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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Johnson can be reached at https://twitter.com/GeneAPseattle

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Tsunami Warning Lifted in Japan After Quake

A tsunami warning has been lifted for the northeastern region of Japan following a strong 7.3-magnitiude earthquake that struck off the coast of Miyagi prefecture.

The earthquake rattled the coast of Japan just after 5 p.m. local time. Tsunami waves were recorded in at least five different locations – the largest in Ishinomaki was measured at 3 feet, according to the Japan Meteorological Agency.

There was never a risk of widespread tsunami warnings, according to the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center.

All flights were grounded at the Sendai airport, and travelers were evacuated to higher grounds in the terminal, according to an official.

No damage has been reported at monitoring posts and water treatment facilities at all reactors at the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant, according to the Tokyo Electric Power Company. Following the tsunami warning, all the workers were moved to higher ground on the site and told to stay inside.

Buildings in Tokyo swayed for at least several minutes after the earthquake. About two hours after the quake struck, the tsunami warning was lifted.

Japan's NHK news reported that 10 people were transported to the hospital including a 75-year-old woman in Ishinomaki who fell while trying to evacuate to higher ground.

The northeast region of Japan was hit with a magnitude-9.0 earthquake and ensuing tsunami March 11, 2011 that killed or left missing some 19,000 people.

All but two of Japan's nuclear plants were shut down for checks after the earthquake and tsunami caused meltdowns at the Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear plant.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Rivals clash despite tanks at Egypt presidential palace

CAIRO (Reuters) - Islamists and their rivals clashed in an outbreak of stone-throwing near the presidential palace in Cairo on Thursday, even though Egyptian army tanks had moved in to try to halt violence that has killed seven people.

The military played a crucial role in ending Hosni Mubarak's 30-year rule by taking over from him to manage a transitional period, but it has stayed out of the latest crisis.

The commander of the Republican Guard, whose units were involved in the deployment around the palace, said it was meant to separate the opposing sides, not to repress them.

"The armed forces, and at the forefront of them the Republican Guard, will not be used as a tool to oppress the demonstrators," General Mohamed Zaki told the state news agency.

Armored troop carriers also deployed and troops unfurled barbed wire to protect the palace and help police pacify what had become a chaotic battleground for thousands of supporters of Mohamed Mursi and opponents of the Islamist president.

Mursi himself, silent in the turbulence of the last few days, will address the nation later in the day, state television quoted a presidential adviser as saying.

After opposing crowds fought long into the night, the streets around the palace were much calmer in the morning, apart from the brief period of rock-throwing between the hundreds of Islamists and dozens of opposition partisans still at the scene.

Army officers on the spot urged the combatants to back off and stop bloodshed that is further dividing Egypt and imperiling its quest for political stability and economic recovery nearly two years after mass protests overthrew Mubarak.

Officials said 350 people had been wounded, in addition to the seven deaths, underlining the scale of the conflict in the Egyptian capital and other cities, following bitter rows over Mursi's assumption of wide powers on November 22 to help him push through a mostly Islamist-drafted constitution.

MORE PROTESTS PLANNED

The Supreme Guide of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, to which Mursi belonged before he was narrowly elected president in June, appealed for unity. Divisions among Egyptians "only serve the nation's enemies", Mohamed Badie said in a statement.

With at least seven tanks at the palace corners, backed by about 10 armored troop carriers and 20 police trucks, the two sides mostly shouted slogans at each other from a distance.

But opposition activist Hamdi Ghassan told Reuters at the scene that protesters would arrive from other parts of Cairo later in the day, accusing Mursi's supporters of bussing in people from the countryside to boost their presence.

Mursi's opponents accuse him of seeking to create a new "dictatorship" with his November 22 decree and were further angered when an Islamist-dominated assembly hastily approved a draft constitution due to go to a referendum on December 15.

The president has defended his decree as necessary to prevent courts still full of judges appointed by Mubarak from derailing a constitution vital for Egypt's political transition.

Around the palace, traffic was moving through streets strewn with rocks thrown during violence in which petrol bombs and guns were also used. Hundreds of Mursi supporters were still in the area, many wrapped in blankets and some reading the Koran.

"We came here to support President Mursi and his decisions. He is the elected president of Egypt," said demonstrator Emad Abou Salem, 40. "He has legitimacy and nobody else does."

Mursi's opponents say the Muslim Brotherhood, the group that propelled the president to power in a June election, is behind the violence. The Brotherhood says the opposition is to blame and that six of the dead were Mursi supporters.

