MICHIGAN CITY, Ind. — An Indiana man convicted in the 1997 killings of his brother and three other men was set to receive a lethal injection by early Wednesday in the state’s first execution in 15 years, without any independent witness present under the state’s laws shielding information about the death penalty.

Joseph Corcoran, 49, has been on death row since 1999, the year he was convicted in the shootings of his brother, James Corcoran, 30; his sister’s fiancé, Robert Scott Turner, 32; and two other men: Timothy G. Bricker, 30, and Douglas A. Stillwell, 30.

Barring intervention by Gov. Eric Holcomb, Corcoran is scheduled to be executed before sunrise Wednesday at the Indiana State Prison in Michigan City.

Holcomb’s office did not immediately respond to an email sent late Tuesday by The Associated Press asking if he might commute Corcoran’s death sentence.

This undated photo provided by the Indiana Department of Corrections, shows Joseph Corcoran, who is scheduled to be executed before sunrise on Dec. 18, 2024.

AP/Indiana Department of Corrections

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AP/Indiana Department of Corrections

Holcomb said recently he would let the legal process play out before deciding whether to intervene. And late Tuesday, Corcoran’s options with the courts ended when the U.S. Supreme Court denied his attorneys’ request to halt his execution.

Last summer the governor announced the resumption of state executions after a yearslong hiatus marked by a scarcity of lethal injection drugs nationwide.

Indiana and Wyoming are the only two states that do not allow members of the media to witness state executions, according to a recent report by the Death Penalty Information Center.

Indiana has provided few details about the process. Prison officials only provided photos of the execution chamber, which resembles a sparse operating room with a gurney, bright fluorescent lighting and an adjacent viewing room.

Corcoran’s attorneys have fought the death penalty sentence for years, arguing he is severely mentally ill, which affects his ability to understand and make decisions. Corcoran exhausted his federal appeals in 2016, and this month his attorneys asked the Indiana Supreme Court to stop his execution but the request was denied.

Corcoran’s attorneys asked the U.S. District Court of Northern Indiana last week to stop his execution and hold a hearing to decide if it would be unconstitutional because Corcoran has a serious mental illness. The court declined to intervene Friday, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit did the same Tuesday.

Corcoran’s attorneys then asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review his case and issue an emergency order halting his execution, but the high court denied their request for a stay.

The sun sets behind Indiana State Prison on Tuesday, Dec. 17, 2024, in Michigan City, Ind., where, barring last-minute court action or intervention by Gov. Eric Holcomb, Joseph Corcoran, 49, convicted in the 1997 killings of his brother and three other people, is scheduled to be put to death by lethal injection before sunrise on Wednesday.

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Erin Hooley/AP

According to court records, before Corcoran shot the men in July 1997, he was stressed because his sister’s forthcoming marriage to Turner would necessitate moving out of the Fort Wayne home he shared with her and his brother.

Corcoran awoke to hear his brother and others downstairs talking about him, loaded his rifle and then shot all four, records show. While jailed, Corcoran reportedly bragged about fatally shooting his parents in 1992 in northern Indiana’s Steuben County. He was charged in their killings but acquitted.

Indiana’s last state execution was in 2009, when Matthew Wrinkles was put to death for killing his wife, her brother and sister-in-law in 1994.

Since that time 13 executions have been carried out in Indiana, but they were initiated and performed by federal officials in 2020 and 2021 at a federal prison in Terre Haute.

State officials have said they could not continue executions because a combination of drugs used in lethal injections had become unavailable.

For years there has been a shortage nationwide because pharmaceutical companies have refused to sell their products for that purpose. That has pushed states, including Indiana, to turn to compounding pharmacies, which manufacture drugs specifically for a client. Some use more accessible drugs such as the sedatives pentobarbital or midazolam — both of which, critics say, can cause intense pain.

Indiana planned to use pentobarbital to execute Corcoran and, like many states, is refusing to divulge the source of the drugs. When asked for details, the Indiana Department of Correction directed The Associated Press to a state law labeling the source of lethal injection drugs as confidential.

