RALEIGH, N.C. — In one of his final acts in office, North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper commuted the death sentences of 15 men convicted of murder to life in prison without parole on Tuesday, reducing the state’s death row population by more than 10%.

Cooper, who was barred from seeking a third consecutive term, will give way to fellow Democrat Josh Stein on Wednesday when Stein takes the oath of office.

Cooper, who was previously the attorney general for 16 years, said his commutation decisions occurred following a thorough review of petitions offered by defendants and input from prosecutors and victims’ families.

Before Tuesday, North Carolina had 136 offenders on death row. Cooper’s office said it had received clemency petitions from 89 of them.

“These reviews are among the most difficult decisions a Governor can make and the death penalty is the most severe sentence that the state can impose,” Cooper said in a news release. “After thorough review, reflection, and prayer, I concluded that the death sentence imposed on these 15 people should be commuted, while ensuring they will spend the rest of their lives in prison.”

North Carolina is one of 27 states that have the death penalty as a criminal punishment, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, although five of those states currently have placed executions on hold. While North Carolina is not one of those five, an execution hasn’t been carried out in the state since 2006.

The number of defendants also sentenced to death has also dwindled in recent years, as prosecutors have more leeway in state law to decide whether to try a capital case. Even after Tuesday’s action, North Carolina has the fifth-largest death row in the country, according to the North Carolina Coalition for Alternatives to the Death Penalty.

Although some groups opposed to the death penalty have sought from Cooper a complete commutation for all on death row, they still praised him for what they called a historic act of clemency. State Department of Adult Correction records list 13 of the 15 receiving clemency as Black. The conviction dates for the 15 range from 1993 to 2011.

Cooper received national attention this year as he surfaced as a potential running mate for Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris.

Cooper “joins the ranks of a group of courageous leaders who used their executive authority to address the failed death penalty,” Chantal Stevens, executive director of American Civil Liberties Union of North Carolina, said in a separate release. “We have long known that the death penalty in North Carolina is racially biased, unjust, and immoral, and the Governor’s actions today pave the way for our state to move towards a new era of justice.”

Among the 15 receiving commutations on Tuesday include Hasson Bacote, who was convicted of first-degree murder in 2009 in Johnston County.

Bacote had been challenging his death sentence under the 2009 Racial Justice Act, which allowed prisoners to receive life without parole if they can show that racial bias was the reason for their death sentence. While the law was repealed in 2013, the state Supreme Court ruled that most prisoners currently on death row could still use the law retroactively. Bacote’s hearing before a judge based on that law was considered a test case.

Another inmate whose sentence was commuted is Guy LeGrande, who had been once set to be executed in late 2006 before a judge temporarily halted his case. He was convicted in Stanly County of killing a woman in 1993 whose estranged husband offered to pay him a portion of a life insurance policy. LeGrande’s attorneys said he was mentally ill.

Another death row inmate receiving clemency, Christopher Roseboro, was convicted of murder and rape in the death of a 72-year-old Gastonia woman in 1992.

Last week, President Joe Biden announced that he was commuting the sentences of 37 of the 40 people on federal death row, converting their punishments to life imprisonment.

Russian gas flows through Ukraine are set to stop on Wednesday when a transit deal between the two countries expires in the wake of Moscow’s full-scale invasion.

The pipeline was one of the last two routes still carrying Russian gas to Europe nearly three years into the full-scale war. EU countries will lose about 5 per cent of gas imports in the middle of winter.

While traders had long expected flows to stop, the end of the pipeline route through Ukraine will affect Europe’s gas balance at a time when demand for heating is high. Slovakia is the country most affected.

“While one would assume that losing those volumes [is] priced in, a strong upward price response initially isn’t out of the question,” said Aldo Spanjer, senior commodities strategist at BNP Paribas.

The deal to allow Russian gas to pass through Ukraine was agreed at the end of 2019, signed a day before the previous 10-year contract between the national gas companies was set to expire. At the time, the European Commission strongly promoted the deal.

After Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine, however, the commission encouraged member states to seek alternative supplies as the bloc moved to wean itself off Russian fossil fuel imports. The Moscow-friendly governments of Hungary and Slovakia have resisted that shift and have sought to extend the deal beyond January 1.

The Ukrainian government had telegraphed months in advance that it was unwilling to negotiate an extension to the deal, as it wanted to deprive the Kremlin of its income from gas exports. Ending the flows would result in a $6.5bn loss for Russia, unless it could redirect them, according to the Brussels-based think-tank, Bruegel.

But it would also be a financial blow to Ukraine, which earned about $1bn a year in gas transit fees, though only about a fifth of that was gross profits. Analysts have suggested that Ukraine’s vast gas pipeline infrastructure could face increasing Russian attack, if there was no Russian gas flowing through it.

Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico visited Moscow on December 22 to discuss the gas transit contract. He blasted Ukraine’s intransigence on the deal, asking whether the country had “the right to damage the economic national interests of an [EU] member state”.

Fico said on Facebook shortly before the deal’s expiry that “other gas transit options than Russian gas were presented to Ukrainian partners, but these were also rejected by the Ukrainian president”. The Slovak prime minister has also threatened to cut off back-up electricity supplies from Slovakia to Ukraine as retaliation.

Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has likewise sought to find a workaround to allow Russian gas imports via Ukraine. His government has also turned to the last remaining pipeline shipping Russian gas via Turkey and to neighbouring Romania to complement supplies.

Austria, which still imported Russian gas throughout 2024, has shifted to alternative sources such as liquid natural gas imports. Its energy company OMV in mid-December terminated its long-term contract with Russia’s Gazprom because of a legal dispute.

The cut-off of gas will also have a significant impact on neighbouring Moldova, which in mid-December introduced a state of emergency in the energy sector because of the uncertainty around Russian gas transit.

The halt to Russian gas flows through Ukraine is likely to increase European demand for pricier LNG, for which Asia is also competing.

EU officials have been adamant that the bloc can live without Russian pipeline supplies, even if it means accepting more expensive shipped gas from elsewhere.

The European Commission said on Tuesday it did not expect disruption. “European gas infrastructure is flexible enough to provide gas of non-Russian origin to central and eastern Europe via alternative routes,” it said. “It has been reinforced with significant new LNG import capacities since 2022.”

The Turkey pipeline still transporting Russian gas to Europe contributes about 5 per cent of the EU’s imports. The US recently imposed sanctions on Gazprombank, the main conduit for Russian energy payments.

But to mitigate the impact of sanctions, Russian President Vladimir Putin in early December dropped a requirement for foreign buyers of Russian gas to pay through the bank. Countries such as Turkey and Hungary also said they have received US exemptions from sanctions.

“The sanctions had previously added an extra layer of uncertainty over the fate of Europe’s remaining Russian gas supply as we enter the new year, helping to keep gas prices volatile,” said Natasha Fielding, head of European gas pricing at Argus Media, a pricing agency. The US waiver meant that “buyers of Russian gas delivered through the Turkish Stream pipeline could breathe a sigh of relief”, she said.

Traders are not ruling out an increase in Russian gas flows into Europe in the future. European companies that are reeling from high gas and energy prices, forcing them to cut back production, would return to buying Russian gas, which was inherently cheaper than LNG, one senior trader said.

“At some stage there will be a peace agreement . . . People will want to end the war, therefore they have to sign a peace agreement. One of the things Russia will get is its ability to resupply” Europe with gas, the trader said.

While European governments may impose restrictions to prevent the continent from once again becoming over-reliant on Russian gas, the trader said, “you would expect to see some Russian gas back in Europe, because fundamentally, geography has not changed”.

Additional reporting by Andrew Bounds

GOP Rep. Tim Burchett lauded House Speaker Mike Johnson on Monday for not cheating on his wife — while in the same breath apparently throwing shade at the speaker’s predecessor.

Burchett (R-Tenn.), 60, has not yet revealed whom he will support to lead House Republicans in the next Congress, but predicted that Johnson (R-La.), 52, would likely prevail in an upcoming speakership battle due to his honesty and integrity.

“I think he ultimately will. I think that the die has been cast pretty much. But as I stated, I will make up my mind on Friday,” he told Fox News’ “Your World” on Monday.

“Mike’s been a good friend to me and there is nobody more honest that I have dealt with in Washington,” Burchett went on. “He is a Christian man. He doesn’t cheat on his wife and I find that very appealing in Washington, DC.”

That bit about infidelity appears to be a nod to former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), who has long faced speculation and rumors about being unfaithful to his wife.

Back in 2015, during the aftermath of the resignation of House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), for example, McCarthy was accused of having an affair with a sitting member of the House — former Rep. Renee Ellmers (R-NC) — in an anonymous Wikipedia posting.

That post was later removed but loomed large when McCarthy abruptly withdrew from consideration for the speakership at the time. McCarthy and the other rep denied the accusations.

Burchett had been one of eight Republicans who banded together with a solid bloc of Democrats to oust McCarthy in the fall last year.

He later voted against a May effort by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) to topple Johnson after he brought up a vote on legislation to re-up aid to war-torn Ukraine.

The architect of the mutiny against McCarthy, former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) — who has openly fessed up to being a womanizer prior to his marriage — chimed in and echoed Burchett.

“We all know who Burchett is talking about… Total f–king savage,” Gaetz wrote on X.

Just last week, the House Ethics Committee voted to release a damning ethics report accusing Gaetz of using illicit drugs and shelling out over $90,000 to 12 different women between 2017 and 2020 in exchange for sex.

Most alarmingly, the panel accused him of having sex with a minor — something Gaetz has denied.

The Sunshine State Republican also accused the committee of smearing him and cast aspersions on the claims of him paying for sex.

McCarthy has claimed Gaetz ousted him for his refusal to quash the ethics probe — something the soon-to-be One America News Network TV anchor has denied.

Earlier this year, the former speaker further speculated that Gaetz might be cheating on his wife — but did not provide evidence.

Johnson will fight to keep the speaker’s gavel during a speakership vote on Friday.

Already, Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) has indicated he will vote against Johnson, and others such as Reps. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) and Victoria Spartz (R-Ind.) have said they are on the fence.

President-elect Donald Trump formally endorsed Johnson on Monday, giving him a potential boost despite his stamp of approval failing to nudge Massie, Biggs or Spartz.

Gaetz has also urged Republicans not to oppose Johnson.