Today on New Scientist: 30 January 2013

Timbuktu's precious scientific texts must be saved

Islamist militants in Mali have burned documents that attest to science in Africa before European colonisation - what remains must be protected

Think that massage feels good? Try adding drugs

Nerve bundles that respond to stroking have been identified and chemically activated in mice

How Obama will deliver his climate promise

The US is set to meet - and maybe exceed - Obama's pledge to cut US emissions by 17 per cent, which could give a boost to international climate talks

Minimum booze price will rein in alcohol abuse

Evidence suggests the UK government's proposal to set a minimum price for alcohol could save thousands of lives, and billions of pounds of public money

First real time-travel movies are loopers

Hollywood has played with time travel for decades, but now physicists have the first movies of what travelling to the past actually looks like

Surfer rides highest wave ever caught

Garret McNamara of Hawaii claims to have ridden the highest wave ever caught by a surfer, a 30-metre monster off the coast of Nazaré, Portugal

Infrared laptop trackpad ignores accidental touches

Longpad is a touchpad that extends the full width of your laptop and uses infrared sensors to ignore any unwanted touches

Close call coming: Averting the asteroid threat

With an errant space rock heading this way, just how good are our asteroid defences - and how do we avert the cataclysm?

The right to fight: women at war

The US military has accepted women into combat. What can science tell us about how women deal with being in the line of fire? And are they any different to men?

Earth and others lose status as Goldilocks worlds

Several planets are taking a hit thanks to a redefinition of the habitable zone - the area around a star in which liquid water can theoretically exist

The 10,000-year bender: Why humans love a tipple

Our taste for alcohol results from an evolutionary tussle between humans and yeast - one in which the microbes have often had the upper hand

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Japan December factory output up 2.5% on-month

TOKYO: Japan on Thursday said the nation's factory output for December rose 2.5 per cent from the previous month thanks to brisk production of cars and semiconductors.

The gain -- still worse than a 4.0 per cent expansion expected by the market -- came as Japan's new government under Prime Minister Shinzo Abe vows to breathe new life into the world's third-largest economy with huge stimulus and easing aimed at tackling long-running deflation.

"Industrial production shows signs of having bottomed out," said a statement from the economy ministry.

The ministry added that a survey of manufacturers found they expected another output increase for January and February of 2.6 per cent and 2.3 per cent, respectively.

Annual industrial output figures were not immediately released, but on a quarterly basis the country's factory output was down 1.9 per cent from the previous three months.

And the rosy monthly data comes just a week after Japan said it logged a record trade deficit for 2012 as exports were hit by a bitter diplomatic spat with its biggest market China and plunging demand in debt-wracked Europe.

Japan's economy contracted in the third quarter, meeting the technical definition of a recession.

The figures underscored the size of the task ahead for the new government which has heaped pressure on the Bank of Japan for aggressive easing measures to boost the country's fortunes.

- AFP/ck

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Interstate littered with cars after North Georgia tornado

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Much of the affected region sees huge temperature extremes


• A Georgia TV news crew sees tornado form; damage is reported in Adairsville


• Nearly 20 are injured in Georgia; several are trapped for a time


• A Tennessee man dies when a tree falls on his home, emergency managers say

Is there severe weather near you? Share your photos and videos on iReport, but stay safe.

(CNN) -- Powerful winds and a tornado spawned by a 1,000-mile-long storm system pounded communities in northwest Georgia on Wednesday, overturning dozens of vehicles and trapping residents.

The tornado caused significant damage in Adairsville, Georgia.

One person died in that town and another died in Tennessee, authorities reported. At least 17 people were injured in Georgia, two critically.

The Adairsville death marks the first person killed by a U.S. tornado in 220 days, a record for most consecutive days without such a fatality, said CNN meteorologist Dave Hennen.

Severe weather 101

The storm churned eastward, prompting severe thunderstorm and flash-flood warnings in eastern Tennessee and western portions of the Carolinas. The front has led to nearly 400 reports of severe wind and 20 of tornadoes over two days, from Texas to Pennsylvania.

In the Adairsville storm, winds caused significant damage to a motel and a manufacturing plant, according to Craig Millsap, fire chief and interim emergency management director for Bartow County. The motel's guests are believed safe and workers at the Daiki plant have all been accounted for, he said.

