Midwest swaddled in blanket of snow

ST. LOUIS Powdery snow, up to a foot and a half in some places, bombarded much of the nation's midsection Thursday, impeding travel and shutting down airports, schools and state legislatures.

The widespread winter storm system swirled to the north and east Thursday night, its snow, sleet and freezing rain prompting winter storm warnings in Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, Missouri and Illinois.

Corey Mead, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service's Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Okla., said the winter storm would be centered in the upper Midwest by Friday morning.

"Even across Kansas, the snowfall rates should continue to taper off through the evening," Mead said.

Chris Suchan, chief meteorologist at CBS affiliate KCTV Kansas City, told "CBS Evening News" anchor Scott Pelley Thursday that the worst is over with. "This morning we had widespread thundersnow from Levenworth, Kansas [and] Overland Park to Warrensburg, Missouri," Suchan said. "Snowfall rates of 2 to 3 inches per hour brought this area to its knees with our motoristsbridges were closed for a while.

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The sound and fury of "thundersnow"

"Now what we're anticipating is another round for this evening, perhaps another 2 to 4 inches of snowfall, some freezing drizzle right now, and wind chills in the single digits. The storm total for us is about 8 to 12-14 inches of snowfall for Kansas City."

The system left behind impressive snow accumulations, especially in western Kansas, where 17 inches fell in Hays.

Several accidents and two deaths were blamed on icy and slushy roadways; two people died in crashes Wednesday. Most schools in Kansas and Missouri, and many in neighboring states, were closed. Legislatures shut down in Kansas, Missouri, Arkansas, Nebraska and Iowa.

National Weather Service meteorologist Scott Truett said the "thundersnow" that rumbled through Kansas and Missouri earlier Thursday was the result of an unstable air mass, much like a thunderstorm.

Chuck Carroll, center, uses a snowblower to clear the sidewalk in front of his business in downtown Salina, Kan., Feb. 21, 2013.

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AP Photo/Salina Journal

"Instead of pouring rain, it's pouring snow," Truett said. And pouring was a sound description, with snow falling at a rate of 2 inches per hour or more in some spots.

Topeka got 3 inches of snow in one 30-minute period, leaving medical center worker Jennifer Carlock to dread the drive home.

"It came on fast," Carlock said as she shoveled around her car. "We're going to test out traction control on the way home."

Snow totals passed the foot mark in many places: Monarch Pass, Colo., had 17-and-a-half inches, the Kansas cities of Hutchinson, Macksville and Hanston all saw 14 inches, and Wichita, Kan., had 13 inches. A few places in far northern Oklahoma saw between 10 to 13-and-a-half inches of snow. Missouri's biggest snow total was 10 inches, shared by the Kansas City metropolitan area, Rockport in the northwest corner and Moberly in the central part of the state.

Transportation officials in affected states urged people to simply stay home.

"If you don't have to get out, just really, please, don't do it," Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback said.

Drivers were particularly warned away from the Kansas Turnpike, which had whiteout conditions. Interstate 70 was also snow-packed, and a 200-mile stretch was closed between Salina and Colby.

A firefighter places wheelblocks as he prepares to extinguish a vehicle fire in Lawrence, Kan., Feb. 21, 2013. The car caught on fire trying to make it up a snow covered hill.

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AP Photo

Cases of wine and beer -- as well as bottles of scotch and whiskey -- were flying off the shelves at Ingersoll Wine and Spirits ahead of the storm's arrival in Des Moines, Iowa.

"A lot of people have been buying liquor to curl up by the fire," wine specialist Bjorn Carlson said.

NWS forecasts showed 3 to 9 inches of snow were expected in Iowa overnight, and Nebraska will see an additional 2 to 5 inches.

Heavy, blowing snow caused scores of businesses in Iowa and Nebraska to close early, including two malls in Omaha, Neb. Mardi Miller, manager of Dillard's department store in Oakview Mall, said most employees had been sent home by 4 p.m., and she believed "only two customers are in the entire store."