WESTERN CONCERN

The United States, worried about the stability of an Arab state which has a peace deal with Israel and which receives $1.3 billion in U.S. military aid, urged dialogue. Britain also called for restraint and an "inclusive" political process.

Vice President Mahmoud Mekky proposed "personal ideas" for a negotiated way out on Wednesday, saying amendments to disputed articles in the constitution could be agreed with the opposition. A written agreement could then go to parliament, to be elected after this month's referendum on the constitution.

"There must be consensus," he told a news conference in the presidential palace as fighting raged outside on Wednesday. But the opposition stuck by its demand for Mursi to cancel the November 22 decree and postpone the referendum before any dialogue.

Protests spread to other cities, and offices of the Muslim Brotherhood's political party in Ismailia and Suez were torched.

But Mursi has shown no sign of buckling under pressure from protesters, confident that the Islamists, who have dominated both elections since Mubarak was overthrown, can win the referendum and the parliamentary election to follow.

As well as relying on his Brotherhood power base, Mursi may also draw on a popular yearning for stability and economic revival after almost two years of political turmoil.

Opposition coordinator Mohamed ElBaradei said on Wednesday the street action and the polarization of society were pushing Egypt into violence and "could draw us to something worse".

The Egyptian pound plunged 4 percent on Thursday to its lowest level in eight years, after previously firming on hopes that a $4.8 billion IMF loan would stabilize the economy. The Egyptian stock market fell 4.4 percent after it opened.

(Additional reporting by Reuters TV; Tamim Elyan, Yasmine Saleh and Tom Perry, Writing by Edmund Blair and Tom Perry; Editing by Alistair Lyon and Giles Elgood)

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Golf: Japan star Ishikawa eyes emulating 'hero' McIlroy

CHONBURI, Thailand: Japanese golf star Ryo Ishikawa said he has two years to catch up with his "hero" Rory McIlroy and hopes to end his barren run overseas with a win at the Thailand Golf Championship.

Ishikawa, 21, is two years younger than world number one McIlroy, whose four US PGA Tour victories in 2012 including the PGA Championship saw him named Tuesday as the US tour's Player of the Year.

"I am 21 he is 23, so I have two years to get to his level," said Ishikawa, who has been tipped for great things since winning the Munsingwear Open KSB Cup in Japan in 2007 when he was just 15-years-old.

"McIlroy is the hero for all of us young players. We need more experience, but he shows us it is possible to play very well in the big events. I'm hopeful I can get to the same level."

He returned to the clubhouse at the Amata Spring course with a solid two under par 70, playing the first round with Masters champion Bubba Watson, who went around in 68.

Bidding for his first overseas title Ishikawa said he coped well with the course, despite the sweltering conditions and heavy rough, which contrast massively to his wintry homeland.

"There are great European and American players here and my dream is to be here on Sunday playing the back nine for the title against Bubba Watson," he said.

Ishikawa scored his first nine wins as a teenager, all at home. But he has been erratic in battles with big-hitting players overseas which left him struggling to find the right swinging form.

He secured his tenth victory last month at the Taiheiyo Masters, one of the Japan Tour's high-prized events, breaking a two-year spell without a win which saw his form and confidence plummet.

But his ability, allied with boyish good looks, has kept him in limelight in Japan, and a good showing in Thailand against a strong field will burnish that reputation.

- AFP/de

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BSP puts its weight behind govt on FDI issue in Rajya Sabha

NEW DELHI: BSP on promised to vote in favour of FDI in Rajya Sabha, giving much relief to the government which is bracing for a crucial vote on Friday, even as BJP and AIADMK attacked parties which sided with UPA despite having reservations over the measure.

A day after the opposition motion seeking rollback of the decision was rejected convincingly in Lok Sabha, the Upper House took up the debate with opposition attacking the decision saying it would hurt the poor.

"We have decided to vote in favour of government on FDI in multi-brand retail issue tomorrow," BSP chief Mayawati, whose party has 15 members in the Rajya Sabha, said participating in the debate. The party had yesterday staged a walkout in the Lok Sabha, helping bail out the government in the vote.

Mayawati said her party has decided to support the government because the FDI policy "has a plus point as it is not binding on states and they are free to implement it."

AIADMK member V Maitreyan initiated the discussion and made a strong demand for withdrawing the decision to allow 51 per cent FDI in multi-brand retail.

Maitreyan and leader of the opposition Arun Jaitley earlier attacked BSP as also SP, DMK and NCP for helping the government in voting despite reservations to the policy.