Daiki employees hid in a kitchen and bathroom as the tornado snatched the roof off and left much of the plant in ruin. Two workers suffered minor injuries.

The driver of a commercial truck that was overturned near Adairsville said the storm "grew legs and just started accelerating." He told CNN Atlanta affiliate WGCL he was unscathed. "There is no way in the world that if you see this debris behind me I should be alive."

The National Weather Service reported major structural damage and overturned cars in downtown Adairsville, where a news crew for CNN affiliate WSB-TV witnessed a tornado form and touch down Wednesday morning.

The death came when a building collapsed, Millsap said.

10 deadliest U.S. tornadoes

Nine people in Bartow County suffered non-life-threatening injuries, according to the Georgia Emergency Management Agency.

The storm caused major damage on and near Interstate 75, the Georgia Department of Transportation said. The weather service, citing emergency management officials, said dozens of cars had been overturned near Exit 306 at Adairsville.

Officials reported up to 100 homes damaged in Bartow and Gordon counties. Georgia emergency officials reported eight injuries in Gordon County, north of Adairsville. Two of the injuries were described as critical.

Interactive: Check your forecast

"There have been a number of entrapments and deputies, firemen and emergency personnel have all been working to free those people," said Gordon County Chief Deputy Sheriff Robert Paris. "I don't believe we have any more trapped at this time."

The tornado struck a subdivision that also was hit by storms in 2011, Paris said. "This one appears to be much, much worse. But this was almost the same path. There were some people that had to go through both of them."

Gov. Nathan Deal declared a state of emergency for both counties. State officials late Wednesday afternoon said they had no reports of anyone unaccounted for, but searches of homes and businesses were continuing.

Trees and power lines were down as the result of a possible tornado in Georgia's Gilmer County, the weather service said.

KFVS: Power outages from storm

Utilities reported about 21,000 customers without power in west and north Georgia and metropolitan Atlanta.

In Tennessee, a 47-year-old man died early Wednesday when high winds toppled a tree onto a roof in Nashville, the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency said. CNN affiliate WSMV said the victim was in a building next to a home.

Other injuries were reported in Chester, McNairy and Henderson counties, emergency management spokesman Jeremy Heidt said.

The National Weather Service also reported severe weather or damage Wednesday in Texas, Mississippi and Alabama. Tornadoes were confirmed in Marion County, Kentucky, and Harrison County, Indiana.

WBKO: Tractor trailer flips on I-65

Northern Florida, eastern Georgia, much of South Carolina and portions of North Carolina, Virginia and Maryland were under a tornado watch Wednesday evening.

CNN meteorologist Chad Myers said the massive storm system was 1,000 miles north to south, moving east in a belt that will eventually stretch from New York to Florida.

"If it's hot and humid where you are, then you are still in the danger zone," Myers said. "Storms can still be coming to you tonight. ... The cold air is on the back side of it."

The strong cold front causing the severe weather brought huge extremes in temperature readings. Thermometers reached the low 80s in parts of southeast Georgia and South Carolina, the 50s in Tennessee and the 30s in Illinois.

WFIE: Storms blow new roof off tri-state church

Earlier, in Alabama, the storms blew the metal roof off a building in Sheffield, CNN affiliate WHNT said. The storm also damaged a church steeple in Rogersville, the station reported.

In Kentucky, winds blew off much of the roof of the Penrod Missionary Baptist Church and damaged several homes, CNN affiliate WFIE reported.

In Nashville, the weather service listed dozens of damage reports across the region: a funnel cloud was reported early Wednesday in Jackson County, there were dozens of reports of downed trees and power lines, and law enforcement reported damage to homes and businesses.

CNN affiliate WSMV also reported the partial collapse of an office building in Mount Juliet.

"I built it myself to take an event like this. And it looks like a freight train hit it," the station quoted building owner Dewey Lineberry as saying. "It's just destroyed. It laid the building down on top of cars, it put the building on top of people. It's unbelievable."

Workers who were inside the building when the storm hit took cover under mattresses, the station said.

The storm came dangerously close to WSMV, the station reported: Workers had to move to a safe room when a buzzer in the newsroom alerted them of storm danger around 4 a.m. Wednesday, the station reported.

WKRN: Confirmed tornado

CNN iReporter Matt Davis said overnight storms damaged a historic brick structure on Fairvue Plantation in Gallatin, Tennessee.

