Fans seriously injured in NASCAR crash at Daytona

Fiery finish in Daytona

Fiery finish in Daytona

Fiery finish in Daytona

Fiery finish in Daytona

Fiery finish in Daytona

Fiery finish in Daytona

Fiery finish in Daytona

Fiery finish in Daytona

Fiery finish in Daytona

Fiery finish in Daytona

Fiery finish in Daytona

Fiery finish in Daytona

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STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• The Daytona 500 will go ahead Sunday as scheduled


• A dramatic pile up accident flung debris into the stands of a race Saturday


• Wreckage, including an engine, went airborne -- some reaching the stands' second level


• Two spectators sustained serious injuries

Were you at the speedway during the crash? If you were recording video of the crash or took photos, upload them to CNN iReport.

(CNN) -- The Daytona 500 will take place as scheduled Sunday despite a jaw-dropping crash a day earlier that flung debris into the stands at the Daytona International Speedway.

At least 28 fans were injured, including two critically, when more than a dozen cars piled up in the final curve of the Nationwide Series Drive4COPD 300 in Daytona Beach, Florida, on Saturday. The Daytona 500 will run on the same track.

"First and foremost, our thoughts and prayers are with our race fans," the speedway said in a statement released Saturday. "We are in the process of repairing the facility, and we will be ready to go racing tomorrow."

Saturday's race had to be restarted after an earlier wreck put driver Michael Annett in the hospital with a bruised chest, according to Richard Petty Motorsports.

The second wreck occurred when several closely-packed cars were jostling for position at top speeds of about 175 mph. They got tangled up, setting off a dangerous chain reaction that ensnared a number of vehicles.

Reigning Sprint Cup champ Brad Keselowski -- who later told CNN he and others were simply "going for the win" -- was among those involved, while Tony Stewart somehow emerged unscathed and finished by winning the race.

Driver Kyle Larson's vehicle ended up flying into a fence that separates the track from spectators. It broke into pieces -- including tires and a fiery engine.

Larson walked away from the crash, even after the front part of his No. 32 car was completely gone. He and the other nine drivers involved told reporters that they were checked at a medical tent on the Daytona infield and released.

Some pieces of the shredded debris flew into the barrier, while others got into the stands -- some of it reaching the second level about 20 feet up.

A video posted on YouTube shows a cloud of debris flying into stands and one man gasping, "Oh, my God." A tire rests on one seat, as a man frantically waves and yells to get the attention of paramedics.

Afterward, several spectators could be seen lying down after apparently suffering injuries. A line of about 10 ambulances lined up on the track, with some first responders carrying stretchers.

Fourteen fans were treated at an on-site medical facility, while 14 others were transported to area hospitals, speedway president Joie Chitwood told reporters.

"I'm just hoping everyone is OK," said Keselowski. "As drivers, we assume the risk. But fans do not."

NASCAR president Mike Helton earlier told ESPN, which was broadcasting the race, some people were taken to Halifax Health Medical Center. He said the protective fence did its job in preventing potentially more injuries and possibly deaths.

Byron Cogdell, a spokesman for the hospital, told CNN that his facility was treating 12 patients. Two of those -- one of them a child -- are in critical but stable condition.

"Everybody appears to be in stable condition," Cogdell said.

Staff at Florida Hospital Memorial Medical Center were treating one person and expecting three more, spokeswoman Lindsay Rew said Saturday evening.

The injured include Eddie Huckaby, a 53-year-old Krum, Texas, resident who suffered a leg gash when a large piece of metal hit him as he was watching the race, his brother Terry Huckaby told CNN affiliate WKMG. He described the motor landing in the stands, as well as a wheel "and everything flying over your head and debris everywhere."

"He's doing fine," Terry Huckaby said of his brother, who underwent surgery at Halifax Health Medical Center. "The first thing he said, 'I don't want to miss that (Daytona 500) race, but I have to watch on TV.'"

Accidents are nothing new to NASCAR, where cars often cruise at speeds topping 190 mph, nor to the Daytona track. One of the sport's most horrific, and well-known, wrecks happened in the 2001 Daytona 500, when famed driver Dale Earnhardt Sr. was killed -- also, on that race's final lap.