BSP was the main target of Jaitley who said, "You know that this policy is harmful is to the country. If you are willing to proclaim, you should be willing to strike."

Mayawati reacted sharply to the remarks that her party was helping the government under CBI pressure saying the main Opposition party is levelling such allegations after it found out that "grapes were sour" as its game plan did not succeed.

Her remarks led to noisy scenes in the House as BJP demanded the remarks to be expunged but Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kamal Nath said there was nothing in what the BSP supremo has said.

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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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Johnson can be reached at https://twitter.com/GeneAPseattle

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Kate Middleton Leaves London Hospital

Kate Middleton left King Edward VII Hospital in London this morning after being admitted four days ago following the palace's announcement she is pregnant and being treated for hyperemesis gravidarum.

"The Duchess of Cambridge has been discharged from the King Edward VII Hospital and will now head to Kensington Palace for a period of rest," Nick Loughran, the Assistant Press Secretary to the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, said in a statement. "Their Royal Highnesses would like to thank the staff at the hospital for the care and treatment The Duchess has received."

For Complete Coverage of the Royal Baby, Please Visit Our Special Section – Click Here

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Middleton, who is less than 12 weeks pregnant, was seen leaving the hospital with Prince William at 11 a.m. GT today. A smiling Middleton was holding yellow flowers and waved the crowd as she departed from the hospital in a black car.

The Duke and Duchess were spending time with her parents in Bucklebury when she became ill with the symptoms of hyperemesis gravidarum, or acute nausea.

Prince William sprung into action and drove his wife along with their personal security team 50 miles in their Range Rover to the hospital, where Kate was placed on an IV drip.

The royal family was only notified of Kate's pregnancy mere hours before the rest of the world.

A palace source told ABC News that the royal couple decided to go public with the pregnancy because Middleton had to be hospitalized Monday afternoon.

Hyperemesis gravidarum, or acute nausea, is usually diagnosed about nine weeks into a pregnancy, and in most cases resolves itself by 16 or 20 weeks, according to Dr. Ashley Roman, a professor and obstetrician-gynecologist at New York University Langone Medical Center. In rare cases, it can last the whole pregnancy.

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Egypt's Mursi back at palace after night of protests

CAIRO (Reuters) - Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi returned to work on Wednesday a day after slipping out of his palace when it came under siege from protesters furious at his drive to push through a new constitution after temporarily expanding his own powers.

The Health Ministry said 35 protesters were wounded and the Interior Ministry said 40 policemen were hurt in clashes around the presidential palace on Tuesday. While they fired tear gas when protesters breached barricades to reach the palace walls, riot police appeared to handle the disturbance with restraint.

A presidential source said Mursi was back in his office even though up to 200 demonstrators had camped out near one entrance to the palace in the northern Cairo district of Heliopolis overnight. Traffic was flowing normally in the area where thousands of people had protested the night before, and riot police had been withdrawn, a Reuters witness said.

The rest of the Egyptian capital Cairo was calm, despite the political furore over Mursi's November 22 decree handing himself wide powers and shielding his decisions from judicial oversight.

The Islamist leader says he acted to prevent courts from derailing a newly drafted constitution that will go to a referendum on December 15, after which Mursi's decree will lapse.

"Our demands from the president: retract the presidential decree and cancel the referendum on the constitution," read a placard hung by demonstrators on a palace gate.

The crowds had gathered in what organizers had dubbed a "last warning" to Mursi. "The people want the downfall of the regime!" they chanted, roaring the signature slogan of last year's uprising that ousted President Hosni Mubarak.

But the "last warning" may turn out to be one of the last gasps for a disparate opposition which has little chance of stopping next week's vote on a constitution drafted over six months and swiftly approved by an Islamist-dominated assembly.

Facing the gravest crisis of his six-month-old tenure, the Islamist president has shown no sign of buckling under pressure, confident that the Muslim Brotherhood and its Islamist allies can win the referendum and a parliamentary election to follow.

Many Egyptians yearn for an end to political upheaval that has scared off investors and tourists, worsening an economic crisis.

COURT PROTEST

Dozens of pro-Mursi demonstrators, watched by equal numbers of police, waved flags outside the Supreme Constitutional Court, whose rulings have complicated the Islamists' rise to power.

"You are not a political agency," read one banner held by the demonstrators, addressing a court that in June ordered the dissolution of the Islamist-led lower house of parliament.

Mursi issued his November 22 decree temporarily putting his actions above the law to forestall any court ruling to dissolve the upper house or the assembly that wrote the constitution.

