Gunman 'Tentatively' Identified in Oregon Shooting

A masked gunman who opened fire in the crowded Clackamas Town Center mall in suburban Portland, Ore., killing two individuals before killing himself, has been "tentatively" identified by police, though they have not yet released his name.

The shooter, wearing a white hockey mask, black clothing, and a bullet proof vest, tore through the mall around 3:30 p.m. Tuesday, entering through a Macy's store and proceeding to the food court and public areas spraying bullets, according to witness reports.

Police have not released the names of the deceased. Clackamas County Sheriff's Department Lt. James Rhodes said authorities are in the process of notifying victims' families.

The injured victim has been transported to a local hospital, where she is "fighting for her life," according to Clackamas County Sheriff Craig Roberts.

PHOTOS: Oregon Mall Shooting

Nadia Telguz, who said she was a friend of the injured victim, told ABC News affiliate KATU-TV in Portland that the woman was expected to recover.

"My friend's sister got shot," Teleguz told KATU. "She's on her way to (Oregon Health and Science University hospital). They're saying she got shot in her side and so it's not life-threatening, so she'll be OK."

Christopher Onstott/Pamplen Media Group/Portland Tribune

911 Calls From New Jersey Supermarket Shooting Watch Video

Witnesses from the shooting rampage said that a young man who appeared to be a teenager ran through the upper level of Macy's to the mall food court, firing multiple shots, one right after the other, with what is believed to be a black, semi-automatic rifle.

More than 10,000 shoppers were at the mall during the day, police said. Roberts said that officers responded to the scene of the shooting within minutes, and four SWAT teams swept the 1.4 million-square-foot building searching for the shooter. He was eventually found dead, an apparent suicide.

"I can confirm the shooter is dead of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound," Rhodes said. "By all accounts there were no rounds fired by law enforcement today in the mall."

Roberts said more than 100 law enforcement officers responded to the shooting, and at least four local agencies were working on the investigation, including the FBI and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, which is working to trace the shooter's weapon.

READ: Guns in America: A Statistical Look

Roberts also said that shoppers, including two emergency room nurses and one physician who happened to be at the mall, provided medical assistance to victims who had been shot. Other shoppers helped escort individuals out of the mall and out of harm's way, he said.

"There were a huge amount of people running in different directions, and it was chaos for a lot of citizens, but true heroes were stepping up in this time of high stress," Roberts said. "E.R. nurses on the scene were providing medical care to those injured, a physician on the scene was helping provide care to the wounded."

Mall shopper Daniel Martinez told KATU that he had just sat down at a Jamba Juice inside the mall when he heard rapid gunfire. He turned and saw the masked gunman, dressed in all black, about 10 feet away from him.

"I just saw him (the gunman) and thought, 'I need to go somewhere,'" Martinez said. "It was so fast, and at that time, everyone was moving around."

Martinez said he ran to the nearest clothing store. As he ran, he motioned for another woman to follow; several others ran to the store as well, hiding in a fitting room. They stayed there for an hour and a half until SWAT teams told them it was safe to leave the mall.

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North Korea's new leader burnishes credentials with rocket

SEOUL/TOKYO (Reuters) - North Korea successfully launched a rocket on Wednesday, boosting the credentials of its new leader and stepping up the threat the isolated and impoverished state poses to its opponents.

The rocket, which North Korea says put a weather satellite into orbit, has been labeled by the United States, South Korea and Japan as a test of technology that could one day deliver a nuclear warhead capable of hitting targets as far as the continental United States.

"The satellite has entered the planned orbit," a North Korean television news-reader clad in traditional Korean garb triumphantly announced, after which the station played patriotic songs with the lyrics "Chosun (Korea) does what it says".

The rocket was launched just before 10 a.m. Korea time (9 p.m. ET on Tuesday), according to defense officials in South Korea and Japan, and easily surpassed a failed April launch that flew for less than two minutes.

The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) said that it "deployed an object that appeared to achieve orbit", the first time an independent body has verified North Korean claims.

North Korea followed what it said was a similar successful launch in 2009 with a nuclear test that prompted the United Nations Security Council to stiffen sanctions that it originally imposed in 2006 after the North's first nuclear test.

