(CBS News) WASHINGTON - At his news conference Friday, President Obama was asked about his decision to get involved in the battle over same-sex marriage in California's ban on same-sex marriage. Late Thursday, the administration filed a brief with the Supreme Court, saying that California's ban on gays and lesbians marrying violates their constitutional rights.
"If the Supreme Court asks me or my attorney general or solicitor general, 'Do we think that meets constitutional muster?' -- I felt it was important for us to answer that question honestly. And the answer is no," said the president
CBS News chief legal correspondent Jan Crawford spoke with "Evening News" anchor Scott Pelley about the brief and its potential impact. A transcript of the conversation follows.
Obama: If I were on Supreme Court, I'd defend same-sex marriage Obama administration urges Supreme Court to overturn Calif. same-sex marriage ban Clint Eastwood signs pro-gay marriage brief
Scott Pelley: Jan, the court will hear arguments later this month that will impact all of this. I wonder what the president's comments today have to do with the case?
Jan Crawford: Well Scott, as the president said today,"I'm not a judge, I'm the president." His views carry no binding authority in the Supreme Court. Just because the administration is making this argument doesn't mean the court has to go along with it. The federal government is not directly involved in this case -- it's a challenge by same-sex couples in California to a California constitutional amendment that bans gay marriage. The administration chose to get involved to make a strong statement on gay rights that are reflected in his comments today. The brief in fact is more important politically and symbolically than legally.
Pelley: The case is centered on California. Could it have wider-ranging implications?
Crawford: Yes, it certainly could . Even though this case comes from California, it could have an enormous impact across the country. California is one of 30 states that has a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. The decision could affect all of those laws -- that's more than half the states in this country. And if the Supreme Court agrees with the president -- that amendments like California's are unconstitutional -- many or all of those laws banning gay marriage could be in jeopardy.
VATICAN CITY The Catholic Church has awoken with no pontiff following Benedict XVI's resignation, in which he pledged obedience to his successor and described himself as "simply a pilgrim" starting the final part of his life.
Now begins a period known as the "sede vacante" or "vacant see" — the transition between the end of one papacy and the election of a new pope.
During these few days — no more than 20 — a few key players take charge running the Holy See, guiding the College of Cardinals in their deliberations and organizing the conclave to elect Benedict's successor.
In one of his first official acts as dean, Cardinal Angelo Sodano on Friday officially summoned cardinals to Rome to participate in the conclave, a formality given that most are already here. Sodano sent official "convocation letters" to the cardinals' offices around the world Friday, along with electronic versions via email, summoning them to the Vatican.
And in one of his first official acts as camerlengo, or the chamberlain who actually runs the Holy See in the transition, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone sealed Benedict's apartment in the Apostolic Palace on Thursday night. It will not be reopened until a new pope is elected.
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Pope Benedict XVI officially retires
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Pope leaving behind unfinished business
With the 8 p.m. Thursday end of Benedict's papacy, every department head in the Vatican lost his job — except for those whose offices are crucial for the smooth running of the transition period itself.
Cardinals on Monday will begin formal meetings to set the date for the conclave and discuss problems facing the church; major topics of discussion are expected to be the report Benedict commissioned into the leaks of sensitive Vatican documents and the dysfunction currently reigning in the Vatican bureaucracy.
The date for the conclave of cardinals to begin their deliberations has not yet been set, although one of Pope Benedict XVI's final acts before resigning his office was to amend the rules governing the election of a successor, allowing the cardinals to meet earlier than the usual 15-day transition between pontificates.
On Thursday, soon after Benedict left the Vatican on his final day as pope, Monsignor Carlo Maria Celli, a papal communications officer, hinted that the date could be March 11. That could not be immediately confirmed.
The date of the conclave's start is important because Holy Week begins March 24, with Easter Sunday March 31. In order to have a new pope in place for the church's most solemn liturgical period, he would need to be installed by Sunday, March 17
"What we talk about ... will be certainly the governance of the church and in that context there may be questions to people who did the report," said Chicago Cardinal Francis George. "I think we will find out a lot from a lot of sources to figure out what is necessary now to govern the church well here in Rome itself."
(CBS News) An international group of scientists have identified genetic links between five major psychiatric disorders, including autism, ADHD, bipolar disorder, depression and schizophrenia.
Their study, published in the medical journal Lancet, could change how we understand and treat the illnesses.
For the first time, researchers were able to see if there are any genetic variants that are linked to not just one of those disorders, but to all five. "And there were," Dr. Jordan Smoller, one of the lead researchers in the study, said on "CBS This Morning."
Smoller, a psychiatry professor at Massachusetts General Hospital, explained, "There were several regions of the genome, several variations that seemed to increase the risk for all five. It's important to realize, of course, that this is a small part of the genetic component of these disorders, but it points to a shared biology."
The researchers took this approach because disorders often cluster in families. Smoller added, "It's not only that, we sometimes see the same family being affected with multiple kinds of disorders, so there was some evidence that there would be shared links, but this is the first time we've been able to see specific DNA variations."
Will the study affect how we treat these disorders?
"Well, not immediately," Smoller said. "But one of the interesting findings from the study was that genes involved in how calcium channels operate in the brain. These are important for how brain cells communicate. It seemed to be associated with all of these disorders, so it raises the possibility that treatments that target those channels might have broad effects."
But just because you have family members that have one of these disorders doesn't mean you will develop a disorder, Smoller explained. "We do know that all psychiatric disorders do seem to run in families to a degree," he said. "We also know that genes are not destiny. It is not the entire picture. But the hope is that we're going learn something fundamental about how these disorders occur."
Asked if eventually predicting these disorders is possible, Smoller said, "We're not there yet, but the more we learn about the genetic and non-genetic causes of these disorders, the better position we're going to be to know who might be at risk and what we might be able to do."
Senate lawmakers this week are beginning what appears to be their final push to pass gun control legislation in response to the deadly massacre at a Newtown, Conn., elementary school in December.
On Wednesday, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., is chairing a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the "Assault Weapons Ban of 2013," which she introduced last month. The following day, the Judiciary Committee plans to consider the assault weapons ban, which would also ban high-capacity ammunition magazines, as well as three other bills.
The assault weapons ban is seen as having virtually no chance to get through Congress. The decision by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., to nonetheless consider it in committee signals that the Senate is taking a piecemeal approach to passing gun control legislation, rather than trying to pass a comprehensive bill. That's because the assault weapons bill, which has a good chance to clear the committee, would almost certainly drag down the other gun control legislation if it were part of a comprehensive package presented to the full Senate. Feinstein herself acknowledged this week that her bill faced "very tough" prospects on the Senate floor.
The other gun control bills scheduled to be taken up Thursday are a Leahy-backed measure to combat illegal arms trafficking; a bill sponsored by Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., focused on school safety; and a bill mandating universal background checks sponsored by Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.