"The plantation was a horse farm. Those (structures) have been standing there for 100 to 200 years. It was sad to see those collapsed and caved in. It's historic to the neighborhood," the high school student said.

On Tuesday, the storms raked Arkansas, Louisiana and Mississippi, among other places, with heavy rain and high wind.

Photos: Finding art in icy weather

CNN's Ben Brumfield, Ryan Rios and Miguel Marquez contributed to this report.

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Storm system moves into Ga., blamed for 2 deaths

Updated 6:45 p.m. ET

ADAIRSVILLE, Ga. A massive storm system raked the Southeast on Wednesday, spawning tornadoes and dangerous winds that overturned cars on a Georgia interstate and demolished homes and businesses, killing at least two people.

The storm system tossed vehicles on Interstate 75 in Georgia into the air, onto their roofs and into the grassy shoulder. The highway was closed for a time, and another main thoroughfare remained closed until crews could safely remove downed trees and power lines from the road. Authorities were working to rescue people reportedly trapped in homes and buildings.

The storm decimated that city's downtown area and wiped out parts of a large manufacturing plant, killing at least one person and sending nine to hospitals, Bartow County officials said. Residents said no traces remained of some roadside produce stands — a common sight on rural Georgia's back roads.

A funnel cloud in northern Georgia on Jan. 30, 2013

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WGCL-TV

Georgia Governor Nathan Deal declared a state of emergency for Bartow and Gordon counties. Georgia Power reports there are 10,200 outages statewide. Of the 10,200, 5,600 outages are in the Adairsville Area and 3,500 in metro Atlanta, reports CBS affiliate WGCL-TV in Atlanta.

One other death was reported in Tennessee after an uprooted tree fell onto a storage shed where a man had taken shelter.

In Adairsville, the strange mix of debris in one yard showed just how dangerous the storm had been: a bathtub, table, rolls of toilet paper and lumber lay in the grass next to what appears to be a roof. Sheets of metal dangled from a large tree like ornaments.

"The sky was swirling," said Theresa Chitwood, who owns the Adairsville Travel Plaza. She said she went outside to move her car because she thought it was going to hail. Instead, the passing storm decimated a building behind the travel plaza and ripped the roof off of a nearby bank.

"It sounded like a freight train coming through," she said. "It looks like a bomb hit it."

Juanita Carter told CBS News she was sleeping when the tornado hit; a dangerous situation. "I was hanging. My back was across those blocks," she said. "I don't remember nothing after that. I blacked out."

17 Photos

Massive storm system hits the South

Powerful winds ripped through the entire region, with gusts powerful enough to topple tractor-trailers in several places.

Conditions remained ripe for tornadoes into Wednesday afternoon, and authorities were still investigating several sites to determine if damage was caused by twisters. Since Tuesday, the system had caused damage across a swath from Missouri to Georgia.

In recent days, people in the South and Midwest had enjoyed unseasonably balmy temperatures in the 60s and 70s. A system pulling warm weather from the Gulf of Mexico was colliding with a cold front moving in from the west, creating volatility.

One person was reported injured by lightning in Arkansas during the storm's eastward trek. Two people suffered minor injuries when a mobile home was blown off its foundation in Kentucky. Only one minor injury was reported in Mississippi, where officials praised residents for heeding warnings and being prepared.

In Tennessee, officials confirmed that a tornado with peak wind speeds of 115 mph touched down in Mount Juliet. No serious injuries were reported there, though the path of damage was about 150 yards wide, including homes, a warehouse and an automotive business.

At a shopping center in Mount Juliet, large sheets of metal littered the parking lot, light poles were knocked down and bits of fiberglass insulation were stuck in the trees.

One wall of a Dollar General convenience store collapsed, and the roof was torn off. Mark Fulks Jr. runs Mark's Automotive with his father in a building attached to the Dollar General. The garage door was blown off his shop and sitting on one of the cars inside, and Fulks said several of the cars they were working on had their windshields blown out.

A nearby office building and a distribution center for The Tennessean newspaper also had severe damage. Rick Martin, who bags the newspapers and helps his wife deliver them, was shocked when he saw what was left of the distribution center.

The metal frame of the building still stood, but its cinderblock walls had crumbled, and papers and plastic bags littered the trees.