Religious groups, disability rights advocates and others have opposed his execution. About a dozen people, some holding candles, held a vigil late Tuesday to pray outside the prison, which is surrounded by barbed wire fences in a residential area about 60 miles (90 kilometers) east of Chicago.

“We can build a society without giving governmental authorities the right to execute their own citizens,” said Bishop Robert McClory of the Diocese of Gary, who led the prayers.

Other death penalty opponents also demonstrated outside the prison Tuesday night, some holding signs that read “Execution Is Not The Solution” and “Remember The Victims But Not With More Killing.”

“There is no need and no benefit from this execution. It’s all show,” said Abraham Borowitz, director of Death Penalty Action, his organization that protests every execution in the U.S.

Prison officials said in a brief statement Tuesday evening that Corcoran “requested Ben & Jerry’s ice cream for his last meal.”

Corcoran said farewell late Tuesday to relatives, including his wife, Tahina Corcoran, who told reporters outside the prison that they discussed their faith and their memories, including attending high school together. She reiterated her request for Indiana’s governor to commute her husband’s death sentence.

Tahina Corcoran said her husband is “very mentally ill” and she doesn’t think he fully grasps what is happening to him.

“He is in shock. He doesn’t understand,” she said.

One of Corcoran’s sisters, Kelly Ernst, who lost both a brother and her fiancé in the 1997 shootings, said she believes the death penalty should be abolished and executing her brother will not solve anything.

“I’m at a loss for words. I’m just really upset that they’re doing it close to Christmas,” she said. “My sister and I, our birthdays are in December. I mean, it just feels like it’s going to ruin Christmas for the rest of our lives.”

WASHINGTON — The United States should proceed cautiously as officials consider new natural gas export terminals, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said Tuesday, warning the incoming Trump administration that “unfettered exports” of liquefied natural gas, or LNG, could drive up domestic prices and increase planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions.

Granholm’s statement came as the Energy Department released a long-awaited study on the environmental and economic impacts of natural gas exports, which have grown exponentially in the past decade. The analysis found that U.S. LNG shipments drive up domestic wholesale prices and frequently displace renewable energy sources such as wind and solar power.

Increased LNG exports also would lead to higher global greenhouse gas emissions, even with use of newly developed equipment to capture and store carbon emissions, the report said.

“Unfettered exports of LNG would increase wholesale domestic natural gas prices by over 30%,” costing American households an additional $100 a year by 2050, Granholm said

“We have recently lived through the real-world ripple effects of increased energy prices domestically and globally since the (COVID-19) pandemic, she said, adding that an “export-induced price increase” would make it harder for some families to meet basic needs.

“Today’s publication reinforces that a business-as-usual approach (to LNG exports) is neither sustainable nor advisable,″ Granholm said.

The Energy Department report comes after the Biden administration paused approvals of new LNG projects in January to study the effects LNG exports have on the planet. Natural gas emits methane, a potent greenhouse gas, when burned, leaked or released.

The oil and gas industry, along with Republican allies in Congress, have decried the LNG pause as unnecessary and counter-productive, and President-elect Donald Trump has vowed to end the pause on his first day in office. The pause is on hold under a federal court order, but the Energy Department recently said it won’t decide on two major LNG export projects in Louisiana until the independent Federal Energy Regulatory Commission completes environmental reviews.

Trump’s transition team declined direct comment on the study, but said Trump “will make America energy dominant again” and protect U.S. energy jobs after four years of “war on American energy” under President Joe Biden.

“Voters re-elected President Trump by a resounding margin, giving him a mandate to implement the promises he made on the campaign trail, including lowering energy costs for consumers,” said spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt.

Still, the study could hinder Trump’s plans to immediately greenlight projects to export LNG. Trump said last week that anyone making a $1 billion investment in the United States “will receive fully expedited approvals and permits, including, but in no way limited to, all Environmental approvals.”

Environmentalists have said they will use the DOE analysis in lawsuits expected over any Trump administration approvals of LNG projects. Activists decry the multi-billion dollar export terminals as “climate bombs.”

