A man convicted of killing his ex-girlfriend by dousing her with gasoline and setting her on fire was executed in Texas on Thursday after the U.S. Supreme Court refused his final appeal.

Carl Blue, 48, was condemned to die for attacking Carmen Richards-Sanders at her apartment in Bryan, about 100 miles northwest of Houston, in September 1994. He also tossed gasoline on a man in the apartment, but the man survived and testified against Blue.

Blue claimed it was a prank gone wrong, but prosecutors said it was an intentional attack sparked by jealously.

Drew Peterson — the swaggering former suburban Chicago police officer who gained notoriety after his much-younger fourth wife vanished in 2007 — was sentenced to 38 years in prison on Thursday for murdering his third wife.

Illinois does not have the death penalty, and the 59-year-old Peterson had faced a maximum 60-year prison term. The judge gave him four years’ credit for time he has served since his arrest.

Education Secretary Arne Duncan is talking with school districts about how to free them from unworkable parts of the federal No Child Left Behind law, signaling he is open to an approach he long tried to avoid.

The Education Department has given 34 states and the District of Columbia permission to ignore parts of the Bush-era No Child Left Behind Law and eight others have waiver applications pending ahead of next week’s application deadline. But that still leaves eight states — giants California and Texas among them — operating under the law and set to fall short of its requirements, such as all students being proficient in math and reading by 2014.

Learn how to convince a potential employer that you are the right person for the…