The storm brought some relief to a region that has been parched by the worst drought in decades.

Vance Ehmke, a wheat farmer near Healy, Kan., said the nearly foot of snow was "what we have been praying for." Climatologists say 12 inches of snow is equivalent to about 1 inch of rain, depending on the density of the snow.

"The big question is, `Is the drought broke?' " Ehmke asked.

Near Edwardsville, Ill., farmer Mike Campbell called the precipitation a blessing after a bone-dry growing season in 2012. He hopes it is a good omen for the spring.

"The corn was just a disaster," Campbell said of 2012.

In Colorado, the U.S. Forest Service planned to take advantage of the snow to burn piles of dead trees on federal land. Areas in the Texas Panhandle also had up to 8 inches of snow, and in south central Nebraska, Grand Island reported 10 inches of snow. And Arkansas saw a mix of precipitation -- a combination of hail, sleet and freezing rain in some place, 6 inches of snow in others.

Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon declared a state of emergency Thursday morning. All flights at Kansas City International Airport were canceled for Thursday night, and officials said they'd prepare to reopen Friday morning. More than 320 flights at Lambert Airport in St. Louis were canceled by Thursday afternoon. Traffic throughout the state was snarled by hundreds of accidents and vehicles in ditches.

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Las Vegas Shooting Launches Multi-State Manhunt

An argument in the valet area of a Las Vegas hotel led to a deadly drive-by shooting on the occupants of a Maserati on Vegas' glitzy strip, initiating a multi-state manhunt for the black Range Rover from which the shots were fired.

Three people were left dead in the attack, including two who died when their taxi was struck by the careening sports car and exploded into flames.

"What happened is not just tragic, but underscores the level of violence we see sometimes here in Las Vegas as well as across America," Las Vegas Metropolitan Sheriff Doug Gillespie said at a news conference today. "Clearly, the suspects in this shooting have no regard for the lives and safety of others."

The altercation took place in the valet area of the Aria resort and casino. Gillespie said there is currently "no indication" what the squabble was about.

Gillespie said that authorities do not know how many people are in the SUV, but that they are considered armed and dangerous. He warned members of the public to stay away from it.

"You should not take action," he said. "Instead, call your local police department and alert them to the whereabouts of the suspect vehicle."

Authorities in Nevada, Utah, Arizona and California are all on alert for the car.

"These individuals will be found," Gillespie said. "They will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law."

Steve Marcus/Las Vegas Sun/AP Photo

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The Range Rover SUV shot at two people in the Maserati, which caused a multi-car crash. Police have not released the model of the Maserati, but the price of a new Maserati ranges from $123,000 to $142,000.

Police said that they believe a group of men riding in a black Range Rover Sport SUV pulled up alongside the Maserati around 4:20 a.m. today and fired shots into the car, striking the driver and passenger, according to Officer Jose Hernandez of the Las Vegas Metropolitan police department.

The Maserati then swerved through an intersection, hitting at least four other cars. One car that was struck, a taxi with a driver and passenger in it, caught on fire and burst into flames, trapping both occupants, Hernandez said.

The SUV then fled the scene, according to cops.

Gillespie said investigators are in the process of gathering video footage from hotels, casinos and the taxi cabs that were at the intersection.

The driver of the Maserati died from his gunshot wounds at University Medical Center shortly after the shooting, according to Sgt. John Sheahan.

The driver and passenger of the taxi both died in the car fire.

At least three individuals, including the passenger of the Maserati, were injured during the shooting and car crashes and taken to UMC hospital for treatment.

Authorities said the Maserati passenger, identified only as a man, sustained only a minor injury to his arm. He is speaking to and cooperating with police.

They do not yet know whether the cars had local plates or were from out of state.

No bystanders were hit by gunfire, Hernandez said.

"We're currently looking for a black Range Rover Sport, with large black rims and some sort of dealership advertising or advertisement plates," Hernandez said. "This is an armed and dangerous vehicle."

