Smokers celebrate as Wash. legalizes marijuana

SEATTLE (AP) — The crowds of happy people lighting joints under Seattle's Space Needle early Thursday morning with nary a police officer in sight bespoke the new reality: Marijuana is legal under Washington state law.

Hundreds gathered at Seattle Center for a New Year's Eve-style countdown to 12 a.m., when the legalization measure passed by voters last month took effect. When the clock struck, they cheered and sparked up in unison.

A few dozen people gathered on a sidewalk outside the north Seattle headquarters of the annual Hempfest celebration and did the same, offering joints to reporters and blowing smoke into television news cameras.

"I feel like a kid in a candy store!" shouted Hempfest volunteer Darby Hageman. "It's all becoming real now!"

Washington and Colorado became the first states to vote to decriminalize and regulate the possession of an ounce or less of marijuana by adults over 21. Both measures call for setting up state licensing schemes for pot growers, processors and retail stores. Colorado's law is set to take effect by Jan. 5.

Technically, Washington's new marijuana law still forbids smoking pot in public, which remains punishable by a fine, like drinking in public. But pot fans wanted a party, and Seattle police weren't about to write them any tickets.

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.

The mood was festive in Seattle as dozens of gay and lesbian couples got in line to pick up marriage licenses at the King County auditor's office early Thursday.

King County and Thurston County announced they would open their auditors' offices shortly after midnight Wednesday to accommodate those who wanted to be among the first to get their licenses.

Kelly Middleton and her partner Amanda Dollente got in line at 4 p.m. Wednesday.

Hours later, as the line grew, volunteers distributed roses and a group of men and women serenaded the waiting line to the tune of "Chapel of Love."

Because the state has a three-day waiting period, the earliest that weddings can take place is Sunday.

In dealing with marijuana, the Seattle Police Department told its 1,300 officers on Wednesday, just before legalization took hold, that until further notice they shall not issue citations for public marijuana use.

Officers will be advising people not to smoke in public, 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."

He offered a catchy new directive referring to the film "The Big Lebowski," popular with many marijuana fans: "The Dude abides, and says 'take it inside!'"

"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."

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."

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.

Alison Holcomb is the drug policy director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Washington and served as the campaign manager for New Approach Washington, which led the legalization drive. She said the voters clearly showed they're done with marijuana prohibition.

"New Approach Washington sponsors and the ACLU look forward to working with state and federal officials and to ensure the law is fully and fairly implemented," she said.

___

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

Read More..

Viral rapper PSY apologizes for anti-US protests

South Korean rapper and Internet sensation PSY is apologizing to Americans for participating in anti-U.S. protests several years ago.

Park Jae-sang, who performs as PSY, issued a statement Friday after reports surfaced that he had participated in concerts protesting the U.S. military presence in South Korea during the early stages of the Iraq war.

At a 2004 concert, the "Gangnam Style" rapper performs a song with lyrics about killing "Yankees" who have been torturing Iraqi captives and their families "slowly and painfully." During a 2002 concert, he smashed a model of a U.S. tank on stage.

"While I'm grateful for the freedom to express one's self, I've learned there are limits to what language is appropriate and I'm deeply sorry for how these lyrics could be interpreted," he wrote in the statement. "I will forever be sorry for any pain I have caused by those words."

The 34-year-old rapper says the protests were part of a "deeply emotional" reaction to the war and the death of two Korean school girls, who were killed when a U.S. military vehicle hit them as they walked alongside the road. He noted anti-war sentiment was high around the world at the time.

PSY attended college in the U.S. and says he understands the sacrifices U.S. military members have made to protect South Korea and other nations. He has recently performed in front of servicemen and women.

"And I hope they and all Americans can accept my apology," he wrote. "While it's important that we express our opinions, I deeply regret the inflammatory and inappropriate language I used to do so. In my music, I try to give people a release, a reason to smile. I have learned that thru music, our universal language we can all come together as a culture of humanity and I hope that you will accept my apology."

His participation in the protests was no secret in South Korea, where the U.S. has had a large military presence since the Korean War, but was not generally known in America until recent news reports.

