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Sept. 11 commissioners: U.S. still failing to put security reforms in place

WASHINGTON - The government is still failing to enact many swift and strong security changes to prevent terror attacks, the former Sept. 11 Commission has concluded.

More than four years after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the government has not done enough to stop nuclear proliferation, give emergency first responders adequate communications systems and ensure that homeland security grants are going to the most high-risk communities, former commissioners said Friday.

"We're taking small steps when we need a giant leap," said former Democratic commissioner Timothy Roemer, who is now president of the Center for National Policy at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va. "We're watching al-Qaida change and spread out like mercury on a mirror while our bureaucracies are still sometimes stuck in Cold War mentality and cultures."

Congress established the 10-member, bipartisan commission in 2002 to investigate government missteps that led to the 9/11 attacks. It issued its findings - that the United States could not protect its citizens from the attacks because it underestimated al-Qaida - in a sweeping July 2004 report.

COLUMBIA, S.C. - A man was put to death Friday for the 1994 murder of a store clerk, becoming the 1,001st person executed in the United States since capital punishment resumed 28 years ago.

Shawn Humphries, 34, mouthed "I'm sorry" to his victim's two sisters before fatal chemicals were pumped into his veins.

His death came 16 hours after North Carolina executed Kenneth Lee Boyd, the 1,000th person to receive capital punishment since 1977, a year after the Supreme Court ruled it could resume.

Boyd, who killed his estranged wife and father-in-law, did not want the distinction. But Humphries' attorney said he had told her "he would rather be 1,000 because if he has to die, No. 1,000 will be remembered. No. 1,001 won't."

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. - A federal judge ruled Friday that Illinois' limits on the sale of violent and sexually explicit video games to minors are unconstitutional and barred the state from enforcing the law.

State officials "have come nowhere near" demonstrating that the law passes constitutional muster, said U.S. District Judge Matthew Kennelly.

Gov. Rod Blagojevich and other supporters of the measure argued that children were being harmed by exposure to games in which characters go on killing sprees or sexual escapades. Blagojevich said Friday he will appeal the ruling.

"Parents should be able to expect that their kids will not have access to excessively violent and sexually explicit video games without their permission," he said.

The Illinois law, which was to go into effect Jan. 1, would have barred stores from selling or renting extremely violent or sexual games to minors and allowed $1,000 fines for violators.