CAIRO (Reuters) - Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi canceled a decree which had sparked huge protests by giving him sweeping powers.
But Mursi's Muslim Brotherhood said a referendum on a new constitution would go ahead as planned on December 15 - suggesting the climbdown by Mursi may not be enough to satisfy the opposition.
(Writing by Edmund Blair)
HONG KONG: The world's top racehorse Cirrus des Aigles has withdrawn injured from Sunday's Hong Kong International Races in a major blow to the competition, one of the richest meetings on the global calendar.
The French gelding was set to headline a stellar line-up for the 2,000-metre Hong Kong Cup and was seeking to make it fourth time lucky at the meet, where he has failed to scoop a prize in his last three appearances.
But it seems that he was unable to shake off his Hong Kong curse after sustaining what Jockey Club vets described as a "soft tissue injury" in his left front tendon, according to the South China Morning Post (SCMP).
He has now been scratched from Sunday's race card so that his injury can be treated.
"It is a relatively mild injury but it would be very unwise to run him in a race," said Dr Chris Riggs, the head of veterinary clinical services at the club, according to the newspaper.
However, executive director of racing Bill Nader remained optimistic that Sunday would still be a great race day.
"Obviously, it's disappointing to lose the world's top-rated horse," he said in the SCMP.
"I think the depth of talent remaining right across our four international races gives us some top-quality compensation," he added.
Cirrus des Aigles became the top-ranked racehorse in training after British champ Frankel retired in October to go to stud.
His withdrawal leaves last year's surprise victor Hong Kong-based California Memory the front-runner for the title, having raced to a late win at the Jockey Club Cup in November on the same Sha Tin course as Sunday's meet.
Other favourites include two more French raiders -- Giofra, who won the Falmouth Stakes against the odds in July, and Saonois who had a surprise win at the Prix du Jockey Club French Derby in June.
This year for the first time one of Queen Elizabeth II's horses will also join the field -- Carlton House came in second to So You Think at the Prince of Wales Stakes at Ascot in June and competes for the Cup in the British monarch's Jubilee year.
The Hong Kong Cup has a prize purse of US$2.8 million and is the world's richest turf race over 2,000m.
It is one of four Group One contests that will take place at Sunday's Longines Hong Kong International Races and offers the largest pot of money. Total prize money at the meeting is US$9.2 million.
The 2,400-metre Hong Kong Vase will see last year's winner Dunaden defending his title after failing to do so at the Melbourne Cup in November.
Britain's Sea Moon looks set to be the French horse's biggest challenger in the US$1.9 million race, having beaten him into second at the Hardwicke Stakes at Ascot.
Also featuring at the meet are the 1,200-metre Hong Kong Sprint and the 1,600-metre Hong Kong Mile, both usually dominated by the home team but with strong international challengers this year.
As well as providing top-flight racing, organisers hope to up the glamour stakes with Oscar-winning British actress Kate Winslet making an appearance in her role as ambassador for Longines, the Swiss watch brand, which is sponsoring the race for the first time.
- AFP/ir
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
Dallas Cowboys nose tackle Joshua Price-Brent was arrested on an intoxication manslaughter charge today after a single vehicle roll-over killed his passenger, Jerry Brown Jr., who had been a linebacker on the team's practice squad and his former teammate at the University of Illinois.
Price-Brent, 24, was allegedly speeding "well above" the posted 45 mph speed limit at about 2:21 a.m. when he hit a curb, causing his vehicle to flip at least one time before landing in the middle of a service road, Irving Police Department spokesman John Argumaniz said.
Authorities were alerted to the accident by several 911 callers, Argumaniz said. When police arrived, they found Price-Brent pulling Brown from his 2007 Mercedes, which had caught fire.
Brown, 25, was unresponsive and was transported to a local hospital, where he was pronounced dead, Argumaniz said.
It was not known where the men were coming from or where they were going, but Argumaniz said officers suspected alcohol may have been a factor in the crash and asked Price-Brent to perform field sobriety tests.
"Based on the results of the tests, along with the officer's observations and conversations with Price-Brent, he was arrested for driving while intoxicated," Argumaniz said.
This is the second week in a row an NFL player has been accused of being involved in another person's death. Jovan Belcher of the Kansas City Chiefs killed his girlfriend early Dec. 1, then committed suicide while talking to team officials in the parking lot at Arrowhead Stadium.
Jovan Belcher: Police Release Dash-Cam Videos of NFL Star's Final Hours
Price-Brent was taken to a hospital for a mandatory blood draw where he was treated for minor scrapes, Argumaniz said. He was then booked on an intoxication manslaughter charge after it was learned Brown had died of injuries suffered in the crash.
It is expected that results from the blood draw could take several weeks, the police spokesman said.
Price-Brent is scheduled to be arraigned Sunday at 10 a.m., when bond will be set, police said.
The second-degree felony intoxication manslaughter charge carries a sentence of two to 20 years in prison and a $10,000 fine. It was not yet known whether Price-Brent had retained an attorney.
The 6-foot-2, 320-pound nose tackle left the University of Illinois as a junior for a career in the NFL. He was picked up by the Cowboys during the 2010 NFL supplemental draft and has played three seasons with the team.
The Cowboys are set to take on the Cincinnati Bengals in Ohio on Sunday.
CAIRO (Reuters) - Prime Minister Mohamed Mursi was expected to press ahead on Saturday with talks on ways to end Egypt's worst crisis since he took office even though the country's main opposition leaders have vowed to stay away.
Cairo and other cities have been rocked by violent protests since November 22, when Mursi promulgated a decree awarding himself sweeping powers that put him above the law.
The upheaval in the most populous Arab nation, following the fall of Hosni Mubarak last year, worries the West, in particular the United States, which has given it billions of dollars in military and other aid since Egypt made peace with Israel in 1979.
Mursi's deputy raised the possibility that a referendum set for December 15 on a new constitution opposed by liberals might be delayed. But the concession only goes part-way towards meeting the demands of the opposition, who also want Mursi to scrap the decree awarding himself wide powers.
On Friday, large crowds of protesters surged around the presidential palace, breaking through barbed wire barricades and climbing on tanks guarding the seat of Egypt's first freely elected president, who took office in June.
As the night wore on, tens of thousands of opposition supporters were still at the palace, waving flags and urging Mursi to "Leave, leave".
"AS LONG AS IT TAKES"
"We will stay here for as long as it takes and will continue to organize protests elsewhere until President Mursi cancels his constitutional decree and postpones the referendum," said Ahmed Essam, 28, a computer engineer and a member of the liberal Dostour party.
Vice President Mahmoud Mekky issued a statement saying the president was prepared to postpone the referendum if that could be done without legal challenge.
Mursi's planned dialogue meeting was expected to go ahead on Saturday in the absence of most opposition factions. "Everything will be on the table," a presidential source said.
Mursi could be joined by some senior judiciary figures and politicians such as Ayman Nour, one of the candidates in Mubarak's only multi-candidate presidential race, in 2005, in which he was unsurprisingly trounced.