The state is banned from developing nuclear and missile-related technology under U.N. resolutions, although Kim Jong-un, the youthful head of state who took power a year ago, is believed to have continued the state's "military first" programs put into place by his deceased father Kim Jong-il.

Washington condemned Wednesday's launch as a "provocative action" and breach of U.N. rules, while Japan's U.N. envoy called for a Security Council meeting. However, diplomats say further tough sanctions are unlikely to be agreed at the body as China, the North's only major ally, will oppose them.

"The international community must work in a concerted fashion to send North Korea a clear message that its violations of United Nations Security Council resolutions have consequences," the White House said in a statement.

Japan's likely next prime minister, Shinzo Abe, who is leading in opinion polls ahead of an election on December 16 and who is known as a North Korea hawk, called on the United Nations to adopt a resolution "strongly criticizing" Pyongyang.

There was no immediate official reaction from the Chinese government, which is North Korea's only major ally.

China had expressed "deep concern" over the launch which was announced a day after a top politburo member, representing new Chinese leader Xi Xinping, met Kim Jong-un in Pyongyang.

STUMBLING BLOCK

On Wednesday, China's state news agency Xinhua said North Korea had the "right to conduct peaceful exploration of outer space" but also called on it to abide by U.N. resolutions.

"China has been the stumbling block to firmer U.N. action and we'll have to see if the new leadership is any different than its predecessors," Bruce Klingner, a Korea expert at the Heritage Foundation, a U.S. thinktank told a conference call.

A senior adviser to South Korea's president said last week it was unlikely there would be action from the U.N. and that Seoul would expect its allies to tighten sanctions unilaterally.

Kim Jong-un, believed to be 29 years old, took office after his father died on December 17 last year and experts believe that Wednesday's launch was intended to commemorate the first anniversary of the death.

The April launch was timed for the centennial of the birth of Kim Il Sung, the founder of North Korea and the grandfather of its current ruler.

Wednesday's success puts the North ahead of the South which has not managed to get a rocket off the ground.

"This is a considerable boost in establishing the rule of Kim Jong-un," said Cho Min, an expert at the Korea Institute of National Unification.

There have been few indications the secretive and impoverished state, where the United Nations estimates a third of the population is malnourished, has made any advances in opening up economically over the past year.

North Korea remains reliant on minerals exports to China and remittances from tens of thousands of its people working on labor projects overseas.

The 22 million population often needs handouts from defectors who have escaped to South Korea in order to afford basic medicines.

Given the puny size of its economy - per capita income is less than $2,000 a year - one of the few ways the North can attract world attention is by emphasizing its military threat.

Pyongyang wants the United States to resume aid and to recognize it diplomatically, although the April launch scuppered a planned food deal.

It is believed to be some years away from developing a functioning nuclear warhead although it may have enough plutonium for around half a dozen nuclear bombs, according to nuclear experts.

The North has also been enriching uranium which would give it a second path to nuclear weapons as it sits on vast natural uranium reserves.

"A successful launch puts North Korea closer to the capability to deploy a weaponized missile," said Denny Roy a senior fellow at the East-West Center in Hawaii.

"But this would still require fitting a weapon to the missile and ensuring a reasonable degree of accuracy. The North Koreans probably do not yet have a nuclear weapon small enough for a missile to carry."

Pyongyang says that its development is part of a civil nuclear program, but has also boasted of it being a "nuclear weapons power".

(Additional reporting by Jumin Park and Yoo Choonsik in SEOUL; David Alexander, Matt Spetalnick and Paul Eckert in WASHINGTON; Linda Sieg in TOKYO; Sui-Lee Wee in BEIJING; Rosmarie Francisco in MANILA; Writing by David Chance; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)

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New Yorkers live longer than other Americans: mayor

NEW YORK: New Yorkers are living longer than Americans overall, and the margin is increasing, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Tuesday as he praised his administration's health policies.

A New Yorker born in 2010 has a life expectancy of 80.9 years, 2.2 years longer than the national life expectancy of 78.7 years at the time.

Since 2001, New Yorkers' life expectancy has increased by three years, against 1.8 years at the national level, according to data released by Bloomberg and the city's health department.

