TX Murderer to be Executed:  A Texas murderer is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection Wednesday evening for killing his daughter and two stepdaughters in a 2000 mobile home blaze.  Jon Herskovitz of Reuters reports that a new lawyer for 36-year-old Raphael Holiday filed a last-minute appeal arguing that Holiday's federally appointed counsel "acted against his wishes and abandoned further rounds of court filing to spare his life," which was rejected by the Texas Attorney General's office, who said such a claim "should not be given any credence."  Holiday was convicted of killing 7-year-old Tierra Lynch, 5-year-old Jasmine DuPaul and 1-year-old Justice Holiday six months after his common law wife at the time, Tami Wilkerson, obtained a restraining order against him for sexually assaulting Tierra.  After attempting to reconcile with Wilkerson, he returned to the mobile home they once shared and forced the girls' grandmother at gunpoint to douse the home in gasoline before igniting it.  The charred bodies of the three little girls were later discovered huddled together.  Holiday will be the 531^st inmate executed by the state of Texas since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976.  Update:  The execution was carried out 2 1/2 hours later than scheduled, Michael Graczyk reports for AP, because the trial judge stopped the execution after the defendant's trial lawyer filed a new appeal, but that order was overturned by the state's highest criminal court.

Manhunt for Human Smuggler who Assaulted Officer:  A man dubbed by Border Patrol agents as "one of San Diego's most dangerous human smugglers" is the subject of an intensive federal manhunt after he assaulted a Border Patrol agent with a rock last weekend during a failed border-crossing in Southern California.  Fox News Latino reports that 39-year-old Martel Valencia-Cortez, a Mexican national who has been involved in several human smuggling incidents dating as far back as 1997, was smuggling 14 illegal immigrants Sunday evening when he struck a border agent in the face with a softball-sized rock and fled towards Mexico as officials began closing in on him.  Valencia-Cortez was released from federal custody in September after serving a three-year sentence for alien smuggling.  He is known to carry a gun and resort to violent and dangerous conduct to avoid capture.  The injured agent was treated for cuts and bruises.

AG Lynch Contradicts FBI on Screening Refugees:  Despite FBI Director James Comey's statement to a House committee in October that checking incoming Syrian refugees against a database is extremely difficult, if not impossible, unless the U.S. has actual data on the refugees, Attorney General Loretta Lynch insisted before the House Judiciary Committee Tuesday that the U.S. will be able to safely process refugees.  Pete Kasperowicz of the Washington Examiner reports that Lynch defended the current system of checking refugees against government databases, and added that interviews and "other forms of screening" will result in a thorough and proper vetting process.  Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte echoed Comey's concerns of the country's vulnerability when it comes to people from Syria, given that officials cannot obtain information from a country in disarray.  The debate over whether or not to accept Syrian refugees has grown heated following Friday's deadly terror attacks in Paris, in which is was confirmed that at least one of the terrorists posed as a Syrian refugee to enter Europe.  House Speaker Paul Ryan is looking into legislation that could slow down President Obama's plan to admit 10,000 Syrian refugees next year.

Baltimore Reaches Highest Ever Homicide Rate:  Baltimore just surpassed it record level homicide rate, officially making 2015 the deadliest year, per capita, in the city's history.  Kevin Rector and Justin Fenton of the Baltimore Sun report that homicides reached the 300 mark on Sunday after a man was stabbed to death, the first time since 1999 that the city has seen that many homicides in one year.  Five more men were shot dead as of Tuesday evening, pushing the city's per capita homicide rate to 48.97 per 100,000 residents, breaking the 1993 record.  University of Baltimore criminologist Jeffrey Ian Ross says that the per capita figure "puts Baltimore's violent year in perspective compared to other cities also experiencing increased violence," noting that while violence has spiked considerably in cities like Chicago and Washington, D.C., the per capita rates of those cities are still far below the record-breaking levels set during the 1990s.  Since the April death of Freddie Gray in police custody that sparked citywide unrest, there has been more than a killing per day.  The Baltimore Police Department plans to announce a new community stabilization initiative in the near future.