Malignant Cells Found, Hugo Chávez to Have Cancer Surgery

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez announced Saturday night that his cancer has returned and that he will undergo another surgery in Cuba.

Mr. Chávez, who won re-election on Oct. 7, also said for the first time that if his health were to worsen, his successor would be Vice President Nicolás Maduro.

“We should guarantee the advance of the Bolivarian revolution,” Mr. Chávez said on television, seated at the presidential palace with Mr. Maduro and other aides.

The president said that tests had shown a return of “some malignant cells” in the same area where tumors were previously removed. He said he would return to Cuba on Sunday to undergo surgery in the coming days.

Mr. Chávez called it a “new battle.” It is to be his third operation to remove cancerous tissue in about a year and a half.

The 58-year-old president first underwent cancer surgery for an unspecified type of pelvic cancer in Cuba in June 2011, after an operation for a pelvic abscess earlier in the month found the cancer. He had another cancer surgery last February after a tumor appeared in the same area. He has also undergone chemotherapy and radiation treatments.

Mr. Chávez made his most recent trip to Cuba on Nov. 27, saying he would receive hyperbaric oxygen treatment. Such treatment is regularly used to help heal tissues damaged by radiation treatment.

He said that he had been coping with pain and that while he was in Cuba thorough exams detected the recurrence of cancer.

He arrived back in Caracas on Friday after 10 days of medical treatment in Cuba, but until Saturday night had not referred to his health. His unexplained decision to skip a summit meeting on Friday of regional leaders in Brazil had raised suspicions among many Venezuelans that his health had taken a turn for the worse.

Mr. Chávez said that he was requesting permission from lawmakers to travel to Havana, and that he hoped to have good news after the surgery.

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Twitter to Start War on Instagram In Time for Christmas

Holidays seem to be Instagram‘s bread and butter, so it makes sense that Twitter would fire their first shot in the war on Instagram when the app is at its most vulnerable. 

RELATED: Why You Can’t See Instagram Photos on Twitter Anymore

If we learned anything from Thanksgiving, it’s that people love to Instagram their holidays. Turkeys, stuffing, table settings: you Amaro’d it all. It was the service’s best day ever. There were 10 million pictures Instagrammed on Thanksgiving. So it’s not a logistical stretch to imagine the holiday season – Hanukkah starts tonight! —  will be big business for Instagram, too. Christmas day will probably be especially big since it combines dinner, like Thanksgiving, and presents. (Also: check your Instagram feed right now and you’re sure to see at least 3 Christmas trees.)

RELATED: Meet the Parade of Greedy Crybabies Who Didn’t Get iPhones for Christmas

And so comes a report from AllThingsD’s Mike Isaac saying Twitter will launch its own photo filters on time for Christmas, likely to try and capitalize on that rush of OMG I got a cool thing! photo-sharing. Instagram stopped their photos from being shown on Twitter, because they want people on their site. The move makes enough sense, because Instagram is owned by Facebook and not Twitter, but it still sucks for the rest of us. The two companies are now in a budding rivalry over photo-sharing, so this is it, it’s war, we guess. 

RELATED: How to Get Over the Twitter-Instagram War on Photos

If you’re having trouble watching these two former friends fight, please read The Atlantic Wire’s Rebecca Greenfield’s guide to getting over it. The holidays is no place for rivalries. Didn’t Jingle All The Way teach you people anything? 

Social Media News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Jason Aldean's Holiday Plans: Visiting Santa with His Kids

By Eileen Finan

12/08/2012 at 06:30 PM EST

Jessica Ussery and Jason Aldean

Bauer-Griffin

After a year of professional highs – and personal lows – Jason Aldean is looking forward to a quiet holiday with family.

"I'm on the road so much during the year, so what I look forward to the most is being home with my family, " he told PEOPLE at the taping of the CMT Artists of the Year special (airing Saturday at 10/9 CT), where he walked the red carpet hand-in-hand with his wife, Jessica.

