On Dec. 3, 2026, the U.S. government intends to take Nidal Hasan to a firing range at Fort Hood and publicly execute him.

Few condemned men could make a more difficult case for mercy.

Seventeen years ago, Hasan, an Army psychiatrist at the time, walked into a soldier readiness center at the Texas Army post and opened fire, killing 13 people and wounding 32 others. Now, after years of appeals, the Army is preparing to execute him by firing squad.

And Americans will be able to watch on live stream.

That last detail has transformed what might otherwise have been the long-delayed conclusion of one of the darkest chapters in the Army’s history into a more uncomfortable question: How should a nation reckon with the gravity of taking a life, even when that life belongs to a mass murderer?

For Alonzo Lunsford, a former Army staff sergeant who survived being shot seven times by Hasan, the answer is complicated.

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Lunsford wants Hasan executed. He intends to witness it himself in December. He told Fox News Digital he would even prefer that one of Hasan’s surviving victims or the relatives of those he killed be allowed to pull the trigger.

Despite that, Lunsford says he has forgiven Hasan.

“The weird thing about it, I’ve forgiven him because my faith does not allow me to heal and continue unless I forgive that man,” Lunsford said.

But forgiveness, for Lunsford, does not mean sparing Hasan from punishment. What troubles him is the prospect of turning that punishment into entertainment.

“It’s not a spectacle,” he said. “There’s nothing glorified in the smell of human flesh, blood and gunpowder. It’s a smell you will never forget. It’s a taste that you will never forget.”

“That’s not something you sit around and say, hey, let’s get some popcorn and look at this execution,” he continued. “We as a people, we’re better than that. This ain’t no country where we do public beheadings and stonings and think it’s fine.”

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Lunsford was working at Fort Hood’s Soldier Readiness Processing Center on Nov. 5, 2009, when Hasan, an Army psychiatrist, opened fire. He recalled watching Hasan kill a colleague before turning the weapon on him. Lunsford was shot above his left eye, fell to the floor and played dead before eventually escaping outside, where Hasan shot him again.

“I’ve accepted the fact I’m gonna live with the pain for the rest of my life,” Lunsford said.

He has since found purpose in coaching basketball, mentoring young people and helping others struggling with their mental health.

Lunsford said he doesn’t want children watching the livestream, though he believes adults can decide for themselves whether to tune in.

“This is not somewhere you all start throwing some meat on the grill, get outside and say, hey, we’re gonna watch them unalive this guy by firing squad,” he said. “Don’t do that.”

“Don’t do that because when you do that, you’re dishonoring those that made the supreme sacrifice, those who are no longer here. Those are heroes.”

War Secretary Pete Hegseth has defended making the execution public, saying Americans should understand the consequences of Hasan’s crimes.

“We’ll make sure that people are able to watch it, that it’s public,” Hegseth said in an interview this week. “Because people need to understand that there’s serious consequences for these types of things.”

Vice President JD Vance cast doubt Friday on whether the Pentagon would follow through with its plans to livestream Hasan’s execution, saying he had no intention of watching it himself.

“I see these announcements. I don’t know that that’s actually going to happen,” he told reporters Friday.

The decision for the first U.S. Army death by firing squad in 86 years to be live streamed has drawn opposition even from Republicans who support putting Hasan to death.

“I absolutely support the sentence of death, but live-streaming executions is what jihadists do. America is better than that,” Rep. Austin Scott, R-Ga., wrote on X.

Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., likewise said Hasan “should face the death penalty,” but called publicly streaming it “beyond disgusting.”

“Public executions are what oppressive dictatorships like Iran and Afghanistan do,” Tillis wrote. “It should not be happening in America.”

The nation’s Catholic bishops have gone further, opposing both Hasan’s execution and the decision to make it public. “In no way can Hassan’s actions be condoned but this decision is a barbaric promotion of a culture of death and must be reconsidered,” Archbishop Paul S. Coakley, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said Friday.

“The public execution even of one who has done grave harm will only further undermine the moral fabric of our nation and be a blight on the conscience of its people.”

The decision has also raised a more immediate national security concern.

Hasan, who was left paralyzed from the waist down after being shot during the 2009 attack, has previously spoken about becoming a martyr. Matthew Levitt, a former Treasury counterterrorism official and director of the Washington Institute’s Reinhard Program on Counterterrorism and Intelligence, warned that making footage of his death widely available could give terrorist groups material to exploit.