Because Judiciary Committee rules allow any senator to ask for a one-week delay, it is likely the markup will be postponed until March 7. (A spokesman for the ranking member of the committee, Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, said in a statement that no decision had been made but that "there are some shenanigans going on" because a final version of Schumer's bill has yet to be introduced.) The Judiciary Committee will put together final versions of the bills and vote on them, and the Senate leadership can then decide how to bring them to the Senate floor for consideration.
Schumer has been working with Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., and two other senators to reach compromise on the background check bill. The parties have reached an impasse over the issue of whether gun sellers should be forced to keep a record of gun sales.
By law, the federal government must destroy evidence of background checks within 24 hours - otherwise, some argue, the government would have a de facto federal gun registry. Schumer thus argues that sellers should be required to maintain a record of the sale.
The idea is that if a gun is used in a crime and is traced to the seller, the seller would be able to produce a record of the transaction. That incentivizes the seller to perform the background check. That's because he would be in trouble if he sold the weapon to someone who the government could show would have failed a background check.
Jim Kessler of the centrist-Democratic think tank Third Way, who was formerly with Americans for Gun Safety, called the records "critically important."
"It is very difficult to enforce a universal background check law without being able to ask someone to prove that they did the background check," he said.
LUXOR, Egypt A hot air balloon flying over Egypt's ancient city of Luxor caught fire and crashed into a sugar cane field on Tuesday, killing at least 18 foreign tourists, a security official said.
It was one of the worst accidents involving tourists in Egypt and is likely to push the key tourism industry deeper into recession.
The casualties included French, British, Belgian, Hungarian, Japanese nationals and nine tourists from Hong Kong, Luxor Governor Ezzat Saad told reporters.
Three survivors of the crash -- two British tourists and one Egyptian -- were taken to a local hospital. Local media reports said the pilot was among the survivors.
According to the Egyptian security official, the balloon was carrying at least 20 tourists and over Luxor when it caught fire, which triggered an explosion in its gas canister. It then plunged at least 1,000 feet from the sky.
The balloon crashed into a sugar cane field outside al-Dhabaa village just west of Luxor, 320 miles south of Cairo, said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media.
Egyptians inspect the site where a hot air balloon exploded over the ancient temple city of Luxor on February 26, 2013.
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Bodies of the dead tourists were scattered across the field around the remnants of the balloon. An Associated Press reporter at the crash site counted eight bodies as they were put into body bags and taken away. The security official said all 18 bodies have been recovered.
The official said foul play has been ruled out. He also said initial reports of 19 dead were revised to 18 as confusion is common in the aftermath of such accidents.
Egypt's civil aviation minister, Wael el-Maadawi, flew to Luxor to lead the investigation into the crash.
The head of Japan Travel Bureau's Egypt branch, Atsushi Imaeda, confirmed that four Japanese died in the crash. He said two were a couple in their 60s and from Tokyo. Details on the other two were not immediately available.
In Hong Kong, a travel agency said nine of the tourists that were aboard the balloon were natives of the semiautonomous Chinese city. There was a "very big chance that all nine have perished," said Raymond Ng, a spokesman for the agency. The nine, he said, included five women and four men from three families.
They were traveling with six other Hong Kong residents on a 10-day tour of Egypt.
Ng said an escort of the nine tourists watched the balloon from the ground catching fire around 7 a.m. and plunging to the ground two minutes later.
In Britain, tour operator Thomas Cook confirmed that two British tourists were dead and two were in hospital.
"What happened in Luxor this morning is a terrible tragedy and the thoughts of everyone in Thomas Cook are with our guests, their family and friends," said Peter Fankhauser, CEO of Thomas Cook UK & Continental Europe.
"We have a very experienced team in resort with the two guests in the local hospital, and we're providing our full support to the family and friends of the deceased at this difficult time," he said.
In Paris, a diplomatic official said French tourists were among those involved in the accident, but would give no details on how many, or whether French citizens were among those killed.
Speaking on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to be publicly named according to government policy, the official said French authorities were working with their Egyptian counterparts to clarify what happened. French media reports said two French tourists were among the dead but the official wouldn't confirm that.
Hot air ballooning, usually at sunrise over the famed Karnak and Luxor temples as well as the Valley of the Kings, is a popular pastime for tourists visiting the area.
The site of the accident has seen past crashes. In 2009, 16 tourists were injured when their balloon struck a cellphone transmission tower. A year earlier, seven tourists were injured in a similar crash.
Egypt's tourism industry has been decimated since the 18-day uprising in 2011 against autocrat leader Hosni Mubarak and the political turmoil that followed and continues to this day.
Luxor's hotels are currently about 25 percent full in what is supposed to be the peak of the winter season.
Scared off by the political turmoil and tenuous security that has followed the uprising, the number of tourists coming to Egypt fell to 9.8 million in 2011 from 14.7 million the year before, and revenues plunged 30 percent to $8.8 billion.
Poverty swelled at the country's fastest rate in Luxor, which is highly dependent on visitors to its monumental temples and the tombs of King Tutankhamun and other pharaohs. In 2011, 39 percent of its population lived on less than $1 a day, compared to 18 percent in 2009, according to government figures.
Ben Affleck's Iran rescue thriller "Argo" has won best picture from the Academy Awards.
It's the first best picture winner not to be nominated for best director since 1989's "Driving Miss Daisy." But despite the omission of Affleck -- or perhaps buoyed by it -- "Argo" emerged as the Oscar favorite, winning top honors from the directors, producers, screen actors and writers guilds.
From the White House, first lady Michelle Obama joined Jack Nicholson to help present the final prize.
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Oscars 2013: Show highlights
"There are eight great films that have every right, as much a right to be up here as we do," Affleck said of the other best-picture nominees.
In share-the-wealth mode, Oscar voters spread Sunday's honors among a range of films, with "Argo" winning three trophies but "Life of Pi" leading with four.
Daniel Day-Lewis joined a select group of recipients with his third Oscar, taking the best-actor trophy for his performance as Abraham Lincoln in the Civil War saga "Lincoln."
The award for best actress went to Jennifer Lawrence for her performance as a young widower in "Silver Linings Playbook." It's the first Oscar for the 22-year-old Lawrence, who was also nominated for "Winter's Bone" in 2011. The actress tripped on her Dior gown as she made her way to the stage, but by the time she got to the microphone, the Dolby Theatre crowd applauded her with a standing ovation.
"You guys are just standing up because you feel bad that I fell," she said.
Anne Hathaway went from propping up leaden sidekick James Franco at the Academy Awards to hefting a golden statue of her own with a supporting-actress Oscar win as a doomed mother-turned-prostitute in the musical "Les Miserables."
"It came true," Hathaway said as she accepted the award. She famously cropped her hair on camera playing the gaunt Fantine, and her full-throated, one-take rendition of "I Dreamed a Dream" was classic Oscar-winning stuff. She was one of the night's most obvious shoo-ins, having swept the major awards leading up to the Oscars.
Christoph Waltz won his second supporting-actor Oscar for a Quentin Tarantino film, this time as a genteel bounty hunter in the slave-revenge saga "Django Unchained." Tarantino also won his second Oscar, for original screenplay for "Django."
