Whitey Bulger Killed

Notorious mob boss James "Whitey" Bulger was murdered at a high-security federal prison in West Virginia. Bulger, 89, was beaten beyond recognition in the fatal attack Tuesday at the prison. The Boston mobster died a day after he was transferred there from another facility -- the victim of the kind of brutality he once handed out. At the time of the killing, Bulger was in the general prison population, which gave inmates easy access to him, according to a federal official. Investigators believe he was attacked by more than one person. Bulger was arrested in June 2011 after he eluded federal authorities for more than 16 years. He was serving the rest of his life in prison for a series of crimes that included his role in 11 murders. Before he went on the run, he had been a longtime FBI informant (meaning that Bulger provided critical information on murders and drug deals that led to arrests of other mafia members which may have been why he was killed in prison by other inmates). His story has been the inspiration for several movies, including the 2006 Oscar-winning film "The Departed," which starred Jack Nicholson as a character modeled after him. In 2015, actor Johnny Depp played him in the film "Black Mass."

In Other News The British government has added cannabis to the pharmacopoeia of medicines available to patients on the National Health Service. As of November 1, "patients can be prescribed medicinal cannabis by specialist doctors.” Weeks after choosing the electric chair over lethal injection, a Tennessee death row inmate would be the second person in the state to be executed that way in nearly six decades. Edmund Zagorski, 63, was sentenced to death for the 1984 murders of two men. His execution is scheduled for Thursday. He requested electrocution on the eve of his original execution date in early October because the state uses a controversial drug in lethal injections. Zagorski's attorneys argued the lethal injection would make him spend the last 10 to 18 minutes of his life in "utter terror and agony" while the electric chair would only cause him "excruciating pain for (likely) 15-30 seconds.” A 10th child has died following an outbreak of adenovirus at a New Jersey rehabilitation facility. At least 27 children have been linked to the outbreak. The viruses are found on unclean surfaces and medical instruments. They may not be eliminated by common disinfectants, but they rarely cause severe illness in healthy people. Those with weakened immune systems have a higher risk for the severe disease and may remain infectious long after they recover. The disease is common in places with large groups of children, such as child-care settings, schools and summer camps. This type of adenovirus is "most commonly associated with acute respiratory disease," the CDC says. Other types of adenovirus infections can cause flu-like symptoms, pink eye and diarrhea.