"We feel real lucky," he said on Wednesday morning as looked at the damage. "I would have hated to be in here when this happened."

The nation has had its longest break between tornado fatalities since detailed tornado records began being kept in 1950, according to the Storm Prediction Center and National Climatic Data Center. The last one was June 24, when a person was killed in a home in Highlands County, Fla. That was 220 days ago as of Tuesday.

The last day with multiple fatalities was June 4, when three people were killed in a mobile home in Scott County, Mo.

CBS meteorologist David Bernard reports there were tornado watches stretching from Tallahassee, Fla., through Georgia and the Carolinas Wednesday night. The Washington, D.C., area was also under a tornado watch.

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Obama Confident Immigration Reform Will Pass

President Barack Obama expressed confidence on Wednesday that he would sign comprehensive immigration reform into law by the end of this year.

In an interview with Univision's Maria Elena Salinas, Obama explained that significant details of a bill still must be worked out by lawmakers, including the structure of a pathway to citizenship for many of the 11 million undocumented immigrants. But Obama said that the progress made by a bipartisan group of lawmakers in the Senate has given him hope that a deal can get done.

See Also: What Will Be Obama's Immigration Legacy?

When asked by Salinas if we will have immigration reform by the end of the year, Obama said, "I believe so."

"You can tell our audience, 'Sí, se puede?'" Salinas asked.

"Sí, se puede," Obama responded.

Later in the interview, Obama said that he hopes a bill could be passed as early as this summer.

But cognizant of deep divisions a topic like immigration has sewn in the past, Obama said that's contingent on bipartisan negotiations continuing to proceed well.

"The only way this is going to get done is if the Republicans continue to work with Democrats in Congress, in both chambers, to get a bill to my desk," he said. "And I'm going to keep on pushing as hard as I can. I believe that the mood is right."

Although the president threatened to introduce his own bill if negotiations in Congress stall during his speech in Las Vegas, Nevada, on Tuesday, he said he is content to let lawmakers hash out the details among themselves for the time being.

"If they are on a path as they have already said, where they want to get a bill done by March, then I think that's a reasonable timeline and I think we can get that done. I'm not going to lay down a particular date because I want to give them a little room to debate," he said. "If it slips a week, that's one thing. If it starts slipping three months, that's a problem."

The president's principles and the Senate's principles on immigration broadly align with one another, but there are still thorny issues that could spark a division between Obama and Republicans, such as the pathway to citizenship.

The Senate's path to citizenship would allow many undocumented immigrants to obtain legal status immediately upon passage of the law. But their ability to then seek legal permanent residency would be contingent upon the U.S.-Mexico border being deemed secure. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), a member of the bipartisan "Gang of Eight" on immigration, has been particularly vocal in stating that border security is a precondition for gaining legal permanent residence, and then citizenship.

While the White House has said that it is withholding judgment on that plan until actual legislative language is drafted, Obama said that he wants a bill that makes it clear from the outset that undocumented immigrants eligible to earn their way to citizenship can eventually obtain it.

"What we don't want to do is create some kind of vague prospect in the future that somehow comprehensive immigration reform that includes a pathway to citizenship will happen, you know, mañana," Obama said. "We want to make sure we are very clear this legislation provides a real pathway."

The president said that enhancing border security measures and workplace enforcement provisions are a part of his plan, as well as the Senate's, and cited his administration's efforts to bulk up border security during the past four years, saying that illegal crossings have dropped 80 percent since 2000.

Read More..

Today on New Scientist: 29 January 2013

Creatures of the air caught in the mist

Photographer Todd Forsgren uses mist nets to briefly ensnare a variety of tropical South American birds before releasing them, unharmed

Drug reduces enlarged prostate with few side effects

Shrinking enlarged prostates by blocking a potent growth factor could avoid problems - such as erectile dysfunction - that accompany current treatments

Climate change blamed for Australia's extreme weather

Floods have hit the east coast of Australia before recent bush fires have been put out, giving people a taste of climate change's possible consequences

Midnight sun: How to get 24-hour solar power

Rust may be the scourge of electronics but it could help solar power run all night

The most beautiful explanations

The 2012 Edge questions asked for great thinkers' favourite explanations. This Explains Everything collects them all into a fascinating read

Netted Costa Rican birds pay small price for art

Only mildly traumatic, mist nets offer an easy and safe way to catch birds for artistic, and ecological, study

Iran launches monkey into space

The Iranian Space Agency claims to have launched a rhesus monkey into space on a sub-orbital flight, and returned it safely to Earth

Read More..