The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority had no immediate comment about the safety of tourists in the wake of the shooting today.

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Higgs may spell doom, unless supersymmetry saves us

Lisa Grossman, physical sciences reporter

(Image: CERN)

Is the Higgs boson a herald of the apocalypse? That's the suggestion behind a theory, developed more than 30 years ago, that is back in the headlines this week. According to physicists, the mass of the Higgs-like particle announced last summer supports the notion that our universe is teetering on the edge of stability, like a pencil balanced on its point.

"It may be that the universe we live in is inherently unstable," Joseph Lykken, of the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia, Illinois, said on Monday at a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. "At some point, billions of years from now, it's all going to be wiped out."

Physicists have been wringing their hands about this scenario since 1982, when theorists Michael Turner and Frank Wilczek published a paper about it in Nature, NBC News points out. The pair showed that the vacuum of space can be in different energy states, and it will be most stable at its lowest energy. Trouble arises if we're not there yet, and we're inhabiting a temporarily stable state that should ultimately collapse.

"The universe wants to be in a different state, so eventually to realize that, a little bubble of what you might think of as an alternate universe will appear somewhere, and it will spread out and destroy us," Lykken said at AAAS.

Enter the Higgs boson, the particle form of the field that gives mass to several fundamental particles. The Higgs field permeates the vacuum of space, which means the mass of the boson and the stability of the vacuum are closely intertwined. Theory predicted that if the Higgs boson is heavier than about 129 gigaelectronvolts (GeV), the universe should be on safe footing.

But in July 2012 physicists at CERN, near Geneva, Switzerland announced that a particle closely matching the Higgs had been found by experiments in the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). The much celebrated particle has a mass of about 126 GeV - light enough to raise fears of instability.

There is still hope for the universe as we know it. Some theorists pointed out that the relationship between the Higgs mass and the vacuum of space depends on the mass of a particle called the top quark. If the top quark's mass is different than we think it is, stability might reign.

There are also anomalies with the Higgs measurement, like the fact that it decays into photons more often than predicted. That hints we may yet find particles from the theory of supersymmetry, which says each ordinary particle has heavier "superpartners". If the Higgs has such a relative, it might save us from destruction. But some of these predicted particles, particularly the superpartners of the top quark, can push the universe back into instability.

The worries may remain unconfirmed for a while. The LHC is shutting down for a two-year break so engineers can prepare the machine to shoot higher-energy particle beams, which are needed to probe for superpartners.

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It's 'The Oscars', now officially

LOS ANGELES: They are the 85th Academy Awards, the climax of Hollywood's awards season, this coming weekend -- except officially they're not. This year, they've been rebranded to "The Oscars."

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), which organizes Tinseltown's biggest awards, did not confirm the change revealed by show co-producer Neil Meron, who said "85th Academy Awards" was too "musty."

But it seems it's true, for this year at least: references to Academy Awards and that it's the 85th show -- a significant anniversary, one might have thought -- quietly disappeared from official AMPAS materials a few weeks ago.

"We're rebranding it," Meron told entertainment news website TheWrap in an interview with co-producer Craig Zadan this week, days before Hollywood's finest take to the red carpet at the Dolby Theatre on Sunday.

"We're not calling it 'The 85th annual Academy Awards,' which keeps it mired somewhat in a musty way. It's called 'The Oscars'," he said, adding that he believed the new approach would continue in years to come.

An AMPAS spokeswoman declined to confirm the change, but said: "We use Academy Awards and the Oscars interchangeably. We'll begin considering next year's marketing campaign in the spring."

Last year's Oscars poster was quite clearly emblazoned with "The 84th Academy Awards." This year's shows a picture of smiling host Seth MacFarlane under "The Oscars," in gold.

The Oscars organizers are widely understood to be targeting a younger audience for their annual show -- and "Family Guy" creator MacFarlane could be part of that strategy.