Aldean says being with Jessica and their daughters – Keeley, 10, and Kendyl, 5 – and doing "things like taking the girls to the mall to shop or to see Santa Claus" are on his holiday must-do list. "Things that simple to me are really cool."

Looking back at 2012, some highlights for the country star include releasing a chart-topping album and playing sold out stadiums.

But Aldean also faced personal hurdles when photos surfaced showing him getting affectionate with another woman. Still, for the singer, who publicly apologized for his behavior, life is good.

"This year, the tour went really well, the album has done really well, and good stuff has definitely outweighed the bad," he says. "All that other stuff is kind of in the past and we're just looking to have a great year in 2013."

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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.

___

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

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More young American adults are leaving the nest

WASHINGTON — After riding out the tough economy in their parents' basements, more young American adults are starting to break out on their own, pushing up the nation's mobility rate and giving an important boost to the housing market and the broader recovery.

Thanks to improving job prospects and super-low mortgage rates, adults in their 20s and early 30s are moving into their own apartments and buying homes in increasingly greater numbers, according to real estate experts and government statistics.

Census Bureau data show that the nation added more than 2 million households in the 12 months that ended March 31, about triple the annual average for the previous four years. Most of the gain came from baby boomers, but young adults are hitting the road as well.

The recession had knocked overall U.S. interstate migration to a post-World War II low, but last year the number of people ages 25 to 29 who moved across state lines reached its highest level in 13 years, said William Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution.

Frey called the shift significant: "They're leading indicators of migration coming for the broader population."

Laurie Brown, 26, said she was "completely broke" when she moved back into her parents' house near Tahoe City, Calif., in early March 2011. She came home with college loans to pay and other debt from bouncing from one place to the next.

"At first, I thought I'd be there only two months," she said.

But Brown soon realized just how tough the job market was. She had a bachelor's degree, magna cum laude, in business communications from George Fox University in Newburg, Ore., but the best she could find after returning home was busing and waiting tables at a restaurant in Tahoe City.

"I was really humbled," she said. "It made me feel like I wasn't an adult, like you're back in high school." Once a week, she got together for happy hour with three high-school buddies who were all in the same boat: college graduates living at home again. "We were kind of a support group," she said.

Then in late April, after finding full-time work at a nonprofit youth development and literacy program in the Tahoe area, Brown moved into an apartment about 15 minutes from her parents' home.

"In some ways it was a blessing in disguise," she said of her 14 months living with her mother and father. Although it was hard at times to adjust, she said, "it was really nice to spend time with my parents. I was able to reconnect with them."

During the recession and slow recovery, young people better educated than their parents' generation have struggled to compete with older workers in a job market with several unemployed people for every opening. That compares with about two people unemployed for every job opening before the 2007-09 recession.

Without sufficient incomes, they delayed getting married and having children, and simply stayed where they could pay little or no rent.

The result was that 2 million more adults ages 18 to 34 were living under their parents' roofs last year than four years earlier, according to an analysis of census data by Timothy Dunne, an economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland.

Over the last year, the jobless rate of those ages 25 to 34 has dropped a little more sharply than it has for the overall population. It fell to 7.9% in November from 9% at the start of the year, compared with a decline to 7.7% from 8.3% for all workers.

"With stronger economic fundamentals, the process will pick up speed," Dunne said. "I think there's pressure. Households can delay formation for only so long."

People tend to move long distances for new jobs.

A week ago, Kevin Ratz, 27, hitched a U-haul to his Ford pickup, loaded the trailer with furniture, stereo equipment and skis, and drove to Chicago.

Ratz left behind his parents' suburban Detroit home, where he had stayed in his childhood room for the last two years. The room was pretty much unchanged, with its sports-car posters on the wall and youth-hockey trophies lining the bookshelf.

One big reason he moved back in with his parents was the weak job market for young pilots. Although he had a degree in aviation from Western Michigan University and some experience as a flight instructor, he found few well-paying openings in the field.

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Bill on Russia Trade Sets Off Acrimony on Rights

WASHINGTON — In theory, the action by Congress this week to make Russia a full trading partner — finally doing away with a 38-year ban that once punished the Soviet Union over its restrictive emigration rules — could have begun a new era of happier ties between former cold war rivals.