Still, injuries and fatalities to spectators are much rarer.

With the stands having been quickly evacuated, crews worked to repair the damaged fence. Chitwood expressed confidence the 55th edition of the Daytona 500 would go on as planned, with spectators even sitting in the same seats struck by debris Saturday.

"With the fence being prepared tonight to our safety protocols, we expect to go racing tomorrow with no changes," Chitwood said.

CNN's John Newsome and Joe Carter reported from Daytona Beach, and Greg Botelho wrote from Atlanta. CNN's Ben Brumfield, Phil Gast, Dan Moriarty, Scott Thompson and Janet DiGiacomo contributed to this report.

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Rusty rocks reveal ancient origin of photosynthesis

SUN-WORSHIP began even earlier than we thought. The world's oldest sedimentary rocks suggest an early form of photosynthesis may have evolved almost 3.8 billion years ago, not long after life appeared on Earth.

A hallmark of photosynthesis in plants is that the process splits water and produces oxygen gas. But some groups of bacteria oxidise substances like iron instead – a form of photosynthesis that doesn't generate oxygen. Evolutionary biologists think these non-oxygen-generating forms of photosynthesis evolved first, giving rise to oxygen-generating photosynthesis sometime before the Earth's atmosphere gained oxygen 2.4 billion years ago (New Scientist, 8 December 2012, p 12).

But when did non-oxygen-generating photosynthesis evolve? Fossilised microbial mats that formed in shallow water 3.4 billion years ago in what is now South Africa show the chemical fingerprints of the process. However, geologists have long wondered whether even earlier evidence exists.

The world's oldest sedimentary rocks – a class of rock that can preserve evidence of life – are a logical place to look, says Andrew Czaja of the University of Cincinnati in Ohio. These rocks, which are found in Greenland and date back almost 3.8 billion years, contain vast deposits of iron oxide that are a puzzle. "What could have formed these giant masses of oxidised iron?" asks Czaja.

To investigate, he analysed the isotopic composition of samples taken from the oxidised iron. He found that some isotopes of iron were more common than they would be if oxygen gas was indiscriminately oxidising the metal. Moreover, the exact isotopic balance varied subtly from point to point in the rock.

Both findings make sense if photosynthetic bacteria were responsible for the iron oxide, says Czaja. That's because these microbes preferentially oxidise only a small fraction of the dissolved iron, and the iron isotopes they prefer vary slightly as environmental conditions change (Earth and Planetary Science Letters, doi.org/kh5). His findings suggest that this form of photosynthesis appeared about 370 million years earlier than we thought.

It is "the best current working hypothesis for the origin of these deposits", says Mike Tice of Texas A&M University in College Station – one of the team who analysed the 3.4-billion-year-old microbial mats from South Africa.

William Martin at the University of Düsseldorf, Germany, agrees. "Anoxygenic photosynthesis is a good candidate for the isotope evidence they see," he says. "Had these fascinating results been collected on Mars, the verdict of the jury would surely remain open," says Martin Brasier at the University of Oxford. "But [on Earth] opinion seems to be swinging in the direction of non-oxygen-generating photosynthesis during the interval from 3.8 to 2.9 billion years ago."

This article appeared in print under the headline "Photosynthesis has truly ancient origins"

If you would like to reuse any content from New Scientist, either in print or online, please contact the syndication department first for permission. New Scientist does not own rights to photos, but there are a variety of licensing options available for use of articles and graphics we own the copyright to.

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Iran won't go beyond nuclear obligations: envoy

TEHRAN: Iran said Saturday it will not go beyond its obligations nor accept anything outside its rights under the non-proliferation treaty, ahead of talks with major powers over its disputed nuclear drive.

"We will not accept anything beyond our obligations and will not accept anything less than our rights," said the Islamic republic's top nuclear negotiator, Saeed Jalili, quoted by ISNA news agency.

"Iran has fulfilled its NPT obligations as an active and committed member, therefore should gain all of its rights," Jalili said in an address to Iranian nuclear industry officials.

