Celebrations planned as Wash. legalizes marijuana

SEATTLE (AP) — Legal marijuana possession becomes a reality under Washington state law on Thursday, and some people planned to celebrate the new law by breaking it.

Voters in Washington and Colorado last month made those the first states to decriminalize and regulate the recreational use of marijuana. Washington's law takes effect Thursday and allows adults to have up to an ounce of pot — but it bans public use of marijuana, which is punishable by a fine, just like drinking in public.

Nevertheless, some people planned to gather at 12:01 a.m. PST Thursday to smoke in public beneath Seattle's Space Needle. Others planned a midnight party outside the Seattle headquarters of Hempfest, the 21-year-old festival that attracts tens of thousands of pot fans every summer.

"This is a big day because all our lives we've been living under the iron curtain of prohibition," said Hempfest director Vivian McPeak. "The whole world sees that prohibition just took a body blow."

In another sweeping change for Washington, Gov. Chris Gregoire on Wednesday signed into law a measure that legalizes same-sex marriage. The state joins several others that allow gay and lesbian couples to wed.

That law also takes effect Thursday, when gay and lesbian couples can start picking up their wedding certificates and licenses at county auditors' offices. Those offices in King County, the state's largest and home to Seattle, and Thurston County, home to the state capital of Olympia, planned to open the earliest, at 12:01 a.m. Thursday, to start issuing marriage licenses. Because the state has a three-day waiting period, the earliest that weddings can take place is Sunday.

The Seattle Police Department provided this public marijuana use enforcement guidance to its officers via email Wednesday night: "Until further notice, officers shall not take any enforcement action — other than to issue a verbal warning — for a violation of Initiative 502."

Thanks to a 2003 law, marijuana enforcement remains the department's lowest priority. Even before I-502 passed on Nov. 6, police rarely busted people at Hempfest, despite widespread pot use, and the city attorney here doesn't prosecute people for having small amounts of marijuana.

Officers will be advising people to take their weed inside, police spokesman Jonah Spangenthal-Lee wrote on the SPD Blotter. "The police department believes that, under state law, you may responsibly get baked, order some pizzas and enjoy a 'Lord of the Rings' marathon in the privacy of your own home, if you want to."

Washington's new law decriminalizes possession of up to an ounce for those over 21, but for now selling marijuana remains illegal. I-502 gives the state a year to come up with a system of state-licensed growers, processors and retail stores, with the marijuana taxed 25 percent at each stage. Analysts have estimated that a legal pot market could bring Washington hundreds of millions of dollars a year in new tax revenue for schools, health care and basic government functions.

But marijuana remains illegal under federal law. That means federal agents can still arrest people for it, and it's banned from federal properties, including military bases and national parks.

The Justice Department has not said whether it will sue to try to block the regulatory schemes in Washington and Colorado from taking effect.

"The department's responsibility to enforce the Controlled Substances Act remains unchanged," said a statement issued Wednesday by the Seattle U.S. attorney's office. "Neither states nor the executive branch can nullify a statute passed by Congress" — a non-issue, since the measures passed in Washington and Colorado don't "nullify" federal law, which federal agents remain free to enforce.

The legal question is whether the establishment of a regulated marijuana market would "frustrate the purpose" of the federal pot prohibition, and many constitutional law scholars say it very likely would.

That leaves the political question of whether the administration wants to try to block the regulatory system, even though it would remain legal to possess up to an ounce of marijuana.

Colorado's measure, as far as decriminalizing possession goes, is set to take effect by Jan. 5. That state's regulatory scheme is due to be up and running by October 2013.

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Both sides hint at renewed 'fiscal cliff' talks

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - With little to show after a month of posturing, the White House and Republicans in Congress dropped hints on Thursday that they had resumed low-level private talks on breaking the stalemate over the "fiscal cliff" but refused to divulge details.

A day after a phone conversation between President Barack Obama and John Boehner, the Republican speaker of the House of Representatives, appeared to kick-start communications, both sides used similar language to describe the state of negotiations but imposed a media blackout on developments.