“It seems like a poor decision to provide terrorist groups with a video clip they can effectively splice into radicalization propaganda,” Levitt told Fox News Digital.

“There’s no tangible benefit to live streaming an execution, and it may, in fact, exacerbate the terrorist threat.”

For Lunsford, however, the execution remains deeply personal.

During Hasan’s 2013 court-martial, the two locked eyes. Lunsford wants Hasan to see him again before he dies.

“I want to look at him in his eyes. I want him to see me — man to man,” Lunsford said. “My message to him: Dude, you failed.”

“I go where I wanna go, when I wanna go, how I wanna go. With no fear,” he said. “I can go outside and just smell and listen to nature. You don’t have that luxury.”

And despite everything Hasan took from him, Lunsford said he hopes the condemned man uses his final moments to repent.

“I want to give him the opportunity to, the last words out of his mouth is to apologize and repent,” Lunsford said. “And be held accountable for his sins and for his crime. And I will be OK with that.”

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President Donald Trump on Saturday criticized the Norwegian Nobel Committee for not selecting him for the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize, citing a long list of accomplishments.

“I settled 8 WARS, am close to ending or settling 2 more, got all of the Israeli hostages back, including the final 28, both living and dead, had hundreds of hostages, from countries all over the World, released and sent back home, won a war in Venezuela, and captured the violent dictator who so viciously ran that country, and stopped the number one state sponsor of terror, the Islamic Republic of Iran, from obtaining a Nuclear Weapon — AND MUCH MORE! Yet, with all of that I, or the United States of America, did not get the Noble Peace Prize. WOW!” Trump wrote in a Saturday morning Truth Social post.

Trump has long openly pined for the prize, first receiving a nomination in 2018 from Norwegian lawmakers for diplomatic efforts involving North Korea and nuclear disarmament.

In 2019, he told reporters during a news conference, “I think I’m going to get a Nobel Prize for a lot of things, if they gave it out fairly, which they don’t.”

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While the Norwegian Nobel Committee does not publicly release a list of nominees for the Peace Prize, Trump has been nominated at least five times, according to the people who nominated him. That list includes former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who nominated Trump in 2019, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who nominated him in 2025.

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Despite being nominated again this year by Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and others, Trump was passed over yet again, this time in favor of South African jurist Navi Pillay.

The 85-year-old Pillay was the first non-White woman appointed to South Africa’s high court, and she later served as a judge at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and the International Criminal Court.

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She also served as the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights from 2008 to 2014.

However, her nomination was not without controversy.

The Nobel Committee’s announcement highlighted her work as the chair of the U.N.’s Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Palestinian Territory and Israel. Skeptics, however, claimed her work on the commission displayed anti-Israel bias.

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“Navi Pillay is indeed a world leader, an individual at the forefront of the international spread of the poisonous forms of antisemitism that beset the 21st century,” Anne Bayefsky, president of Human Rights Voices and director of the Touro Institute on Human Rights, told Fox News Digital’s Efrat Lachter.

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The U.N., however, praised her work and career as “steadfast.”

“For decades, she has been a champion of international law and human rights and a steadfast, independent voice of justice amidst some of the most historic international legal cases of our time,” U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a statement on Friday.

Fox News Digital’s Efrat Lachter contributed to this report.

President Donald Trump said Saturday that it was “time for Ukraine to get a new president,” warning Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to stop attacking Russian oil refineries as the two leaders clashed over a U.S. deal with Moscow.

“It’s time for Ukraine to get a new president,” Trump told reporters outside the White House before heading to a rally in Tennessee.

Trump accused Zelenskyy of making global fuel problems worse by continuing to authorize strikes on Russian refineries.

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“He’d better d— well stop,” Trump said.

The president argued that Ukraine should avoid targeting Russian refineries because of the potential impact on global energy supplies.

“We said, ‘you can do whatever you want to Russia, don’t hit the refineries’, because that’s a world problem that’s caused,” Trump said.

Trump also criticized Zelenskyy for failing to reach an agreement to end the war, which began when Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

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“He could have made many deals and for some reason, he never does,” Trump said.

The remarks came after Zelenskyy criticized a new American agreement with Russia that would temporarily ease sanctions on Russian diesel exports.

Trump confirmed Friday that Washington had reached an agreement with Moscow to suspend restrictions on Russian diesel exports until April 7.