Women in New York are now expected to live 83.3 years and men are expected to live 78.1 years.

Bloomberg has aggressively pushed for sweeping public health policies. In 2003, he banned smoking in bars, restaurants and places of work, a measure widely reproduced elsewhere.

He again stirred controversy this year by announcing a limited ban on super-sized soda drinks he blamed for a national obesity crisis.

"Not only are New Yorkers living longer, but our improvements continue to outpace the gains in the rest of the nation," Bloomberg said.

"Our willingness to invest in health care and bold interventions is paying off in improved health outcomes, decreased infant mortality and increased life expectancy."

- AFP/ck

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Mayawati stuns Rajya Sabha; questions chairman Hamid Ansari's absence

NEW DELHI: BSP chief Mayawati shocked the Rajya Sabha on Wednesday by telling chairman Hamid Ansari that he is "not seen" in the House in the afternoon after which the House is not allowed to function.

"I am not ready to listen to anything. We have seen in the last few days that every day the House is not allowed to function after 12pm. It is your responsibility to ensure that it functions. Who will ensure that it functions," she told the Chair from the Well as also from her seat.

"You are not seen here after 12pm... What kind of House is this? You have to take decision that what has to be done for this (ensuring the functioning of the House)," the BSP chief said.

She was protesting against the frequent disruption over a Bill for providing reservation in promotion to SC/STs in government jobs, an issue that has seen the party at loggerheads with the Samajwadi Party, its arch detractor in UP politics.

The protest by the BSP on the quota issue saw the House being adjourned twice before lunch.

Mayawati's remarks left the House stunned. The Chairman told her that she was a senior leader and should allow the House to function. He said it was the responsibility of everyone to let the House function.

But, BSP members were unrelenting.

Mayawati's outburst came at 11.30pm when minister Anand Sharma was replying to a query on the plight of weavers in Uttar Pradesh.

The BSP supremo, along with her party colleagues, came into House and started speaking even before taking her seat.

As the chairman tried to pacify Mayawati and asked her to allow the Question Hour to proceed, the BSP chief went into the Well with her party members continuing with her verbal attack.

Mayawati's remarks came on a day when the chairman has called a meeting of the Rules Committee of the Rajya Sabha anguished over frequent disruptions of the question hour.

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New tests could hamper food outbreak detection

WASHINGTON (AP) — It's about to get faster and easier to diagnose food poisoning, but that progress for individual patients comes with a downside: It could hurt the nation's ability to spot and solve dangerous outbreaks.

Next-generation tests that promise to shave a few days off the time needed to tell whether E. coli, salmonella or other foodborne bacteria caused a patient's illness could reach medical laboratories as early as next year. That could allow doctors to treat sometimes deadly diseases much more quickly — an exciting development.

The problem: These new tests can't detect crucial differences between different subtypes of bacteria, as current tests can. And that fingerprint is what states and the federal government use to match sick people to a contaminated food. The older tests might be replaced by the new, more efficient ones.

"It's like a forensics lab. If somebody says a shot was fired, without the bullet you don't know where it came from," explained E. coli expert Dr. Phillip Tarr of Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.

The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warns that losing the ability to literally take a germ's fingerprint could hamper efforts to keep food safe, and the agency is searching for solutions. According to CDC estimates, 1 in 6 Americans gets sick from foodborne illnesses each year, and 3,000 die.

"These improved tests for diagnosing patients could have the unintended consequence of reducing our ability to detect and investigate outbreaks, ultimately causing more people to become sick," said Dr. John Besser of the CDC.

That means outbreaks like the salmonella illnesses linked this fall to a variety of Trader Joe's peanut butter might not be identified that quickly — or at all.

It all comes down to what's called a bacterial culture — whether labs grow a sample of a patient's bacteria in an old-fashioned petri dish, or skip that step because the new tests don't require it.

Here's the way it works now: Someone with serious diarrhea visits the doctor, who gets a stool sample and sends it to a private testing laboratory. The lab cultures the sample, growing larger batches of any lurking bacteria to identify what's there. If disease-causing germs such as E. coli O157 or salmonella are found, they may be sent on to a public health laboratory for more sophisticated analysis to uncover their unique DNA patterns — their fingerprints.

