What is the topic of the news?

[8] A judge in the American state of Utah has sanctioned the execution of a convicted murderer by firing squad. Ronnie Lee Gardner will be the first person in the U.S. to face a firing squad in 14 years. Gardner was convicted in 1985 of killing an attorney in a botched escape attempt.
    In signing the warrant for Ronnie Lee Gardner’s execution, a judge in Salt Lake City gave the convicted murderer the choice of death by lethal injection or facing a firing squad. Gardner chose the latter. The case has already re-ignited the debate in Utah about the use of firing squads. Oklahoma is the only other state to sanction them since capital punishment was reinstated in the U.S. in 1976. But it has never killed anyone this way.