The family of victim Meredith Kercher said the verdict brought a measure of justice. However, they said, it was not a time to celebrate.

Knox, a college student from Seattle, was tired and upset following the midnight verdict and sentence of 26 years in prison, according to family members and a lawyer who saw her.

“Amanda like the rest is extremely disappointed, upset about the decision,” Knox’s mother, Edda Mellas, said after the visit to the prison just outside Perugia. “We told her that she’s gonna get out of here. It’s gonna take a little longer.”

Knox and Kercher’s families came to this central Italian town for the verdict, which was announced at around midnight after 13 hours of deliberations. The court also convicted Knox’s co-defendant and former boyfriend, Italian Raffaele Sollecito, and gave him a 25-year jail term for the murder.

The execution could propel other states to eventually consider the switch, which proponents say ends arguments over unnecessary suffering during injection. California and Tennessee previously considered then rejected the one-drug approach.

Though the untested method has never been used on an inmate in the United States, one difference is clear: Biros will likely die more slowly than inmates put to death with the three-drug method, which includes a drug that stops the heart.

Lethal injection experts on both sides of the debate over injection say thiopental sodium, which kills by putting people so deeply asleep they stop breathing, will take longer.

Schools from Wisconsin to New Mexico have geothermal projects in the works. There are 46 schools divvying up millions in federal stimulus dollars to advance technology that uses the temperature of the Earth, rather than coal-fired power plants, to heat and cool buildings.

So far this year, the Department of Energy has announced $400 million in grants to advance geothermal projects like those under way on a handful of campuses.

Geothermal technology has been around for decades, it works and it’s increasingly affordable. At colleges that must maintain dozens of large buildings, the savings are magnified.

Those involved in the decision to pursue geothermal technology say they wanted to use less coal-fired power, although the schools also had to save money to justify the move.

Yvo de Boer, the U.N.’s top climate official, said on the eve of the 192-nation conference that despite unprecedented unity and concessions, industrial countries and emerging nations need to dig deeper.

“Time is up,” de Boer said. “Over the next two weeks governments have to deliver.”

Finance — billions of dollars immediately and hundreds of billions of dollars annually within a decade — was emerging as the key to unblocking an agreement that would bind the global community to a sweeping plan to combat climate change.

The 2008 Republican vice presidential candidate also joked that she had orginally thought of titling her book “How To Look Like a Million Bucks For Only $150,000″ before settling on “Going Rogue.” In one of the controversies surrounding her candidacy, the campaign spent about $150,000 on her wardrobe.

Palin was the Republican speaker at the winter dinner of the Gridiron Club, an organization of Washington-based journalists.

Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., represented the Democrats.

Palin targeted her hosts, Democrats and Sen. John McCain’s campaign staff, as well as herself.

Baucus said that he began dating former state office director Melodee Hanes after they were both separated from their spouses. The Montana Democrat said they did not have an affair, but began dating while she worked for him.

“As we grew closer and things progressed, we knew it was time to begin the process of Mel transitioning out of my Senate office,” Baucus said in a statement issued by his office Saturday.

He said he recommended Hanes to become Montana’s U.S. attorney while they were dating because she is a highly qualified prosecutor who tried more than 100 jury trials and is widely regarded as an expert in child abuse prosecution.