US judge postpones Texas woman's execution

CHICAGO: A Texas judge on Tuesday granted a last-minute reprieve to death row inmate Kimberly McCarthy, who had been scheduled to become the first woman executed in the United States since 2010.

District Judge Larry Mitchell postponed her execution until April 3 after her lawyers asked for time to bring forward an appeal on grounds of racial discrimination.

McCarthy -- who has been on death row for 14 years -- had been due to be executed at 6:00 pm, 2300 GMT, after the US Supreme Court rejected her previous appeal.

"The previous warrant of execution is hereby recalled," Mitchell wrote in a two-page order issued five hours before she was set to die.

"We are very pleased that we will now have an opportunity to present evidence of discrimination in the selection of the jury that sentenced Kimberly McCarthy to death," defence attorney Maurie Levin told AFP in an email.

"As recognised by the US Supreme Court (Miller-El v. Dretke, 2005), these facts must be understood in the context of the troubling and long-standing history of racial discrimination in jury selection in Dallas County, including at the time of Ms McCarthy's trial."

McCarthy, 51, is African American. Her victim, 70-year-old retired professor Dorothy Booth, was Caucasian.

Despite the fact that her home county is 22.5 per cent African American, only one non-Caucasian juror judged McCarthy and three non-Caucasian jurors "were unilaterally excluded by the state despite being fully qualified to serve," her lawyers wrote.

They further argued that 42 per cent of people sentenced to death in Dallas county were African American while 70 per cent of the 24 men exonerated with DNA evidence in the same county were African Americans.

"A remedy is not only warranted, but demanded," her lawyers argued Monday in a letter urging Texas Governor Rick Perry to issue a 30-day reprieve.

McCarthy was set to be just the 13th woman executed since the death penalty was reinstated in the United States in 1976.

She was convicted of forcing her way into her elderly neighbour's home near Dallas under the pretext of borrowing some sugar in 1997, court records show.

She then smashed Booth in the face with a candle stick, stabbed her five times and cut off her finger to steal her diamond ring.

McCarthy drove off in Booth's Mercedes and tried to buy some crack, court documents showed. She also used Booth's credit cards at least four times and pawned her wedding ring for US$200 before she was caught.

Prosecutors also accused her of killing two other elderly people.

She was sentenced to death in 1998, saw her conviction overturned on appeal and then was convicted and condemned again in a second trial in 2002.

"It is a shame that courts allowed Ms McCarthy to come so close to execution before granting the stay," said Richard Dieter, director of the Death Penalty Information Centre.

"There certainly are signs and a history of racial discrimination in jury selection in Dallas County."

There is also a good chance that she would not be sentenced to death if tried now due to mitigating factors like her drug addiction, Dieter told AFP.

Texas was sentencing as many as 40 people to death a year before the courts began providing juries with the alternative sentence of life without parole. That number has now since dropped to about eight people a year, Dieter said.

McCarthy would have been the fourth woman executed in Texas since 1976, out of a total of 493. Nine other women are among the 304 people on the state's death row.

A dozen women were among the 1,321 people executed since 1976, according to the Death Penalty Information Centre. Of the 3,199 people on death row as of October 1, 63 were women and 42 per cent were African American.

- AFP/jc

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Judge OKs BP plea, record $4 billion fine

By Terry Frieden, CNN Justice Producer

updated 3:51 PM EST, Tue January 29, 2013

Fire boat response crews battle the blazing remnants of the off shore oil rig Deepwater Horizon on April 21, 2010.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• The $4 billion deal is the largest criminal penalty in U.S. history


• 11 workers died April 20, 2010, when the Deepwater Horizon caught on fire


• The plea deal includes felony manslaughter charges


• A BP executive apologizes in court for the company's role in the accident

(CNN) -- A federal judge in New Orleans Tuesday approved a $4 billion plea agreement for criminal fines and penalties against oil giant BP for the 2010 Gulf oil spill, the largest criminal penalty in U.S. history.