His remarks come ahead of a meeting between Iran and six world powers -- Britain, China, France, Russia, the United States and Germany -- in Kazakhstan on Tuesday.

The talks will be the first between the parties since three rounds of meetings in Moscow ended in stalemate in June last year.

The so-called P5+1 called on Iran to scale back on uranium enrichment, the process which used for power plant fuel and in higher purities needed for a nuclear weapon.

But they stopped short of offering Tehran substantial relief from UN Security Council and unilateral Western sanctions that last year began to cause major economic problems for the Gulf country.

Iran denies seeking atomic weapons but many in the international community suspect otherwise.

-AFP/fl

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White House to Supreme Court: End marriage law

Edith Windsor (shown with Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., in December), is at the center of the upcoming Supreme Court case.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• The Justice Department files first in a series of legal briefs involving two big cases


• Supreme Court will hear arguments next month on Defense of Marriage Act


• Lawyers for House GOP say they should be able to defend the marriage law in court


• U.S. still deciding whether to intervene in second case involving California law

Washington (CNN) -- In a preview of a major constitutional showdown at the Supreme Court over same-sex marriage, the Obama administration said on Friday that a federal law denying financial benefits to legally wed gay and lesbian couples is unconstitutional.

The Justice Department filed the first of a series of briefs in a pair of cases dealing with the multilayered issue, outlining the executive branch's positions.

The high court will hear oral arguments next month on the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), a 1996 congressional law that says for federal purposes, marriage is defined as only between one man and one woman.

That means federal tax, Social Security, pension, and bankruptcy benefits, and family medical leave protections -- do not apply to gay and lesbian couples.

This case deals with Edith "Edie" Windsor, forced to assume an estate tax bill much larger than other married couples would have to pay. Because her decades-long partner was a woman, the federal government did not recognize the same-sex marriage in legal terms, even though their home state of New York did.

But now, led by President Barack Obama's recent political about-face, the administration opposes the law.

"Moral opposition to homosexuality, though it may reflect deeply held personal views, is not a legitimate policy objective that can justify unequal treatment of gay and lesbian people" contained in the DOMA law, Solicitor General Donald Verrilli said in the Justice Department's legal brief.

The separate case from California deals with Proposition 8, a 2008 voter-approved referendum banning same-sex marriage. This after the California high court had earlier concluded same-sex couples could legally wed. That case too will be heard in late March.

Though technically a party in the California case, government sources say the Justice Department was prepared next week to file an "amicus" or supporting brief asserting a constitutional right to same-sex marriage, and that Proposition 8 should be struck down as a violation of constitutionally guaranteed "equal protection" of the laws.

Those sources say Obama was expected to make the final call on whether to intervene in the state dispute.

"I have to make sure that I'm not interjecting myself too much in this process, particularly when we're not a party to the case," Obama said Wednesday in an interview with CNN affiliate KGO-TV in San Francisco.

Of more immediate concern was the DOMA fight, where the administration is squarely involved. But a tricky gateway or "jurisdictional" question threatens to stall any final consideration of the law's constitutionality. That was the focus of much of the Friday legal papers.

The DOMA law will be defended by House Republicans, after Obama concluded the law was unconstitutional.

Traditionally, that role would fall to the solicitor general's office. But Obama, in an election-year stunner, said last May that he supported same-sex marriage.

The president had already ordered Attorney General Eric Holder not to defend DOMA in court. That raised the question of whether any party could rightfully step in and defend the law.

Besides the constitutional issue, the justices had specifically ordered both sides to argue a supplemental question: whether congressional Republicans -- operating officially as the Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group of the U.S. House of Representatives -- have "standing" or legal authority to make the case.

Lawyers representing the House GOP said Friday that they should be able to take the lead and defend the law, since both Windsor and the Obama administration are taking the same legal position.

"Without the House's participation," said attorney Paul Clement, representing House leaders, "it is hard to see how there is any case or controversy here at all. Both Ms. Windsor and the executive agree that DOMA is unconstitutional and that Ms. Windsor was entitled to a [tax] refund. And the lower courts granted them all the relief they requested. Only the House's intervention provides the adverseness that Article III [federal court jurisdiction] demands."