In a choked voice, Waltz offered thanks to his character and "to his creator and the creator of his awe-inspiring world, Quentin Tarantino." He also offered thanks to his supporting-actor competitors, who included two-time Oscar winner Robert De Niro and Oscar recipient Tommy Lee Jones, who had been considered a slim favorite over Waltz for the prize.
Taiwanese director Ang Lee pulled off a huge upset at the Academy Awards with a win for the shipwreck story "Life of Pi," taking the best director prize over Steven Spielberg, who had been favored for "Lincoln."
"Thank you, movie god," Lee said as he accepted the award.
"Life of Pi" also won for Mychael Danna's multicultural musical score that blends Indian and Western instruments and influences, plus cinematography and visual effects.
"Argo" also claimed the Oscar for adapted screenplay for Chris Terrio, who worked with Affleck to create a liberally embellished story based on an article about the rescue and part of CIA operative Tony Mendez's memoir.
Terrio dedicated the award to Mendez, saying "33 years ago, Tony, using nothing but his creativity and his intelligence, Tony got six people out of a bad situation."
The foreign-language prize went to Austrian filmmaker Michael Haneke's old-age love story "Amour," which had been a major surprise with five nominations, including picture, director and original screenplay for Haneke and best actress for Emmanuelle Riva, who turned 86 on Sunday and would be the oldest acting winner ever.
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Oscars 2013: Press room
"Brave," the Scottish adventure from Disney's Pixar Animation unit, was named best animated feature. Pixar films have won seven of the 12 Oscars since the category was added.
The upbeat musical portrait "Searching for Sugar Man" took the documentary feature prize over a lineup of sober films that included the AIDS chronicle "How to Survive a Plague," the military-rape critique "The Invisible War" and the Israel-Palestine studies "5 Broken Cameras" and "The Gatekeepers."
There was also a rare tie in one category, with the Osama bin Laden thriller "Zero Dark Thirty" and the James Bond tale "Skyfall" each winning for sound editing.
Host Seth MacFarlane opened the live Oscars telecast with a monologue that poked fun at stars and the movie industry. He offered a jab at academy voters over Ben Affleck's snub in the best director category for best-picture favorite "Argo," a thriller about the CIA's plot to rescue six Americans during the Iranian hostage crisis.
"The story was so top secret that the film's director is unknown to the academy," MacFarlane said. "They know they screwed up. Ben, it's not your fault."
William Shatner made a guest appearance as his "Star Trek" character Capt. James Kirk, appearing on a giant screen above the stage during MacFarlane's monologue, saying he came back in time to stop the host from ruining the Oscars.
"Your jokes are tasteless and inappropriate, and everyone ends up hating you," said Shatner, who revealed a headline supposedly from the next day's newspaper with a headline reading, "Seth MacFarlane worst Oscar host ever."
The performance-heavy Oscars also included an opening number featuring Charlize Theron and Channing Tatum, who did a classy dance while MacFarlane crooned "The Way You Look Tonight." Daniel Radcliffe and Joseph Gordon-Levitt then joined MacFarlane for an elegant musical rendition of "High Hopes." There was also another musical number called "We Saw Your Boobs," in which MacFarlane called out actresses who have gone topless in movies.
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Oscars 2013: Red carpet
Oscar producers Craig Zadan and Neil Meron lined up a top-notch cast of stars as presenters, including "The Avengers" co-stars Robert Downey Jr., Samuel L. Jackson, Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo and Jeremy Renner. They presented two prizes that went to the shipwreck tale "Life of Pi," cinematography and visual effects.
Halle Berry introduced a tribute to the Bond franchise, in which she has co-starred, as the British super-spy celebrated his 50th anniversary on the big-screen last year with the latest adventure "Skyfall." Shirley Bassey sang her theme song to the 1960s Bond tale "Goldfinger." Later, pop star Adele performed her theme tune from "Skyfall," which won the best-song Oscar.
Barbra Streisand injected some musical sentiment into the show's segment memorializing Hollywood figures who died in the past year as she sang "The Way We Were," the Oscar-winning song she did in the film of the same name.
A salute to the resurgence of movie musicals in the last decade included Oscar winners Zeta-Jones singing "All That Jazz" from "Chicago" and Hudson doing "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going" from "Dreamgirls." Jackman and Hathaway joined cast mates of best-picture contender "Les Miserables" to sing songs from their musical.
Fans have pondered how far MacFarlane the impudent creator of "Family Guy," might push the normally prim and proper Oscars. MacFarlane was generally polite and respectful, showcasing his charm, wit and vocal gifts.
He did press his luck a bit on an Abraham Lincoln joke, noting that Raymond Massey preceded "Lincoln" star Daniel Day-Lewis as an Oscar nominee for 1940's "Abe Lincoln in Illinois."
"I would argue that the actor who really got inside Lincoln's head was John Wilkes Booth," MacFarlane wisecracked, earning some groans from the crowd. "A hundred and 50 years later, and it's still too soon?"
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla .With the start of the Daytona 500 just hours away, NASCAR officials still have some cleaning up to do amid growing questions about fan safety.
The season opener will go off as planned Sunday less than 24 hours after at least 33 people were injured when a car flew into the fence during a NASCAR race at Daytona International Speedway, sending a tire and large pieces of debris sailing into the stands.
"Just seeing the carnage on the racetrack, it was truly unbelievable," driver Justin Allgaier said.
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Daytona racecar loses control
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Fans injured in crash at Daytona
The final-lap accident Saturday marred the second-tier Nationwide Series race on the eve of a spectacle often called the Super Bowl of motorsports. Late into the night, track workers were scrambling to repair a huge section of fence that separates fans from the high-speed track.
Nathan Kimpel, 24, who works at a concession stand near where the crash happened, told CBS News correspondent Adriana Diaz that he saw 10 to 15 fans being carried out on stretchers.
"As soon as I saw the accident I just turned my head because I didn't want to get injured or anything," Kimpel told Diaz. "I saw the fence separate and more pieces of car parts flying up."
Meghan Willams, 20, who also works at a concession stand, told Diaz the crash sounded like an "earthquake." She saw people running and crying and a girl completely covered in engine oil.
Byron Cogdell, a spokesman for Halifax Health Medical Center, told CBS News that one of the 11 patents taken to the hospital was in critical condition and five more were listed as "trauma" patients.
Speedway President Joie Chitwood III has a news conference scheduled for Sunday morning to give the latest update on repairs and any safety changes that could be made before the "Great American Race."
The 12-car crash began about 200 feet from the start-finish line as the front-runners approached the checkered flag. Leader Regan Smith attempted to block Brad Keselowski for the win, triggering a horrific pileup that could have been much worse.
The front end of Larson's No. 32 car was sheared off, and his burning engine wedged through a gaping hole in the fence. Parts and pieces of his car sprayed into the stands, including a tire that cleared the top of the fence and landed midway up the spectator section closest to the track.