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The agreement would allow Russia to release millions of tons of diesel into the U.S. and global markets, potentially increasing fuel supplies at a time when Americans are paying more at the pump.

But Zelenskyy warned that the deal could give Russia additional money to buy weapons and continue its war against Ukraine.

The dispute comes as Russia and Ukraine have stepped up strikes on energy facilities, transportation systems and other key infrastructure.

Trump has been seeking ways to lower fuel prices as the U.S. faces rising energy costs tied to the conflict with Iran.

Trump’s warning puts fresh pressure on Zelenskyy to negotiate an end to the war with Russia.

Cornell University has tapped Sally Yates, a former Obama administration deputy attorney general fired by President Donald Trump during his first term, to lead an independent review of the Ivy League school’s handling of sexual assault allegations.

Yates’ appointment comes as Cornell faces scrutiny over its response to an alleged gang rape at a fraternity house in October 2024. As part of the independent review, Yates and her employer, King & Spalding, will have access to Cornell’s internal documents, including case files, oversight records for Greek organizations, communications with law enforcement and disciplinary hearing records.

Yates brings decades of Justice Department experience to Cornell’s review, along with a public profile shaped by her confrontation with Trump and subsequent involvement in the Russia investigation.

Sally Yates’ career and clashes with Trump

President Barack Obama nominated Yates as deputy attorney general in January 2015, and the Senate confirmed her four months later in an 84-12 vote. She previously served as U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Georgia, a position Obama appointed her to in 2010.

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During the presidential transition, Trump’s incoming administration asked Yates to remain as acting attorney general while his nominee, Jeff Sessions, awaited Senate confirmation. But her tenure lasted just 10 days.

Trump fired Yates on Jan. 30, 2017, after she instructed Justice Department lawyers not to defend his executive order restricting travel and refugee admissions from seven predominantly Muslim countries.

“The acting Attorney General, Sally Yates, has betrayed the Department of Justice by refusing to enforce a legal order designed to protect the citizens of the United States,” the White House said in a statement announcing her firing.

Yates maintained that she was not convinced the directive was lawful.

“My responsibility is to ensure that the position of the Department of Justice is not only legally defensible, but is informed by our best view of what the law is after consideration of all the facts,” Yates said in a letter. “In addition, I am responsible for ensuring that the positions we take in court remain consistent with this institution’s solemn obligation to always seek justice and stand for what is right.”

Yates returned to the national spotlight in May 2017, testifying before a Senate Judiciary subcommittee investigating Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. Her testimony detailed warnings she had given White House Counsel Don McGahn about Trump’s then-national security adviser, Michael Flynn, shortly before her dismissal.

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Flynn had discussed Obama administration sanctions against Russia with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak in December 2016, despite then-Vice President-elect Mike Pence publicly denying that sanctions were discussed.

After reviewing FBI intelligence, Yates warned McGahn that Flynn had misled administration officials and could be vulnerable to Russian blackmail because Moscow knew what had actually been discussed.

Flynn resigned in February 2017, 18 days after Yates’ initial warning. He later pleaded guilty to making false statements to the FBI about his conversations with Kislyak.

Before her confrontation with Trump, Yates spent 27 years at the Justice Department, prosecuting white-collar fraud and public corruption cases. She also served as lead prosecutor in the case against Olympic Park bomber Eric Rudolph, a prosecution then-Attorney General Eric Holder highlighted when Obama selected her as deputy attorney general.

Yates returned to King & Spalding as a partner in May 2018, later leading an independent investigation into sexual misconduct and abuse in the National Women’s Soccer League.

Commissioned by the U.S. Soccer Federation in October 2021, the investigation included more than 200 interviews and uncovered widespread verbal and emotional abuse, sexual misconduct and repeated failures by teams and league officials to address complaints.

The findings, released in October 2022, documented how coaches accused of misconduct continued working despite previous complaints. Yates’ report recommended stronger background checks, clearer reporting procedures and greater accountability for teams and league officials.

Cornell University investigations

Cornell said it selected Yates and her firm because of “their expertise in higher education and extensive experience conducting independent investigations for boards and institutions.”

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Yates’ involvement in the case brings another prominent Trump adversary into the controversy, days after New York Attorney General Letitia James, who previously brought a civil fraud case against Trump and has faced his calls for her prosecution, was appointed to oversee a separate state investigation.