U.S. District Court Judge Sarah Vance imposed the terms that the Justice Department and BP had agreed to last November, which include the oil company pleading guilty to 14 criminal counts -- among them, felony manslaughter charges -- and the payment of a record $4 billion in criminal penalties over five years.

Vance's ruling came after hearing from eight witnesses Tuesday, including family members of those killed, cleanup workers, and members of the Southeast Asian Fisherfolks Association.

Transocean to pay $1.4 billion for role in Gulf oil spill

The plea agreement is with the oil company and not with indicted individual employees, so it doesn't result in anyone going to jail.

Two high-ranking supervisors on the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig have been indicted on 23 counts, including manslaughter, for allegedly ignoring warning signs of a possible blowout on the rig. It caught fire April 20, 2010, resulting in the deaths of 11 workers. Those separate criminal cases remain in litigation.

Luke Keller, a vice president of BP America, Inc., apologized again in court Tuesday for his company's role in the accident.

"We -- and by that I mean the men and the women of the management of BP, its board of directors, and its many employees -- are deeply sorry for the tragic loss of the 11 men who died and the others who were injured that day," said Keller. "Our guilty plea makes clear, BP understands and acknowledges its role in that tragedy, and we apologize -- BP apologizes -- to all those injured and especially to the families of the lost loved ones. BP is also sorry for the harm to the environment that resulted from the spill, and we apologize to the individuals and communities who were injured."

The London-based oil giant also agreed to pay $525 million over three years to settle claims with the Securities and Exchange Commission that the company concealed information from investors.

The oil firm has not agreed with the Justice Department on a separate civil settlement involving federal and state claims of damages to natural resources. At stake are potential fines for violations of the Clean Water Act, which could range from $5 billion to almost $20 billion if BP is found guilty of gross negligence or willful misconduct. That case is being heard by another federal court in New Orleans.

According to Justice Department officials, $1.3 billion of the $4 billion fine will go to the government, nearly $2.4 billion will go to the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation and $350 million will go to the National Academy of Sciences.

Judge approves medical claims settlement in BP oil spill

CNN's Vivian Kuo contributed to this story

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Calif. family with "mixed" immigration status eager for Obama reforms

(CBS News) LOS ANGELES - On Tuesday, President Obama laid out what would be the most sweeping reform of immigration law in decades. it would include a pathway to citizenship for the 11 million illegal immigrants who already live in America. Here's how he described his plan in Las Vegas:

President Barack Obama delivers remarks on immigration reform at Del Sol High School in Las Vegas, January 29, 2013. Obama Tuesday hailed a "genuine desire" among warring politicians to pursue immigration reform, ahead of a speech laying out his own approach to the politically fiery issue.

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JIM WATSON / AFP / Getty Images

"We've got to lay out a path -- a process that includes passing a background check, paying taxes, paying a penalty, learning English, and then going to the back of the line behind all the folks who are trying to come here legally, that's only fair. So that means it won't be a quick process, but it will be a fair process. And it will lift these individuals out of the shadows and give them a chance to earn their way to a green card and eventually to citizenship."

President Obama also called for stronger enforcement on the borders. His plan is similar to a bill that both Democrats and Republicans are introducing in the Senate. This may be the best chance for immigration reform in decades. It would mean a lot of families would not live in fear of being split up.

Jaime Colin helps his mother Lupe at one of the family's two dry cleaners in Southern California.

Obama: "Now is the time" for immigration reform
McCain: "We cannot have 11M people living in the shadows"
Immigration proposal a "major breakthrough," senators say
Is now the time for immigration reform?

"My parents have worked so hard," he said. "Everything I am, everything my sister is -- we owe to them."

The Colin family's immigration status is complicated. Jaime and his sister Diana were brought from Mexico as children. President Obama's deferred action program allows them to stay for work and school. Their younger siblings were born in the U.S. But their parents have been here illegally for 22 years.

Their father declined to appear on camera. Lupe Colin said they employ five workers and have earned a path to citizenship. "I have my own business," she said. "I am living here like an American citizen because I pay the taxes."

Added Diana Colin: "We're aspiring citizens. Obama promised us immigration reform."

What would these changes in immigration policy mean for the Colin family? "We would be more secure, we don't have to live with the fear of being deported, having our family torn apart," Jaime Colin said.