But the Justice Department said it alone should present the government's case.

"House Republicans lack "any basis for supplanting the executive branch's exclusive role in representing the United States' interests in this litigation, and has no interests of its own that would satisfy" federal court scrutiny, said administration lawyers.

Windsor's legal team also said the House leaders could defend DOMA, at least partially, suggesting the woman wants ultimate resolution on the constitutional questions as soon as possible.

"I was devastated by the loss of the great love of my life, and I was also very sick, then had to deal with pulling together enough money to pay for the taxes," the 83-year-old Windsor told CNN recently. "And it was deeply upsetting."

The story of Edith and Thea

That fundamental unfairness, as Windsor and her supporters see it, is at the center of DOMA legal fight.

In November, three states -- Maryland, Washington, and Maine -- approved same-sex marriage, adding to the six states and the District of Columbia that already have done so. Minnesota voters also rejected an effort to ban such unions through a constitutional amendment.

As more states legalize same-sex marriage, one of the key questions the justices may be forced to address is whether a national consensus now exists supporting the idea of expanding an "equal protection" right of marriage to homosexuals.

A bill known as the Respect for Marriage Act is working its way through Congress and would repeal DOMA.

That law does not prohibit states from allowing same-sex marriages, but it also does not force states to recognize them from other states. Most of the current plaintiffs are federal workers, who are not allowed to add their spouses to health care plans, and other benefits.

Many other states, including New Jersey, Illinois, Delaware, Rhode Island and Hawaii, have legalized domestic partnerships and civil unions for such couples -- a step designed in most cases to provide the same rights of marriage under state law.

But other states have passed laws or state constitutional amendments banning such marriages. California's Proposition 8 is the only such referendum that revoked the right after lawmakers and the state courts previously allowed it. That makes it a somewhat unique legal case for review by the justices.

The DOMA cases are U.S. v. Windsor (12-307) and Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group of the U.S. House of Representatives v. Windsor (12-785).

Read More..

Pentagon grounds F-35 fleet after engine crack found

Updated 9:03 PM ET

WASHINGTON The Pentagon on Friday grounded its fleet of F-35 fighter jets after discovering a cracked engine blade in one plane.

The problem was discovered during what the Pentagon called a routine inspection at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., of an F-35A, the Air Force version of the sleek new plane. The Navy and the Marine Corps are buying other versions of the F-35, which is intended to replace older fighters like the Air Force F-16 and the Navy F/A-18.

All versions -- a total of 51 planes -- were grounded Friday pending a more in-depth evaluation of the problem discovered at Edwards. None of the planes have been fielded for combat operations; all are undergoing testing.

In a brief written statement, the Pentagon said it is too early to know the full impact of the newly discovered problem.

A watchdog group, the Project on Government Oversight, said the grounding is not likely to mean a significant delay in the effort to field the stealthy aircraft.

"The F-35 is a huge problem because of its growing, already unaffordable, cost and its gigantically disappointing performance," the group's Winslow Wheeler said. "That performance would be unacceptable even if the aircraft met its far-too-modest requirements, but it is not."

The F-35 is the Pentagon's most expensive weapons program at a total estimated cost of nearly $400 billion. The Pentagon envisions buying more than 2,400 F-35s, but some members of Congress are balking at the price tag.

Friday's suspension of flight operations will remain in effect until an investigation of the problem's root cause is determined.

The Pentagon said the engine in which the problem was discovered is being shipped to a Pratt & Whitney facility in Connecticut for more thorough evaluation.

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Cyberattacks Bring Attention to Security Reform

Recent accusations of a large-scale cyber crime effort by the Chinese government left many wondering what immediate steps the president and Congress are taking to prevent these attacks from happening again.

On Wednesday, the White House released the administration's Strategy on Mitigating the Theft of U.S. Trade Secrets as a follow-up to the president's executive order. The strategy did not outwardly mention China, but it implied U.S. government awareness of the problem.

"We are taking a whole of government approach to stop the theft of trade secrets by foreign competitors or foreign governments by any means -- cyber or otherwise," U.S. Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator Victoria Espinel said in a White House statement.

