U.S. prosecutors said Wednesday they will not seek the death penalty as part of a plea agreement with the man charged in the political assassinations of the top Democrat in the Minnesota House along with her husband, as well as the attempted murders of a state senator and his wife.

Alabama's plans to execute a death row inmate using nitrogen gas appeared to be thwarted Tuesday by a federal judge permanently blocking the state from using that method, declaring it violates the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

An Alabama man facing the death penalty by nitrogen gas was spared Thursday as the U.S. Supreme Court refused to set aside a lower-court ruling that found the method is unconstitutionally cruel, issuing a brief order that came well after the hour originally planned to initiate Jeffery Lee's execution.

Attorneys for the man accused of killing Charlie Kirk asked a judge Friday to block prosecutors from seeking the death penalty as punishment for comments they made in the media about a bullet fragment recovered from Kirk's body.