Two years ago a clear get-the-young-viewers ploy, with actors James Franco and Anne Hathaway jointly fronting the show, was widely criticized, with Franco's wooden performance drawing particular scorn.

Last year Eddie Murphy was initially set to host but pulled out at the last minute after an embarrassing gay slur row involving one of the producers, and the Academy fell back on veteran Billy Crystal, who hosted for a ninth time.

- AFP/sf

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Woman's corpse found in LA hotel's water tank

By Alan Duke, CNN

updated 8:51 PM EST, Wed February 20, 2013

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Elisa Lam disappeared from the hotel on January 31


• Canadian's body was found in a Cecil Hotel water tank Tuesday


• Police investigating death

Los Angeles (CNN) -- Tourists staying at a Los Angeles hotel bathed, brushed teeth and drank with water from a tank in which a young woman's body was likely decomposing for more than two weeks, police said.

Elisa Lam's corpse was found in the Cecil Hotel's rooftop water tank by a maintenance worker who was trying to figure out why the water pressure was low Tuesday.

Lam's parents reported her missing in early February. The last sighting of her was in the hotel on January 31, Los Angeles Police said.

Detectives are now investigating the 21-year-old Canadian's suspicious death, police Sgt. Rudy Lopez said.

It was not clear whether the water presented any health risks. Results on tests on the water done Wednesday by the Los Angeles Public Health Department were expected later in the day.

The hotel management has not responded to CNN requests for comment.

Video appears to show four cisterns on the hotel roof.

People who stayed at the Cecil since Lam's disappearance expressed shock about developments.

"The water did have a funny taste," Sabrina Baugh told CNN on Wednesday. She and her husband used the water for eight days.

"We never thought anything of it," the British woman said. "We thought it was just the way it was here."

What she described was not normal.

"The shower was awful," she said. "When you turned the tap on, the water was coming black first for two seconds and then it was going back to normal."

The hotel remained open after the discovery, but guests checking in Tuesday were told not to drink it, according to Qui Nguyen, who decided to find a new hotel Wednesday.

Nguyen said he learned about the body from a CNN reporter, not the hotel staff.

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CNN's Kyung Lah and Irving Last contributed to this report.

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Library of Congress works to save priceless recordings

(CBS News) CULPEPER, Va. -- Cameras and microphones are virtually everywhere these days, and it seems just about everything that happens is preserved forever on the internet.

Of course, it wasn't always that way. The Library of Congress has just reported that 80 percent of motion pictures filmed before 1930 -- and countless audio recordings from that era -- are gone. But the library has a plan to stop this bleeding of priceless history.

A 1936 Louis Armstrong recording is an artifact nearly lost to time. It's a nickel-plated disc widely used to record sound in the first half of the 20th century.

Patrick Loughney

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CBS News

"It's the equivalent to an original camera negative for a motion picture," says Patrick Loughney, who is leading the effort to save these cultural relics for the Library of Congress.

"What goes on here is the archaeology of American popular audio-visual history," Loughney says.

When you think of the Library of Congress, you think of old documents and typewriter-smudged papers. Not here.

"It's quite remarkable that the library, very early on, got into the acquisition of sound recordings and then radio programs," Loughney says. "They were considered a cultural record."

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Cylinders invented by Thomas Edison in the 1800s were recently donated by a private collector. They are the first known devices to record sound.

"It was literally beeswax, so it could melt if you heated it up too high or dropped it would break," says Loughney.

One recording, now digitally restored, is an 1896 campaign song for William McKinley.

Watch: Library of Congress sports interviews go beyond wins and losses, below.

The library has 90 miles of shelves at its 45-acre conservation campus in Culpeper, Va. Here, specialists are preserving more than a million motion pictures, including an 1894 film called "Annabel Butterfly." It's one of the oldest known films ever restored -- each frame was originally colored by hand.

Technicians have digitized thousands of TV shows, including the only appearance of The Doors on "The Ed Sullivan Show." They've even restored color to a 1975 blues documentary.