"Lines of communication remain open," White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters when pressed on whether staff talks were taking place to avoid the steep tax hikes and budget cuts set for the first of next year unless the parties agree on a way to stop them.

Asked the same question, Boehner spokesman Michael Steel also said "lines of communication are open."

The acknowledgement, even without signs of anything approaching a breakthrough, passed for encouraging news after a week of public maneuvering on the fiscal cliff by both sides to gain the maximum political and public relations advantage.

Republicans have worried publicly and privately that they are losing the war of appearances in the battle over the cliff.

On Thursday, another poll showed Republicans may have reason to worry about public perception. A Quinnipiac University survey found respondents trust Obama and Democrats more than Republicans on the cliff talks by a wide margin - 53 percent to 36 percent.

In both public statements and private encounters, Obama has tried to encourage Republicans wavering from the position of the party leadership.

Republican Representative Tom Cole, who last week broke ranks with his party and agreed to accept higher tax rates on the richest Americans, said Obama took him aside at a White House Christmas party on Monday and joked about the criticism Cole had received from Republicans.

"The president pulled me over and he said, 'Cole, come closer, I want to see the bruises,'" Cole told Reuters. "He said, 'Seriously, I will go further on this thing than you guys think. I know we can get something done.'"

While other Republicans have questioned Obama's commitment, Cole said, "I take him at his word," adding: "The best is to get to that discussion as quickly as we can."

'SOLVABLE PROBLEM'

Obama, meanwhile, played to his strengths with the latest in a series of the sort of public events he has used against Republicans in the fiscal cliff fight: a visit with a family in the Virginia suburbs of Washington to illustrate how Republican tax proposals would hurt the middle class.

"The message that I think we all want to send to members of Congress is: this is a solvable problem," Obama said while visiting the home of a couple in Falls Church, Virginia. "We are in the midst of the Christmas season and I think the American people are counting on this getting solved."

Neither side in the showdown would characterize Wednesday's conversation between Boehner and Obama or suggest it opened up new area of compromise.

Obama and Democrats in Congress want the tax cuts set to expire at the end of the year to be extended for taxpayers with incomes below $250,000 a year but not for the wealthiest 2 percent of Americans.

In exchange, the president has said he is willing to consider significant spending cuts wanted by Republicans to "entitlement" programs such as Medicare, the government health insurance plan for seniors.

Republicans have held out for an extension of all the tax cuts, but they have become increasingly divided about whether they can prevail in the face of Obama's firm stance and Republican control of only the House but not the U.S. Senate.

TANGLING OVER DEBT LIMIT

The debt ceiling issue - the same one that provoked a showdown in 2011 that led to a downgrading of the U.S. credit rating - has become a centerpiece of the fiscal cliff debate, thanks in part to Obama's insistence that Congress give him enhanced power to increase the debt limit, which needs to be raised again in the next few months.

"It ought to be done without delay and without drama," Carney, the White House spokesman, said of raising the debt ceiling.

That issue produced a largely partisan procedural scuffle on Thursday in the Senate when Republicans tried to provoke a vote on giving Obama the power to raise the debt ceiling on his own.

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, who had argued that not even Democrats would support giving Obama greater flexibility, tried to prove it by pushing for a vote.

When Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid went ahead and scheduled it, confident he had enough support to win on a straight majority vote, the Republicans backed down, with McConnell demanding that 60 votes be required for passage, more than the Democrats can muster.

No new vote was scheduled. While the measure could come up again, it was dead for the moment.

"Senator McConnell took obstruction to new heights by filibustering his own bill," Reid said in a statement.

Democratic Senator Charles Schumer of New York told reporters that Republicans were losing the argument on raising top tax rates and "are trying to pivot away to other parts of the fiscal cliff in a desperate attempt to assert leverage and change the subject."

The exchange may be a taste of things to come as Congress moves toward the fiscal cliff deadline.

Economists have warned a plunge over the cliff could drive the economy back into a recession. Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Analytics, told the congressional Joint Economic Committee that failure to strike a deal could have serious economic consequences relatively quickly.