The opposition has demanded that Mursi rescind the decree giving himself wide powers and delay the vote set for December 15 on a constitution drafted by an Islamist-led assembly which they say fails to meet the aspirations of all Egyptians.
EXPAT VOTE DELAYED
The state news agency reported that the election committee had postponed the start of voting for Egyptians abroad until Wednesday, instead of Saturday as planned. It did not say whether this would affect the timing of voting within Egypt.
Ahmed Said, leader of the liberal Free Egyptians Party, told Reuters that delaying expatriate voting was intended to seem like a concession but would not change the opposition's stance.
The opposition organized marches converging on the palace which Republican Guard units had ringed with tanks and barbed wire on Thursday after violence between supporters and opponents of Mursi killed seven people and wounded 350.
Islamists, who had obeyed a military order for demonstrators to leave the palace environs, held funerals on Friday at Cairo's al-Azhar mosque for six Mursi partisans who were among the dead.
"With our blood and souls, we sacrifice to Islam," they chanted.
A group led by leftist opposition leader Hamdeen Sabahy has called for an open-ended protest at the palace.
Some pro-Mursi demonstrators gathered in a mosque not far from the palace, but said they would not march towards the palace to avoid a repeat of the violence that took place on Wednesday night.
In a speech late on Thursday, Mursi had refused to retract his decree or cancel the referendum on the constitution, but offered talks on the way forward after the referendum.
The National Salvation Front, the main opposition coalition, said it would not join the dialogue. The Front's coordinator, Mohamed ElBaradei, a Nobel peace laureate, dismissed the offer as "arm-twisting and imposition of a fait accompli".
ElBaradei said that if Mursi were to scrap the decree with which he awarded himself extra powers and postpone the referendum "he will unite the national forces".
Murad Ali, spokesman for the Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party, said opposition reactions were sad: "What exit to this crisis do they have other than dialogue?" he asked.
(Additional reporting by Omar Fahmy; Writing by Giles Elgood; Editing by Michael Roddy)
WASHINGTON: The US Supreme Court has decided to take up the sensitive issue of gay marriage, hearing challenges to a federal law denying benefits to same-sex couples and California's ban on such unions.
The highest US court will likely hear arguments in the cases in March 2013, with rulings to come in June. Same-sex marriage is currently legal in nine states and the federal capital Washington but barred in 30 other states.
Campaigners on both sides of the debate over marriage equality hailed the court's decision to take up the issue -- although they obviously backed differing views as to what constitutes marriage and family.
As analysts predicted, the court took up one challenge to the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which defines marriage as the legal union of one man and one woman and denies federal benefits to married same-sex couples.
Benefits enjoyed by heterosexual married couples but denied to gays include inheritance rights, tax breaks, filing of joint income tax returns, and health insurance coverage.
President Barack Obama's government does not support this view of marriage and would like the law to be overturned, but conservative campaigners are urging the Supreme Court to rule that the act is constitutional.
The specific case to be heard involves Edith Windsor, a lesbian legally married in Canada who has been told to pay tax on inheriting the estate of her deceased partner.
"While Thea is no longer alive, I know how proud she would have been to see this day. The truth is, I never expected any less from my country," Windsor said in a statement from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).
The Supreme Court will rule whether DOMA violates the guarantee of equal protection under the law as guaranteed by the fifth amendment of the US constitution.
It will also decide if the Obama administration's position that DOMA is unconstitutional deprives the Supreme Court of jurisdiction, and whether a complaint by some US lawmakers has legal standing.
Justice Elena Kagan, as Obama's former solicitor general has recused herself on some of the cases in which she had played a role, but this is one on which she can participate.
Kagan's participation avoids the potential for a 4-4 split on the nine-member bench.
The other case taken up was brought by supporters of "Prop 8," a referendum that passed in California in 2008 that defined marriage as being between a "man and a woman" -- but which was overturned by a court of appeal.
If the Supreme Court throws out their appeal, California -- the country's most populous state -- will in effect become the 10th state to permit gay marriage.
In Hollingsworth v Perry, the court will decide whether the 14th amendment of the US constitution, which requires states to provide equal protection under the law to all people, prohibits California from banning gay marriage.
The Supreme Court will also decide whether the petitioners have legal standing in the case.
"Today is a milestone day for equal justice under the law and for millions of loving couples who want to make a lifelong commitment through marriage," said Chad Griffin, president of the Human Rights Campaign, a national gay rights organization.
"As the court has ruled 14 times in the past, marriage is a fundamental right and I believe they will side with liberty, freedom and equality, moving us toward a more perfect union as they have done in the past."
The conservative Family Research Council was also pleased, with president Tony Perkins saying in a statement: "Virtually nothing is more important to the future of our country than marriage and the family."
"The argument that the authors of our Constitution created or even implied a 'right' to redefine 'marriage' lies outside our constitutional law," Perkins added.
Justices did not say what they planned to do with eight other gay marriage petitions they debated behind closed doors on Friday.
It is likely that these, along with a last-minute case on the gay marriage ban in Nevada, will not be heard. But the Supreme Court could also rule that whatever decision it reaches in June should prevail over all the pending cases -- not just the ones heard.
As a country, the United States appears to be slowly moving towards tolerating same-sex unions.
An opinion poll by USA Today/Gallup released this week ahead of the court's decision showed that 53 percent of Americans believe same-sex marriage should be legal, up from 40 percent just three years ago.
Within the lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender (LGBT) community, the poll showed that 91 percent felt residents in their communities had become more accepting of homosexuals in recent years.
Among those whose position has evolved over this period is Obama himself, who always backed strong protections for gay and lesbian couples, but only came out openly in favor of homosexual marriage earlier this year.
"I've just concluded, for me, personally, it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same-sex couples should be able to get married," Obama said in a May interview with ABC News.
The president said however that a decision on whether to legalize gay marriage should be left to individual states.
- AFP/ck
"China has existed in our imaginations," observed Sunil Khilnani, professor of politics and author of The Idea Of India. "There's been very little sustained engagement with the reality of China and very little of our own produced knowledge about China." It was after the events of 1962 ('war' in the popular imagination, 'skirmish' to the scholars participating in the discussion), explained Khilnani, that a miffed India "withdrew". It's the 50th anniversary of that exchange this year, and "what we haven't been able to do is learn from the defeat", observed Khilnani. Both could have benefited from greater engagement. "China has had a very clear focus on primary education and achieved high levels of literacy before its economic rise. It has also addressed the issue of land reform," said Khilnani. Guha added that China could learn from the "religious, cultural and linguistic pluralism" in India.
But China and India weren't always so out of sync with each other. Srinath Raghavan, a scholar of military history, got both Guha and Khilnani to talk about pre-1962 relations between the two when the picture was rosier. Tagore was interested in China and so was Gandhi. Both were very large countries with large populations and shared what Guha calls a "lack of cultural inferiority". "They were both," he continued, "also heavily dependent on peasant communities." Nehru was appreciative of China's will to modernize and industrialize and its adoption of technology to achieve those ends. In turn, Chinese politicians argued for Indian independence.
