Washington: A Fox News anchor has apologised for saying mentally ill homeless people should be killed by lethal injection amid growing concerns about hatred and violence in public discourse on both mainstream media and social media in the US.

Brian Kilmeade, a host of the morning show Fox & Friends on the top-rated cable news network, made the remarks while discussing the stabbing murder of Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska in North Carolina last month . A 34-year-old homeless man with a history of mental illness and criminality, Decarlos Brown, has been charged.

In the on-air exchange, Kilmeade’s co-host Lawrence Jones argued that governments had spent billions of dollars on mental health programs, but many homeless and mentally ill people did not want to avail themselves of help.

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