"By mid-February you would be doing a lot of damage," Zandi said.

(Additional reporting by Margaret Chadbourn, Rachelle Younglai, David Lawder, Jason Lange; Writing by John Whitesides; Editing by Fred Barbash and Eric Beech)

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Rare tornado kills 3 in New Zealand's largest city

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — An unusually destructive tornado swept through neighborhoods around New Zealand's largest city Thursday, killing three people and forcing 250 more to evacuate damaged and powerless homes.

The small tornado hit Hobsonville and Whenuapai, western suburbs of Auckland, during a midday storm that also uprooted trees, damaged buildings and caused flooding that closed roads.

Authorities said that as well as those who died, seven people suffering a range of injuries were admitted to hospitals.

The tornado was the deadliest in New Zealand in more than 60 years. Although the country reports about seven tornados on average each year, most are small, mild and do little damage. New Zealand's temperate maritime climate means it isn't prone to the large, destructive tornados that plague places like the American Midwest.

Auckland Council spokesman Glyn Walters said the storm made about 150 homes uninhabitable. He said some of those homes had roofs torn off or were severely damaged while others had more minor damage or had lost power. He said 250 residents were taken to an air force base at Whenuapai, where council staff and welfare workers were assisting them.

The worst weather appeared to have passed by midafternoon, Walters said. "It's clearing up slightly but people need to be careful out there," he said.

Auckland Fire Service Area Commander Larry Cocker told The Associated Press that three people had died in the storm.

Walters said one person was killed when hit by a tree and that some others who were killed or injured were workers who were building a school.

Several New Zealand media outlets reported that two of those who died were in an accident involving a slab of concrete.

Richard Turner, a meteorologist with New Zealand's National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA), said New Zealand isn't prone to the intense surface heating that helps create the huge and violent tornados seen in the central United States. But he said even relatively small tornados like the one on Thursday can cause damage and death.

Tornados in New Zealand are typically about 30 meters (100 feet) wide and last for only a few minutes.

Daniel Corbett, a meteorologist with government forecaster MetService, said there had been some very warm, humid air "like soup" sitting over Auckland for several days before thunderstorms hit, creating the conditions for Thursday's tornado. He said he expected the weather system would move away from the country Thursday night.

The tornado equaled the deadliest recorded in New Zealand's history. In 1948, three people were killed when a tornado hit a suburb in the city of Hamilton.

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Grammys spread the love with 6 top nominees

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — The Grammy Awards celebrated the diversity of music as six different artists tied for lead nominee — Kanye West, Jay-Z, Frank Ocean, Dan Auerbach of The Black Keys, Mumford & Sons and fun.

Auerbach received five nominations as a member of the Keys and also is up for producer of the year, earning a spot with the others at the top of the list as the Grammy's primetime television special came to his hometown Wednesday night.

"We're speechless," Auerbach said in a statement to The Associated Press from Germany, where he's on tour with drummer Patrick Carney.

The rockers little resemble any of the other acts at the top of the list. The nominations for Jay-Z and West, two of hip-hop's most important figures, is a familiar refrain. Each has routinely been at or near the top of the nominations list for the last several years.

Indie pop band fun., a featured performer during the show, aired live from Nashville's Bridgestone Arena on CBS, rode the success of its anthemic hit "We Are Young" featuring Janelle Monae to sweep of the major categories, earning nods for best new artist, song and record for "We Are Young" and album of the year for "Some Nights." The band's producer Jeff Bhasker is up for four nominations.

"When you call your band fun. with a period at the end of the sentence, you set a very high standard for yourself and for fun itself," Taylor Swift, the concert's co-host, said in introducing them. "Fortunately this band from New York has lived up to the name in the best possible way."

R&B singer Ocean, whose mother was in attendance, made a bold social statement earlier this year when he noted he had a same-sex relationship in the liner notes of his new album "channel ORANGE," and The Recording Academy rewarded him with the nominations for best new artist, record for "Thinkin Bout You" and album of the year.

And British folk-rock band Mumford & Sons, which made an auspicious debut in front of an international audience during the 2011 Grammys, is up for album of the year for "Babel," one of 2012's best-selling releases.