Things soured more, feel both Khilnani and Guha, after the Dalai Lama fled to India in 1959. "He was welcomed here as a spiritual leader but the intensification of the conflict dates to the Dalai Lama's flight," said Guha. Both Guha and Khilnani argued that Nehru's decision to not react aggressively to China's occupation of Tibet was, in the long run, the right one and prevented further "militarization" of the region. An audience member wondered if that didn't make India "China's puppet". Guha disagreed. "If there's a Tibetan culture alive today," he said, "it's not because of Richard Gere. Don't believe in the hypocrisy of the Western countries. Will they give them land, employment, dignified refuge? The Tibetans is one of the few cases in which our record is honorable."
But the difference in levels of development and the lopsided trade relations between the two countries have only fuelled the suspicions many Indians seem to harbour about China. People were worried, said Guha, even about cricket balls made in China. Audience questions reflected those worries. A member asked about China's "strategy to conquer the world" and its likely impact on India. Guha cautioned against stereotypes; Khilnani explained, "History is littered with the debris of states that have tried to dominate the world. What we're doing may be more long-lasting."
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
Elizabeth Johnson -- who at one point admitted to killing her son, the missing infant Gabriel Johnson, before saying she gave him away -- told a judge she "deserved the maximum" sentence, before receiving a prison term of 5.25 years, half of the max.
In October, Johnson, 26, was found guilty of custodial interference and unlawful imprisonment stemming from the disappearance of her 8-month-old son, last seen on Dec. 24, 2009. The baby's whereabouts remain unknown.
"I am brokenhearted over my son still being missing," said Johnson, wearing a striped prison jumpsuit. "I'm at a loss because I do deserve the max. What I have done is unconscionable. I would convict myself.
"I do deserve the maximum, I do," she said through tears. "[But it] wasn't how [the prosecution] made it out to be. It wasn't like that. That's all I have to say."
Judge Paul McMurdie said he wished he could design a sentence that would compel Johnson to disclose Gabriel's whereabouts, but could only "sentence her for the offenses [for which] she's been convicted."
Johnson, 26, will serve 5.25 years in an Arizona state prison, followed by four years of probation.
At today's sentencing hearing, prosecutor Angela Andrews called Johnson' actions "despicable," but said the state would drop its request to see Johnson serve out a maximum sentence if she would tell authorities where her son could be found.
Johnson, who has been in jail for the past three years, faced a maximum of 9.5 years in prison on the two convictions. In October, the jury did not reach a verdict on a third charge of kidnapping.
Before Gabriel's disappearance, Johnson had been embroiled in a custody battle with the baby's biological father, Logan McQueary. The couple differed on putting their infant son up for adoption. Johnson had wanted to, McQueary did not.
"I think Elizabeth should be held accountable for her actions, for making my son disappear," Johnson told the court. "She should stay in jail until Gabriel is found or be given the maximum sentence as possible."
While she was fighting with McQueary over custody of their son, Johnson left Tempe, Ariz., with Gabriel and traveled to San Antonio, Texas, on Dec. 18, 2009. Johnson failed to bring Gabriel back to visit with McQueary two days later, violating a court custody order.
Gabriel was last seen with his mother on Dec. 26, 2009. The following day, Johnson sent text messages to McQueary saying she had killed him. Johnson was recorded telling McQueary that she suffocated their son with a towel until he turned blue. She said she then put his body in a diaper bag and put the bag in the trash.
Later, Johnson told authorities she gave Gabriel to a couple she met in a park in San Antonio, though she has never named who she gave the child to.
ABC News' Alexis Shaw contributed to this report.
CAIRO (Reuters) - Demonstrators rejected a call from Egypt's Islamist President Mohamed Mursi for a national dialogue after deadly clashes around his palace, demanding the "downfall of the regime" - the chant that brought down Hosni Mubarak.
Mursi said in a televised speech late on Thursday that plans were on track for a referendum on a new constitution on December 15 despite clashes that killed seven people. He proposed a meeting on Saturday with political leaders, "revolutionary youth" and legal figures to discuss the way forward after that.
But a leading activist group rejected the offer, and fresh demonstrations were called for Friday.
The "April 6" movement, which played a prominent role in igniting the revolt against Mubarak said on its Facebook page that Friday's protests would deliver a "red card" to Mursi.
Egypt has been plunged into turmoil since Mursi issued a decree on November 22 awarding himself wide powers and shielding his decisions from judicial review.
His Islamist supporters say the decree was necessary to prevent Mubarak-era judges from interfering with reforms. A constitution drawn up by a body dominated by Islamists is due to be put to a referendum next week.
The opposition has demanded that Mursi scrap his decree, postpone the referendum and redraft the constitution.
In his address, Mursi said: "I call for a full, productive dialogue with all figures and heads of parties, revolutionary youth and senior legal figures to meet this Saturday."
Several thousand opposition protesters near the palace waved their shoes in derision after his speech and shouted "Killer, killer" and "We won't go, he will go" - another of the slogans used against Mubarak in last year's revolt.
The Cairo headquarters of the Muslim Brotherhood, the group that propelled Mursi to victory in a June election, was set ablaze. Other offices of its political party were attacked.
TENTATIVE CONCESSION
The United States, worried about the stability of an Arab partner which has a peace deal with Israel and which receives $1.3 billion a year in U.S. military aid, had urged dialogue.
Mursi said his entire decree would lapse after the constitutional referendum, regardless of its result.
He said a new constituent assembly would be formed to redraft the constitution if Egyptians rejected the one written in the past six months.
The Republican Guard, an elite unit whose duties include protecting the presidential palace, restored peace on Thursday after a night of violence outside the palace, ordering rival demonstrators to leave by mid-afternoon.
Mursi supporters withdrew, but opposition protesters remained, kept away by a barbed wire barricade guarded by tanks. By evening their numbers had swelled to several thousand.
Thousands of supporters and opponents of Mursi had fought well into Thursday's early hours, using rocks, petrol bombs and guns. Officials said 350 were wounded in the violence. Six of the dead were Mursi supporters, the Muslim Brotherhood said.
Opposition groups have called for protests after Friday prayers aimed at "the downfall of the militia regime", a dig at what they see as the Brotherhood's organized street muscle.
A communique from a leftist group urged protesters to gather at mosques and squares across Egypt, and to stage marches in Cairo and its sister city Giza, converging on the presidential palace. "Egyptian blood is a red line," the communique said.
Hardline Islamist Salafis also summoned their supporters to protest against what they consider biased coverage of the crisis by some private Egyptian satellite television channels.
Since Mursi issued his decree, six of his advisers have resigned. Essam al-Amir, the director of state television, quit on Thursday, as did a Christian official at the presidency.
The Brotherhood's supreme guide, Mohamed Badie, called for unity, saying divisions "only serve the nation's enemies".
The Islamists, who have won presidential and parliamentary elections since Mubarak was overthrown, are confident they can win the referendum and the parliamentary election to follow.
