LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders signed legislation Tuesday allowing executions using nitrogen gas, making Arkansas the fifth state to adopt a method that opponents say is unconstitutional.
The measure signed into law by the Republican governor has been promoted by supporters as a way to carry out executions for the first time in eight years. Arkansas currently has 25 people on death row.
Arkansas has not had an execution since 2017, when it put four people to death before a sedative used in its lethal injection protocol expired. The attorney general's office has said the state has been unable to purchase more lethal injection drugs because of manufacturers' opposition to their use in executions.
“As a state we have failed to keep our promises to the friends and family of victims to execute those sentenced to death under our laws,” Attorney General Tim Griffin said in a statement. “That ends now. Act 302 gives the state the tools needed to carry out these sentences and deliver justice.”
Under the nitrogen hypoxia execution method, an inmate is forced to breathe the gas and deprived of the oxygen needed to stay alive.
Opponents say the method increases suffering, citing accounts from witnesses to Alabama executions who said inmates gasped and shook during executions. State officials say those are involuntary movements associated with oxygen deprivation.
“The decision to use nitrogen suffocation as an execution method is a dangerous and regressive move that puts Arkansas out of step with national trends away from the death penalty,” Megan Bailey, a spokesperson for the American Civil Liberties of Arkansas, said in a statement.
Arkansas has expanded the secrecy surrounding its execution process in recent years, enacting laws shrouding the source of lethal injection drugs and other details. Critics worry that the state is not required to disclose the type or source of nitrogen gas it would use.
Alabama, the first state to use nitrogen gas, has carried out four executions using the method since it began last year. And on Tuesday, Louisiana staged its first, putting to death a man convicted of killing a woman in 1996.
Two other states — Mississippi and Oklahoma — have laws allowing the method but have not used it so far.
Arkansas' law takes effect 90 days after the Legislature adjourns, which will happen in April at the earliest.
The number of executions in the U.S. last year remained near historic lows, and they happened in a small number of states.
FILE - Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders attends the Annual Meeting of World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Wednesday, Jan. 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber, File)
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Wednesday that a vow by Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin not to attack energy infrastructure was “very much at odds with reality” following an overnight barrage of drone strikes across the country.
Zelenskyy said that he would speak with U.S. President Donald Trump later Wednesday and expected to hear more about the American leader's Tuesday phone call with Putin about a ceasefire and to discuss the next steps to be taken.
“Even last night, after Putin’s conversation with ... Trump, when Putin said that he was allegedly giving orders to stop strikes on Ukrainian energy, there were 150 drones launched overnight, including on energy facilities,” Zelenskyy said at a news conference in Helsinki with Finnish President Alexander Stubb.
Russia responded by saying it had halted its targeting of Ukraine's energy facilities and accused Kyiv of attacking equipment near one of its pipelines.
“Unfortunately, we see that for now there is no reciprocity on the part of the Kyiv regime," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.
Russian strikes on civilian areas followed Putin's refusal to back a full 30-day ceasefire during discussions with Trump, though he said he would immediately pause strikes against the power grid.
The White House described the call between Trump and Putin as the first step in a “movement to peace” that Washington hopes will include a maritime ceasefire in the Black Sea and eventually a full and lasting end to the fighting.
But there was no indication that Putin backed away from his conditions for a prospective peace deal, which are fiercely opposed by Kyiv.
The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank, said that Putin’s demands during the call with Trump would amount to “Ukrainian capitulation.”
“Putin is attempting to hold the temporary ceasefire proposal hostage in order to extract preemptive concessions ahead of formal negotiations to end the war,” the ISW said in an analysis of readouts from the calls.
Stubb called the discussions between Putin and Trump a step in the right direction, but Finland's president said that Russia needs to end its aggression.
“There are only two ways to respond to the proposal of the president of the United States: it’s a yes or a no — no buts, no conditions,” Stubb said. “Ukraine accepted a ceasefire without any forms of conditions. If Russia refuses to agree, we need to increase our efforts to strengthen Ukraine and ratchet up pressure on Russia to convince them to come to the negotiating table.”
White House national security adviser Mike Waltz said on social media that he and his Russian counterpart, Yuri Ushakov, agreed Wednesday that their teams would meet soon in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, "to focus on implementing and expanding the partial ceasefire President Trump secured from Russia.”
It was not immediately clear who was part of the delegations or if Ukrainian officials were also invited to take part in the Saudi Arabia talks.
Shortly after the lengthy phone call between Trump and Putin on Tuesday, air raid sirens sounded in Kyiv, followed by explosions as residents took shelter.
Despite efforts to repel the attack, several strikes hit civilian infrastructure, including two hospitals, a railway and more than 20 houses, Zelenskyy said. Russian drones were reported over Kyiv, Zhytomyr, Sumy, Chernihiv, Poltava, Kharkiv, Kirovohrad, Dnipropetrovsk, and Cherkasy regions.
The Russian Defense Ministry said its military had launched seven drones at power facilities related to the military-industrial complex in Ukraine’s southern Mykolaiv region, but that it shot them down after receiving Putin’s order to not hit energy infrastructure.
