Society

A Botched Execution in the US. Where Does Barbarism Begin?

"Blessed are the merciful": Pastor Kevin Riggs protests the execution of Christa Pike outside the Tennessee State Capitol. Nashville, 27 September 2026 // Photo: George Walker IV / AP Photo / East News

After nearly 30 years on death row, Christa Pike survived an attempted execution. Does the state have the right to try to kill her again?

By Włodzimierz Wróbel

On Wednesday, 30 September, Tennessee attempted to carry out the death sentence on Christa Pike, convicted in 1996 of murdering 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer the previous year. Pike had waited nearly 30 years for her execution. It failed: despite being given two doses of pentobarbital, the condemned woman's heart did not stop. According to her lawyers, she was visibly suffering, after which she was taken unconscious to a hospital in Nashville and put on a ventilator.

The Tennessee Department of Correction merely stated that the protocol made no provision for additional procedures, without explaining either why the lethal drug had failed or whether the state would make another attempt.

From Poznań to Suez: 70 Years Ago, Revolts and Crises Changed Poland and the World

The Poznań June and then the Polish October, the bloody uprising in Hungary and the war over the Suez Canal. How did 1956 change Poland, Europe, and the world? By Łukasz Kamiński The story of the turbulent year 1956 has to begin three years earlier, with Joseph Stalin's

Is This Already World War III? The New Conflicts Don't Look Like the Old Ones

Gideon Rachman: Global conflict is one of the main elements of world leaders' strategic thinking. Should we be ready for a new axis of evil? By Mateusz Mazzini and Gideon Rachman Mateusz Mazzini: You're about to publish a book on the risk of a new global war.

Anne Carson's Eros the Bittersweet: The Whirling Meaning of What we Read

Anne Carson, the Canadian poet and essayist, has for years been named among the leading contenders for the Nobel Prize in Literature. It's no wonder Polish publishers are showing growing interest in her books. By Monika Ochędowska Written in the mid-1980s, Eros the Bittersweet is both Carson&

Living Like It's the Paleolithic: New Research Challenges the Dogmas of the Famous Paleo Diet

A Paleolithic lifestyle, involving giving up grains, dairy, and processed foods, still has its followers — though new archaeological discoveries make things awkward for them. By Łukasz Kwiatek It's 1987. The biologist Jared Diamond — already a respected scientist and science writer, but not yet the author of bestsellers like

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From Poznań to Suez: 70 Years Ago, Revolts and Crises Changed Poland and the World

Is This Already World War III? The New Conflicts Don't Look Like the Old Ones

Anne Carson's Eros the Bittersweet: The Whirling Meaning of What we Read

Living Like It's the Paleolithic: New Research Challenges the Dogmas of the Famous Paleo Diet