The 20-year-old Larson stood in shock a few feet from his car as fans in the stands waved frantically for help. Smoke from the burning engine briefly clouded the area, and emergency vehicles descended on the scene.
Ambulance sirens could be heard wailing behind the grandstands at a time the race winner would typically be doing celebratory burnouts.
"It was freaky. When I looked to my right, the accident happened," Rick Harpster of Orange Park said. "I looked over and I saw a tire fly straight over the fence into the stands, but after that I didn't see anything else. That was the worst thing I have seen, seeing that tire fly into the stands. I knew it was going to be severe."
Shannan Devine of Egg Harbor Township, N.J., was sitting about 250 feet from where the car smashed into the fence and could see plumes of smoke directly in front of her.
"I didn't know if there was a car on top of people. I didn't know what to think," she said. "I'm an emotional person and I immediately started to cry. It was very scary. Absolutely scary. I love the speed of the sport. But it's so dangerous."
Chitwood said 14 fans were treated on site and 14 others were taken to hospitals. Local officials said 19 people were taken to neighboring hospitals, including two who were in critical but stable condition.
Because of potential injuries, race winner Tony Stewart skipped the traditional victory celebration.
Stewart, who won for the 19th time at Daytona and seventh time in the last nine season-opening Nationwide races, was in no mood to celebrate.
"The important thing is what is going on on the frontstretch right now," said Stewart, a three-time NASCAR champion. "We've always known, and since racing started, this is a dangerous sport. But it's hard. We assume that risk, but it's hard when the fans get caught up in it.
"So as much as we want to celebrate right now and as much as this is a big deal to us, I'm more worried about the drivers and the fans that are in the stands right now because that was ... I could see it all in my mirror, and it didn't look good from where I was at."
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.
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.
ST. LOUIS Parts of the nation's heartland awoke Thursday to more than half a foot of snow, as a large storm made its way eastward out of the Rockies, snarling traffic for morning commuters and allowing an army of children to trade pen and paper for shovel and sled, at least for a day.
Winter storm warnings were issued from Colorado through Illinois, and many school districts cancelled classes ahead of time, in anticipation of the more than a foot of snow expected to fall in some places.
CBS News weather consultant David Bernard reported on "CBS This Morning" Thursday that very heavy snow squalls were moving across Wichita, Kan., and further north into Kansas City, Mo., where it looks like it's going to snow hard for about the entire day.
Forecast models show the snowstorm pivoting from the southwest to the northeast throughout the morning and afternoon hours, so Wichita would see improvement late Thursday, but northeastern Kansas and most of Missouri would be looking at heavy snowfall until at least Thursday night, Bernard reports.
Kelly Sugden, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Dodge City, Kan., said early Thursday that the storm that had already dumped heavy snow on Colorado.
"It's very active," Sugden said, noting the snowfall was mixed with lightning and sleet showers.
Kansas' capital, Topeka, had little more than a dusting of snow after dawn, but in the town of Rozel, roughly 210 miles west, 6 1/2 inches had already been reported fallen.
Sugden said that while forecasters weren't expecting blizzard conditions to develop in Kansas, the Interstate 70 corridor could get as much as 13 inches of snow, and large drifts would make driving very dangerous.
In Oklahoma on Wednesday, roads were covered with a slushy mix of snow and ice that officials said caused a crash that killed an 18-year-old driver, Cody Alexander.
Alexander, of Alex, Okla., skidded in his pickup truck into oncoming traffic on State Highway 19 and was hit by a truck and killed, the Oklahoma Highway Patrol said. The other driver wasn't seriously injured.
In northern Arkansas, a school bus crashed Wednesday on a steep, snowy country road, leaving three students and the driver with minor injuries. Pope County Sheriff Aaron Duval said the bus slid off a road on Crow Mountain, nearly flipping before it was stopped by trees at the roadside.
The weather service warned that freezing rain could lead to a half-inch or more of ice accumulating Thursday in central and northern Arkansas, making travelling particularly dangerous.
Officials said the storm could be the Midwest's worst since a two-day storm that began Feb. 1, 2011. That storm was blamed for about two dozen deaths and left hundreds of thousands without power, some for several days. At its peak, the storm created white-out conditions so intense that Interstate 70 was shut down across the entire state of Missouri.
Tim Chojnacki, spokesman for the Missouri Department of Transportation, said it planned to have salt trucks on the roads before the storm arrived in the Show-Me State in hopes that the precipitation would largely melt upon impact.
Much of Kansas was expected to get up to a foot of snow, which many rural residents welcomed after nearly a year of drought.
Jerry and Diane McReynolds spent part of Wednesday putting out more hay and straw for newborn calves at their farm near Woodston in north central Kansas. The storm made extra work, but Diane McReynolds said it would help their winter wheat, pastures and dried-up ponds.
"In the city you hear they don't want the snow and that sort of thing, and I am thinking, 'Yes, we do,' and they don't realize that we need it," she said. "We have to have it or their food cost in the grocery store is going to go very high. We have to have this. We pray a lot for it."
Meanwhile, a separate snow storm caught many drivers by surprise in California, leaving hundreds stranded on mountain highways. A 35-mile stretch of Highway 58 between Mojave and Bakersfield was closed Wednesday, and several school districts closed. No injuries were reported.
Schools also were closed in northern Arizona and Colorado with snow there. Mindy Crane, a spokeswoman for the Colorado Department of Transportation, said hundreds of plows had been deployed for what was expected to be one of the most significant snow storms of the season.
Just the threat of snow led to a series of shutdowns in the middle of the country. Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback closed state government from Thursday morning through Friday morning and urged residents to stay off the roads.
Lawmakers in Nebraska and Iowa cancelled committee meetings and hearings, and the Arkansas Senate voted to recess until Monday so lawmakers could make it home before the worst of the storm hit. University of Nebraska officials moved a Big Ten men's basketball game against Iowa from Thursday to Saturday.
National Weather Service meteorologist Jayson Gosselin said precipitation is generally expected to drop off as the storm makes its way east. Chicago and parts of Indiana, he said, could get about 2 inches of snow and some sleet.
PHOENIX Arizona took center stage in the national immigration debate Tuesday as Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano toured the state's border with Mexico and Sen. John McCain defended his proposed immigration overhaul to an angry crowd in suburban Phoenix.
The presence of the top officials is the latest sign that Arizona will play a prominent role in the immigration debate as President Obama looks to make it a signature issue of his second term.
Napolitano toured the border near Nogales with the highest-ranking official at U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the incoming chairman of the Senate's homeland security committee and an Arizona congressman. Napolitano, Arizona's former governor, said afterward that comprehensive immigration reform will strengthen the nation's border against criminals and other threats.
Also Tuesday, McCain hosted two town hall meetings in Arizona, during which he defended his immigration plan to upset residents concerned about border security. A bipartisan group of senators — including Arizona Republicans McCain and Jeff Flake — want assurances on border security as Congress weighs what could be the biggest changes to immigration law in nearly 30 years. Arizona is the only state with both of its senators working on immigration reform in Congress, a sign of the state's widely debated border security issues.
