Today is Wednesday, June 11, the 162nd day of 2025. There are 203 days left in the year.

Today in history:

On June 11, 1963, the University of Alabama was desegregated as Vivian Malone and James Hood became the first two Black students allowed to enroll in classes; Alabama segregationist and Gov. George Wallace initially blocked the doorway to the auditorium where course registration was taking place, delivering a speech before deferring to National Guard orders to move.

Also on this date:

In 1509, England’s King Henry VIII married his first wife, Catherine of Aragon.

In 1776, the Second Continental Congress appointed the Committee of Five (composed of John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Robert Livingston and Roger Sherman) to draft a declaration of independence from Great Britain, to be completed in the subsequent 17 days.

1955, in motor racing’s worst disaster, more than 80 people were killed during the 24 Hours of Le Mans in France when two cars collided and crashed into spectators.

In 1962, Frank Morris, Clarence Anglin and John Anglin, prisoners at Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary in San Francisco Bay, staged an escape, leaving the island on a makeshift raft. They were never found or heard from again.

In 1963, Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thích Quảng Đức lit himself on fire on a Saigon street as a protest against the Vietnamese government’s persecution of Buddhists.

In 1987, Margaret Thatcher became the first British prime minister in over 160 years to win a third consecutive term of office as her Conservative Party held onto a reduced majority in Parliament.

In 2001, Timothy McVeigh, 33, was executed by lethal injection at the federal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana, for the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing that killed 168 people.

In 2009, with swine flu reported in more than 70 nations, the World Health Organization declared the first global flu pandemic in 41 years.

Today’s Birthdays:

• Drummer Bernard Purdie is 86.
• International Motorsports Hall of Famer Jackie Stewart is 86.
• Actor Roscoe Orman is 81.
• Actor Adrienne Barbeau is 80.
• Rock musician Frank Beard (ZZ Top) is 76.
• Singer Graham Russell (Air Supply) is 75.
• Football Hall of Famer Joe Montana is 69.
• Actor Hugh Laurie is 66.
• TV personality and current Medicare Administrator Mehmet Oz is 65.
• Actor Peter Dinklage is 56.
• Actor Joshua Jackson is 47.
• U.S. Olympic and WNBA basketball star Diana Taurasi is 43.
• Actor Shia LaBeouf is 39.
• Basketball Hall of Famer Maya Moore is 36.

ATMORE, Ala. — A man convicted of beating a woman to death nearly 37 years ago is scheduled to be executed Tuesday in Alabama in what will be the nation’s sixth execution with nitrogen gas.

Gregory Hunt is scheduled to be put to death Tuesday night at a south Alabama prison. Hunt was convicted of killing Karen Lane, a woman he had been dating for about a month, according to court records.

The Alabama execution is one of four that had been scheduled this week in the United States. Executions are also scheduled in Florida and South Carolina. A judge in Oklahoma on Monday issued a temporary stay for an execution in that state, but the state attorney general is seeking to get it lifted.

Lane was 32 when she was murdered Aug. 2, 1988, in the Cordova apartment she shared with a woman who was Hunt’s cousin.

Prosecutors said Hunt broke into her apartment and killed her after sexually abusing her. A physician who performed an autopsy testified that she died from blunt force trauma and that Lane had sustained some 60 injuries, including 20 to the head.

A jury on June 19, 1990, found Hunt guilty of capital murder during sexual abuse and burglary. Jurors recommended by a vote of 11-1 that he receive a death sentence, which a judge imposed.

Hunt’s final request for a stay of execution, which he filed himself, focused on claims that prosecutors made false statements to jurors about evidence of sexual abuse. The element of sexual abuse is what elevated the crime to a death penalty offense.

In a filing to the U.S. Supreme Court, Hunt, acting as his own attorney, wrote that a prosecutor told jurors that cervical mucus was on a broomstick near Hunt’s body. However, the victim did not have a cervix because of an earlier hysterectomy. The Alabama attorney general’s office called the claim meritless and said even if the prosecutor erred in that statement, it did not throw the conviction into doubt.

Hunt, speaking by telephone last month from prison, did not dispute killing Lane but maintained he did not sexually assault her. He also described himself as someone who was changed by prison.

“Karen didn’t deserve what happened to her,” Hunt said.

Hunt said he had been drinking and doing drugs on the night of the crime and became jealous when he saw Lane in a car with another man.

“You have your come-to-Jesus moment. Of course, after the fact, you can’t believe what has happened. You can’t believe you were part of it and did it,” Hunt said.

Hunt, who was born in 1960 and came to death row in 1990, is now among the longest-serving inmates on Alabama’s death row. He said prison became his “hospital” to heal his broken mind. He said since 1988, he has been leading a Bible class attended by two dozen or more inmates.

“Just trying to be a light in a dark place, trying to tell people if I can change, they can too. … become people of love instead of hate,” he said.

Lane’s sister declined to comment when reached by telephone. The family is expected to give a written statement Tuesday night.

“The way she was killed is just devastating,” Denise Gurganus, Lane’s sister, told TV station WBRC at a 2014 vigil for crime victims. “It’s hard enough to lose a family member to death, but when it’s this gruesome.”

The Alabama attorney general’s office, in asking justices to reject Hunt’s request for a stay of execution, wrote that Hunt has now been on death row longer than Lane was alive.

Alabama last year became the first state to carry out an execution with nitrogen gas. Nitrogen has now been used in five executions — four in Alabama and one in Louisiana. The method involves using a gas mask to force an inmate to breathe pure nitrogen gas, depriving them of the oxygen needed to stay alive.

Hunt had named nitrogen as his preferred execution method. He made the selection before Alabama had developed procedures for using gas. Alabama also allows inmates to choose lethal injection or the electric chair.