As well as relying on his Brotherhood power base, Mursi may also tap into a popular yearning for stability and economic revival after almost two years of political turmoil.
Egypt's pound hit an eight-year low on Thursday, reversing gains made on hopes that a $4.8 billion IMF loan would stabilize the economy. The stock market fell 4.6 percent.
(Additional reporting by Edmund Blair and Marwa Awad; Writing by Alistair Lyon and Peter Graff; Editing by Louise Ireland)
LOS ANGELES: Justin Bieber's manager has lambasted the Grammys organisers after the Canadian teen sensation failed to garner a single nomination for this year's music awards.
At the other end of the musical spectrum, late jazz icon Dave Brubeck was honoured with a posthumous nod for the music industry's top prizes, in a little-noticed category at Wednesday night's nominations show.
"The kid deserved it. Grammy board u blew it on this one," tweeted the Bieb's manager Scooter Braum, after the Recording Academy failed to nominate him in any of its 81 categories.
"The kid delivered. Huge successful album, sold out tour, and won people over... this time he deserved to be recognized and I don't really have any kind nice positive things to say about a decision I don't agree with."
And he added: "To his fans... looks like we get to stay the underdog a little longer."
This year's Grammy nominees were announced at a one-hour show in Nashville on Wednesday night, with New York indie pop band fun. picking up six Grammy nominations in its breakout year.
Others with multiple nods for Grammy gongs, to be awarded on February 10 in Los Angeles, included rap artist Frank Ocean, The Black Keys, British rock-folk group Mumford & Sons and ex White Stripes rocker Jack White.
Wednesday's show included a brief mention for jazz pianist and composer Brubeck, hours after he died just short of his 92nd birthday.
Brubeck, whose 1959 album "Time Out" became the first million-selling jazz record of the modern era, with classics like "Take Five" and "Blue Rondo a la Turk", already won a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1996.
But he had never won an individual category Grammy.
That may change in February, after he was shortlisted for Best Instrumental Composition for "Music of Ansel Adams: America", a 22-minute piece inspired by the late photographer and environmentalist's famous black-and-white prints.
Brubeck's son Chris, credited as joint composer, brought the concept to his father who wrote it as a piano score, before his son reworked it into a full orchestral piece, according to industry weekly Billboard.
-AFP/fl
Liquor is an important part of tribal customs and social get together are incomplete if alcohol and mutton are not served to guests. Since ages, tribals in Kinnaur are brewing liquor locally known as "angoori" while in Lahaul-Spiti they make it from wheat. But with the coming of wealth locally brewed liquor was replaced by whisky and beer resulting into social inequality widening the gap between rich and poor.
Noted social activist of Kinnaur and chairperson of Kinnaur Mahila Kalyan Parishad Ratan Manjari said over the years serving English liquor and beer during marriages and other social functions had become a show of wealth and those not having money too were serving it and get burdened with debt. "Trend was wrong which needed to be stopped and now we have done it in many villages of Kinnaur," she said. Kinnaur Mahila Kalyan Parishad has 200 mahila mandals as its members.
Ratan Manjari said for 5-6 years, they have mobilized support of women in Kinnaur district to tell them how use of English liquor and beer during marriages is resulting in waste of money besides creating divide among rich and poor. "Today, we have succeeded in banning English liquor in social functions, especially in Kalpa, Sangla, Lippa and other areas of district," she said.
To ensure that people obey the decision, a provision of imposing fine has been made by women amicably. "We have decided to impose penalty of Rs 5,000 on people serving the English liquor and those consuming it," Manjari said. She said still a lot more is required to be done.
In Lahaul-Spiti district, Udaipur village is setting an example for others by observing complete ban on English liquor and beer during social gathering for last three years. "During marriages and other functions only locally made liquor is served. Those defying ban are punished by mahila mandal members," said Hemvati, Mahila Mandal member of Udaipur.
Hemvati said if a family in the village found serving English liquor and Beer despite ban, then Rs 10,000 fine is imposed, but if same offence is committed second time then the family is boycotted socially.
"Such decisions are in larger interest of society as seeing rich people serving liquor even poor were following the trend after borrowing money. In one wedding, people were usually spending Rs 50,000 to 1 lakh only on liquor, but now with ban enforced in many villages show of wealth has been curbed in the interest of poor," said Rigzin Samphel Hayerpa, Zila Parishad member from Kolang in Lahaul-Spiti.
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
Robert Clark, the operational attorney for U.S. Cyber Command, stood in a grand ballroom with gold flaked ceilings and sparkling chandeliers to address an audience that included men in flowing white robes and veiled women and tried to hammer home a single point: cyber warfare is not the "Wild West."
Clark, who emphasized that he was speaking only in a personal capacity and not on behalf of the U.S. government, wanted to assure the relatively small gathering in the United Arab Emirates that in an age where a new "revolutionary" cyber weapon like Stuxnet is discovered every few months -- usually on computers in Iran, just across the Arabian Gulf -- legal considerations are taken into account before cyber attacks are launched.
"Articles that talk about cyber warfare and [say] that rules of engagement aren't evolving as fast as [the cyber attacks], it's just not true," Clark said. "We have the law of armed conflict applying to any type conflict and it applies to cyberspace operations also... It's just not the Wild West out there."
For most of his presentation, Clark spoke in generalities about the legal aspects of American cyber capabilities because despite the months-old admission from his boss, U.S. Cyber Command chief Gen. Keith Alexander, that the military is developing a "pro-active, agile cyber force," and the oft-cited New York Times report on America's role in developing Stuxnet, the devastating cyber weapon that hit an Iranian nuclear facility in late 2009, no current American officials have gone on record claiming responsibility for an offensive cyber attack.
However, emboldened by a government colleague's praise of Stuxnet earlier this year, Clark couldn't resist using it as a hypothetical example.
He said that before a weapon like Stuxnet would be launched, the same legal criteria would be considered as if it were a physical military attack. Is there an imminent threat from the target? Does it absolutely have to be taken out? Will the attack cause casualties or collateral damage that could and should be avoided?
Answering his own question about casualties, Clark echoed comments from colleague Air Force Col. Gary Brown when he noted the impressive restraint of the worm. Though Stuxnet was discovered on thousands of computers around the world in 2010, cyber researchers quickly realized that it was something of a smart bomb. It would spread harmlessly from computer to computer until it found itself on the exact system configuration -- a control system at an Iranian nuclear facility -- it was meant to target.
"Stuxnet," Clark said, "was a very discriminant weapon."
After Stuxnet was discovered and analyzed, Richard Clarke, a former White House counter-terrorism adviser and current ABC News consultant, said he thought that Stuxnet showed such care to limit collateral damage that it must have been developed with healthy input from anxious lawyers.
Robert Clark's presentation Wednesday was one of the first talks at the Black Hat security conference held at the opulent Emirate Palace Hotel in Abu Dhabi and though most of the presentations were highly technical, Clark wasn't the first and or the last to talk about the cyber struggle over Iran.
