First Thing: Christa Pike left in ‘critical condition’ as Tennessee halts all executions

Good morning. Tennessee’s governor has suspended executions as Christa Pike’s lawyer says the state’s failed lethal injection execution attempt has left her in a critical condition. Bill Lee, the Republican state governor, has suspended all executions in the state until at least the end of the year and ordered an independent inquiry.

Leading voices on the death penalty in the US have told the Guardian that the failed execution was such a violation of the constitutional prohibition on “cruel and unusual punishment” that all judicial killings should be halted nationwide.

The family of Renee Good, the woman killed by immigration agents in January in Minneapolis, filed two federal lawsuits against the agent who shot her and several top officials in the Trump administration on Thursday. In the lawsuits, Good’s partner, Becca Good, and her brother, Brent Ganger, alleged wrongful death and other violations of federal law, according to a press release issued by their lawyers.

By installing the tech billionaires Elon Musk and Palmer Luckey to advisory roles in a Pentagon project about the future of warfare, the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, has given extraordinary influence to two of Maga’s most significant campaign donors – and both men own companies that benefit from federal defense contracting.

The 34-year-old Luckey, whose company is backed by Joshua Kushner’s equity fund, has acquired manufacturers of underwater drones, unmanned aerial vehicles, and space technology, has already been voluble about his philosophy on warfare, saying he thought warfare in the second half of this century would involve “subterranean” conflict, with vehicles that can “move through the crust of the earth the same way that submarines move through the water”.

Kathy Hochul, the New York governor, said on Thursday she was appointing Letitia James, the state’s attorney general, as special prosecutor to investigate the alleged gang-rape at Cornell University.

“The young woman at the center of this case deserves to know that every fact will be examined and justice pursued,” Hochul said in a statement. “This action will ensure that the matter is fully and thoroughly investigated without conflict or bias, and handled independently with the rigor that this matter demands.”

Lyft agreed to pay the state of California $272.5m to ⁠settle claims that it stole drivers’ wages by mislabeling them as independent contractors rather than employees.

From tropical disasters and doomed sci-fi epics to bribing Orson Welles and fending off a puma, Ryan Gilbey rates cinema’s most revealing glimpses behind the scenes.

California’s Shauna Castaner recounts her extraordinary experience of gradually coming to realise that her condition was getting so severe she has to a keep a close watch on her body temperature and can’t eat chilled foods.

Erasure were regulars on the Billboard chart in the 1980s and 90s with hits like Chains of Love, A Little Respect and Always. They return with their 20th – TWENTIETH! – studio album. Tim Jonze speaks to the iconic British synthpop duo.

More rain and snow equals more water in rivers, right? Not necessarily. A new study shows that, despite receiving more rainfall than they used to, river water levels are falling because of changes in climate.

One animal in Aspen, Colorado, seemed to decide to make a late bid to win Fat Bear Week, as it rocked up to a farmers’ market and started devouring fresh bread and pastries at one of the stalls. The video clip is priceless.

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