"There is a growing amnesia about America past," Loughney says. "Our job is to try and bolster that American memory, try to save it for future generations who might find value in what we're preserving."

A mission to re-record America's cultural past and preserve it for a digital future.

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Armstrong Snubs Offer From Anti-Doping Officials

Lance Armstrong has turned down what may be his last chance at reducing his lifetime sporting ban.

Armstrong has already admitted in an interview with Oprah Winfrey to a career fueled by doping and deceit. But to get a break from the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, all he had to do was tell his story to those who police sports doping. The deadline was today, and Armstrong now says he won't do it.

"For several reasons, Lance will not participate in USADA's efforts to selectively conduct American prosecutions that only demonize selected individuals while failing to address the 95 percent of the sport over which USADA has no jurisdiction," said Tim Herman, Armstrong's longtime lawyer. "Lance is willing to cooperate fully and has been very clear: He will be the first man through the door, and once inside will answer every question, at an international tribunal formed to comprehensively address pro cycling."

But the "international tribunal" Armstrong is anxious to cooperate with has one major problem: It doesn't exist.

The UCI, cycling's governing body, has talked about forming a "truth and reconciliation" commission, but the World Anti-Doping Agency has resisted, citing serious concerns about the UCI and its leadership.

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Livestrong, Elizabeth Kreutz/AP Photo

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U.S. Anti-Doping Agency officials seemed stunned by Armstrong's decision simply to walk away.

"Over the last few weeks, he [Armstrong] has led us to believe that he wanted to come in and assist USADA, but was worried of potential criminal and civil liability if he did so," said Travis Tygart, CEO of the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency. "Today, we learned from the media that Mr. Armstrong is choosing not to come in and be truthful and that he will not take the opportunity to work toward righting his wrongs in sport."

Armstrong's ongoing saga plays out amid a backdrop of serious legal problems.

Sources believe one reason Armstrong wants to testify to an international tribunal, rather than USADA, is because perjury charges don't apply if Armstrong lies to a foreign agency, they told ABC News.

While Armstrong has admitted doping, he has not given up any details, including the people and methods required to pull off one of the greatest scandals in all of sport.

Armstrong is facing several multimillion-dollar lawsuits right now, but his biggest problems may be on the horizon. As ABC News first reported, a high-level source said a criminal investigation is ongoing. And the Department of Justice also reportedly is considering joining a whistleblower lawsuit claiming the U.S. Postal Service was defrauded out of millions of dollars paid to sponsor Armstrong's cycling team.

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Today on New Scientist: 19 February 2013

Doctors would tax sugary drinks to combat obesity

Hiking the price of fizzy drinks would cut consumption and so help fight obesity, urges the British Academy of Medical Royal Colleges

Space station's dark matter hunter coy about findings

Researchers on the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, which sits above the International Space Station, have collected their first results - but won't reveal them for two weeks

Huge telescopes could spy alien oxygen

Hunting for oxygen in the atmospheres of distant exoplanets is a tough job, but a new wave of giant telescopes should be up to the task

Evolution's detectives: Closing in on missing links

Technology is taking the guesswork out of finding evolution's turning points, from the first fish with legs to our own recent forebears, says Jeff Hecht

Moody Mercury shows its hidden colours

False-colour pictures let us see the chemical and physical landscape of the normally beige planet closest to the sun

LHC shuts down to prepare for peak energy in 2015

Over the next two years, engineers will be giving the Large Hadron Collider the makeover it needs to reach its maximum design energy

Insert real news events into your mobile game

From meteor airbursts to footballing fracas, mobile games could soon be brimming with news events that lend them more currency

3D-printing pen turns doodles into sculptures

The 3Doodle, which launched on Kickstarter today, lets users draw 3D structures in the air which solidify almost instantly

We need to rethink how we name exoplanets

Fed up with dull names for exoplanets, Alan Stern and his company Uwingu have asked the public for help. Will it be so long 2M 0746+20b, hello Obama?