Miguel, who helped Ocean shake up the R&B world this year, and jazz great Chick Corea join the Keys with five nominations apiece. Nas and recording engineer Bob Ludwig join Bhasker at four apiece.

There were no major snubs. Most of 2012's inescapable hits are represented in some way — Gotye's "Somebody That I Used To Know" is up for record of the year and Carly Rae Jepsen's "Call Me Maybe" garnered a song of the year nod. Drake, Rihanna and Nashville residents Swift, Kelly Clarkson, Jack White and best new artist nominee Hunter Hayes were among 16 nominees with three nods.

In many ways the nominations reflect a singles-driven year when no album rose to the level of acclaim as Adele's "21" or West's "My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy," which dominated the Grammys last February.

The best new artist category is a great example of this year's diversity. From the minimalist R&B of Ocean, the pop-influenced sounds of fun. and Hayes, the soulful rock of Alabama Shakes and the Americana swing of The Lumineers, there's little resemblance between the acts.

"I think people listen to a lot of types of music and Spotify has proven that, and iPod has proven that," Lumineers member Wes Schultz said. "... Every person in that audience tonight, I saw them freaking out about various artists that have no relationship to each other."

Alabama Shakes drummer Steve Johnson noted the diversity in the category after the show, then made a surprising statement: "If I were on the other side of the fence, I'd vote Frank Ocean personally."

The members of fun. were "dorking it up" as they learned about their nominations, lead singer Nate Reuss said, and were especially excited to show up in the album of the year category, which also included Ocean's major label debut, the Keys' "El Camino," Mumford's "Babel" and White's "Blunderbuss."

"It's been an incredible year in music," guitarist Jack Antonoff said. "It feels like alternative music is back, looking at album of the year, especially those nominations. We couldn't be more proud to be in there. ... I think when we were sitting in our chairs out there, when we saw Jack White up there, that's when we really pinched ourselves. We felt so honored to be in the same category."

Miguel also had his mind on the forgotten art form of the album. Nominated in the major category of song of the year for "Adorn," he said in a phone interview from New York that he was most excited about another category — urban contemporary album.

"Of all of the categories to be nominated for, that is the one that means the most to me just because I just, I miss great albums. That's a huge compliment to say that your entire body of work was the best of the year," he said. "I don't know. That's the one that means the most to me. I'm really hoping maybe, just maybe."

He'll find out when the 55th annual Grammy Awards take place Feb. 10 in Los Angeles. Trophies will be handed out in 81 categories.

The 5-year-old nominations show was held outside Los Angeles for the first time and showcased Music City for its growing role in the music industry. The Bridgestone Arena marked the largest venue the show has been held in and it may have been a dress rehearsal for a chance to host the main awards show sometime in the future.

LL Cool J returned as host, sharing duties with Swift, whose hit song "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together" earned a nod in the jam-packed record of the year category. She was joined by fun., Gotye, Clarkson's "Stronger (What Doesn't Kill You)," The Black Keys' "Lonely Boy" and Ocean's "Thinkin Bout You."

Song of the year nominees were Ed Sheeran's "The A Team," Miguel's "Adorn," Jepsen's "Call Me Maybe," Clarkson's "Stronger (What Doesn't Kill You)" and fun.'s "We Are Young."

Swift and LL Cool J opened the show by putting together a beat-box version of Swift's hit "Mean." Hayes displayed his versatility while announcing the best pop vocal album by singing snippets of each star's hit song. Maroon 5 played headliner, singing three songs mid-show before finishing off the live broadcast. The group stuck around for an hourlong performance afterward for the crowd in attendance.

Assisted by Monae, fun. reimagined "We Are Young" with orchestral strings as the crowd sang along, Ne-Yo, in wine-colored bowler, kicked things up with a cadre of dancers on his new club-infused song "Let Me Love You." And the show tipped its hat to Nashville with a salute to Johnny Cash by Dierks Bentley and The Band Perry.

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AP Music Writer Mesfin Fekadu contributed to this report from New York.