PSY did not write "Dear American," a song by the Korean band N.EX.T, but he does perform it. The song exhorts the listener to kill the Yankees who are torturing Iraqi captives, their superiors who ordered the torture and their families. At one point he raps: "Kill their daughters, mothers, daughters-in-law, and fathers/Kill them all slowly and painfully."

PSY launched to international acclaim based on the viral nature of his "Gangnam Style" video. It became YouTube's most watched video, making him a millionaire who freely crossed cultural boundaries around the world. Much of that success has happened in the U.S., where the rapper has managed to weave himself into pop culture.

He recently appeared on the American Music Awards, dancing alongside MC Hammer in a melding of memorable dance moves that book-end the last two decades. And the Internet is awash with copycat versions of the song. Even former Republican Sen. Alan Simpson, the 81-year-old co-chairman of President Barack Obama's deficit commission, got in on the fun, recently using the song in a video to urge young Americans to avoid credit card debt.

It remains to be seen how PSY's American fans will react. Obama, the father of two pop music fans, wasn't letting the news change his plans, though.

Earlier Friday, the White House confirmed Obama and his family will attend a Dec. 21 charity concert where PSY is among the performers. A spokesman says it's customary for the president to attend the "Christmas in Washington" concert, which will be broadcast on TNT. The White House has no role in choosing performers for the event, which benefits the National Children's Medical Center.

Read More..

American Airlines pilots ratify union contract

Pilots at American Airlines on Friday ratified a new union labor contract in a move that may help the airline emerge from bankruptcy protection and pave the way for a merger with US Airways, which reportedly has made a formal bid to combine two of the nation's largest carriers.

The new pilot contract, among other terms, includes pay raises and a 13.5 percent stake in the company in exchange for allowing the airline to outsource more of its flying to regional jets and airline partners.

Friday's ratification removes uncertainty created by the unresolved pilot contract, so creditors in the bankruptcy "can focus without distraction on the underlying strategic and financial merit of an AMR/US Airways merger," the pilots union said recently in a missive to members.

And the pilots' 13.5 percent stake in the company, which besides being worth at least $100,000 per pilot on average, gives the union "important influence over the restructuring process, including input in the selection of a new AMR leadership and the optimal strategic alternative," said Dennis Tajer, spokesman for the Allied Pilots Association.

Jamie Baker, a stock analyst with JPMorgan Securities, agreed in a research note to clients, writing "ratification helps ease the way towards a potential merger. ... A failure to ratify would have essentially stopped the clock, in our view, further dragging out an already complex process."

US Airways' merger proposal could value the combined airline at around $8.5 billion, and a deal could come as soon as January, Reuters reported Friday, citing two unnamed sources.

The union contract agreement with AMR was approved by 74 percent of Allied Pilots Association members overall and 86 percent of Chicago-based pilots, the union reported. AMR and pilots have been trying to agree on a new collective bargaining agreement since 2006. 

Thousands of American Airlines passengers in late September and early October were affected by the labor dispute between management and pilots when the airline experienced rampant delays and cancellations nationwide, which also involved hundreds of flights at O'Hare International Airport. The airline blamed pilots for the operational failures, although the Allied Pilots Association denied organizing a work slowdown.

Earlier this week, a union message to pilots said the contract is not perfect, but there was a limit to what can be achieved in bankruptcy. "It's not a 'scorched earth' bankruptcy contract," wrote APA Vice President Tony Chapman. "It's a contract that retains much of what constitutes our quality of life and eventually closes the pay gap with our brethren at United and Delta."

Denise Lynn, American Airlines senior vice president of people, said in a statement that the contract "is an important step forward in our restructuring."

"Today's ratification gives us the certainty we need for American to successfully restructure, providing opportunity and growth for all of our people and stakeholders," Lynn said.

Pilots are the last union at American to reach a deal with the airline. But even with ratification of the contract, pilots say they support an AMR merger with US Airways, with whom all AMR unions already struck labor agreements. 

American Airlines officials have said they prefer the airline to emerge from bankruptcy as a stand-alone company. 

"This ratified agreement should not in any way be viewed as support for the American stand-alone plan or for this current management team," Tajer said. "We continue to support an American Airlines-US Airways merger as the best way to strengthen our airline and enhance our pilots' long-term career prospects. ... This contract represents a bridge to a merger with US Airways."