CAIRO (Reuters) - Islamists battled with protesters outside Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi's palace on Thursday, after his vice president suggested amendments could be agreed to the draft constitution that has divided the nation.
Fires burned in the streets near the palace perimeter where opponents and supporters of Mursi threw stones and petrol bombs. Riot police tried to separate the two sides, but failed to halt fighting that extended from Wednesday into the early morning.
Residents, frustrated that police had not calmed the streets, set up makeshift road blocks nearby to check passers-by, scenes reminiscent of the popular uprising that toppled Mursi's autocratic predecessor Hosni Mubarak.
Five people were killed and 350 injured in the clashes, according to a statement released by the Ministry of Health.
"No to dictatorship," Mursi's opponents chanted, while their rivals chanted: "Defending Mursi is defending Islam."
Mursi's opponents accused him of creating a new autocracy by awarding himself extraordinary powers in a decree on November 22 and were further angered when an Islamist-dominated assembly pushed through a draft constitution that opponents said did not properly represent the aspirations of the whole nation.
The United States, worried about the stability of a state that has a peace deal with Israel and to which it gives $1.3 billion in military aid each year, called for dialogue.
A presidential source said Mursi was expected to make a statement later on Thursday. His opponents had earlier called on him to address the nation to help calm the streets.
Bidding to end the worst crisis since Mursi took office less than six months ago, Vice President Mahmoud Mekky said 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 a referendum on the constitution on December 15.
"There must be consensus," he told a news conference inside the presidential palace as fighting raged outside on Wednesday evening, saying opposition demands had to be respected.
PROTESTS SPREAD
Prime Minister Hisham Kandil called for calm to "give the opportunity" for efforts underway to start a national 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 protestors, confident that the Islamists, who have dominated both elections since Mubarak was overthrown in February 2011, can win the referendum and parliamentary election to follow.
On top of the support of the Brotherhood, which backed him for the presidency in the June election, Mursi may also be able to rely on a popular yearning for stability and economic revival after almost two years of political turmoil.
Egypt's opposition coalition blamed Mursi for the violence and said it was ready for dialogue if the Islamist leader scrapped the decree that gave him wide powers and shielded his decisions from judicial review.
"Today what is happening in the Egyptian street, polarization and division, is something that could and is actually drawing us to violence and could draw us to something worse," opposition coordinator Mohamed ElBaradei said on Wednesday.
"We are ready for dialogue if the constitutional decree is cancelled ... and the referendum on this constitution is postponed," he told a news conference.
But liberals, leftists, Christians, ex-Mubarak followers and others opposed to Mursi have yet to generate a mass movement or a grassroots base to challenge the Brotherhood.
'REAL DANGER'
Opposition leaders have previously urged Mursi to retract the decree, defer the referendum and agree to revise the constitution, but have not echoed calls from street protesters for his overthrow and the "downfall of the regime".
Mursi has said his decree was needed to prevent courts still full of judges appointed by Mubarak from derailing a constitution vital for Egypt's political transition.
Mekky said street mobilization by both sides posed a "real danger" to Egypt. "If we do not put a stop to this phenomenon right away ... where are we headed? We must calm down."
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton weighed into Egypt's political debate, saying dialogue was urgently needed on the new constitution, which should "respect the rights of all citizens".
Clinton and Mursi worked together last month to broker a truce between Israel and Hamas Islamists in the Gaza Strip.
British Foreign Secretary William Hague called for restraint on all sides. He said Egypt's authorities had to make progress on the transition in an "inclusive manner" and urged dialogue.
Both Islamists and their opponents have staged big shows of strength on the streets since Mursi's decree, each bringing out tens of thousands of people.
State institutions, with the partial exception of the judiciary, have mostly fallen in behind Mursi.
The army, the muscle behind all previous Egyptian presidents in the republic's six-decade history, has gone back to barracks, having apparently lost its appetite to intervene in politics.
(Additional reporting by Yasmine Saleh and Marwa Awad; Writing by Edmund Blair; Editing by Will Waterman)
NEW YORK: Peter Jackson's "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey" opens in the US this month and critics say the movie, much like the epic journey it depicts, is adventurous - but an uphill slog.
The fantasy about a Hobbit called Bilbo Baggins, Gandalf the good wizard, 13 raucous dwarves, and a host of evil forces, takes viewers back to the lavishly filmed Middle-earth world that won Oscars and rave reviews in Jackson's previous "Lord of the Rings" trilogy.
But reviews from journalists, who got to see the nearly three-hour movie ahead of its December 14 US premiere, were also somewhere in the middle.
Jackson's technical wizardry, using 3D and 48 frames a second, rather than the ordinary 24 frames, got gasps of admiration, mixed with yawns about overkill.
And while the New Zealand-born director scored high marks for the faithfulness of the adaption from J.R.R. Tolkien's book, there was incredulity - and some cynicism - about the decision to split the relatively slender "Hobbit" into three enormous movies.
"In Jackson's academically fastidious telling, however, it's as if 'The Wizard of Oz' had taken nearly an hour just to get out of Kansas," The Hollywood Reporter said in a bruising review.
"There are elements in this new film that are as spectacular as much of the Rings trilogy was, but there is much that is flat-footed and tedious as well."
Variety's critic took aim at the overwhelming detail poured into 48-frames-a-second pictures.
"Everything takes on an overblown, artificial quality in which the phoniness of the sets and costumes becomes obvious, while well-lit areas bleed into their surroundings, like watching a high-end home movie," Variety said.
"The Hobbit", which was screened for journalists in New York on Tuesday, is a prequel to the darker "Lord of the Rings," introducing the main characters and plot lines that reappear through the entire saga. The cursed golden ring also makes its first appearance.
There are bravura battle scenes, choreographed hordes of Goblins, fantastical caves, and James Bond-style narrow escapes from death for Martin Freeman's Bilbo Baggins and his dwarf friends. As in the three "Rings" movies, the natural settings of New Zealand are breath-taking.
But with so many strange beings attacking each other with swords, and so many arrows, rocks and bodies flying in 3D at the audience, the few intimately staged scenes focusing on just a couple characters can come as a relief.
When the action cut suddenly from the latest mass sword fight to a silent cave inhabited by Andy Serkis' creepy character Gollum, journalists at Tuesday's press screening broke out in a rare smattering of applause.
Jackson defended the decision to stretch the book to three movies, in contrast to the "Rings" trilogy, which was based on three books.
He told reporters Wednesday in New York that in Tolkien's often "breathless" text, "very major events are covered in two or three pages," and that transferring the action to film required a more sumptuous treatment.
Screenwriter and co-producer Philippa Boyens said the different pace responded to the dynamics of working with actors.
"Great actors come to you for the material and if you give them very slight material, you're just not going to get them. We wanted to write for these great actors," she said.
The filmmakers also defended their use of the 48 frames a second. "Fantasy should be as real as possible," Jackson said, "The levels of detail are very important."
The reviews for "The Hobbit" were far from universally negative, and many critics said the three films may well make healthy profits. On the reviews aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the rating of fresh versus rotten tomatoes was a high 78 percent Wednesday.
