Texas Double-Murderer Executed:  A Texas man who gunned down two employees as a Subway sandwich shop during a robbery was put to death Thursday.  Brandi Grissom of the Dallas Morning News reports that, after he was fired from the Balch Springs Subway in 2002,  Terry Edwards returned to the store just after it opened on July 8, 2002 armed with a 38 caliber pistol.  Along with his cousin, Edwards took $3,000 and shot store manager Tommy Walker, 34, and employee Mickell Goodwin, a 26 year-old mother of two.  Witnesses saw Edwards dispose of the gun after the shooting and the stolen money was in his possession during his arrest.  He was on parole for car theft and possession of cocaine at the time of the murders.  Among the claims made by his attorneys during multiple appeals were that the cousin was the shooter, that his initial appeals lawyer was ineffective and that the drug used for his execution might not be sufficiently potent.   

Big Increase in Overdose Deaths:  According to the Centers For Disease Control more than 500,000 people in the U.S. died from opioids between 2000 and 2015.  Dave Herdon of the News Herald reports that this number includes overdose deaths from prescription and illegal drugs.  While numbers for 2016 are not yet available, the CDC reports that heroin deaths from 2010 to 2015 tripled with nearly 13,000 dying from overdoses in 2015 alone.  The largest increase in fatal overdoses involved synthetic opioids such as fentanyl which went from 5,544 deaths in 2014 to 9,580 in 2015.  In Michigan, most state troopers now carry the drug naxolone to administer to overdose victims.  Many fire departments are also carrying the drug.