Ray Neidl, aerospace analyst with Maxim Group, sees pros and cons to a combination with US Airways.

"Advantages of a merger would give the enlarged entity the size to compete with Delta Air Lines and United Airlines, both of which overtook American after their own mergers with other carriers in recent years," Neidl wrote in a note to investors Friday. "We believe the disadvantage would be that it would be a difficult merger to engineer and could create major disruptions over at least the next two years."

Tom Horton, AMR's chief executive, said in a letter to employees Friday that management is still evaluating a merger with US Airways. "We expect to have a conclusion on this soon," he wrote.

American Airlines, the No. 2 carrier in the Chicago region, entered bankruptcy protection in an attempt to cut labor costs, as its major competitors already have done.

The largest carrier in the Chicago region, United Continental Holdings, has also experienced contract disputes with pilots this year. But Chicago-based United Continental, parent of United Airlines, also has a tentative agreement with its pilots. Ratification voting on that contract opened Nov. 30 and runs through Dec. 15.

gkarp@tribune.com

Read More..

Preckwinkle rips Emanuel, McCarthy's handling of violence

Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle today publicly blasted Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s crime-fighting strategy and the quality of the public schools he controls, then quickly walked back the remarks.

The Democratic leader said her criticism was targeted at society as a whole and not the mayor personally, much as she did last summer when she harshly criticized former President Ronald Reagan for his role in the war on drugs.

The comments about Emanuel came during a question-and-answer session during a luncheon at the Union League Club. Preckwinkle was asked how to address Chicago violence.

“Clearly, this mayor and this police chief have decided the way in which they are going to deal with the terrible violence that faces our community is just arrest everybody,” Preckwinkle said. “I don’t think in the long term that’s going to be successful.

“We’re going to have to figure out how to have interventions that are more comprehensive than just police interventions in the communities where we have the highest rates of crime. And they’re almost all in African-American and Latino communities.”

Homicides and shootings in Chicago have attracted national attention this year following a spike in the city’s murder rate and brazen incidents such as the shooting of a young man at a funeral for a gang member.

Preckwinkle said much of the problem results from a school system that has a low high school graduation rate.

“We have contented ourselves with a miserable education system that has failed many of our children,” Preckwinkle said, saying more after-school enrichment and job-training programs are needed. “I’m talking about the kids who don’t graduate, let alone the kids who graduate don’t get a very good education, even with a high school diploma.”

Emanuel aides responded with restraint, saying the mayor is taking many of the actions Preckwinkle said were needed, even as he maintained a tough stance on crime.

“Mayor Emanuel strenuously agrees that a holistic approach is necessary to successfully address crime,” Emanuel spokeswoman Sarah Hamilton said in a statement. “His multi-part strategy ranges from improving early childhood education, providing a longer school day and creating re-engagement centers for youth, to delivering wrap-around services, revitalizing the community policing program and working to prevent retaliatory actions by gangs.

“All of these work in tandem, but let's make no mistake, criminals deserve to be arrested,” the statement read.

At a news conference after her speech and question session, Preckwinkle said her criticism of schools wasn’t aimed at Emanuel, who as mayor appoints the Chicago Public Schools board and picks the system’s CEO.

“This was a critique of all of us, it wasn’t aimed at the mayor,” said Preckwinkle, a former CPS high school history teacher.

Preckwinkle also acknowledged that Emanuel is putting more city money into early childhood education, after-school programs and youth job programs — in part through programs coordinated with the county.

Her point, she said, was that education over the long run will do more to quell violence than arresting people and locking them up.

“You know unfortunately we live in a country in which we are much more willing to spend money on keeping people in prison than we are on educating them in our public schools,” she said. “And that’s disgraceful. It reflects badly on all of us.”

She added, “I don’t think we are going to arrest our way out of our violence problems.”

Mayor Emanuel's aides said they just learned of the remarks and are preparing a response.

Preckwinkle is a liberal who has been consistently critical of a justice system that locks up African-American and Latino men in far greater numbers than their white counterparts, particularly for drug crimes when studies show drugs are used in equal numbers across ethnic and racial boundaries

It wasn’t the first time that, while speaking without a script, she made comments that ruffled some feathers.

In August, she said former President Ronald Reagan deserved “a special place in hell” for his role in the War on Drugs, later saying she regretted the “inflammatory” remark.

hdardick@tribune.com

Twitter @ReporterHal

Read More..