Immigration activists and elected officials say it's only natural for Arizona to continue to take the forefront in the national conversation on immigration after years of internal debate on the topic.
"No state in this country has had more experience with enforcement-only immigration laws than Arizona," said Todd Landfried, executive director of Arizona Employers for Immigration Reform, which opposes the state's tough immigration laws.
During a heated town hall gathering in the Phoenix suburb of Sun Lakes, McCain said the border near Yuma is largely secure, but he said smugglers are using the border near Tucson to pump drugs into Phoenix. He said immigration reform should be contingent on better border security that must rely largely on technology able to detect border crossings.
McCain said a tamper-proof Social Security card would help combat identity fraud, and noted any path to citizenship must require immigrants to learn English, cover back taxes and pay fines for breaking immigration laws.
"There are 11 million people living here illegally," he said. "We are not going to get enough buses to deport them."
Some audience members shouted out their disapproval.
One man yelled that only guns would discourage illegal immigration. Another man complained that illegal immigrants should never be able to become citizens or vote. A third man said illegal immigrants were illiterate invaders who wanted free government benefits.
McCain urged compassion. "We are a Judeo-Christian nation," he said. McCain's other town hall meeting took place in Green Valley, south of Tucson.
Arizona gained international recognition as an epicenter of the U.S. immigration debate when it passed its tough anti-immigrant law in 2010. A handful of other states — including Georgia, Indiana, South Carolina and Utah — have since adopted variations of Arizona's law.
Arizona has the nation's eighth-highest population of illegal immigrants, according to the Pew Research Hispanic Center. In 2010, illegal immigrants represented roughly 6 percent of the state's population.
Activists said Arizona's anti-immigrant laws inspired many illegal immigrants to demand more rights. Last week, some college students rallied outside Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer's office for driver's licenses for illegal immigrants.
"They no longer are afraid to come and say, 'I am not able to vote, but I can make my voice heard, and they have to listen to me,"' said community organizer Abril Gallardo.
A report released in January showed the U.S. Border Patrol's Tucson sector remains the busiest along the U.S.-Mexico border. The Tucson sector accounted for 38 percent of all drug seizures and 37 percent of all apprehensions along the border.
Brewer said last week the border cannot be declared safe until the people living near it feel secure from drug and human trafficking.
But Democratic Congresswoman Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona told Latino and black community leaders at a Phoenix luncheon Tuesday that Arizonans need to spread the word on how much more secure the border has become.
"There are lots of folks who don't live in Arizona who have no idea what the border is like," Sinema said.
Napolitano toured the border Tuesday afternoon with U.S. Customs and Border Protection Deputy Commissioner David Aguilar, Democratic Rep. Ron Barber of Arizona and Democratic Sen. Tom Carper of Delaware. Carper is the incoming chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.
She said in a statement after the tour that border crossings are down 50 percent since 2008 and 78 percent since their peak in 2000.
As the clock ticks on the automatic spending cuts set to kick in on March 1, President Obama will hold an event this morning to urge Congress to come up with an alternative plan to avert the cuts.
The White House says Mr. Obama will emphasize the potential negative effects of the so-called sequester - the $1.2 trillion over 10 years in cuts - by standing with first responders, people who the White House says will be directly affected by the cuts.
The president "will be joined at the White House by emergency responders - the kinds of working Americans whose jobs are on the line if Congressional Republicans fail to compromise on a balanced solution," a White House official said in a statement.
"The President will challenge Republicans to make a very simple choice: do they protect investments in education, health care and national defense or do they continue to prioritize and protect tax loopholes that benefit the very few at the expense of middle and working class Americans?" the official continued.
The $1.2 trillion sequester cuts, which were initially set to kick in on Jan. 1, emerged out of Congress' 2011 budget negotiations. Congress agreed that if a congressional "supercommittee" couldn't come up with an acceptable deficit reduction plan, Congress would just slash $1.2 trillion from the budget over 10 years -- half coming from defense spending and half from non-defense. The cuts were designed to be so drastic that Republicans and Democrats would be compelled to craft an alternate, bipartisan agreement on deficit reduction.
Ten days out, however, no single substitute plan exists and lawmakers are on a week's recess until next Monday.
Economists agree the steep, across-the-board cuts would slow the economy. The White House recently laid out the ways the sequester would hurt the middle class, from slashing education programs to small business loan guarantees. Taking $1.2 trillion out of the economy would put close to a million jobs at risk, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has estimated.
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Obama "doing everything he can" to stop sequester, says McDonough
The president and his chief of staff Denis McDonough have publicly prodded Congress multiple times since Mr. Obama's State of the Union address last Tuesday, emphasizing education, manufacturing, and immigration reform as the keys to growth. In his weekly address over the weekend, Mr. Obama lobbied for his "balanced approach" to deficit reduction that would combine "responsible reforms" on health care spending and taxes to stabilize our finances.
The president contrasted his approach with Republicans, who have proposed "even bigger cuts to things like education and job training, Medicare and Social Security benefits."
"That won't work," Mr. Obama said. "We can't just cut our way to prosperity."
Meantime, McDonough said the president hasn't "given up" on coming up with an alternative to avert the current set of cuts and he's doing "everything he can to not let this happen." In his State of the Union address last week, McDonough said, the president laid out what he's prepared to offer to avoid the cuts.
"We're ready to do another trillion-and-a-half to get to the $4 trillion mark that every economist in the country says we need to do to stabilize the debt problem," McDonough said on "Face the Nation" Sunday.
"Now when we think of the kinds of things that we're going to have to invest in, the president has also been very clear that he's ready to take on, as he laid out in the speech, a question like rising health care costs and Medicare."
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez with his daughters, Maria Gabriela, left, and Rosa Virginia as he holds a Feb. 14, 2013 copy of Cuba's state newspaper at an unknown location in Havana, Cuba, Feb. 14, 2013. /AP/Venezuelan government
CARACAS, Venezuela Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez returned home to Venezuela early Monday after more than two months of medical treatment in Cuba following cancer surgery.
Chavez announced his return in a series of message on his Twitter account, saying "we will continue our treatment here."
They were the first messages to appear on Chavez's Twitter account since Nov. 1.
"I'm clinging to Christ and trusting in my doctors and nurses," Chavez said in another tweet. "Onward toward victory always!! We will live and we will triumph!!"
Vice President Nicolas Maduro said on television that Chavez at arrived at 2:30 a.m.
Chavez's office published photos on Friday of the president in bed in Cuba during a visit by his daughters. They were the first proof that the Venezuelan leader is still alive, and they were published amid increasing rumors and speculation regarding his health.
Information Minister Ernesto Villegas said Friday that Chavez was breathing through a tracheal tube that makes it difficult for him to speak. Government opponents have been demanding more information about Chavez's condition, and have been asking why he hasn't spoken to the nation to explain his condition.
Medical experts consulted by The Associated Press have said the government's recent account of "systemic medical treatment" could mean various types of chemotherapy or drug treatments, depending on the type of cancer.
