Catherine Sweeney

Tennessee will execute Oscar Franklin Smith this week, while a lawsuit challenging the state’s new lethal injection protocol makes its way through the court system.

On Thursday, Tennessee plans to carry out its first execution since 2019 by means of lethal injection. It’s the fourth scheduled execution date since 2020 for Oscar Smith, who was convicted of killing his estranged wife Judith Smith and her two sons Jason Burnett and Chad Burnett in 1989.

Business owners and city officials in Nashville have implemented a program that uses an opioid reversal kit created in West Virginia to bolster harm reduction efforts in the city’s tourism district.