Instead, it has set off a burst of ire, as American lawmakers used the opportunity to approve new legislation chastising Russia over its human rights record.

The bill, which President Obama is expected to sign, imposes steep penalties on Russians designated as violators of human rights — barring them from travel to the United States and freezing any financial assets here.

It would also require the administration to develop a list of rights abusers and effectively prevent anyone on it from owning property or doing business in the United States, where many wealthy Russians have maintained substantial assets and investments.

Far from celebrating its new, favored trade status, the Kremlin has reacted with rage, pledging to retaliate with its own restrictions and accusing the United States and its European allies of hypocrisy on the issue of human rights. The Russian Foreign Ministry said it was “strange and wild to hear complaints about us from politicians of a state, which has, in the 21st century, allowed legal torture and abduction of people all over the world.”

In comments posted on the ministry’s Web site on Friday, Foreign Minister Sergey V. Lavrov said that he warned Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton about the consequences of the legislation on Thursday in Dublin, where they met with the United Nations special envoy on Syria, Lakhdar Brahimi. “I confirmed that Russia will refuse entry to its territory to American citizens who are truly guilty of gross violations of human rights,” Mr. Lavrov said.

The bill won praise, however, from some of President Vladimir V. Putin’s most prominent critics — a development that was certain to only further inflame the Kremlin.

“Excellent,” Aleksei Navalny, the anticorruption advocate and political opposition leader, declared in a Twitter post. “I congratulate those who managed this. At least, there is some place in the world where they punish thieves and the murders of our fellow citizens.”

Although passage of the legislation was expected, the new acrimony further imperils a relationship that has been deeply strained in recent months, particularly by disagreements over how to stem the violence in Syria.

The two countries have also been at odds over the American plan for a missile defense system in Europe, as well as Russia’s crackdown on political dissent and on nongovernmental organizations.

The strains have also worsened at a time when the United States wants Russia’s cooperation on numerous other matters, including containing Iran’s nuclear weapons program, as well as maintaining crucial supply routes that will be vital for the withdrawal of American troops and supplies from Afghanistan.

The Russian Foreign Ministry said that if the relationship soured, it was America’s fault. “We do not want to turn away from the positive sides in our bilateral relations, which have been developed in recent years with no small amount of effort,” it said. “But it is necessary to give our assessment that the law approved by the Senate will rather negatively affect the prospects for bilateral cooperation. Responsibility for this, naturally, lies wholly on the U.S.A.”

Other Russian officials noted caustically that the United States was guilty of its own human rights violations, citing abuses in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya, as well as at the terrorist detention center at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and at secret C.I.A. prisons in Europe.

While granting full trade status is a step that stands to benefit American businesses as much if not more than their Russian counterparts, many lawmakers in Washington said that they could not reconcile themselves to normalizing trade relations without holding Mr. Putin’s government accountable for what they described, in scathing terms, as systematic rights abuses, pervasive corruption and disrespect for the rule of law, as well as the suppression of political dissent.

Ellen Barry and Andrew E. Kramer contributed reporting from Moscow.

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Exclusive: Google to replace M&A chief

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Google Inc is replacing the head of its in-house mergers and acquisitions group, David Lawee, with one of its top lawyers, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Don Harrison, a high-ranking lawyer at Google, will replace Lawee as head of the Internet search company‘s corporate development group, which oversees mergers and acquisitions, said the source, who spoke anonymously because he was not authorized to speak publicly.

Google is also planning to create a new late-stage investment group that Lawee will oversee, the source said.

Google declined to comment. Lawee and Harrison could not immediately be reached for comment.

One of the Internet industry’s most prolific acquirers, Google has struck more than 160 deals to acquire companies and assets since 2010, according to regulatory filings. Many of Google’s most popular products, including its online maps and Android mobile software, were created by companies or are based on technology that Google acquired.

Harrison, Google’s deputy general counsel, will head up the M&A group at a time when the company is still in the process of integrating its largest acquisition, the $ 12.5 billion purchase of smartphone maker Motorola Mobility, which closed in May.