The 58-year-old president has been undergoing cancer treatment in Cuba on-and-off since June 2011. He has had tumors removed from his pelvic region, and has also undergone prior rounds of chemotherapy and radiation treatment.
LOS ANGELES Dozens of protesters rallied outside Los Angeles police headquarters Saturday in support of Christopher Dorner, the former LAPD officer and suspected killer of four who died after a shootout and fire this week at a mountain cabin following one of the biggest manhunts in recent memory.
Protesters told the Los Angeles Times they didn't support Dorner's deadly methods, but objected to police corruption and brutality, and believed Dorner's claims of racism and unfair treatment by the department. Many said they were angered by the conduct of the manhunt that led to Dorner's death and injuries to innocent bystanders who were mistaken for him.
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New details of Dorner's final hours
Michael Nam, 30, who held a sign with a flaming tombstone and the inscription "RIP Habeas Corpus," said it was "pretty obvious" police had no intention of bringing Dorner in alive.
"They were the judge, the jury and the executioner," Nam said. "As an American citizen, you have the right to a trial and due process by law."
During the hunt for Dorner, LAPD Chief Charlie Beck called for Dorner's surrender and said he didn't want to see the suspect or anyone else injured.
Dorner was already believed to have killed three people when he was cornered Tuesday at the cabin near Big Bear Lake, and during the standoff shot and killed a San Bernardino County sheriff's deputy, authorities said.
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Reporter records gunfight in Dorner capture effort
Only after calls for surrender and use of milder tear gas did deputies launch pyrotechnic gas canisters into the cabin, and the subsequent fire was not intentional, the Sheriff's Department said.
Dorner died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound at the end of the standoff, sheriff's officials said.
The 33-year-old has already inspired a burgeoning subculture of followers. While most don't condone killing, they see him as an outlaw hero who raged against powerful forces of authority, and some even question whether he really died.
Tributes include a ballad titled "El Matapolicias," or "The Police Killer," penned by a Mexican crooner with lyrics paying homage to Dorner, and a YouTube clip showing excerpts from a video game titled "Christopher Dorner's Last Stand Survival Game" whose opening frame declares him "A True American Hero."
(CBS News) CHICAGO - Last December, minutes after he allegedly shot at a neighbor, Julian Gayles was caught by Chicago police. Gayles, 22, already had a record of gun crimes and parole violations, but had spent little time behind bars. Since 2009, he has been sentenced to seven years in jail, but has served just two.
WATCH: Obama mourns "a Newtown every four months," below
Gayles was on parole when CBS News witnessed his arrest by police commander Leo Schmitz and is now in custody again, awaiting trial.
Chicago police superintendent Gary McCarthy wants such offenders to face a mandatory minimum sentence.
"This has to stop," McCarthy said. "Gun offenders have to do significant jail time."
Chicago already has some of the toughest gun laws in the country. This week, Mayor Rahm Emanuel called for making them even tougher, with minimum mandatory sentences for gun violations.
Cook Country Sheriff Tom Dart
/ CBS News
But Cook Country Sheriff Tom Dart says he doesn't have the cells to hold more inmates.
"I mean, we are at capacity right now," Dart said. "The state prison system is beyond capacity. You talk to them right now, they haven't had a population like this in decades. And there's no place to put 'em."
Obama to talk gun control in violence-plagued Chicago NRA CEO: Obama gun control effort a "charade" VIDEO: Will Congress act on gun control?
Dart runs the largest county jail in the country. Nearly 10,000 inmates -- including 300 prisoners -- living in a former cafeteria and some sleeping on the prison hospital's floor.
"This is not something that you would design, " said Dart. "Frankly at this time this should be a building that we should have empty right now at this time of the year. There should be no one in it. But because of our population explosion, this is full."
Experts say the prison population would swell by thousands if mandatory minimum sentences came to pass for gun violations.
"We can't have this irrational type of notion that there's magic jail cells all over the place that are all sitting there empty, " said Dart. "It's as if all of a sudden we just raise penalties and these people get shipped off to the moon or something. It's like, 'No, we know where we need to put 'em,' and we need money to fund that."
But Illinois doesn't have the money and has actually been closing prisons to save money so it can reduce the $9 billion it owes in unpaid bills.
MOBILE, Ala. The passengers of the Carnival cruise ship Triumph began the process of getting back to normal early Friday, checking into hotels for a shower, hot meal and good night's sleep or boarding buses bound for other cities after five numbing days at sea on a powerless ship disabled by an engine-room fire.
The cruise ship carrying some 4,200 people finally docked late Thursday in Mobile, as passengers raucously cheered the end to an ocean odyssey they say was marked by overflowing toilets, food shortages and foul odors.
"Sweet Home Alabama!" read one of the homemade signs passengers affixed alongside the 14-story ship as many celebrated at deck rails lining several levels of the stricken ship.
The ship's horn loudly blasted several times as four tugboats pulled the crippled ship to shore at about 9:15 p.m. CST. Some passengers gave a thumbs-up sign, and flashes from cameras and cell phones lit the night.
Nearly four hours later, the last passenger had disembarked.
Some, like 56-year-old Deborah Knight of Houston, had no interest in boarding one of about 100 buses assembled to carry passengers to hotels in New Orleans or Texas. Her husband, Seth, drove in from Houston and they checked into a downtown Mobile hotel.
"I want a hot shower and a daggum Whataburger," said Knight, who was wearing a bathrobe over her clothes as her bags were unloaded from her husband's pickup truck. She said she was afraid to eat the food on board and had gotten sick while on the ship.
To add insult to injury, at least one of the chartered buses became stranded on the way to New Orleans, correspondent Anna Werner told "CBS This Morning." Passenger Jacob Combs called CBS News en route to say his bus was sitting by the side of the road, as he waited for yet one more rescue.
As buses arrived in the pre-dawn darkness at the Hilton in New Orleans, paramedics were on the scene with wheelchairs to roll in passengers who were elderly or too fatigued to walk.
Many were tired and didn't want to talk. There were long lines to check into rooms. Some got emotional as they described the deplorable conditions of the ship.
"It was horrible, just horrible" said Maria Hernandez, 28, of Angleton, Texas, tears welling in her eyes as she talked about waking up to smoke in her lower-level room Sunday, and the days of heat and stench to follow. She was on a "girls trip" with friends.
She said the group hauled mattresses to upper-level decks to escape the heat. As she pulled her luggage into the hotel, a flashlight around her neck, she managed a smile and even a giggle when asked to show her red "poo-poo bag" -- distributed by the cruise line for collecting human waste.
This was only part of her journey to get home. Hernandez, like hundreds of others, would get to enjoy a brief reprieve at the hotel before flying home later in the day.
"I just can't wait to be home," she said.
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Crippled cruise ship finally docks in Alabama
It wasn't long after the ship pulled into the Port of Mobile that passengers began streaming down the gang plank, some in wheelchairs and others pulling carry-on luggage. One man gave the thumbs-up.