LNG is especially energy intensive, since the gas must be retrieved through underground drilling, then piped to export terminals along the East and Gulf coasts. The gas is then “superchilled” into a liquid that is taken by tanker ships to import terminals in Europe and Asia, where it is then reheated into gas and distributed for business and family use.

The American Gas Association called the Biden administration’s pause a mistake that has resulted in uncertainty for the global market, investors and America’s allies around the world.

“This report is a clear and inexplicable attempt to justify their grave policy error,” said AGA president and CEO Karen Harbert. “America’s allies are suffering from the weaponization of natural gas and energy deprivation, and any limitations on supplying life essential energy is absolutely wrong-headed.”

Harbert said the industry group looks forward to working with the Trump administration “to rectify the glaring issues with this study during the public comment period,” which lasts until mid-February.

The DOE report came as an independent analysis found that increased LNG exports would support nearly half a million domestic jobs and contribute $1.3 trillion to U.S. gross domestic product through 2040. The study, released Tuesday by the research firm S&P Global, projects that U.S. LNG export capacity will double over the next five years, with little impact on domestic prices.

“The emergence of the U.S. LNG industry has placed the United States in the pole position with global demand for gas expected to grow through 2040, alongside the rapid growth of renewables,” said Daniel Yergin, the group’s vice chairman and a Pulitzer Prize-winning author.

U.S. LNG “remains a vital tool for countries looking to displace dirtier fuels” such as coal, said Charlie Riedl, executive director of the Center for LNG, a pro-industry group. U.S. gas shipments to Europe and Asia have soared since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

The LNG pause, announced by Biden as the 2024 election year began, aligned the Democratic administration with environmentalists who fear the huge increase in LNG exports in recent years is locking in potentially catastrophic planet-warming emissions at a time when Biden has pledged to cut U.S. climate pollution in half by 2030.

“While MAGA Republicans willfully deny the urgency of the climate crisis, condemning the American people to a dangerous future, my administration will not be complacent,″ Biden said in announcing the pause. His actions “heed the calls of young people and frontline communities who are using their voices to demand” climate action, Biden added.

Environmental groups hailed the DOE study, saying it found clear evidence of LNG’s climate, economic, national security and public health dangers.

“This study confirms that Donald Trump’s plans to supercharge LNG exports will come at the expense of consumers and the climate,” said Raena Garcia, senior energy campaigner at Friends of the Earth. She urged Biden and Granholm to reject all pending LNG projects as against the public interest.

“If Trump wants to drive up dangerous gas exports, he’s going to have to answer for causing more deadly storms, condemning the Rice’s whale to extinction and socking consumers with higher costs,” said Lauren Parker, an attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity, another environmental group.

Parker’s comment refers to an endangered whale species in the Gulf of Mexico. Environmentalists say offshore drilling for oil and gas threatens the species’ habitat.

A New York judge ruled that former President Donald Trump cannot claim presidential immunity to overturn his felony conviction.

The decision from Judge Juan Merchan marks a temporary setback for the president-elect, who is set to return to the White House in January, and has recently secured a few wins including the indefinite delay of his sentencing in the case.

A New York jury earlier this year found Trump guilty of 34 counts of falsify business records to conceal a $130,000 hush money payment to adult-film star Stormy Daniels, in order to influence the 2016 presidential contest.

Merchan, who presided over the trial earlier this year, still has to decide whether the trial should be dismissed due to Trump’s upcoming inauguration, as Trump’s lawyers have requested.

A Trump spokesperson criticized Merchan’s ruling, saying it violated the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision on presidential immunity.

Following his conviction in May, the Supreme Court ruled in a separate case that presidents have immunity for official acts they take in office.

“This lawless case should have never been brought, and the Constitution demands that it be immediately dismissed, as President Trump must be allowed to continue the Presidential Transition process, and execute the vital duties of the presidency, unobstructed by the remains of this, or any other, Witch Hunt,” said spokesman Steven Cheung in a statement.

Trump’s legal team had argued that various testimony in the hush-money case – such as that of former White House employees – and evidence – like statements made while Trump was president – violate the Supreme Court ruling that excludes official acts from prosecution.