Apple, Samsung spar in court, ruling to come

SAN JOSE, California (Reuters) - Apple Inc and Samsung Electronics squared off again in court on Thursday, as the iPhone maker tried to convince a U.S. district judge to ban sales of a number of the South Korean company's devices and defended its $1.05 billion jury award.

Apple scored a sweeping legal victory in August at the conclusion of its landmark case against its arch-foe, when a U.S. jury found Samsung had copied critical features of the iPhone and iPad and awarded it damages.

Both sides re-convened on Thursday. U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh listened to a range of arguments on topics from setting aside the jury's findings on liability to alleged juror misconduct and the requested injunction.

The hearing concluded with Koh promising to rule at a later date.

Twenty-four of Samsung's smartphones were found to have infringed on Apple's patents, while two of Samsung's tablets were cleared of similar allegations.

Koh began by questioning the basis for some of the damages awarded by the jury, putting Apple's lawyers on the defensive.

"I don't see how you can evaluate the aggregate verdict without looking at the pieces," Koh said.

Samsung's lawyers argued the ruling against it should be "reverse engineered" to be sure the $1.05 billion was legally arrived at by the jury and said that on that basis, the amount should be slashed. Apple countered that the ruling was reasonable.

"Assuming I disagree with you, what do I do about Captivate, Continuum, Droid Charge, Epic 4G, and Gem?" Koh asked Apple's lawyers, referring to the jury's calculation of damages regarding some of Samsung's devices.

FIERCEST RIVAL

Samsung is Apple's fiercest global business rival and their battle for consumers' allegiance is helping shape the landscape of the booming smartphone and tablet industry -- a fight that has claimed several high-profile victims, including Nokia.

While the trial was deemed a resounding victory for Apple, the company has since seen its market value shrink as uncertainty grows about its ability to continue fending off an assault by Samsung and other Google Inc Android gadgets on its home turf.

Apple's stock has nosedived 18 percent since the August 24 verdict, while Samsung's has gained around 16 percent.

Most of the devices facing injunction are older and, in some cases, out of the market.

Such injunctions have been key for companies trying to increase their leverage in courtroom patent fights.

In October, a U.S. appeals court overturned a pretrial sales ban against Samsung's Galaxy Nexus smartphone, dealing a setback to Apple's battle against Google Inc's increasingly popular mobile software.

Some analysts say Apple's willingness to license patents to Taiwan's HTC could convince Koh it does not need the injunction, as the two companies could arrive at a licensing deal.

Apple is also attempting to add more than $500 million to the $1 billion judgment because the jury found Samsung willfully infringed on its patents. A Samsung lawyer argued against willful damages and said the base amount for calculating any potential willful damages should be just $10 million.

Samsung wants the verdict overturned, saying the jury foreman did not disclose that he was once in litigation with Seagate Technology, a company that Samsung has invested in.

"He should have been excused for cause," said Samsung lawyer Charles Verhoeven. "Such a juror was a juror in name only."

The juror misconduct charge is "unlikely to have much traction," said Christopher Carani, a partner at Chicago-based intellectual property law firm McAndrews, Held & Malloy, Ltd.

Both Apple and Samsung have filed separate lawsuits covering newer products, including the Samsung Galaxy Note II. That case is pending in U.S. District Court in San Jose and is set for trial in 2014.

(Reporting By Noel Randewich; Editing by Kim Coghill)

Read More..

NHL rejects players' offer to break labor impasse

NEW YORK (AP) — Instead of closing in on a deal, the NHL and the players' association are further apart than ever before.

Union executive director Donald Fehr began the first of his two news conferences Thursday night by proclaiming he believed the sides had agreements on such issues as actual dollars, and then returned moments later to reveal the NHL rejected everything his side offered.

Hot-button topics such as the "make-whole" provision on existing contracts not only weren't settled, but are no longer being offered by the league. Forget that owners were willing to pay up to $300 million to cover the costs, now Commissioner Gary Bettman is saying the entire concept is off the table — along with everything else the league proposed during the previous two days of talks.

"They knew there was a major gulf between us and yet they came down here and told you we were close," deputy commissioner Bill Daly said.