An ambulance pulled up to a gate and pulled away, lights flashing.
Carnival had said it would take up to five hours for all the 3,000 passengers to be off. It took closer to four.
"All guests have now disembarked the Carnival Triumph," Carnival tweeted.
Carnival has canceled a dozen more planned voyages aboard the Triumph and acknowledged the crippled ship had been plagued by other mechanical problems in the weeks before the engine-room blaze. The National Transportation Safety Board has opened an investigation.
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Aboard the Carnival Triumph cruise ship
Passengers were supposed to get a full refund and discounts on future cruises, and Carnival announced Wednesday they would each get an additional $500 in compensation.
In texts and flitting cell phone calls, the ship's passengers described miserable conditions while at sea, many anxious to walk on solid ground.
Passenger Jacob Combs told CBS News via phone: "The really bad part is there was no running water and toilets for almost the first 30 hours. Once they finally did get running water, the toilets only worked in certain places. I would say it's the worst smell imaginable."
Emailed photos reveal squalid conditions. Many passengers used red plastic bags as toilets. Hundreds slept in hallways or topside to escape the foul and stagnate air below deck.
Carnival CEO Jerry Cahill insists passengers were never at risk. But 22-year old Leslie Mayberry disagreed.
"It was leaning to one side, it was literally like walking up hill whenever the boat was leaning," she said. "I mean, it was very scary," Mayberry said. "A lot of people thought it was going to tip over and sink. And then you look out on the deck and you see the ocean and there is no one, you are just by yourself and you are so alone, even though you are around 3,000 other people on this boat."
For 24-year-old Brittany Ferguson of Texas, not knowing how long passengers had to endure their time aboard was the worst part.
"I'm feeling awesome just to see land and buildings," said Ferguson, who was in a white robe given to her aboard to weather the cold nights. "The scariest part was just not knowing when we'd get back."
As the ship pulled up, some aboard shouted, "Hello, Mobile!" Some danced in celebration on one of the balconies. "Happy V-Day" read one of the homemade signs made for the Valentine's Day arrival and another, more starkly: "The ship's afloat, so is the sewage."
LOS ANGELES A California couple says fugitive ex-police officer Christopher Dorner tied them up in their mountain condominium and stole their car before the firefight that led to his presumed death.
Karen and Jim Reynolds said at a news conference Wednesday that they came upon Dorner when they entered the condo in Big Bear, Calif. Tuesday, and believe he'd been there as early as Friday.
They say Dorner had a gun but said he wouldn't hurt them.
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SoCal breathing easier after deadly standoff
CBS Los Angeles station KCBS-TV reports Karen said, "He talked to us. Tried to calm us down. And saying very frequently he would not kill us."
"He was very calm and very methodical," said Karen.
Authorities couldn't immediately verify their story, but it matched early reports from law enforcement officials. Later reports said the incident involved two women from a cleaning crew.
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Ex-LAPD cop accused of going on killing spree
The Reynolds said they went to the cabin noon to clean it for rental purposes, and that's when they -- and not two cleaning ladies as had been reported - met up with Dorner, KCBS says.
The Reynolds say he tied their arms and put pillowcases over their heads before fleeing in their Nissan.
Karen Reynolds managed to get to her cell phone and dial 911.
The couple, who said Dorner had his gun drawn the entire time, said they were with the suspect for 15 minutes, KCBS adds. "It felt like a lot longer," said Karen. "I really thought that it was the end."
Vatican City Looking tired but serene, Pope Benedict XVI told thousands of faithful Wednesday that he was stepping down for "the good of the church," speaking in his first public appearance since dropping the bombshell announcement of his resignation.
The 85-year-old Benedict basked in more than a minute-long standing ovation when he entered the packed audience hall for his traditional Wednesday general audience. He was interrupted by applause by the thousands of people, many of whom had tears in their eyes.
A huge banner reading "Grazie Santita" (Thank you Your Holiness) was strung up at the back of the hall.
Benedict appeared wan and spoke very softly, but his eyes twinkled with joy at the flock's warm and heartfelt welcome. He repeated in Italian what he had told his cardinals Monday in Latin: that he simply didn't have the strength to continue.
"As you know, I have decided to renounce the ministry that the Lord gave to me on April 19, 2005," he said, to applause. "I did this in full liberty for the good of the church."
He asked the faithful "to continue to pray for the pope and the church."
Benedict is the first pope to resign in nearly 600 years, and the decision has placed the Vatican in uncharted waters: No one knows what he'll be called or what he'll wear after Feb. 28.
The Vatican, however, has made it clear that Benedict will play no role in the election of his successor, and once retired, he will be fully retired. He plans to live a life of prayer in a converted monastery on the far northern edge of the Vatican gardens.
As a result, Benedict's final public appearances are expected to draw great crowds, as they may well represent some of the last public speeches for a man who has spent his life — as a priest, a cardinal and a pope — teaching and preaching.
And they will also represent a way for the faithful to say farewell under happier circumstances than when his predecessor, Pope John Paul II, died in 2005.
"We were just coming for vacation, and now we are getting all of this!" marveled Terry Rodger, a tourist from New Orleans as he headed to the audience. "I am very excited. I'm surprised."
The audience was the start of a busy day for Benedict: he will also preside over Ash Wednesday services later in the day to mark the official start of the Catholic Church's solemn Lenten season. The service is usually held in a church on Rome's Aventine hill, but was moved at the last minute to St. Peter's Basilica. The Vatican said the shift was made to accommodate the crowds, though it will also spare the pope the usual procession to the church.
The Vatican insisted no serious medical ailment was behind Benedict's decision to retire, though it admitted for the first time on Tuesday that Benedict has had a pacemaker for years and recently had it replaced.
The move sets the stage for a conclave by mid-March to elect a new pope. Benedict's final general audience will be held Feb. 27.
"It is the perfect occasion to give a cordial and affectionate goodbye to this pope who has given us a great example of courage, humility, inner honesty, and a great love for the church," said Monsignor Claudio Maria Celli, head of the Vatican's communications office.
By Sarah Dutton, Jennifer De Pinto, Anthony Salvanto, and Fred Backus
As President Barack Obama prepares for the first State of the Union Address of his second term, one which will primarily be focused on economic issues, fewer than half of Americans (45 percent) approve of how he's handling the economy, while more (49 percent) disapprove.
Overall, Mr. Obama is performing better with 52 percent of Americans now approving of the job he is doing as President, while 38 percent disapprove.
Mr. Obama's approval rating has remained fairly constant over the past year, though it rose as high as 57 percent in December. Only 12 percent of Republicans approve; 86 percent of Democrats do. Just under half of independents approve.
On the other hand, the President enjoys particularly strong support for his handling of terrorism - 57 percent approve, while 31 percent disapprove.
Use of Drones
The practice of using unmanned drone aircrafts to attack suspected terrorists in foreign countries - a policy begun by the Bush Administration and expanded under President Obama - enjoys widespread and bipartisan support. Seven in 10 Americans favor using drones to attack suspected terrorists abroad, including most Republicans, Democrats, and independents.