Great British actor Ian McKellen, who reprised his "Rings" role as Gandalf in "The Hobbit", batted down suggestions that the filmmakers were trying to milk the maximum profit out of Tolkien fans.
"Anyone who thinks Peter Jackson would fall for market forces, instead of artistic imperatives, just doesn't know him, doesn't know the body of his work," McKellen told reporters.
The movies will do well because Bilbo Baggins and his travails are a universal story, he said.
"It's about the little guy that we need and may be expendable, who may not come back."
-AFP/fl
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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Marilynn Marchione can be followed at http://twitter.com/MMarchioneAP
Nearly five months after Iowa cousins Lyric Cook and Elizabeth Collins disappeared, the girls' families have been told two bodies were found by hunters in a wooded area, though the identities of the bodies have not been confirmed, authorities said.
Capt. Rick Abben of the Black Hawk County Sheriff's Office said at a press conference this afternoon that the bodies are being transported to the state's medical office in Ankeny, Iowa, for positive identification.
"It's definitely not the outcome that we wanted, obviously," Abben said. "This is a difficult thing for us to go through."
Lyric, 11, and Elizabeth , 9, vanished shortly after noon on July 13 while on a bike ride in the small town of Evansdale, Iowa, triggering a massive search that brought the town to a standstill. The girls' bicycles and a purse were quickly found near Meyers Lake, but there was no sign of the girls.
PHOTOS From ABC News Affiliate KCRG: The Search for Lyric & Elizabeth
Black Hawk County Police/AP Photo
On the two-month anniversary of the girls' disappearance, local residents held a prayer vigil and authorities urged members of the public to provide any new information that might help them solve the case.
Authorities said the girls left Elizabeth's house in Evansdale around 12:15 p.m., were spotted at approximately 12:23 p.m. at a nearby intersection and then were seen between 12:30 and 1 p.m. on a road by the lake.
During the following week, authorities canvassed the area and drained the town's lake. Lyric's estranged parents, Misty and Dan Morrissey, at one point became the subject of intense police scrutiny because of their criminal pasts and their lack of cooperation.
Over the summer, the families received a boost when Elizabeth Smart, one of the country's most famous kidnapping survivors, offered some words of encouragement. Police found Smart after a nine-month search in Utah a decade ago.
"For as many bad things that we hear about that happen, for as many kidnappings and terrible stories about finding the remains of children, why can't these girls be the exception?" Smart told the Des Moines Register.
Elizabeth's mother, Heather Collins, told ABC News' Alex Perez in July that the wait for the girls to reappear was an agonizing one.
"A day doesn't seem like a normal day," Collins said. "It's just like it doesn't stop. It keeps dragging and dragging. You're just waiting for a time to go up to your room. You're just waiting, waiting, waiting."
"Whoever's out there, we're just begging you to bring our girls back home," she said.
A $50,000 reward had been offered for information that led to the arrest and conviction of the person responsible for the girls' disappearance.
BRUSSELS/BEIRUT (Reuters) - NATO told Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on Tuesday that any use of chemical weapons in his fight against encroaching rebel forces would be met by an immediate international response.
The warning from NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen came as U.S. government sources said Washington had information that Syria was making what could be seen as preparations to use its chemical arsenal.
Syrian forces meanwhile bombarded rebel districts near Damascus in a sustained counter-attack to stem rebel gains around Assad's power base as the insurgency may be entering a decisive phase.
International concern over Syria's intentions has been heightened by reports that its chemical weapons have been moved and could be prepared for use.
"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 at the start of a meeting of alliance foreign ministers in Brussels.
The chemical threat made it urgent for the alliance to send Patriot anti-missile missiles to Turkey, Rasmussen said.
The French Foreign Ministry referred to "possible movements on military bases storing chemical weapons in Syria" and said the international community would react if they were used.
Britain has told the Syrian government that any use of chemical weapons would have "serious consequences", Foreign Secretary William Hague said.
U.S. President Barack Obama on Monday told Assad not to use chemical weapons, without saying how the United States might respond. The Foreign Ministry in Damascus said it would never use such weapons against Syrians.
CLASSIFIED INTELLIGENCE
The U.S. has collected what has been described as highly classified intelligence information demonstrating that Syria is making what could be construed as preparations to use elements of its extensive chemical weapons arsenal, two U.S. government sources briefed on the issue said.
One of the sources said that there was no question that the US "Intelligence community" had received information pointing to "preparations" under way in Syria related to chemical weapons. The source declined to specify what kind of preparations had been reported, or how close the intelligence indicated the Syrians were to deploying or even using the weapons.
Western military experts say Syria has four suspected chemical weapons sites, and it can produce chemical weapons agents including mustard gas and sarin, and possibly also VX nerve agent. The CIA has estimated that Syria possesses several hundred liters of chemical weapons and produces hundreds of tonnes of agents annually.
The fighting around Damascus has led foreign airlines to suspend flights and prompted the United Nations and European Union to reduce their presence in the capital, adding to a sense that the fight is closing in.
The army fightback came a day after the Syrian foreign ministry spokesman was reported to have defected in a potentially embarrassing blow to the government.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 200 people were killed across Syria on Monday, more than 60 of them around Damascus. Assad's forces bombarded districts to the south-east of the capital on Tuesday, near to the international airport, and in the rebel bastion of Daraya to the south-west.
Opposition footage posted on the Internet showed a multiple rocket launcher fire 20 rockets, which activists said was filmed at the Mezze military airport in Damascus.
Reuters could not independently verify the footage due to the government's severe reporting restrictions.
In central Damascus, shielded for many months from the full force of a civil war in which 40,000 people have been killed, one resident reported hearing several loud explosions.
"I have heard four or five thunderous blows. It could be barrel bombs," she said, referring to makeshift bombs which activists say Assad's forces have dropped from helicopters on rebel-dominated areas.
MORTAR ATTACK
The state news agency said that 28 students and a teacher were killed near the capital when rebels fired a mortar bomb on a school. Rebels have targeted government-held residential districts of the capital.
The mainly Sunni Muslim rebel forces have made advances in recent weeks, seizing military bases, including some close to Damascus, from forces loyal to Assad, who is from Syria's Alawite minority linked to Shi'ite Islam.
Faced with creeping rebel gains across the north and east of the country, and the growing challenge around the capital, Assad has increasingly resorted to air strikes against the insurgents.
A diplomat in the Middle East said Syrian Foreign Ministry spokesman Jihad Makdissi had left the country and defected, while the British-based Observatory said it had information that he flew from Beirut on Monday afternoon heading for London.
In Beirut, a diplomat said Lebanese officials had confirmed that Makdissi spent several days in Beirut before leaving on Monday, but could not confirm his destination.
"We're aware of reports that he has defected and may be coming to the UK. We're seeking clarification," a Foreign Office spokeswoman in London said.
Makdissi was the public face to the outside world of Assad's government as it battled the 20-month-old uprising. But he had barely appeared in public for several weeks before Monday's report of his defection.
