What we know about Christa Pike’s botched execution

Recordings of the calls made to emergency services after the failed execution of Christa Pike reveal confusion and delays to her care, as her lawyers fight to get her off death row.

• The 50-year-old was given the death penalty for killing her 19-year-old classmate Colleen Slemmer in 1995.
• She was set to be the first woman executed in Tennesee for more than 200 years before the botched injection.

Pike’s lawyers are now arguing for her sentenced to be commuted to life without parole, arguing she cannot be subjected to the death penalty twice.

Help was delayed by half an hour

Ambulance workers were not cleared to enter Riverbend Prison in Tennessee until half an hour after the first call was made, recordings obtained by the reveal.

The initial call came at 8.40pm on 30 September, an hour after the two attempted lethal injections, and crews were let into the prison at 9.11pm.

The recording of the first call has not been released, but at 9.03pm, a dispatcher said it was a “false call” and there was “no medical assistance needed at Riverbend Prison”. At 9.07pm officials from the prison’s central control confirmed they “did not make” the initial call.

At the same time, a first responder said there was someone “outside the gate at the prison telling us that it’s real and demanding us to go in”, and asked for someone from the prison to come out to speak to them.

Pike taken to hospital

• Pike was taken to hospital at 9.34pm.
• She has now been discharged after 10 days.

Tom Cruise film Digger forecast to lose $245m at box office

With ticket sales slumping in the film’s third week in cinemas, is set to lose its studio, Warner Bros, hundreds of millions as it fails to recoup its $280 (£211m) production and marketing costs.

On course to be a historic flop

Tom Cruise’s satirical comedy, in which he stars as oil tycoon Digger Rockwell, has taken just $35m at the box office so far, with ticket sales dropping by 60 per cent this weekend.

It is on track to take $50m according to , which would make it one of only a handful of films to lose a nine-figure sum.

How bad is it?

• Critics say Cruise gives a poor performance and have labelled the film his “vanity project”.
• The secret twist is said to be too “meta” and the script not funny.

Women’s autoimmune conditions more likely to be misdiagnosed

Women are up to 75 per cent more likely to have an autoimmune condition misdiagnosed as psychosomatic than men, and face longer waits for treatment, according to new research.

A study of 6,607 patients found that

43%

of women reported their autoimmune symptoms had been misdiagnosed as psychiatric, compared to 33 per cent of men.

Women were overall 46 per cent more likely to receive a psychiatric misdiagnosis.

34%

of women received a psychosomatic (physical symptoms caused or worsened by psychological factors) misdiagnosis compared to 22 percent of men.

What is an autoimmune condition?

These occur when the body mistakenly attacks its own tissues, and many are more common in women. Diseases include multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis and lupus, and symptoms range from fatigue and low mood to pain and digestive issues.

Women reported a longer period between onset of these symptoms and diagnosis than men, with more appointments in between.

Women struggle to be believed, says researcher

Although labels such as hysteria are outdated, and fortunately rarely used nowadays, as women we still often have a harder time having our symptoms believed and therefore addressed accurately

Shaista Tayabali, co-author and patient partner at the University of Cambridge and University of East Anglia

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Breaking Bad actor RJ Mitte dies aged 34

The American actor was cast as Bryan Cranston’s on-screen disabled son when he was 14, and drew on his experience of living with cerebral palsy for the role.

His disability is rarely mentioned in the show, which ran from 2008 to 2013, with Walter ‘Flynn’ White Junior defying his father and cracking jokes at his expense. He won a Screen Actor’s Guild award for his performance in the role in 2014.

What did he do after ?

Mitte continued acting with roles in Talking to Strangers and Switched at Birth. He also created The Mitte Foundation, a charity to support community initiatives, and was an ambassador for United Cerebral Palsy.

He died on Monday at what is believed to be his home in Brownsville, Texas, aged 34. No cause of death has been determined.

I’m in deep despair as I write this tonight…That kid was still pretty raw when we started shooting the pilot in February 2007, but little by little we watched him grow into a real fine actor…All that promise and potential is now such a loss.

bryan cranston, Actor for Walter white in , on instagram

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Midwives win £750,000 over nitrous oxide exposure

More than 120 maternity staff at Basildon University Hospital have been awarded almost £750,000 after they were exposed to high levels of nitrous oxide, which is given to women during childbirth, at work.

How did midwives get exposed to the gas?

• Leaky pipes and poor ventilation caused exposure to the gas.
• Midwives reported fatigue, headaches, brain fog and anxiety.

The payout was awarded to staff who worked at the hospital between 2021 and 2023, after the Royal College of Midwives (RCM) took legal action against the hospital.

Roughly 80 members of the RCM received compensation along with around 60 others.

The union said the hospital knew about the leaks in 2021 but staff were not warned about the risks until October 2022.

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The UK towns at risk of running out of water this winter

Five successive heatwaves and the warmest summer on record have left millions of Britons living in drought conditions, which experts believe could remain in place for the foreseeable future unless there is a “significant amount of rainfall” this winter.

Which regions are in drought?

• Yorkshire became the latest area to fall into drought last Friday.
• All of central, southern and eastern England are already in drought.

Eight reservoirs ‘exceptionally low’

The i Paper understands the Environment Agency is concerned about the low levels at Wimbleball, Ardingly, Clatworthy, Colliford, Hanningfield and Abberton.

These are variously operated by South West Water, South East Water, Wessex Water and Essex and Suffolk Water.

England would need 120 per cent of typical rainfall over the next seven months just to be considered out of the drought status.

No bans have ended in the past month, with restrictions on water usage still in place in most of southern and eastern England, affecting almost 30 million people.

• Professor Liz Bentley, chief executive of the Royal Meteorological Society, said the bans would stay in place for the forseeable future unless there is a “significant amount of rainfall” soon.