But Merchan said the criminal charges stemmed from Trump’s “private acts” prior to him becoming president. And he argued Trump’s communications about the payments while he was in the White House did not touch on any official acts.

The decision that Trump does not have immunity in this New York state case comes after the U.S. Department of Justice signaled it would take steps to wind down two federal prosecutions against Donald Trump, focused on his alleged efforts to cling to power after the 2020 election and accusations he hoarded classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago resort. The DOJ has a longstanding policy against prosecuting a sitting president.

Trump became the first former or sitting U.S. president to be tried on criminal charges and convicted. Trump’s legal team received several wins this summer and fall when Merchan postponed Trump’s sentencing twice — the second time purposefully until after Election Day to avoid appearing politically motivated. Trump may be the first president to enter the White House as a convicted felon should his efforts to dismiss the case fail.

But prosecutors in the case argued that since Trump’s lawyers are seeking dismissal only due to the election results, invalidating the jury’s verdict could harm public confidence in the justice system. Still, they proposed staying proceedings until after Trump finishes his presidential term.

Merchan has yet to rule on the motion to dismiss.

Trump’s lawyers are likely to appeal Merchan’s Monday ruling, and have also sought to dismiss the case on other grounds.

There was a time in Vice President Harris’ campaign when it seemed like she had the youth vote all sewn up — a moment when it seemed like everyone was talking about coconut trees.

And on Tuesday, during a speech to young community leaders, Harris made a not-so-subtle reference to the initial youth excitement over her presidential bid.

“I ask you to remember the context in which you exist,” Harris said with a smile. “Yeah, I did that.”

It was a reference to a 2023 speech where Harris talked about something her mother used to say.

“My mother … would give us a hard time sometimes, and she would say to us, ‘I don’t know what’s wrong with you young people. You think you just fell out of a coconut tree?'” Harris said in that 2023 speech. “You exist in the context of all in which you live and what came before you.”

The line became a meme, and that meme became a digital rallying cry for Democrats who were eager for a younger face after souring on President Biden’s candidacy.

Harris embraced the meme. But not enough young voters embraced her campaign

The Harris campaign embraced the internet hype, noticeably altering their style online and becoming more active on youth-dominated platforms like TikTok.

But memes don’t vote, and as the campaign progressed, Harris fell short of where she needed to be with young voters in the polls.

The results of the election highlighted a sobering disconnect for Democrats. Harris championed issues important to young voters like gun violence prevention, reproductive rights and climate — and won among voters under 30 nationwide — but President-elect Donald Trump sizably cut into her margins.

While Biden won the youth vote by 24 points in 2020, Harris carried it by just 11 points and saw double-digit drops in several key swing states where she was counting on support.

Trump also courted young voters online and through interviews on podcasts popular with young men.

Vice President Harris leaves the stage at Prince George’s Community College, in Largo, Md.

AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin

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AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin

Here’s what Harris told young supporters in her speech

Harris made no mention of her performance with young voters in her speech on Tuesday. But she told her supporters they need to keep working.

“Many people have come up to me telling me they feel tired, maybe even resigned. Folks who have said to me that they’re not sure whether they have the strength, much less the desire to stay in the fight, but let me be very clear: no one can walk away.” Harris said. “We must stay in the fight.”

To some of the young organizers who were part of that initial internet frenzy around Harris’ candidacy, watching her reference the meme in her speech on Tuesday struck a chord.

“It’s sadly poetic how truly imperative acknowledging the context of which we exist will be as we figure out where we must go from here,” Democratic digital strategist Annie Wu Henry said in a statement.

“While the line was, yes, meme-ified and funny, it also brought so many people joy and enthusiasm. And those feelings can and must still exist,” she said.

Emma Mont, the vice president of the left-leaning social media account Organizer Memes, told NPR she was moved by Harris’ remarks.

“That’s the Kamala Harris I got excited for,” Mont said. “The version of her that’s self-aware and funny and encouraging. I’m sorry we don’t get to see four years of that person.”