Louisiana used nitrogen gas to put a man to death Tuesday evening for a killing decades ago, marking the first time the state has used the method as it resumed executions after a 15-year hiatus.

Jessie Hoffman Jr., 46, was pronounced dead at 6:50 p.m. at the Louisiana State Penitentiary, authorities said, adding the nitrogen gas had flowed for 19 minutes during what one official characterized as a “flawless” execution.

It was the fifth time nitrogen gas was used in the U.S. after four executions by the same method — all in Alabama.

Hoffman was convicted of the murder of Mary “Molly” Elliott, a 28-year-old advertising executive in New Orleans. At the time of the crime, Hoffman was 18.

After court battles earlier this month, attorneys for Hoffman had turned to the Supreme Court in last-ditch hopes of halting the execution.

Hoffman’s lawyers had unsuccessfully argued that the nitrogen gas procedure — which deprives a person of oxygen — violates the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. The man’s lawyers, in a last-ditch appeal, also argued the method would infringe on Hoffman’s freedom to practice religion, specifically his Buddhist breathing and meditation in the moments leading up to death.

Louisiana officials maintained the method is painless. They also said it was past time for the state to deliver justice as promised to victims’ families after a decade and a half hiatus — brought on partly by an inability to secure lethal injection drugs.

The Supreme Court voted 5-4 in declining to step in.

Judges void Ohio transgender care ban

Ohio’s ban on gender-affirming care for minors is unconstitutional and must be permanently blocked from being enforced, a three-judge panel of appellate judges ruled Tuesday. The law also banned trans women and girls from participating in female sports.

The state attorney general vowed an immediate appeal.

The 10th District Court of Appeals reversed the decision last summer to allow the law to go into effect, finding it “reasonably limits parents’ rights.” The law bans counseling, gender-affirming surgery and hormone therapy for minors, unless they are already receiving such therapies and a doctor deems it risky to stop.

The litigation was filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU of Ohio and the global law firm Goodwin, who argued the law not only denies health care to transgender children and teens, but specifically discriminates against them accessing it.

The court agreed and cited a number of flaws in the lower court’s reasoning.

U.S. births rise slightly in 2024, still off pace

U.S. births rose slightly last year, but experts don’t see it as evidence of reversing a long-term decline. A little over 3.6 million births were reported for 2024. That’s 22,250 more than the final tally of 2023 U.S. births, which was released Tuesday.

The 2024 total is likely to grow at least a little when the numbers are finalized, but another set of preliminary data shows overall birth rates rose only for one group of people: Hispanic women.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released the data. The average age of mothers at first birth has continued to rise, hitting 271/2 years. It was 211/2 in the early 1970s.

Pope details recovery, new outlook in letter

Pope Francis said in a letter published Tuesday that his lengthy illness has helped make “more lucid” to him the absurdity of war, as his top deputy shot down any suggestion of resignation and Buckingham Palace announced plans for an upcoming audience with Britain’s King Charles III.

Italian daily Corriere della Sera published a letter to the editor from Francis, signed and dated March 14 from Rome’s Gemelli hospital where the 88-year-old pontiff has been treated since Feb. 14 for a complex lung infection and double pneumonia.

In it, Francis renewed his call for diplomacy and international organizations to find a “new vitality and credibility.” And he said that his own illness had also helped make some things clearer to him, including the “absurdity of war.”

“Human fragility has the power to make us more lucid about what endures and what passes, what brings life and what kills,” he wrote.

Responding to a letter from the newspaper’s editor-in-chief, Luciano Fontana, Francis also urged him and all those in the media to “feel the full importance of words.”

FBI lauds Mexico’s arrest of gang leader

FBI Director Kash Patel applauded Mexican authorities Tuesday for the arrest and handover of one of the FBI’s “Ten Most Wanted” suspects, an alleged gang leader from El Salvador.