He had little influence in a system largely run by the security apparatus and the military. But Assad's opponents will see the loss of such a high profile figure, if confirmed, as further evidence of a system crumbling from within.
The United Nations and European Union both said they were reducing their presence in Syria in response to the escalated violence around the capital.
A spokesman for U.N. humanitarian operations said the move would not stop aid deliveries to areas which remained accessible to relief convoys.
"U.N.-funded aid supplies delivered through SARC (Syrian Arab Red Crescent) and other charities are still moving daily where the roads are open," Jens Laerke told Reuters in Geneva.
"We have not suspended our operation, we are reducing the non-essential international staff."
Three remaining international staff at the European Union delegation, who stayed on in Damascus after the departure of most Western envoys, crossed the border into Lebanon on Tuesday after pulling out of the Syrian capital.
(Additional reporting by David Brunnstrom in Brussels, Khaled Yacoub Oweis in Cairo, Erika Solomon, Oliver Holmes and Ayat Basma in Beirut, Mark Hosenball, Mohammed Abbas and David Cutler in London, and Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva; Editing by Giles Elgood)
LONDON: British finance minister George Osborne unveils his budget update on Wednesday, and will likely admit it could take longer than expected to slash the deficit as a result of the weaker-than-expected economy.
Chancellor of the Exchequer Osborne was to deliver his Autumn Statement before parliament at 1230 GMT, when the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) fiscal watchdog will also publish its latest growth and borrowing forecasts.
Osborne has already warned that economic recovery will take longer than hoped but insisted that abandoning the government's tough deficit-slashing austerity measures would be catastrophic amid the ongoing eurozone debt crisis.
"We had two targets, one was to get debt share falling as a share of national income by 2015/16 and also to balance the current budget," the chancellor told BBC television over the weekend.
"It's clearly taking longer to deal with Britain's debts; it's clearly taking longer to recover from the financial crisis than anyone would have hoped but we have made real progress."
Ahead of the budget update, Osborne pledged Tuesday to invest £5.0 billion in schools, transport and science over the next two fiscal years, with the cash sourced from a new raft of spending cuts across most civil service departments.
And on Monday, Osborne launched a campaign against "tax dodgers" and "cowboy advisers" to claw back £2.0 billion a year, as lawmakers alleged that multinationals such as Starbucks and Google are avoiding huge tax bills.
The OBR was meanwhile expected to lower its gross domestic product (GDP) forecasts as the economy faces major headwinds from state austerity, inflationary pressures and the eurozone's ongoing crisis.
Osborne had in March forecast that the British economy would grow by 0.8 per cent this year, followed by 2.0 per cent in 2013 and 2.7 per cent in 2014.
Weaker economic growth would slash taxation receipts and spark upward revisions to its official borrowing targets, according to analysts.
Alongside Osborne's budget in March, the OBR predicted that public sector net borrowing (PSNB) as a proportion of economic output would begin to fall in 2015/2016, after peaking at 76.3 per cent of GDP in 2014/15.
And it forecast state borrowing would reach £120 billion ($192 billion, 148 billion euros) in the 2012/2013 financial year ending in March, compared with £121.4 billion in 2011/2012.
But with PSNB already standing at £73.3 billion and four months of the financial year to go, Osborne could breach the target.
Recent official data showed Britain had escaped from recession in the third quarter of this year, with its economy growing 1.0 per cent.
However, experts argue this was due to one-off factors like the London Olympics and rebounding activity after public holidays in the second quarter.
The Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government imposed austerity measures to slash a record deficit inherited from the previous Labour administration. Opposition Labour politicians maintain that the cuts pushed the economy into a painful double-dip recession.
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development urged Osborne last week to push back his debt reduction targets rather than drive through more growth-damaging austerity.
Meanwhile, the country's official statistics watchdog on Tuesday warned the government to stop claiming that real-terms National Health Service spending had increased after calculating funds had actually fallen slightly.
The UK Statistics Authority said Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt should "clarify" claims on the Conservative party website that "we have increased the NHS budget in real terms in each of the last two years".
- AFP/ck
This came at the 10th joint working group on defence cooperation here, co-chaired by defence secretary Shashikant Sharma and Israeli defence ministry director-general Major-General Ehud Shani.
While the regional and global security situation, including the recent Israel-Hamas ceasefire, figured in the talks, the focus was on bilateral defence training programmes, exchanges, R&D projects and armament deals.
Israel is India's second largest defence supplier, second only to Russia, but the expansive ties are largely kept under wraps due to political sensitivities. Tel Aviv records military sales worth around $1 billion to New Delhi every year, ranging from Heron and Searcher UAVs, Harpy and Harop 'killer' drones to Barak anti-missile defence systems and Green Pine radars, Python and Derby air-to-air missiles.
Sources said India expressed "concern'' at the "two-year delay'' in completion of the long-range SAM (LR-SAM) project, sanctioned in December 2005 at a cost of Rs 2,606 crore to arm Indian warships.
There are "minor hitches'' even in the bigger Rs 10,076 crore medium-range SAM (MR-SAM) project, sanctioned in February 2009 for air defence squadrons of IAF.
Both the SAM systems, being developed by Israeli Aerospace Industries (IAI) in collaboration with DRDO, have the same missile with an interception range of 70-km. They are to be produced in bulk by defence PSU Bharat Dynamics (BDL) to plug the existing holes in India's air defence cover.
"While the multi-function surveillance and threat radars, weapon control systems with data links and the like of the LR-SAM have all been tested, there has been delay in the missiles being developed by IAI,'' said a source.
"But the Israelis said everything was sorted out now and they will try to make up for the delay. DRDO has already finished its work on the propulsion and other systems,'' he added. Incidentally, the LR-SAM project was to be completed by May this year.
Another major missile project, worth around $1 billion, that Israel could bag is the one to supply third-generation anti-tank guided missiles (ATGMs) to the 1.13-million strong Indian Army. The Army has already trial-evaluated the Israeli 'Spike' ATGM after the US offer of its 'Javelin' missiles was shelved due to Washington's reluctance to undertake "transfer of technology'' to ensure BDL can make them in large numbers, as reported by TOI earlier.
India is also in commercial negotiations for another two advanced Israeli Phalcon AWACS (airborne warning and control systems), capable of detecting hostile aircraft, cruise missiles and other incoming aerial threats far before ground-based radars, at a cost of over $800 million. The first three Phalcon AWACS were inducted by IAF in 2009-2010 under the $1.1 billion tripartite agreement between India, Israel and Russia.
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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Online:
Avalere Health: http://tinyurl.com/d3b3hfv
Deep in the rain forests of Panama, in a secret location behind padlocked gates, barbed-wire fences and over a rickety wooden bridge, grows what could be the most debated food product of our time.
It may look like the 1993 hit movie "Jurassic Park," but at this real-life freshwater farm scientists are altering the genes not of dinosaurs -- but of fish.