As of now, the administration's strategy is the first direct step in addressing cybersecurity, but in order for change to happen Congress needs to be involved. So far, the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) is the most notable Congressional legislation addressing the problem, despite its past controversy.

Last April, CISPA was introduced by House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Mich., and Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger, D-Md. The act would allow private companies with consumer information to voluntarily share those details with the NSA and the DOD in order to combat cyber attacks.

Peter Parks/AFP/Getty Images

The companies would be protected from any liabilities if the information was somehow mishandled. This portion of the act sounded alarm bells for CISPA's opponents, like the ACLU, which worried that this provision would incentivize companies to share individuals' information with disregard.

CISPA passed in the House of Representatives, despite a veto threat from the White House stemming from similar privacy concerns. The bill then died in the Senate.

This year, CISPA was reintroduced the day after the State of the Union address during which the president declared an executive order targeting similar security concerns from a government standpoint.

In contrast to CISPA, the executive order would be initiated on the end of the government, and federal agencies would share relevant information regarding threats with private industries, rather than asking businesses to supply data details. All information shared by the government would be unclassified.

At the core of both the executive order and CISPA, U.S. businesses and the government would be encouraged to work together to combat cyber threats. However, each option would clearly take a different route to collaboration. The difference seems minimal, but has been the subject of legislative debates between the president and Congress for almost a year, until now.

"My response to the president's executive order is very positive," Ruppersberger told ABC News. "[The president] brought up how important information sharing is [and] by addressing critical infrastructure, he took care of another hurdle that we do not have to deal with."

Addressing privacy roadblocks, CISPA backers said the sharing of private customer information with the government, as long as personal details are stripped, is not unprecedented.

"Think of what we do with HIPAA in the medical professions; [doctors do not need to know] the individual person, just the symptoms to diagnose a disease," Michigan Gov. John Engler testified at a House Intelligence Committee hearing in an attempt to put the problem into context.

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Spidey-sense suit tingles when someone gets too close

FOR Peter Parker, it was a tingling sensation that alerted him to an imminent threat. Now anyone can pretend to be Spider-Man by simply donning a suit that lets you feel how close you are to a nearby object. It can even let the wearer navigate with their eyes closed.

The suit, called SpiderSense and built by Victor Mateevitsi of the University of Illinois in Chicago has small robotic arms packaged in modules with microphones that send out and pick up ultrasonic reflections from objects. When the ultrasound detects someone moving closer to the microphone, the arms respond by exerting a growing pressure on the body. Seven of these modules are distributed across the suit to give the wearer as near to 360 degree ultrasound coverage as possible.

"When someone is punching Spider-Man, he feels the sensation and can avoid it. Our suit is the same concept," says Mateevitsi. SpiderSense could help blind people to find their way more easily, he says.

Mateevitsi tested the suit out on students, getting them to stand outside on campus, blindfolded, and "feel" for approaching attackers. Each wearer had ninja cardboard throwing stars to use whenever they sensed someone approaching them. "Ninety five per cent of the time they were able to sense someone approaching and throw the star at them," says Mateevitsi.

"I'm very excited about this," says Gershon Dublon of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who also works on augmenting parts of the human body. Mateevitsi's work is a step on the road to giving humans truly integrated extrasensory perception, says Dublon.

Mateevitsi wants to use the suit, or just a few sensors on the arms and back, to boost cyclists' awareness of other traffic on the road. SpiderSense is due to be presented at the Augmented Human conference in Stuttgart, Germany, in March. The team now plans to add more sensors to the suit to increase its resolution.

"We humans have the senses that we are born with and we can't extend them," Mateevisti says. "But there are some threats which are very deadly, but we can't sense them, like radiation. Electronic sensors can feel those threats."

The team also plans to begin trials of SpiderSense with visually impaired people.

This article appeared in print under the headline "Back off, my Spidey senses tell me you're too close"

If you would like to reuse any content from New Scientist, either in print or online, please contact the syndication department first for permission. New Scientist does not own rights to photos, but there are a variety of licensing options available for use of articles and graphics we own the copyright to.