Francisco Javier Román Bardales is allegedly a senior leader of the Mara Salvatrucha or MS-13 gang. He was arrested Monday in the mountains of the Gulf coast state of Veracruz by soldiers and federal agents.

“This is a major victory both for our law enforcement partners and for a safer America,” Patel wrote.

Mexico’s security chief Omar García Harfuch also applauded the arrest Monday, which his agency said was the result of international cooperation. The agency referred to his handover as a deportation to the United States.

Román Bardales faces charges related to violent crime, drug distribution and extortion in the Eastern District of New York.

Britain seeks to cut welfare costs

Britain’s center-left government outlined plans Tuesday to curb rising welfare costs as it attempts to juggle a difficult set of competing objectives: saving public money, incentivizing work and protecting the most vulnerable.

The announcement follows weeks of tense internal debate within the governing

Labour Party, led by Prime Minister Keir Starmer, about how to cut Britain’s spending on welfare, which has risen sharply since the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The status quo is unacceptable but it is not inevitable,” Liz Kendall, the work and pensions secretary, said in Parliament, promising “decisive action” to get those who can work into employment, protect those who cannot, and save 5 billion pounds (about $6.5 billion) by 2030.

For Labour, a party that sees itself as the creator and guardian of the country’s post-World War II welfare state, cutting support for some of the most vulnerable in society is especially contentious.

Hungary outlaws Pride, plans crackdown

A new anti-LGBTQ+ law banning Pride events and allowing authorities to use facial recognition software to identify those attending the festivities was passed in Hungary on Tuesday, leading to a large demonstration on the streets of Budapest.

Several thousand protesters chanting anti-government slogans gathered after the vote outside Hungary’s parliament. They later staged a blockade of the Margaret Bridge over the Danube in Budapest, blocking traffic and disregarding police instructions to leave the area.

The move by Hungarian lawmakers is part of a crackdown on the country’s LGBTQ+ community by the nationalist-populist party of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.

The measure, which is reminiscent of similar restrictions against sexual minorities in Russia, was passed in a 136-27 vote.

Erdogan opponent’s diploma rescinded

A university invalidated the diploma of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu on Tuesday, in a move perceived as politically motivated to block the opposition figure and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s key rival from running in the next presidential race.

Istanbul University nullified Imamoglu’s diploma, citing alleged irregularities in his 1990 transfer from a private university in northern Cyprus to its Faculty of Business Administration. The decision disqualifies Imamoglu from running for president — a position that requires candidates to hold a university degree. Imamoglu is expected to appeal.

The decision comes just days before the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) is scheduled to hold a primary election, where Imamoglu was expected to be chosen as its presidential candidate. The next presidential vote is scheduled for 2028, but early elections are likely.

Imamoglu, 53, called the university’s decision “illegal,” insisting it does not have the authority to cancel the diploma.

Folksinger Jesse Colin Young dies at 83

Jesse Colin Young, whose sincere tenor vocals for the Youngbloods graced one of the most loving anthems of the hippie era, “Get Together,” a Top 5 hit in 1969, before he went on to pursue a solo career that lasted more than five decades, died Sunday at his home in Aiken, S.C. He was 83.

His death was announced by his publicist, Michael Jensen, who did not specify a cause.

Young didn’t write “Get Together.” It was composed by folk singer Chet Powers, who later took the pseudonym Dino Valenti. But Young’s voice idealized it, and the chorus he sang — “Come on people now / Smile on your brother / Everybody get together / Try to love one another right now” — became one of the best-known refrains of the 1960s.

He composed many other key pieces of the Youngbloods’ repertoire during their prime in the late 1960s, including the brooding “Darkness, Darkness,” which reflected the terror he imagined U.S. soldiers were experiencing during the Vietnam War.

Jesse Colin Young was born Perry Miller on Nov. 22, 1941, in Queens, N.Y. He chose his stage name in the early 1960s by melding the monikers of Jesse James, Cole Younger, and Formula One designer and engineer Colin Chapman.

— From news services