Cornell previously investigated the alleged assault and imposed suspensions and expulsions on several students accused of involvement. A lawsuit filed against the university by the alleged victim has since brought renewed national attention to the case and raised questions about the school’s response.

The two investigations have separate mandates. James’ investigation will examine the case at the center of the controversy, while Yates’ review will assess Cornell’s broader policies and handling of sexual assault and dating violence allegations.

“As part of that broader mandate, Yates and her team will conduct a detailed review of the university’s response to the allegations involving Jane Doe and members of the Chi Phi fraternity in October 2024, including whether Cornell followed its policies and procedures in responding to the matter,” the school said in a statement.

Fox News Digital reached out to Yates for comment.

Former state trooper John Nagel pointed the finger at his opponent, Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., and the Democratic Party for allowing Somali American gang-linked violence to escalate in the Twin Cities.

Residents of Eden Prairie and surrounding Twin Cities suburbs have been left fearing for their safety after a string of gang-related incidents this month, including the shooting of two teens outside an Eden Prairie High School football game and more than 100 shell casings recovered in a Bloomington neighborhood.

“Where is Ilhan Omar in all of this?” Nagel, a Minnesota native who spent 30 years as a state trooper, asked in an interview with Fox News Digital. 

“I would think that, as a congressman that represents this particular area, that she’d be at these meetings, or she’d have a statement, or she’d be sitting down and saying, ‘Hey, how can we help this? How could we stop this?’ And I don’t see her.”

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Nagel accused other Minnesota Democrats, including Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty, of having their “heads in the sand” and preventing law enforcement from stopping the violence before it got out of control.

“They’re being restrained by politicians, people that are trying soft on crime, people that are trying to send somebody other than a police officer to take care of issues, and it’s not working,” Nagel said.

Looking at the responses of statewide leaders, including Gov. Tim Walz and Attorney General Keith Ellison, Nagel said the majority of Democrats “don’t want enforcement.”

“The people do,” he said. “They’re tired of it.”

Democrats have been too lenient on crime for years, according to Nagel, which he said has “emboldened” gang members to break the law without serious consequences.

“Because of how the Democrats have run Minnesota over the years, these gang members and then just crooks in general, they’re emboldened by this,” he said.

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Ramsey County Sheriff Bob Fletcher spoke at a news conference this week, highlighting that a “big chunk of the problem” is failing to hold gang members accountable, saying Moriarty’s office needs to be more “aggressive” with prosecuting juveniles.

In a statement to Fox News Digital, Daniel Borgertpoepping, a spokesperson for Moriarty’s office, said no cases related to the Bloomington incident have been submitted for charging consideration, but “they’ll be thoroughly reviewed” if they are.

Adam Abdihakeem Adam, 18, was charged Friday in the Eden Prairie homecoming football game shooting with two counts of second-degree assault with a deadly weapon and second-degree riot.

“Mr. Adam will be held accountable,” Moriarty said in a press release Friday. “Violence in our communities is completely unacceptable, and it requires a professional, coordinated response, which happened here.”

Fletcher also pushed back on “East African” being used to generalize the gang members’ ethnicity, adding that “98% of these gang members are Somali” and that the broader label isn’t “fair.”

“I think we just have to say what it is and not run away from the term,” he said.

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Nagel said people are afraid of being called “racist” for referring to the gangs as Somalian, arguing that law enforcement is simply going after those committing the crimes rather than blaming an entire community.

“I mean, we have Latino gangs and Asian gangs and Black gangs, and we have Somali gangs. This is not being prejudicial.”

He said it’s a “Somali problem” because that’s “who’s showing up.”

“It’s ridiculous,” he said. “I’m a police officer. I don’t care who you are. I don’t care what color you are.”

Nagel said a “gang task force” could be part of the solution. 

“We don’t need to pass any more laws,” he argued. “We don’t need any more people asking for money to help their group. We need to take the laws that we have and prosecute people.”

As gang violence spills into Minnesota communities, Nagel said it can’t continue to go on like it has.

“We need enforcement, we need arrests and we need incarceration,” he said. “Otherwise, this is going to continue to spiral.”

Nagel will face off against Omar and Independent candidate DeVelle Jackson in the upcoming midterm elections for the U.S. House seat representing Minnesota’s 5th Congressional District.

Fox News Digital reached out to Omar, Walz and Ellison’s offices for comment.