Fehr vehemently disputed that assessment and stuck to his opinion that the sides really aren't far apart, saying they are "clearly very close if not on top of one another."

When the NHL agreed to increase its make-whole offer of deferred payments from $211 million to $300 million it was part of a proposed package that required the union to agree on three nonnegotiable points. Instead, the players' association accepted the raise in funds, but then made counterproposals on the issues the league stated had no wiggle room.

That ended Thursday's delayed meeting after just an hour and sent the NHL negotiating team back to the league office.

"I am disappointed beyond belief," Bettman said. "We're going to take a deep breath and look back at where we are and what needs to be accomplished."

The sides won't meet again before Saturday at the earliest. While Bettman insisted that a drop-dead date for a deal that would preserve a season with "integrity" hasn't been established — even internally — clearly there isn't a lot of time to work out an agreement.

"I'm surprised," Pittsburgh Penguins star Sidney Crosby said. "We feel like we moved in their direction."

The 2004-05 season was lost completely before the players' association accepted a deal that included a salary cap for the first time. While no major philosophical issues such as that exist in these negotiations, the sides still don't appear to be ready to come to an agreement.

"It looks like this is not going to be resolved in the immediate future," Fehr said.

A 48-game season was played in 1995 after a lockout stretched into January. Bettman said he wouldn't have a season shorter than that.

As Donald Fehr was painting a positive picture, Daly was calling Fehr's brother, Steve — the union's special counsel — to say that the NHL was rejecting the players' counteroffer. Once the union was unwilling to accept the league's three main conditions, nothing else mattered.

"Not only is it unusual, I would be hard-pressed to think of anything comparable in my experience," Steve Fehr said about the instant rejection.

The NHL wants to limit personal player contracts to five years, seven for a club's own player, and has elevated the issue to the highest level of importance. The union countered with an offer of an eight-year maximum length with the variable in salary being no greater than a 25 percent difference between the highest-paid year of the deal and the lowest.

"It's the hill we will die on," said Daly, who added that the owners were "insulted" by the players' response to the owners' offer Wednesday night.

The other sticking points the NHL demanded of the players are a 10-year term on the new agreement, with a mutual opt-out option after eight years, and no compliance buy-outs or caps on escrow in the transition phase to the new structure. The union presented an offer of an eight-year deal with a reopener after six.

The NHL believes that the union merely wants to take the parts of the offer it wants and then try to negotiate on the other conditions that make those parts possible.

"The take or give or bottom line on all this is it appears that the union is suggesting because we made substantial movements in certain areas that we're close to a deal," Bettman said. "Those moves were contingent on the union specifically agreeing on other things, which while the union may have moved toward, didn't agree to."

Talks resumed Tuesday night with owners and players in the room, and Bettman and Donald Fehr on the outside. It sparked what seemed to be the most optimistic developments in the lockout that has lasted 82 days.

But the tenor began to change Wednesday, and discourse erupted on a wild Thursday night that featured three news conferences in the span of an unprecedented hour of chaos. The sides went from not wanting to say much of anything Wednesday to not being able to stop voicing their opinions Thursday.

When the players suggested Wednesday night that they wanted Donald Fehr to rejoin the negotiations Thursday, the NHL informed them that his inclusion could be a "deal-breaker."

"We thought we were getting close. There was definitely movement toward each other," Winnipeg Jets defenseman Ron Hainsey said. "As confident as some of us players are in the issues, we cannot close deals. I'd love to think I could, we cannot."

Donald and Steve Fehr were in Thursday's session, as were Daly and lead league counsel Bob Batterman. None of the six owners who attended the meetings Tuesday and Wednesday were present, though some players were.

Steve Fehr and a number of players stood in the back of the room with arms folded as Bettman and Daly stood at the podium to present the league's position.

There were already signs the process was breaking down earlier Thursday when the union requested that federal mediators rejoin the discussions. A similar request was turned down by the league earlier this week. Mediators previously were unsuccessful in creating a breakthrough after two days of discussions last week.

Without mediation, and the NHL's preference to keep Donald Fehr away from the table, the players became a bit miffed.

Negotiations resumed a little after 2 p.m. Wednesday and proceeded in fits and starts as the league and the players' association searched for an agreement. As they had the day before, talks went deep into the night, breaking two hours for dinner before finishing in the early morning hours.