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Study could spur wider use of prenatal gene tests

A new study sets the stage for wider use of gene testing in early pregnancy. Scanning the genes of a fetus reveals far more about potential health risks than current prenatal testing does, say researchers who compared both methods in thousands of pregnancies nationwide.

A surprisingly high number — 6 percent — of certain fetuses declared normal by conventional testing were found to have genetic abnormalities by gene scans, the study found. The gene flaws can cause anything from minor defects such as a club foot to more serious ones such as mental retardation, heart problems and fatal diseases.

"This isn't done just so people can terminate pregnancies," because many choose to continue them even if a problem is found, said Dr. Ronald Wapner, reproductive genetics chief at Columbia University Medical Center in New York. "We're better able to give lots and lots of women more information about what's causing the problem and what the prognosis is and what special care their child might need."

He led the federally funded study, published in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine.

A second study in the journal found that gene testing could reveal the cause of most stillbirths, many of which remain a mystery now. That gives key information to couples agonizing over whether to try again.

The prenatal study of 4,400 women has long been awaited in the field, and could make gene testing a standard of care in cases where initial screening with an ultrasound exam suggests a structural defect in how the baby is developing, said Dr. Susan Klugman, director of reproductive genetics at New York's Montefiore Medical Center, which enrolled 300 women into the study.

"We can never guarantee the perfect baby but if they want everything done, this is a test that can tell a lot more," she said.

Many pregnant women are offered screening with an ultrasound exam or a blood test that can flag some common abnormalities such as Down syndrome, but these are not conclusive.

The next step is diagnostic testing on cells from the fetus obtained through amniocentesis, which is like a needle biopsy through the belly, or chorionic villus sampling, which snips a bit of the placenta. Doctors look at the sample under a microscope for breaks or extra copies of chromosomes that cause a dozen or so abnormalities.

The new study compared this eyeball method to scanning with gene chips that can spot hundreds of abnormalities and far smaller defects than what can be seen with a microscope. This costs $1,200 to $1,800 versus $600 to $1,000 for the visual exam.

In the study, both methods were used on fetal samples from 4,400 women around the country. Half of the moms were at higher risk because they were over 35. One-fifth had screening tests suggesting Down syndrome. One-fourth had ultrasounds suggesting structural abnormalities. Others sought screening for other reasons.

"Some did it for anxiety — they just wanted more information about their child," Wapner said.

Of women whose ultrasounds showed a possible structural defect but whose fetuses were called normal by the visual chromosome exam, gene testing found problems in 6 percent — one out of 17.

"That's a lot. That's huge," Klugman said.

Gene tests also found abnormalities in nearly 2 percent of cases where the mom was older or ultrasounds suggested a problem other than a structural defect.

Dr. Lorraine Dugoff, a University of Pennsylvania high-risk pregnancy specialist, wrote in an editorial in the journal that gene testing should become the standard of care when a structural problem is suggested by ultrasound. But its value may be incremental in other cases and offset by the 1.5 percent of cases where a gene abnormality of unknown significance is found.

In those cases, "a lot of couples might not be happy that they ordered that test" because it can't give a clear answer, she said.

Ana Zeletz, a former pediatric nurse from Hoboken, N.J., had one of those results during the study. An ultrasound suggested possible Down syndrome; gene testing ruled that out but showed an abnormality that could indicate kidney problems — or nothing.

"They give you this list of all the things that could possibly be wrong," Zeletz said. Her daughter, Jillian, now 2, had some urinary and kidney abnormalities that seem to have resolved, and has low muscle tone that caused her to start walking later than usual.

"I am very glad about it," she said of the testing, because she knows to watch her daughter for possible complications like gout. Without the testing, "we wouldn't know anything, we wouldn't know to watch for things that might come up," she said.

The other study involved 532 stillbirths — deaths of a fetus in the womb before delivery. Gene testing revealed the cause in 87 percent of cases versus 70 percent of cases analyzed by the visual chromosome inspection method. It also gave more information on specific genetic abnormalities that couples could use to estimate the odds that future pregnancies would bring those risks.