A shocking cure: Plug in for the ultimate recharge

An electrical cure for ageing attracted the ire of the medical establishment. But could the jazz-age inventor have stumbled upon a genuine therapy?

Biofuel rush is wiping out unique American grasslands

Planting more crops to meet the biofuel demand is destroying grasslands and pastures in the central US, threatening wildlife

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What children should know by Pri 1 - the new Kindergarten Framework

Singapore: To offer both parents and educators with a better idea of how much and what children need to learn by the end of Kindergarten 2, an updated version of the Kindergarten Curriculum Framework has been unveiled.

Launched by the Ministry of Education(MOE) on Wednesday, the refreshed framework was drawn up in consultation with early childhood experts, primary and pre-school educators.

It gives a sharper focus on the learning outcomes of pre-school education, such as a child's ability to count up to 10, ask simple questions and respond confidently by the time they go to Primary One.

It also emphasises the need to build confidence and social skills during the pre-school years and to prepare children for lifelong learning.

The changes come amid recent concerns on how much and how far parents should prepare their children for Primary One.

The new framework will be distributed to all kindergartens and childcare centres.

- CNA/sf

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Georgia inmate granted last-minute stay of execution

From Tom Watkins and Matt Smith, CNN

updated 9:19 PM EST, Tue February 19, 2013

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and the Georgia Court of Appeals grant the stays


• Warren Lee Hill's attorney says they came within a half hour of the scheduled execution


• Hill's defenders say he's mentally disabled


• Hill was convicted of beating to death another Georgia inmate in 1990

Atlanta (CNN) -- Twice-convicted killer Warren Lee Hill was granted final-hour stays of execution on Tuesday, his attorney said.

The stays came from the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and the Georgia Court of Appeals.

"I think we were within about a half hour of the execution," said Brian Kammer, an attorney for Hill, whose supporters say is mentally disabled.

The Georgia Court of Appeals acted on a appeal of a challenge to the way the prison handles the lethal injection drugs used in executions, while the federal appeals court issued a stay "ordering a further briefing on the issue of mental retardation," Kammer said.

Earlier Tuesday, the U.S. Supreme Court denied a stay of execution, as did the state Supreme Court, while the Georgia State Board of Pardons and Paroles similarly denied a request for clemency.

The execution had been scheduled for 7 p.m. ET at a state prison in Jackson, about 45 miles south of Atlanta.

Hill was sentenced to death for the 1990 killing of Joseph Handspike, another inmate in a Georgia state prison.

He was convicted of beating Handspike to death with a nail-studded board while serving a life sentence in the 1985 killing of his girlfriend, Myra Wright.

His lawyers have argued that Hill's IQ of 70 means he should be spared under a 2002 decision that barred the execution of the mentally disabled. But a string of state courts has said Hill doesn't qualify under Georgia law, which requires inmates to prove mental impairment "beyond a reasonable doubt."

"This is the strictest standard in any jurisdiction in the nation. Even Warren Hill, a man with an IQ of 70 who is diagnosed as mentally retarded by every doctor who has examined him, found it impossible to meet this standard of proof," Kammer said.

Handspike's family has called for the execution to be called off. The Georgia Council on Developmental Disabilities also weighed in against the execution, stating, "No other state risks the lives of those with developmental disabilities to this extreme."

Three doctors who examined Hill for the state "have now revised their opinions and find that Mr. Hill does meet the criteria for mental retardation," his lawyers argued in court papers.

But lawyers for the state have said that Hill served in the Navy, held a job and managed his money before Wright's killing -- signs that he didn't necessarily meet the legal standard for retardation, even though he has a low IQ.

Hill had previously been scheduled for execution in July, but the state Supreme Court halted the execution on procedural grounds.

Georgia has executed 52 men since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1973, according to the Georgia Department of Corrections. There are currently 94 men and one woman under death sentence in the state.

CNN's Dana Ford, Bill Mears and Dave Alsup contributed to this report.

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