One point of contention is the length of a new contract, with owners looking for a 10-year pact, and players wanting a shorter term. The league also is seeking to limit the length of individual player contracts to five years.

"What we got today, quite frankly and disappointingly, missed the mark on all three respects," Daly said. "So for the union to suggest somehow we are close, is cherry picking and it's unfortunate."

Some hope emerged Tuesday in the first round of talks that kept Bettman on the outside along with Fehr, while six owners and about 18 players talked inside. The positive feeling carried over into Wednesday morning when various team executives said they heard good reports during an NHL board of governors meeting.

There were no owners present for the final round of talks Thursday, but those who joined the process for the first time during the week expressed their disappointment following the breakdown in negotiations.

"Regrettably, we have been unable to close the divide on some critical issues that we feel are essential to the immediate and long-term health of our game," Winnipeg Jets chairman Mark Chipman said in a statement released by the NHL. "While I sense there are some members of the players association that understand our perspective on these issues, clearly there are many that don't."

The sides are trying to avoid another lost season. The NHL became the first North American professional sports league to cancel a full year because of a labor dispute back in 2005. The deal reached then was in place until this September, and the lockout was enacted on Sept. 16 after that agreement expired.

"While trust was built and progress was made along the way, unfortunately, our proposal was rejected by the Union's leadership," Toronto Maple Leafs minority owner Larry Tanenbaum said in a statement. "My love for the game is only superseded by my commitment to our fans, and I hold out hope we can soon join with our players and return the game back to its rightful place on the ice.

All games through Dec. 14, along with the New Year's Day Winter Classic and the All-Star game, have been wiped off the schedule. More cancellations could be coming within days.

"I am very disappointed and disillusioned," Tanenbaum said. "Had I not experienced this process myself, I might not have believed it."

Read More..

George Zimmerman sues NBC and reporters

ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — George Zimmerman sued NBC on Thursday, claiming he was defamed when the network edited his 911 call to police after the shooting of Trayvon Martin to make it sound like he was racist.

The former neighborhood watch volunteer filed the lawsuit seeking an undisclosed amount of money in Seminole County, outside Orlando. Also named in the complaint were three reporters covering the story for NBC or an NBC-owned television station.

The complaint said the airing of the edited call has inflicted emotional distress on Zimmerman, making him fear for his life and causing him to suffer nausea, insomnia and anxiety.

The lawsuit claims NBC edited his phone call to a dispatcher in February. In the call, Zimmerman describes following Martin in the gated community where he lived, just moments before he fatally shot the 17-year-old teen during a confrontation.

“NBC saw the death of Trayvon Martin not as a tragedy but as an opportunity to increase ratings, and so set about to create a myth that George Zimmerman was a racist and predatory villain,” the lawsuit claims.

NBC spokeswoman Kathy Kelly-Brown said the network strongly disagreed with the accusations made in the complaint.

“There was no intent to portray Mr. Zimmerman unfairly,” she said. “We intend to vigorously defend our position in court.”

Three employees of the network or its Miami affiliate lost their jobs because of the changes.

Zimmerman is charged with second-degree murder but has pleaded not guilty, claiming self-defense under Florida’s “stand your ground law.”

The call viewers heard was trimmed to suggest that Zimmerman volunteered to police, with no prompting, that Martin was black: “This guy looks like he’s up to no good. He looks black.”

But the portion of the tape that was deleted had the 911 dispatcher asking Zimmerman if the person who had raised his suspicion was “black, white or Hispanic,” to which Zimmerman responded, “He looks black.”

Entertainment News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Read More..

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.

___(equals)

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

Read More..

George Zimmerman sues NBC and reporters

ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — George Zimmerman sued NBC on Thursday, claiming he was defamed when the network edited his 911 call to police after the shooting of Trayvon Martin to make it sound like he was racist.

The former neighborhood watch volunteer filed the lawsuit seeking an undisclosed amount of money in Seminole County, outside Orlando. Also named in the complaint were three reporters covering the story for NBC or an NBC-owned television station.

The complaint said the airing of the edited call has inflicted emotional distress on Zimmerman, making him fear for his life and causing him to suffer nausea, insomnia and anxiety.