Americans also support a more controversial measure, although in smaller numbers. Forty-nine percent of Americans favor the targeting and killing of U.S. citizens living abroad who are suspected of carrying out terrorist activities against the U.S.; 38 percent oppose that.
Cooperation between Republicans and Democrats?
Looking ahead, Americans are not especially optimistic that there will be more cooperation between Republicans and Democrats in the next four years than there was during the President's first term. Just 17 percent think there will be more cooperation, 22 percent say less, and 58 percent say cooperation will be about the same as it was during the last four years.
This poll was conducted by telephone from February 6-10, 2013 among 1,148 adults nationwide. Phone numbers were dialed from samples of both standard land-line and cell phones. The error due to sampling for results based on the entire sample could be plus or minus three percentage points. The error for subgroups may be higher. This poll release conforms to the Standards of Disclosure of the National Council on Public Polls.
NEWPORT, R.I. As electricity returns and highways reopen, Northeast residents are getting back to their weekday routines following the massive snowstorm that had millions digging out from New York to Maine.
But the routine for some New Englanders will be disrupted by school and workplace closings, while residents of New York's Long Island anticipate the reopening of a major roadway. For some, there's also a new worry: the danger of roof collapses as rain and warmer weather melt snow.
The storm that slammed into the region with up to three feet of snow was blamed for at least 15 deaths in the Northeast and Canada, and brought some of the highest accumulations ever recorded.
Still, coastal areas were largely spared catastrophic damage despite being lashed by strong waves and hurricane-force wind gusts at the height of the storm.
Hundreds of people, their homes without heat or electricity, were forced to take refuge in emergency shelters set up in schools or other places.
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Powerful blizzard descends on Northeast
Utility crews, some brought in from as far away as Georgia, Oklahoma and Quebec, raced to restore power. By early Monday, region-wide outages had dropped from some 650,000 in eight states at their highest to 149,970 -- more than 126,000 of them in Massachusetts, where officials said some of the outages might linger until Tuesday.
"For all the complaining everyone does, people really came through," said Rich Dinsmore, 65, of Newport, R.I., who was staying at a Red Cross shelter set up in a middle school in Middletown after the power went out in his home on Friday.
Dinsmore, who has emphysema, was first brought by ambulance to a hospital after the medical equipment he relies on failed when the power went out and he had difficulty breathing.
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Northeast sees record snow fall
"The police, the fire department, the state, the Red Cross, the volunteers, it really worked well," said the retired radio broadcaster and Army veteran.
President Obama declared a state of emergency for Connecticut, allowing federal aid to be used in recovery.
CBS News correspondent Miguel Bojorquez reports that Hamden, Conn., about 80 miles from New York City, got the deepest snow: 40 inches. The blizzard dumped five inches of snow per hour there for some time.
Driving bans were lifted and flights resumed at major airports in the region that had closed during the storm, though many flights were still canceled Sunday. Public transit schedules were being restored.
The Boston-area public transportation system, which shut down on Friday afternoon, was expected to resume full service on Monday, albeit with delays.
Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority (MBTA) General Manager Beverly Scott, speaking at a Sunday afternoon press conference, noted that snow accumulation, downed tree limbs and other damage from high winds and the overall age of the transit system made restoration challenging, reports CBS Boston station WBZ.
The Metro-North Railroad expected to resume much of its train service on its New York and Connecticut routes while the Long Island Rail Road said commuters could expect a nearly normal schedule.
"A lot of progress has been made," said Salvatore Arena, a spokesman for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which operates Metro-North.
Some public schools canceled classes on Monday, including in Boston, Providence and on Long Island, while local governments in some areas told non-essential workers to take the day off.
On eastern Long Island, the harrowing images from New York's slice of the massive snowstorm -- people stranded overnight, cars abandoned on long stretches of drift-covered highways -- were slowly erased Sunday as hundreds of snowplows and heavy equipment descended to try to help clear the way for Monday's commute.
Long Island was slammed with as much as 30 inches of snow, which shut down roads, including the Long Island Expressway. A 27-mile stretch of the road was closed Sunday and early Monday for snow-removal work.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo said more than a third of all the state's snow-removal equipment was sent to the area, including more than 400 plow trucks and more than 100 snow blowers, loaders and backhoes.
"The massive amount of snow left behind effectively shut down the entire region," Cuomo said.
On Sunrise Highway, which runs parallel to the Long Island Expressway, Dennis Lawrence, of Bellport, N.Y., had already spent 90 minutes digging out the car he had abandoned and had at least another 30-60 minutes to go on Sunday. He left it there Friday after getting stuck on his way home from his job in New York City.
"The car was all over the place, it just slid over and wouldn't move," the 54-year-old elevator mechanic said. "I finally decided today to come and get it."
Boston recorded 24.9 inches of snow, making it the fifth-largest storm in the city since records were kept. The city was appealing to the state and private contractors for more front-end loaders and other heavy equipment to clear snow piles that were clogging residential streets.
The National Weather Service was forecasting rain and warmer temperatures in the region on Monday, which could begin melting some snow but also add considerable weight to snow already piled on roofs, posing the danger of collapse. Of greatest concern were flat or gently-sloped roofs and officials said people should try to clear them -- but only if they could do so safely.
"We don't recommend that people, unless they're young and experienced, go up on roofs," said Peter Judge, spokesman for the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency.
In Middlefield, Conn., two cows were killed when the roof of a barn gave way under the weight of heavy snow, one of two such incidents in the state that prompted agriculture officials to issue an advisory to farmers.
Officials also continued to warn of carbon monoxide dangers in the wake of the storm.
In Boston, two people died Saturday after being overcome by carbon monoxide while sitting in running cars, including a teenager who went into the family car to stay warm while his father shoveled snow. The boy's name was not made public. In a third incident, two children were hospitalized but expected to recover. In Webster, a 60-year-old off-duty member of the Worcester Fire Department died Saturday after suffering a heart attack while clearing snow at his home.
A fire department spokesman said in each case, the tailpipes of the cars were clogged by snow.
In Maine, the Penobscot County Sheriff's office said it recovered the body of a 75-year-old man who died after the pickup he was driving struck a tree and plunged into the Penobscot River during the storm. Investigators said Gerald Crommett apparently became disoriented while driving in the blinding snow.
Christopher Mahood, 23, of Germantown, N.Y., died after his tractor went off his driveway while he was plowing snow Friday night and rolled down a 15-foot embankment.
In Massachusetts, eight teams were formed to assess damage from flooding along the state's coastline, with the hardest hit-areas including historic Plymouth and portions of Cape Cod.
"Considering the severity of the storm, the amount of snow and the wind, we've come through this pretty well," Gov. Deval Patrick told the CBS News broadcast "Face The Nation" Sunday after meeting with local officials in Plymouth.
The U.S. Postal Service said that mail delivery that was suspended in the six New England states, as well as parts of New York and New Jersey, because of the snowstorm would resume Monday, where it is safe to do so.