All comments should respect the New Scientist House Rules. If you think a particular comment breaks these rules then please use the "Report" link in that comment to report it to us.

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Spate of blasts killed 83 in Damascus' deadliest day

DAMASCUS: A spate of bombings across Damascus killed at least 83 people in the deadliest day for the capital since Syria's war erupted, a watchdog said Friday, as the opposition discussed a plan for peace talks with the regime.

Thursday's biggest bombing, which both the regime and its opponents blamed on "terrorists", killed 61 people and left a trail of destruction in the city centre, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The attack, in Mazraa district, was carried out by a suicide bomber who detonated his explosives-laden car near the entrance of the Baath party's main offices, said the Britain-based monitor.

Gruesome images of charred bodies next to mangled vehicles were shown on state television, which said children were among the casualties in the explosion near a school.

The blast wounded more than 200 people in a wide radius, including Nayef Hawatmeh, the head of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, which said he was hit by flying glass in his office 500 metres (yards) away.

Russian news agencies reported the windows of Moscow's embassy were blown out, although no staff was hurt.

Another 22 people were killed in an apparently coordinated triple bombing targeting security headquarters in the northern Damascus district of Barzeh on Thursday, including 19 members of the forces, said the Observatory.

Attacks have increasingly targeted government or security buildings in Damascus in recent months, many of them claimed by the jihadist Al-Nusra Front which Washington has designated as a "terrorist" organisation.

The attacks were condemned by both the regime of President Bashar al-Assad and the umbrella opposition National Coalition, as well as the United States, Russia and UN chief Ban Ki-moon.

There was no still claim of responsibility for the Mazraa blast.

The Syrian foreign ministry alleged the bombing was "carried out by armed terrorist groups linked to Al-Qaeda that receive financial and logistic help from abroad", using government terminology for rebels.

The opposition also denounced the bombers as "terrorists".

"Any acts targeting civilians with murder or human rights violations are criminal acts that must be condemned, regardless of the perpetrator or the justification," said the National Coalition.

Elsewhere, 38 people were killed Thursday in Daraa, birthplace of the revolt in the country's south, including 18 in an air raid on a medical centre, said the Observatory.

Also in Daraa, six women and a child all from the same family were killed in an explosion at Tsil, and 10 more civilians died in army shelling of Jassem town.

In the northwestern province of Idlib, where sectarian strife has been rising, 40 Shiites kidnapped by an armed group and 300 Sunnis abducted in reprisals last week were released after mediation talks between families.

The majority of the Syrian population fighting the Assad regime are Sunni Muslims, while the president and his clan belong to the Alawite branch of Shiite Islam.

The attacks added urgency to the National Coalition meeting in Cairo, where discussions will continue later on Friday focused on an offer by its chief to talk directly with the regime.

Coalition chairman Ahmed Moaz al-Khatib has offered to talk to regime officials without "blood on their hands" -- an initiative welcomed by the Arab League and the United States as well as Assad allies Iran and Russia.

But the Syrian National Council, a key part of the Coalition, has rejected any talks until Assad quits, and the regime says it will negotiate only without preconditions.

At the United Nations, Russia accused US diplomats of blocking a Security Council condemnation of the Mazraa attack. Other diplomats said however that Russia had refused to include language criticising Assad.

The UN says at least 70,000 people have been killed in the conflict which was sparked by a bloody regime crackdown on Arab Spring-inspired protests that broke out in March 2011.

-AFP/fl

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Teens get strippers; mom arrested

By Jack Maddox, CNN

updated 11:32 PM EST, Wed February 20, 2013

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Albany-area woman is accused of hiring strippers for her son's 16th birthday


• Judy Viger, 33, is charged with five counts of endangering the welfare of a child


• Photos posted on Facebook alerted the parents of teens who attended

(CNN) -- An upstate New York mother is accused of hiring strippers for her son's 16th birthday party late last year, according to the Saratoga County District Attorney.

Judy Viger, 33, of Gansevoort is charged with five counts of endangering the welfare of a child, District Attorney James Murphy said in a statement. The parents of five teens who attended the party reported the presence of strippers to police.

