Trump will unveil $54 billion in South Korean investment in Alaska, site of a tight Senate race

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is expected to announce on Wednesday plans for South Korea to invest roughly $54 billion in a project to export natural gas from Alaska, a proposal long backed by Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan, who's in a competitive reelection contest there.

The investment would mark the second time this week that the Republican president has sought to highlight the promise of foreign investment made possible by his administration's trade policy in states where Republican Senate candidates are in tight election campaigns. He made a similar announcement on Monday in the Oval Office for a massive steel plant in Iowa.

The Alaska investment comes from pledges made as part of a 2025 trade deal with South Korea, which included promises of $350 billion in U.S. investments in exchange for lower U.S. tariffs on South Korean cars, auto parts and other products.

The announcement, first reported by Bloomberg, was confirmed by the White House on Wednesday.

Sullivan, who has been a persistent advocate for the Alaska natural gas project and has encouraged South Korean investment, is a two-term senator facing a competitive challenge from Democrat Mary Peltola, a former congresswoman.

The project consists of an 807-mile (1,300-kilometer) natural gas pipeline connecting Alaska's North Slope to a liquefied natural gas export terminal in southern Alaska and eventually will reduce energy costs for the state's residents by providing a reliable and secure supply, the White House said.

Trump on Monday announced plans for a $15 billion steel plant to be built in Iowa by a Minnesota company owned by an Indian industrial conglomerate.

In Iowa, Republican Rep. Ashley Hinson is in a close U.S. Senate contest with Democratic state Rep. Josh Turek for the seat being vacated by retiring two-term Republican Joni Ernst. Hinson spoke in the Oval Office during the announcement.

Alaska and Iowa, where Trump won comfortably each time he has run for president, are among the states where Democrats are targeting Republican-held Senate seats in the 2026 midterm elections, less than five weeks away.

Democrats need to gain a net of four seats in the 100-member Senate to overtake Republicans in the majority.

Trump's announcements come as voters express concern about near-record fuel prices related to the unresolved war with Iran and as majority Republicans in Congress are facing voters dissatisfied with Trump's handling of the economy.

In a late-July poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, only about one-third of Americans approved of Trump’s handling of the economy, and about 7 in 10 described the economy as poor.

Beaumont reported from Des Moines, Iowa.

Rep. Ashley Hinson, R-Iowa, speaks in the Oval Office of the White House, Monday, Sept. 28, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

President Donald Trump winks as the members of the media depart the Oval Office of the White House as Essar Capital Director Prashant Ruia, from left, Energy Secretary Chris Wright, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, John Jovanovic, chairman of the Export-Import Bank of the United States, Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird, Mariannette Miller-Meeks, R-Iowa., and Rep. Ashley Hinson, R-Iowa, look on, Monday, Sept. 28, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

FILE - U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, speaks at a get out the vote event held at farm in Palmer, Alaska, on Aug. 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Mark Thiessen, File)

President Donald Trump speaks to reporters at the White House in Washington, Tuesday Sept. 29, 2026, after meeting with top executives of AI firms. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — A federal appeals court halted the execution in Tennessee of Christa Pike about an hour before it was set to begin Wednesday.

The judges said they want to review whether her allegations of sexual abuse and rape as a child were fully considered before she was sentenced to death.

Now 50, she was convicted of a 1995 murder she committed at age 18. This would have been the state’s first execution of a woman in at least 200 years.

It wasn’t immediately clear if Tennessee’s attorney general was appealing the decision or how long the execution might be delayed. A phone message and email were left with a spokesperson for the attorney general's office seeking comment.

Execution witnesses had already gathered at the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville when the order came down at around 9 a.m. CDT.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Tennessee is preparing to put to death Christa Gail Pike for a 1995 murder she committed at age 18 in what would be the state's first execution of a woman in at least 200 years.

Pike, now 50, is scheduled to be executed Wednesday morning by lethal injection at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville. Pike and her boyfriend were convicted of stabbing and beating 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, their classmate at a job training facility in Knoxville.

The case garnered widespread attention at the time in part because a pentagram that was carved on Slemmer's body and other elements of the crime stoked fears of Satan worship during the “satanic panic” of the 1980s and 1990s. As the execution date drew near, it renewed debate over the death penalty for young offenders.

Pike does not deny committing the killing, but her supporters argue the state should consider Pike’s age at the time, mental illness and a history of severe sexual abuse that included being raped from the time she was a toddler. Assistant Federal Defender Stephen Ferrell said Pike’s death sentence is an outlier because other 18-year-olds sentenced to death in Tennessee have had their sentences vacated.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday denied a request from Pike's attorneys to halt the execution. Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee on Monday denied Pike clemency.

“I was a mentally ill 18-year-old kid. It took me numerous years to even realize the gravity of what I’d done,” Pike said in a statement included in her clemency petition. “Even more to accept how many lives I affected. I took the life of someone’s child, sister, friend. It sickens me now to think I had the ability to commit such a crime.”

Slemmer’s mother wants the lethal injection to go forward, saying she has waited decades to see Pike’s sentence carried out.

“Every time I think about it, I think about Colleen feeling that pain and trying to get up and run,” May Martinez said in a telephone interview.

Martinez said a group helped raise money so she and her husband could travel from Florida to witness the execution.

The 1995 killing rocked the city of Knoxville. Prosecutors said Pike, fearing Slemmer was trying to steal her boyfriend, lured her to a wooded area on Jan. 12, 1995. Pike cut Slemmer with a box cutter and beat her with a large chunk of asphalt. Shipp, Pike’s boyfriend, has admitted that he was the one who carved a pentagram, a star-shaped symbol associated with Satanism, into her body.

Shipp was 17 when the crime happened and received a sentence of life in prison with the possibility of parole. Pike was the only one sentenced to death.

Tennessee has not executed a woman for at least 200 years, according to Robin M. Maher, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center. Older records can be spotty, though, so it’s difficult to know precise details about the last woman who was put to death there.

It's a rarity across the U.S. Since 1976, 18 women have been put to death in the country, representing about 1% of all executions, according to the center.

Most recently, Missouri in 2023 executed Amber McLaughlin for a 2003 killing, in what is believed to be the first execution of a transgender woman in the U.S. In 2021, the federal government executed Lisa Montgomery, marking the first time in nearly seven decades that the U.S. government put a female inmate to death.

Chandler reported from Montgomery, Alabama.

Abraham Bonowitz speaks during a March 4 Mercy protest against the death penalty at the Tennessee State Capitol, Sunday, Sept. 27, 2026, in Nashville, Tenn. ahead of the Sept. 30th scheduled execution of Christa Pike. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)

Alonzo Hughes participates in a March 4 Mercy protest against the death penalty at the Tennessee State Capitol, Sunday, Sept. 27, 2026, in Nashville, Tenn. ahead of the Sept. 30th scheduled execution of Christa Pike. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)

In this image from video provided by WBIR-TV, Christa Pike cries after being sentenced to death on March 30, 1996 in Knoxville, Tenn. (WBIR-TV via AP)

This photo provided by the Tennessee Department of Correction shows Christa Pike on Jan. 12, 2023. (TDOC via AP)