Texas carries out first US execution of 2017

Texas prison authorities carried out the first US execution of 2017, as controversy continued to swirl around the drugs used to conduct such lethal injections. Christopher Wilkins, 48, was executed at the Texas state penitentiary at Huntsville after the US Supreme Court denied him a last-minute reprieve. Wilkins was convicted of a double murder in 2005, sparked when he said a dealer and his friend sold him a $20 dose of crack cocaine that turned out to be a rock, then laughed at him.