The complaining parents found out that the strippers had been at the November 3 bowling party through photos posted on Facebook. The parents took the pictures to the South Glens Falls police, who then started taking witness statements, the district attorney's statement says.

One of the photos distributed by the district attorney's office shows Viger receiving a lap dance from one of the hired dancers; another picture shows a young male with another nearly nude dancer on top of him with her legs around his head.

"As difficult as it may be for us to have to weigh in on these kinds of cases, certainly exposing the unsuspecting children to this sort of 'entertainment' goes beyond the pale when it comes to what is appropriate for 14, 15 and 16 year old child," Murphy said in the statement.

CNN affiliate WRGB visited the Viger home and encountered a man who said the family "was not making statements at this time."

CNN's calls to Viger, her attorney and the adult entertainment company that provided the dancers were not immediately returned.

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Georgia executes man lawyers claimed was mentally ill

JACKSON, Ga. A 38-year-old inmate convicted of killing two college students in 1995 was executed in Georgia on Thursday, apologizing to the families of both victims before being injected at a state prison.

Andrew Allen Cook was pronounced dead at 11:22 p.m., about 14 minutes after he was injected with the sedative pentobarbital. He was the first inmate to be executed since the state changed its procedure in July from a three-drug combination to a single dose.

With his last words, he apologized to the families of Mercer University students Grant Patrick Hendrickson, 22, and Michele Lee Cartagena, 19, who were shot several times as they sat in a car at Lake Juliette, which is about 75 miles south of Atlanta. He said what he did was senseless.

"I'm sorry," Cook said as he was strapped to a gurney. "I'm not going to ask you to forgive me. I can't even do it myself."

He also thanked his family for "their support, for being with me and I'm sorry I took so much from you all."

The Georgia Appeals Court on Wednesday temporarily stayed Cook's execution to consider a challenge to the state's lethal injection procedure. But the Georgia Supreme Court lifted the stay Thursday and all other appeals were exhausted.

Cook's lawyers have argued at various stages in their appeals of his death sentence that he suffered from mental illness and was being treated for depression up to the time of his death.

Mary Hendrickson, the mother of one of the victims, recently told television station WMAZ-TV in Macon she's been waiting 18 years for justice.

"I think that's what it was: the devil's work," she said. "When all that is going on, I was just thinking to myself, 'Well, the devil is not going to win. He's not going to win over my heart. He is not going to win."'

The single-drug injection began at about 11:08 p.m. Cook blinked his eyes a few times, and his eyes soon got heavy. His chest was heaving for about two or three minutes as his eyes closed. Not too long after, two doctors examined him and nodded and Carl Humphrey, warden of the state prison in Jackson, pronounced him dead.

Corrections officials said Thursday evening that Cook had received visits from family earlier in the day and ate the last meal he had requested -- steak, a baked potato, potato wedges, fried shrimp, lemon meringue pie and soda.

A jury sentenced Cook to death after he was convicted in the January 2, 1995 slayings at Lake Juliette. Cook wasn't charged until more than two years later. He confessed to his father, a Macon FBI agent who ended up testifying at his son's trial.

The Georgia Bureau of Investigation reached out to John Cook in December 1995 because they were interested in speaking to his son. When he called his then-22-year-old son to tell him the GBI wanted to talk to him, he had no idea the younger man was considered a suspect.

"I said, 'Andy, the GBI is looking for you concerning the Lake Juliette homicide. Do you know anything about it?"' John Cook testified at his son's trial in March 1998. "He said, 'Daddy, I can't tell you. You're one of them. ... You're a cop."'

Eventually, Andrew Cook told his father that he knew about the slayings, that he was there and that he knew who shot the couple, John Cook recalled.

"I just felt like the world was crashing in on me. But I felt maybe he was there and just saw what happened," he said. "I then asked, 'Did you shoot them?'

"After a pause on the phone, he said, 'Yes."'

As a law enforcement officer, John Cook said he was forced to call his supervisor and contacted the Monroe County sheriff.

At the trial, as he walked away from the stand, the distraught father mouthed "I'm sorry" to the victims' families who were sitting on the front row of the courtroom. Several members of both families acknowledged his apology.

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