being motivated by a jihad to kill soldiers and protect “my Muslim brothers” in Afghanistan. A US Senate report later called it the worst act of terrorism on American soil since 9/11.
Hasan later said he wished he had died in the attack and become a martyr. He told an army medical panel “if I died by lethal injection I would still be a martyr”.
Nevertheless, the jury unanimously sentenced him to death by lethal injection.
His legal avenues of appeal were exhausted last year when the Supreme Court rejected his petition.
A military death sentence must be personally approved by the president – approval that is rarely given. The military has not executed a service member since 1961, when Pvt. John Bennett was hanged after being convicted of the rape and attempted murder of an 11-year-old girl in Austria. Most death sentences are eventually commuted to life imprisonment.
The most recent US military execution by firing squad appears to be that of Dan Lee, a soldier convicted of murder and rape in the Philippines and executed on November 9, 1945.
In June it emerged that the army was preparing to carry out the executions of the military’s four death-row inmates, including Hasan, anticipating Trump’s approval.
The plan, dubbed “Operation Resolute Justice”, would reportedly see the condemned prisoners transferred for execution to Indiana.
Firing squad
There has not been a contemporary military firing squad execution, so the precise method is unclear. However there have been a handful of state-based executions.
In South Carolina the prisoner is strapped to a metal chair on top of a “catch basin”, as three anonymous people fire rifles from about 15 feet away, through a hole in a wall. All have live ammunition and aim for the heart.
In 2017 US Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, part of the court’s liberal wing, wrote a now-famous dissent arguing for firing squads instead of lethal injections after death penalties.
She said lethal injections amounted to “cruel and unusual punishment”, forbidden by the US Constitution, saying evidence of “horrifying deaths” showed “the method that appears most humane may turn out to be our most cruel experiment yet”.
Instead, she said “the available evidence suggests that a competently performed shooting may cause nearly instant death [and] may also be comparatively painless”.
However Austin Sarat, a legal professor at Amherst College who specialises in the death penalty, said the death of Brad Sigmon in South Carolina last year, which was the first firing squad execution in the US in nearly 15 years, was “part of a morbid search for ‘better’ execution methods amid concern over botched lethal injection attempts and a scarcity of the drugs needed to carry out such executions”.
Every execution method “has, at one time or other, been touted as humane only to be sidelined because its use was found to be gruesome and offensive”, he wrote for The Conversation.
“The history of the firing squad is marked by gruesome mistakes when marksmen missed their target,” he said. “In the 1951 execution of Eliseo Mares, for example, four executioners all shot into the wrong side of his chest, and he died slowly from blood loss.”
In 1877, Wallace Wilkerson was sentenced to death by firing squad after shooting a man to death during a heated game of cribbage. According to AP he was intoxicated and smoking a cigar, and moved slightly just before the firing squad shot. He slumped to the ground saying “My God, they’ve missed it!” and took 15 minutes to die.
Legal lifeline
Despite the presidential order, Hasan’s execution could still be prevented or delayed by legal action.
Ronald Gray, an American serial killer and rapist who worked as an army cook at Fort Bragg, is the military’s longest-serving death row inmate. He was sentenced to death by lethal injection by a military court in 1988. In 2008 then-president George W Bush approved Gray’s execution, however a federal judge granted a stay of execution to allow further appeals, the latest of which was rejected in 2018 when the US Supreme Court declined to hear the case.
Legal experts wrote earlier this year that, for Hasan, the presidential order may “seek habeas corpus through the Federal court system” challenging the legality of his imprisonment, and allowing him to attack his conviction based on alleged violations of their constitutional rights.
“This change in status to condemned prisoner may just be the beginning,” they wrote.
Death penalty backlash
The death penalty in the US is he subject of renewed controversy after Christa Pike, the first woman facing execution in Tennessee for two centuries, did not die after two doses of pentobarbital, and instead survives unconscious on a ventilator in hospital.
Polls show almost half of Americans oppose the death penalty and it is outlawed in 23 states. However last year 47 executions were successfully conducted, the highest annual total since 2009. So far this year 29 prisoners have been executed in six states.
Trump resumed the federal death penalty after an informal moratorium during previous administrations. The federal government executed 13 people between 2020 and early 2021, AP reported, contributing to making Trump the most prolific execution president in over 130 years.