Those fingerprints are posted to a national database, called PulseNet, that the CDC and state health officials use to look for food poisoning trends.

There are lots of garden-variety cases of salmonella every year, from runny eggs to a picnic lunch that sat out too long. But if a few people in, say, Baltimore have salmonella with the same molecular signature as some sick people in Cleveland, it's time to investigate, because scientists might be able narrow the outbreak to a particular food or company.

But culture-based testing takes time — as long as two to four days after the sample reaches the lab, which makes for a long wait if you're a sick patient.

What's in the pipeline? Tests that could detect many kinds of germs simultaneously instead of hunting one at a time — and within hours of reaching the lab — without first having to grow a culture. Those tests are expected to be approved as early as next year.

This isn't just a science debate, said Shari Shea, food safety director at the Association of Public Health Laboratories.

If you were the patient, "you'd want to know how you got sick," she said.

PulseNet has greatly improved the ability of regulators and the food industry to solve those mysteries since it was launched in the mid-1990s, helping to spot major outbreaks in ground beef, spinach, eggs and cantaloupe in recent years. Just this fall, PulseNet matched 42 different salmonella illnesses in 20 different states that were eventually traced to a variety of Trader Joe's peanut butter.

Food and Drug Administration officials who visited the plant where the peanut butter was made found salmonella contamination all over the facility, with several of the plant samples matching the fingerprint of the salmonella that made people sick. A New Mexico-based company, Sunland Inc., recalled hundreds of products that were shipped to large retailers all over the country, including Target, Safeway and other large grocery chains.

The source of those illnesses probably would have remained a mystery without the national database, since there weren't very many illnesses in any individual state.

To ensure that kind of crucial detective work isn't lost, the CDC is asking the medical community to send samples to labs to be cultured even when they perform a new, non-culture test.

But it's not clear who would pay for that extra step. Private labs only can perform the tests that a doctor orders, noted Dr. Jay M. Lieberman of Quest Diagnostics, one of the country's largest testing labs.

A few first-generation non-culture tests are already available. When private labs in Wisconsin use them, they frequently ship leftover samples to the state lab, which grows the bacteria itself. But as more private labs switch over after the next-generation rapid tests arrive, the Wisconsin State Laboratory of Hygiene will be hard-pressed to keep up with that extra work before it can do its main job — fingerprinting the bugs, said deputy director Dr. Dave Warshauer.

Stay tuned: Research is beginning to look for solutions that one day might allow rapid and in-depth looks at food poisoning causes in the same test.

"As molecular techniques evolve, you may be able to get the information you want from non-culture techniques," Lieberman said.

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Follow Mary Clare Jalonick on Twitter at http://twitter.com/mcjalonick

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Woman Gets Life for Lottery Winner's Murder

DeeDee Moore, the Tampa woman accused of swindling and then killing lottery winner Abraham Shakespeare, was found guilty today of first degree murder and other charges, after she declined to take the stand and the defense rested without calling a single witness.

In addition to the murder charge, Moore was also found guilty of possessing and discharging a firearm resulting in death. Prosecutors did not pursue the death penalty in the case, and Moore was sentenced to life in prison without parole.

"After trial and listening to all of this over two weeks, words that were said cool, calculated, manipulated. Abraham Shakespeare was your prey and victim. Money was the route of evil you brought to Abraham. You are sentenced to life in prison you shall not be elegible for parole," Judge Emmet Battles said.

Jurors deliberated for more than three hours Monday before delivering their verdict.

Prosecutors argued that Moore, 40, befriended Shakespeare before he vanished in April 2009 after he'd won $30 million in the Florida lottery. After Shakespeare had given away most of his money to people who simply asked for it, Moore agreed to manage the little he had left, but instead, prosecutors said, stole his winnings and killed him.

During a dramatic trial Moore has broken down in tears several times, and at one point said that she went into anaphylactic shock while in custody after taking the drug Bactrim when she was having problems with cuts on her ankles from being cuffed every day.

Early today the defense announced it would rest its case without calling any witnesses. Moore did not testify during her trial.