Moscow accused Ukraine of targeting its energy facility in the Krasnodar region bordering the Crimean Peninsula, which Russia annexed in 2014, several hours after the Putin and Trump talks. The ministry said that three drones targeted oil transfer equipment that feeds the Caspian Pipeline Consortium, causing a fire and leading one oil tank to lose pressure.
“It is absolutely clear that we are talking about yet another provocation deliberately concocted by the Kyiv regime, aimed at derailing the peace initiatives of the U.S. president,” the ministry said.
Russia said that its air defenses intercepted 57 Ukrainian drones over the Azov Sea and several Russian regions — the border provinces of Kursk and Bryansk and the nearby regions of Oryol and Tula.
Zelenskyy said that “words of a ceasefire” weren't enough.
“If the Russians don’t hit our facilities, we definitely won’t hit theirs,” Zelenskyy said.
Zelenskyy rejected Putin’s key condition that Western allies stop providing military aid and intelligence to Ukraine. He said that doing so would endanger lives if citizens were blind to incoming air raids, and lead to the continuation of the war.
“I don’t think anybody should make any concessions in terms of helping Ukraine, but rather, assistance to Ukraine should be increased," Zelenskyy said. "This will be a signal that Ukraine is ready for any surprises from the Russians.”
Nigel Gould-Davies, senior fellow for Russia and Eurasia at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, said that it was “completely unsurprising” that Putin rejected the ceasefire, adding that it’s “imprudent for him to tell President Trump that directly, since Trump has made ending the war a very, very high priority.”
“What we have now, in effect, is a competition or rivalry between Kyiv and Moscow to persuade Trump that it’s the other side that is responsible for preventing Trump from achieving his goal of ending the war,” Gould-Davies said.
Zelenskyy said that one of the most difficult issues in future negotiations would be the issue of territorial concessions.
“For us, the red line is the recognition of the Ukrainian temporarily occupied territories as Russian," he said. “We will not go for it.”
Follow the AP’s coverage of the war at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
In this photo taken from video distributed by Russian Defense Ministry Press Service on Thursday, March 13, 2025, a Russian soldier patrols an area in Sudzha, the Kursk region of Russia after it was taken over by Russian troops. (Russian Defense Ministry Press Service via AP)
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, second left in the gallery with Speaker of Parliament Jussi Halla-aho during his visit to the Parliament, in Helsinki, Finland, Wednesday, March 19, 2025. (Heikki Saukkomaa/Lehtikuva via AP)
Finnish Prime Minister Petteri Orpo, right, and visiting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy talk at the Prime Minister's official residence Kes'ranta in Helsinki, Finland, Wednesday, March 19, 2025. (Antti Aimo-Koivisto/Lehtikuva via AP)
Finland's Prime Minister Petteri Orpo, left and visiting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy stand on the balcony of the Prime Minister's official residence Kes'ranta in Helsinki, Finland, Wednesday, March 19, 2025. (Antti Aimo-Koivisto/Lehtikuva via AP)
Finland's President Alexander Stubb, right and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy gesture at the end of a joint press conference, at the Presidential Palace, in Helsinki, Finland, Wednesday, March 19, 2025. (Heikki Saukkomaa/Lehtikuva via AP)
In this photo taken from video distributed by Russian Defense Ministry Press Service on Thursday, March 13, 2025, Russian soldiers patrol an area in Sudzha, the Kursk region of Russia after it was taken over by Russian troops. (Russian Defense Ministry Press Service via AP)
This photo taken from video distributed by Russian Defense Ministry Press Service on Thursday, March 13, 2025, shows an area in Sudzha, the Kursk region of Russia after it was taken over by Russian troops. (Russian Defense Ministry Press Service via AP)
Finland's President Alexander Stubb, right, speaks as he and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy hold a joint press conference, at the Presidential Palace, in Helsinki, Finland, Wednesday, March 19, 2025. (Heikki Saukkomaa/Lehtikuva via AP)
In this photo taken from video distributed by Russian Defense Ministry Press Service on Wednesday, March 19, 2025, a Russian "Grad" self-propelled multiple rocket launcher fires towards Ukrainian positions in Ukraine. (Russian Defense Ministry Press Service via AP)
In this photo provided by the Ukrainian Emergency Service on Wednesday, March 19, 2025, firefighters' truck is parked on a site of a Russian attack in Krasnopillia, Sumy region, Ukraine. (Ukrainian Emergency Service via AP)
In this photo provided by the Ukrainian Emergency Service on Wednesday, March 19, 2025, flames of fire and smoke engulfed the building after a Russian attack in Krasnopillia, Sumy region, Ukraine. (Ukrainian Emergency Service via AP)
In this photo provided by the Ukrainian Emergency Service on Wednesday, March 19, 2025, firefighters work on a site of a Russian attack in Krasnopillia, Sumy region, Ukraine. (Ukrainian Emergency Service via AP)
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy speaks, during a joint press conference with Finland's President Alexander Stubb, at the Presidential Palace, in Helsinki, Finland, Wednesday, March 19, 2025. (Heikki Saukkomaa/Lehtikuva via AP)