Now that the document has been approved and preparations for the referendum are under way, it is not clear whether the president might roll back his decree as a sop to the opposition.

State institutions, with the partial exception of the judiciary, have mostly fallen in behind Mursi, who emerged from the Muslim Brotherhood to win a free election in June.

The army, which backed all Egypt's previous presidents in the republic's six-decade history, has gone back to barracks, having apparently lost its appetite to intervene in politics.

In a bold move, Mursi sacked Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, the Mubarak-era army commander and defense minister, in August and removed the sweeping powers that the military council which took over after Mubarak's fall had grabbed two months earlier.

The liberals, leftists, Christians, ex-Mubarak followers and others opposed to the president who was narrowly elected in June against a secular rival have yet to generate a mass movement or a grassroots political base to challenge the Brotherhood.

Protesters have scrawled "leave" over Mursi's palace walls, but the president has made clear he is not going anywhere.

"The crisis we have suffered for two weeks is on its way to an end, and very soon, God willing," Saad al-Katatni, head of the Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party, told Reuters on Tuesday, saying approval of the constitution in the forthcoming referendum would end the turmoil set off by Mursi's decree.

The Islamic Forces Coalition, which includes the Brotherhood, Salafis and other Islamic parties, condemned the "insulting" demonstrations outside the presidential palace.

"We remind (opposition figures) that the deciding factor in these differences is what the ballot boxes say, not what sabotage attempts create," it said in a statement.

Investors have seized on hopes that Egypt's turbulent transition, which has buffeted the economy for two years, may now be heading for calmer waters, sending stocks 1 per cent higher in early trading after a 3.5 percent rally on Tuesday.

The most populous Arab nation has turned to the IMF for a $4.8 billion loan to help it out of a crisis that has depleted its foreign currency reserves.

The government said on Wednesday the process was on track and Egypt's request would go to the IMF board as expected.

(Additional reporting by Tom Perry; Writing by Alistair Lyon; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

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Horse Racing: Dettori banned for six months

PARIS: Legendary jockey Frankie Dettori was suspended from riding worldwide for six months by French racing's governing body France Galop on Wednesday for failing a doping test.

The 41-year-old Italian-born England based rider -- probably racing's most high profile personality -- tested positive for a non-performance enhancing banned substance at the September 16 Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe trials at Longchamp.

The ban runs from December 19 to May 19, which crucially will allow Dettori to ride in the Epsom Derby on June 1, as France Galop took into account his having agreed not to ride at all once his medical certificate had been withdrawn by the Medical Commission on November 20.

"Because Frankie Dettori said that he would not ride anywhere in the world from November 20 that has been taken into account," a France Galop spokesman told AFP.

"Thus the immediate ban is five months but it is six in counting the time since he voluntarily stepped down from riding on November 20."

Dettori, though, must return to France and undergo more medical tests before he is cleared to ride again.

"He must return to France and undergo biological tests on April 20. If they are clear then he is free to resume riding on May 19," the spokesman said.

France Galop said that they had demanded from their fellow global racing authorities to impose the ban as well.

Dettori's lawyer Christopher Stewart-Moore, who represented the jockey at both the Medical Commission and then the disciplinary hearing in Paris on Tuesday, issued a statement to the Press Association that Dettori was contrite and felt he had let the sport down.

"France Galop have today announced their finding that Frankie Dettori has committed a breach of their rules relating to prohibited substances," said Stewart-Moore.

"I have spoken to Frankie since the announcement was made and he has told me he fully accepts France Galop's decision.

"He also accepts that he has let down the sport he loves and all those associated with it, as well as the wider public.

"But most of all, and this is his greatest regret, he has let down his wife and children," he added.

Although there has been much speculation as to the substance that he tested positive for it is unlikely, unless Dettori ever reveals, it it will ever be known as France Galop policy is never to divulge such details.

- AFP/lp

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Release 10,000 cusecs of Cauvery river water to Tamil Nadu, SC tells Karnataka

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court today directed Karnataka to release 10,000 cusecs of water from Cauvery River to Tamil Nadu.

The Supreme Court on Wednesday asked the Cauvery monitoring committee to meet on Thursday to decide the water requirement of Tamil Nadu and Karnataka.

The court had earlier on Friday told Tamil Nadu to submit its requirement of water on Saturday, after the talks failed between chief minister J Jayalalithaa and her Karnataka counterpart Jagadish Shettar in Bangalore.

The Cauvery River Authority headed by the prime minister in an interim award Sep 19 directed Karnataka to release for Tamil Nadu 9,000 cusecs of Cauvery water every day.

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