Jay Conner/The Tampa Tribune/AP Photo

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"There is no witness that can say she ever admitted to doing the killing or participating as a principle in helping anyone else do the killing," Moore's defense attorney Byron Hileman said today.

In the courtroom this morning, Moore's friend, former inmate Rose Condora was accused of threatening witnesses by Tampa Judge Emmett Battles, and was thrown out of the courtroom.

Authorities say Shakespeare, 47, was shot twice in the chest by a .38-caliber pistol sometime in April 2009. He wasn't reported missing until November 2009. His body was found under a slab of cement in a backyard in January 2010.

Polk County authorities claim Moore offered someone a $200,000 house in exchange for reporting a false sighting of Shakespeare. She also allegedly sent the victim's son $5,000 in cash for his birthday, and used the victim's cellphone to send text messages purportedly from him.

Shakespeare's mother, Elizabeth Walker, also testified that Moore tried to hide that her son was missing, and said that he had AIDS.

Sentorria Butler, Shakespeare's ex-girlfriend and the mother of his child, also testified. Butler told the court last week that Moore is a divisive and manipulative woman who told her Shakespeare "ran off with the lady from the bank."

During the trial, jurors also watched a Walmart surveillance video that the prosecution said links Moore to Shakespeare's killing. The footage shows Moore making a $104 cash purchase of gloves, duct tape, plastic sheeting and other items detectives later found close to where Shakespeare's body was buried.

Jurors hearing the case also heard a rambling two-page letter that witness Greg Smith, a police informant who was a former friend of Shakespeare and supposed friend of Moore, says Moore allegedly forged while at a Comfort Inn & Suites in Lakeland, Fla.

The letter was meant to appear to be from Shakespeare, prosecutors said. They say the letter was a ruse to convince Shakespeare's mother that he was still alive. Moore attempted to cover her tracks while it was written, according to prosecutors.

During the trial, jurors had to be accompanied by a security escort into the courtroom after they told the judge Smith and Shakespeare's family and friends were making them feel uncomfortable outside the courthouse. None of the jurors had to be excused by the judge.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Unknown attackers fire at Cairo protesters, nine hurt

CAIRO (Reuters) - Nine people were hurt when unknown attackers fired at protesters camping at Tahrir Square in central Cairo on Tuesday, according to witnesses and Egyptian media, as opponents and supporters of President Mohamed Mursi's plans to vote on a new constitution geared up for a day of street demonstrations.

Police cars surrounded the square, the first time they had appeared in the area since November 23, shortly after a decree by the Islamist president giving himself sweeping temporary powers touched off widespread protests.

The attackers also threw petrol bombs which started a small fire, witnesses said. Many of the protesters, awakened by the noise, chanted: "The people want the downfall of the regime." Recorded recitations of the Koran were played over speakers in the square.

Leftists, liberals and other opposition groups have called for marches to the presidential palace in the afternoon to protest against the hastily arranged referendum on a new constitution planned for Saturday, which they say is polarizing the country.

Islamists, who dominated the body that drew up the constitution, have urged their followers to turn out "in millions" the same day in a show of support for the president and for a referendum they feel sure of winning and that critics say could put Egypt in a religious straitjacket.

Seven people were killed and hundreds wounded last week in clashes between the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood and opponents besieging Mursi's graffiti-daubed presidential palace.

The elite Republican Guard has yet to use force to keep protesters away from the palace, now ringed with tanks, barbed wire and concrete barricades, but a decree issued by Mursi late on Sunday gives the armed forces the power to arrest civilians during the referendum and until the announcement of the results.

OPPOSITION SAYS MURSI DESTROYING CONSENSUS

Leftist politician Hamdeen Sabahy, one of the most prominent members of the National Salvation Front opposition coalition, said Mursi was driving a wedge between Egyptians and destroying prospects for consensus.

As well as pushing the early referendum, Mursi has angered opponents by taking sweeping temporary powers he said were necessary to secure the country's transition to stability after a popular uprising overthrew autocratic former president Hosni Mubarak 22 months ago.

"The road Mohamed Mursi is taking now does not create the possibility for national consensus," said Sabahy.