The study was led by Dr. Uma Reddy of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.

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Medical journal: http://www.nejm.org

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Syria loads chemical weapons, waits for green light

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton attends the "Friends of Syria" confernence in Paris. (AP)U.S. officials say the Syrian military has loaded active chemical weapons into bombs and is awaiting a final order from embattled President Bashar Assad to use the deadly weapons against its own people.

NBC News reports that on Wednesday the Syrian military loaded sarin gas into aerial bombs that could be deployed from dozens of aircraft.

The last large-scale use of sarin was in 1988, when former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's forces killed 5,000 Kurds in a single attack.

However, U.S. officials told NBC that the sarin bombs had not yet been loaded onto planes but added if Assad gives the final order, "there's little the outside world can do to stop it."

The Syrian government has previously insisted that it would not use chemical weapons against its own people.

For months, the Obama administration has described the Assad regime as being on the verge of collapse. If the Syrian government were to be toppled from outside forces or from within, it would be the first nation possessing weapons of mass destruction to do so.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has as recently as last week warned of the possibility that Assad could use chemical weapons against his own people. After meeting other NATO foreign ministers in Brussels last week, Clinton told the gathering, "Our concerns are that an increasingly desperate Assad regime might turn to chemical weapons, or might lose control of them to one of the many groups that are now operating within Syria."

"We have sent an unmistakable message that this would cross a red line and those responsible would be held to account," she said.

At the end of the meeting, NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen backed up Clinton's threat, declaring that the international community could take military action against Assad and his forces.

"The possible use of chemical weapons would be completely unacceptable for the whole international community and if anybody resorts to these terrible weapons I would expect an immediate reaction from the international community," Rasmussen told reporters.

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More than 200 dead in Philippine typhoon

NEW BATAAN, Philippines (AP) — Philippine officials say the death toll from a powerful typhoon that sparked flash floods and landslides in the country's south has risen to more than 200 people.

A government spokeswoman, Fe Maestre, told The Associated Press on Wednesday that at least 151 people died in the worst-hit province of Compostela Valley. That included 66 villagers and soldiers who perished in a flash flood that swamped two emergency storm shelters and a military camp as Typhoon Bopha lashed New Bataan town the day before.

Maestre says an unspecified number of villagers remain missing in New Bataan.

Army Maj. Gen. Ariel Bernardo says 51 people died and 98 others are missing in nearby Davao Oriental province, mostly due to flooding and toppled trees.

Disaster-response agencies reported seven other typhoon-related deaths elsewhere.

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HTC, Apple ordered to show which patents were included in their settlement agreement

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David Mamet, Kathie Lee Gifford suffer losses

NEW YORK (AP) — David Mamet's new play "The Anarchist" and Katie Lee Gifford's "Scandalous" will both end their Broadway runs much earlier than their creators wanted.

Producers said Tuesday night that Mamet's play starring Patti LuPone and Debra Winger portraying an inmate and warden respectively will close Dec. 16 after just 23 previews and 17 performances.

Producers of "Scandalous," a musical about the life of preacher Aimee Semple McPherson, said it will quit even earlier, after the matinee on Dec. 9 following 60 shows. Both shows got dreadful reviews and struggled at the box office.

Those two shows join "The Performers," a play set in the porn industry, with quick exits in the past few months on Broadway. "The Performers" opened and closed in November after just 23 previews and seven regular performances.

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Study: Drug coverage to vary under health law

WASHINGTON (AP) — A new study says basic prescription drug coverage could vary dramatically from state to state under President Barack Obama's health care overhaul.

That's because states get to set benefits for private health plans that will be offered starting in 2014 through new insurance exchanges.

The study out Tuesday from the market analysis firm Avalere Health found that some states will require coverage of virtually all FDA-approved drugs, while others will only require coverage of about half of medications.

Consumers will still have access to essential medications, but some may not have as much choice.

Connecticut, Virginia and Arizona will be among the states with the most generous coverage, while California, Minnesota and North Carolina will be among states with the most limited.

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