They are growing a new DNA-altered saltwater fish in the mountains, far from the sea -- a salmon that could be the first genetically altered animal protein approved for the world to eat. If it is approved, this would be a landmark change for human food.
But it is one critics call "Frankenfish."
"The idea of changing an animal form, I think, is really creepy," said Gary Hirshberg, founder of Stonyfield Farm, an organic dairy farm. "When you move the DNA from a species into another species ... you create a new life form that's so new and so unique that you can get a patent for it."
And until now, AquaBounty, the multinational biotech company that for 20 years has been developing this giant fish, has kept it under close wraps.
The press has never been invited to its Prince Edward Island laboratory on the Canadian maritime coast, and its fish farm location in Panama has been kept secret out of fear of sabotage.
The Food and Drug Administration has seen it, but few from the outside. In fact, the last public tour of any kind was four years ago.
AquaBounty Creates 'Fort Knox for Fish'
ABC News was given exclusive access to see the facilities up close and an opportunity to taste this mysterious fish that FDA scientists say "is as safe as food from conventional Atlantic salmon," although have yet to officially approve it for public sale.
Ron Stotish, the president and CEO of AquaBounty Technologies, the company that created and hopes to market the eggs of this salmon to independent fish farms around the world, told ABC News it has employed bio-security measures, creating a "Fort Knox for fish," to ensure safety for the fish and prevent cross-contamination with the wild.
Entry to both facilities begins with body suits and iodine baths for shoes, which serves to keep the fish safe from germs.
Inside these protected tanks, America gets the first up-close look at the final product, the fish that has the food police up in arms.
"These are very healthy, beautiful Atlantic salmon," Stotish said.
With one big difference -- the growth rate of a regular salmon compared to that of an AquaBounty genetically modified fish.
While the AquaBounty fish do not grow to a size larger than normal salmon, they get to full size much faster, cutting costs for producers.
A normal-size 1-year-old Atlantic salmon averages 10 inches long, while the genetically modified fish at the same age is more than two times larger, coming in at 24 inches.
Salmon is the second most popular seafood in America. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the average size of an Atlantic salmon is 28 inches to 30 inches and 8 pounds to 12 pounds after two years at sea.
How do they accomplish the accelerated growth?
"They differ by a single gene," Stotish said.
But, it's that single gene change that makes the DNA-altered salmon grow much faster than a normal Atlantic salmon, because it's really three fish in one.
AquaBounty scientists have taken a growth gene from the Chinook salmon and inserted it into the DNA of the Atlantic salmon because Chinooks grow fast from birth, while Atlantics do not.
"Salmon in their first two years of life grow very slowly," Stotish said.
CAIRO/BEIRUT (Reuters) - A Syrian foreign ministry spokesman, who was the most public face of Bashar al-Assad's government as it battled a 20-month-old uprising, has fled the country, a diplomat in the region said on Monday.
Jihad al-Makdissi, who is in his 40s, previously worked at the Syrian embassy in London and returned to Damascus a year ago to serve as spokesman for the ministry, defending the government's crackdown on the revolt against Assad's rule.
He had little influence in a system largely run by the security apparatus and the military. But Assad's opponents will see the loss of such a high profile figure, if confirmed, as further evidence of a system crumbling from within.
Rebel forces have made advances in recent weeks, seizing military bases including some close to the capital Damascus. Amid talk that troops had moved chemical weapons, U.S. President Barack Obama again warned Assad against using them.
Makdissi belongs to Syria's Christian minority, which has largely stood behind Assad. He worked with the foreign ministry for 10 years and speaks fluent English, a rarity in a state apparatus shaped by the Baath Party's anti-Western ideology.
"He defected. All I can say is that he is out of Syria," the diplomatic source, who did not want to be named, told Reuters.
Lebanon's al-Manar Television, citing government sources, said Makdissi was sacked for making statements that did not reflect the government's position.
He was rarely seen in the media in recent weeks. His mobile telephone was switched off and there was no immediate comment in Syrian state media. The pan-Arab news channel Al Arabiya said Makdissi had left Beirut and was on his way to London, where he was expected to remain.
"We're aware of reports that he has defected and may be coming to the UK. We're seeking clarification," a Foreign Office spokeswoman said.
CHEMICAL WEAPONS
Rebels have begun to advance more quickly after months of slow sieges to cut off army routes and supplies. In the past few weeks, they seized several military bases, and are now using anti-aircraft weapons to attack the military helicopters and fighter jets that had bombarded their positions with impunity.
Media reports citing European and U.S. officials said Syria's chemical weapons had been moved and could be prepared for use in response - long a fear raised by the opposition.
White House spokesman Jay Carney said U.S. concerns about Syria's intentions regarding the use of chemical weapons were increasing, prompting Washington to make contingency plans.
Syria said it would not use chemical weapons against its own people: "Syria has stressed repeatedly that it will not use these types of weapons, if they were available, under any circumstances against its people," the foreign ministry said.
Obama, who has steered clear of repeating in Syria the kind of military engagements Washington has seen in Iraq, Afghanistan or Libya, later repeated a warning to Assad - vaguely worded - against using chemical weapons to keep himself in power:
"The world is watching," Obama said. "The use of chemical weapons is and would be totally unacceptable and if you make the tragic mistake of using these weapons there will be consequences and you will be held accountable."
DAMASCUS BATTLES
The army appears to have focused most of its energy on Damascus, where rebels have been planning to push into the capital from the surrounding suburbs.
The military has been trying to seal off the city, using heavy bombardment and air raids to try to drive rebels back. Over 56 people were killed around Damascus alone on Sunday, with 200 dead across the country.
Damascus itself has not been free of unrest. Rebel-held southern districts have been bombarded heavily, activists say. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported fierce clashes around the Tishreen military hospital in the northern Barzeh district and a car bomb in the southern area of Tadamon.
Neither side appears to have the upper hand in the fighting around Damascus. A previous attempt by rebels last July to hold ground in the city was crushed, but the fighters fell back into the suburbs and nearby countryside.
Clashes and tensions also remain high around Damascus International Airport and along the airport highway, which has become an on-and-off battleground that forced foreign airlines to suspend flights to Damascus since Thursday evening.
EgyptAir, which tried to resume flights on Monday, had to call back a plane headed to Damascus due to the "bad security situation" around the airport, an airline official said.
The conflict has grown increasingly bloody in recent months, as rebels began to contest Assad's power around the capital as well as in Aleppo, Syria's largest city. More than 40,000 people have died in the conflict, with hundreds more killed each week.
The United Nations said on Monday it was withdrawing "all non-essential international staff" from Syria because of deteriorating security, and was restricting remaining staff to Damascus. It said more armored vehicles were needed following attacks on humanitarian aid convoys sometimes caught in the crossfire.
A European Union official said the EU was pulling international staff from Damascus because of the security situation and its ambassador to Syria had ended his posting.
(Editing by Philippa Fletcher and Alastair Macdonald; Reporting by Khaled Yacoub Oweis, Erika Solomon, Additional reporting by Mohammed Abbas; Editing by Michael Roddy)
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