"That's the calculation that they made when they came into the country illegally," said Jack Martin of the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), a group that lobbies for strict immigration enforcement. "They've been in the country breaking the law all that period of time. And that should earn them no priority with regard to people who have been waiting outside the country

He said allowing the Colins to stay in the U.S. is no more effective at stopping illegal immigration than a 1986 law that allowed three million illegal immigrants to apply for legal immigrant status.

"We now have 11 or 12 million illegal aliens in the country," said Martin. "Instead of cutting down on illegal immigration, it led to an increase."

As for those say her family should get to the back of the line, Diana Colin responded: "We have been here as aspiring citizens for 22 years. Is that the back of the line? What is the back of the line?"

The Colin family believes the political muscle Hispanic showed at the polls in November will push Democrats and Republicans to actually pass immigration reform with a path to citizenship this year.

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Jodi Arias Borrowed Gas Cans Before Killing Ex

Accused murderer Jodi Arias borrowed two five-gallon gas cans from a former boyfriend the day before she drove to Arizona to kill another ex, Travis Alexander, according to testimony in Arias' murder trial today.

In cross examination, prosecutors also forced Arias' former live-in boyfriend Darryl Brewer to describe his sex life with Arias as "pretty aggressive."

Brewer, 52, dated Arias for four years and shared a home with her in California for two years. He told the court today that Arias called him in May 2008, asking to borrow gas cans, but would not explain why. She called him again at least two more times, and arrived at his house on June 2008, to borrow the cans.

On the day she picked up the gas cans she told Brewer that she was going to visit friends in California and Arizona.

Prosecutors argue that Arias then drove to Mesa, Ariz., where she allegedly had sex with Alexander, took nude photos of him, and then stabbed him 27 times, slashed his throat, and shot him twice in the head. She is charged with murder and could face the death penalty if convicted.

Arias, who claims she killed Alexander in self defense, had approached prosecutors two years ago offering to plea to a second degree murder charge, which could carry a 25 year term, but the state rejected the offer, Nancy Grace reported on Good Morning America today.

Brewer said that Arias never returned the gas cans. The pair had been broken up two years earlier and they had only spoken "sporadically," he said.

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Prosecutors also showed receipts from Arias' trip from her California home to Alexander's home in Mesa, showing that she purchased a 10 gallons of gas at one gas station the night before she drove to Arizona, and then another 10 gallons from a different gas station 10 minutes later. Prosecutors are expected to argue she brought the gas with her to fill up her car secretly on the way to Alexander's home, showing premeditation for the murder.

Arias' attorneys called Brewer as one of their first witnesses as they began mounting their case that Arias killed Alexander in self defense, arguing that Alexander was controlling and abusive toward Arias.

They asked Brewer to explain how he and Arias had been in a stable relationship for four years, from 2002 to 2006, and had bought a home together before Arias met Alexander at a business conference and began to change.

"I saw a lot of changes in Jodi. She became a different person than I had known previously," Brewer said, describing how Arias' behavior changed in May 2006 when she joined a company called Pre-Paid Legal. There, she met Alexander and began seeing him. She continued to live with Brewer.

"She had continued to pay the mortgage, but she was not paying other household bills, she began getting into debt or financial trouble," Brewer said. "For me it seemed she was not as rational or logical."

Arias also converted to Mormonism while living with Brewer, telling him that he could no longer curse and she would no longer have sex with him because she was saving herself for marriage.

The pair had previously had an "enthusiastic" and "aggressive" sex life, Brewer admitted to prosecutors. They had engaged in anal sex, Arias had taken nude photos of Brewer, and Arias had purchased breast implants in 2006, he testified.

Brewer said that after Arias began to change, he made arrangements to move closer to his son from his first marriage, and he and Arias broke up.

They kept in touch with occasional phone calls until Arias asked to borrow the gas cans in June 2008, and then called him a week after borrowing the cans to say that her friend had been killed.

Martinez, reading notes from an interview Brewer gave to authorities during the investigation into Alexander's death, asked if Arias had ever mentioned needing an "alibi." Brewer said he did not recall any conversation about alibis.

"After this date of June 4, 2008," Martinez asked, "you received a call from Jodi Arias, and she was very agitated?"

"She was sad," Brewer said.

"Did she tell you that her friend had been killed and she did not have an alibi?"

"I don't remember that," Brewer said.

Arias was arrested a month after Alexander was found dead, in July 2008.

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