The lawsuit claims NBC edited his phone call to a dispatcher in February. In the call, Zimmerman describes following Martin in the gated community where he lived, just moments before he fatally shot the 17-year-old teen during a confrontation.

"NBC saw the death of Trayvon Martin not as a tragedy but as an opportunity to increase ratings, and so set about to create a myth that George Zimmerman was a racist and predatory villain," the lawsuit claims.

NBC spokeswoman Kathy Kelly-Brown said the network strongly disagreed with the accusations made in the complaint.

"There was no intent to portray Mr. Zimmerman unfairly," she said. "We intend to vigorously defend our position in court."

Three employees of the network or its Miami affiliate lost their jobs because of the changes.

Zimmerman is charged with second-degree murder but has pleaded not guilty, claiming self-defense under Florida's "stand your ground law."

The call viewers heard was trimmed to suggest that Zimmerman volunteered to police, with no prompting, that Martin was black: "This guy looks like he's up to no good. He looks black."

But the portion of the tape that was deleted had the 911 dispatcher asking Zimmerman if the person who had raised his suspicion was "black, white or Hispanic," to which Zimmerman responded, "He looks black."

Read More..

Lurie Children's Hospital sees surge in patients at new Chicago building

Executives at the Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago expected a "bump" in patients when the $855 million hospital opened in June.

They weren't prepared for a mountain.

Since the former Children's Memorial traded its patchwork of aging buildings in Lincoln Park for a new high-rise in Streeterville on June 9, patient volume has surged, more than doubling hospital projections.

The number of patients is up about 16 percent in the first five months, according to hospital data, an increase driven by an influx of children with more acute health problems, including transplant patients, kids with heart problems and others in need of specialized care.

Revenue over that five-month period increased 12.9 percent to $222 million.

"We expected to have a new-hospital bump in (patients). We had a new-hospital mountain," said Michelle Stephenson, Lurie Children's chief patient care services officer and chief nurse executive. "We've had some months where the (number of inpatients) was 24 percent over what we expected. "

To meet the demand, the hospital hired 151 nurses to ensure full coverage, she said.

Those new hires came on top of about three dozen pediatric specialists and department heads Lurie Children's recruited in the run-up to the hospital opening.

Stephenson said the hospital has yet to determine the specific reasons behind the jump in patients, but said data shows it is drawing more children from the collar counties and downstate.

She also cited the location, adjacent to Northwestern Memorial Hospital, Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine and Prentice Women's Hospital, which is connected to Lurie via an enclosed skyway.

Moving 31/2 miles south next to Prentice, which sends Lurie about a quarter of its patients, is likely a significant factor in the patient boom, said Jay Warden, a senior vice president at The Camden Group, a consulting firm.

"It used to be a challenge for moms to have a baby transferred to Children's while they had to stay at Prentice until they're discharged," Warden said. "Now it's the best of both worlds for both hospitals."

Warden said hospitals typically get a burst of new patients when they open facilities, in part because of the accompanying marketing and publicity blitz. That's not always the case with children's hospitals, which tend to serve the sickest and smallest of patients who have few other options.

He said limitations at the old hospital likely kept some patients away.

Indeed, Children's Memorial had a listed capacity of 247 beds, but with shared rooms and other factors, executives considered the hospital full at 220 patients, Stephenson said. The Lurie hospital has a capacity of 288 beds in all-private rooms, which it has come close to filling on a few occasions.

One ward that's consistently bursting at the seams is the neonatal intensive care unit, which was built to handle 44 patients but is averaging about 50. Some of the children have been bumped into shared space in the hospital's cardiac care unit, Stephenson said.

As for patients, the new facility has been a hit, with satisfaction scores up an average of 10 percent, hospital officials said.

Tina Sneed, whose 18-year-old daughter Whitney Ballard recently underwent a liver transplant at the hospital, said she's happy with the expanded rooms and new areas for parents.

She and her daughter have made several 7-hour trips from Kentucky in the last 18 months to see specialists, including overnight stays at both facilities.

Her only complaint?

"The waiting room was kind of crowded," she said. "It was nothing too bad, they just have so many (surgeries) going on at the same time we barely had room to move in there."

pfrost@tribune.com

Twitter @peterfrost

Read More..