In the US, a second federal execution in less than a week took place at a federal prison in Indiana.

Wesley Purkey was convicted of kidnapping and murder of a 16-year-old girl in Kansas City in 1998. Purkey was considered mentally fit when he stood trial for the death penalty in 2003. However, this week, Purkey¢¥s lawyers said that he no longer had rational understanding due to Alzheimer¢¥s disease. On Thursday, right before being executed by lethal injection, Purkey reportedly apologized to the family of the victim and to his own daughter.

On Tuesday, another man was executed by lethal injection, marking the first federal execution in the US in nearly two decades.

Difficult words: federal execution (the death penalty that is carried out on a federal level and it applies in all 50 US states), rational understanding (when a person can think logically), lethal injection (an injection that is intended to kill a person, especially as a type of death penalty).