If the constitution was passed, he said: "Egypt will continue in this really charged state. It is certain that this constitution is driving us to more political polarization."

The National Salvation Front also includes Nobel Peace Prize laureate Mohamed ElBaradei and former Arab League chief Amr Moussa.

The opposition says the draft constitution fails to embrace the diversity of 83 million Egyptians, a tenth of whom are Christians, and invites Muslim clerics to influence lawmaking.

But debate over the details has largely given way to noisy street protests and megaphone politics, keeping Egypt off balance and ill equipped to deal with a looming economic crisis.

Lamia Kamel, a spokeswoman for Moussa, said the opposition factions were still discussing whether to boycott the referendum or call for a "no" vote.

"Both paths are unwelcome because they really don't want the referendum at all," she said, but predicted a clearer opposition line if the plebiscite went ahead as planned.

Mahmoud Ghozlan, the Muslim Brotherhood's spokesman, said the opposition could stage protests, but should keep the peace.

"They are free to boycott, participate or say no; they can do what they want. The important thing is that it remains in a peaceful context to preserve the country's safety and security."

The army stepped into the conflict on Saturday, telling all sides to resolve their disputes via dialogue and warning that it would not allow Egypt to enter a "dark tunnel".

The continuing disruption is also casting doubts on the government's ability to push through tough economic reforms that form part of a proposed $4.8 billion IMF loan agreement.

(Writing by Edmund Blair; Editing by Will Waterman, Mohammad Zargham and Jim Loney)

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Number of fallen casement windows hits new high

SINGAPORE: The number of fallen windows has risen since 2010, with an average increase of eight to nine cases per year.

There were 50 cases in 2010, 58 cases in 2011 and 67 cases up till November this year.

A joint statement by the Building and Construction Authority (BCA) and Housing and Development Board (HDB) said the increase is largely due to the number of fallen casement windows.

Thirty-seven of them fell from January to November this year, the highest number of incidents compared to the past six years. Most fell as a result of corroded aluminium rivets.

BCA and HDB said these owners would have contravened the Retrofitting Order under the Building Control Act for failing to replace all aluminium rivets with stainless steel rivets.

They can face a penalty of up to S$5,000 and or a jail term of up to six months.

In addition, if a window falls due to lack of maintenance, they could face up to a maximum fine of S$10,000 and or a jail term of up to one year under the Building Maintenance and Strata Management Act.

To date, 113 people have been fined and 35 people prosecuted for fallen casement windows and failing to comply with the Retrofitting Order.

Another 70 have been fined and two prosecuted for fallen sliding windows as a result of failing to maintain the windows.

BCA is also conducting blitz window inspections at HDB blocks and private estates that had previous cases of fallen casement windows.

Out of 100 units that BCA had inspected in Jurong and Jalan Rajah recently, 12 units had not retrofitted their casement windows with stainless steel rivets.

The owners of these units were subsequently issued composition fines.

BCA would like to remind homeowners to take windows safety seriously to prevent them from falling from height.

- CNA/ck

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Congress asks for evidence on Wal-Mart lobbying

NEW DELHI: Criticising the BJP for disrupting the House to score "brownie points", union minister Manish Tewari said on Tuesday that the party should make public any evidence it has on Wal-Mart lobbying in the US to open the way for foreign equity in retail trade in India.

"If the BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) or anybody else has any evidence it should have been made public. Those allegations should have been verified," the information and broadcasting minister told reporters.

Tewari was reacting to the report that Wal-Mart had spent Rs 125 crore on lobbying activities in the US, including on issues related to enhanced market access for investment in India. The issue saw the BJP stalling proceedings in both houses of parliament Tuesday.

"Merely because a report gets published somewhere and it serves your political purpose, it ducktales into your larger agenda because you've lost the FDI vote in both the Houses that does not mean that you translate conjuncture into innuendo and extrapolate innuendo into allegations," he said.

"The BJP has developed a very strange operational methodology, first you make an allegation, then you reiterate the allegation and then you start believing in your own allegation. Before an allegation is made, the facts and circumstances should be verified in their entirety," he added.

He said stalling parliament was not in the interest of the country. "This is what the BJP has been doing in the last three years."

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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.

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

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