And he takes over at a time when the Internet search giant faces heightened regulatory scrutiny, with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission and the European Commission conducting antitrust investigations into Google’s business practices. Several recent Google acquisitions have undergone months of regulatory review before receiving approval.

As deputy general counsel, Harrison has been deeply involved in the company’s regulatory issues and many of its acquisitions. He joined Google more than five years ago and has completed more than 70 deals at the company, according to biographical information on the Google Ventures website.

Harrison is an adviser to Google Ventures, the company’s nearly four-year old venture division which provides funding for start-up companies.

While most of Google’s acquisitions are small and mid-sized deals that do not meet the threshold for disclosure of financial terms, Google has a massive war chest of $ 45.7 billion in cash and marketable securities to fund acquisitions.

Lawee, who took over the M&A group in 2008, has had hits and misses during his tenure. Google shut down social media company Slide one year after acquiring it for $ 179 million, for example.

The planned late-stage investment group has not been finalized, the source said. The fund might operate separately from Google Ventures, according to the source.

“Think of it as a private equity fund inside of Google,” the source said.

The company recently said it would increase the cash it allocates to Google Ventures to $ 300 million a year, up from $ 200 million, potentially helping it invest in later-stage financing rounds.

Google finished Friday’s regular trading session down 1 percent, or $ 6.92, at $ 684.21.

(Reporting By Alexei Oreskovic; editing by Carol Bishopric and Jim Loney)

Wireless News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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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.

___

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

Read More..

After generations of failure, a school and its students head for success

I was prepared for the dog-and-pony show — the choreographed "reveal" of a school makeover that's been in the works for years.

I didn't expect much beyond a grown-up version of show-and-tell. But I came anyway because I have a soft spot for Jordan High in Watts.

I've spent a decade tracking the school's efforts to improve; watched reformers arrive with big plans and leave with broken dreams.

The school's problems, they'd say, are too deep and expensive to fix; too intertwined with a neighborhood that will always be warped by dysfunction and poverty.

But on Wednesday, state schools Supt. Tom Torlakson visited the school with certificates announcing its improvement. Jordan's 93-point jump on the state's academic performance index was the biggest of any urban high school in California this year.

That's why Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa showed up after working "56 hours straight" on trade missions and labor deals. "No way I'd miss this," he said. His Partnership for Los Angeles Schools is the architect of Jordan's reforms.

And it's why philanthropist Melanie Lundquist, whose $50-million contribution keeps the partnership going, showed up ready to celebrate the return on her investment in this city's struggling schools.

We spent the morning visiting classrooms, talking with teachers, oohing and aahing over pristine hallways and perfectly manicured grounds.

But what moved me most was what I heard from students on a campus that, for generations, hasn't been able to shake its "failure" label.

"It used to be 'Why are we here at Jordan?'," said one 12th-grade girl. We knew what she meant:

Their school was nothing but a holding pen. Their neighborhood had been written off. Their lives would never change.

That's how it was for years, she said. "Now everybody is seeing the change, in the school and the community."

::

I don't know that everybody is seeing a difference. "Change" here has been a popular but failed refrain.

Two years ago, the school was failing so persistently, it was essentially dissolved — reconstituted, in edu-speak. Its students and campus were divided between two groups, Green Dot Charter and the mayor's Partnership for Los Angeles Schools.

Both schools on the campus posted gains this year. But the partnership's jump — from 515 to 608 on the state's academic performance index — surprised even its most ardent supporters.

Still, 608 isn't scholar status; scores at the best public high schools are more than 200 points higher. And Jordan isn't out of the woods. Its enrollment dropped this fall, after a charter school with "college" in its name opened up nearby.

The students I talked with understand that Jordan's reputation may be its biggest hurdle. And they intend to change that by succeeding, returning as mentors and spreading the word.

"We know that we're the ones that have to make the difference," said senior Esmeralda Diaz. She was Student of the Month in her chemistry class — for her good work and for helping classmates with theirs.

She's not sold on all the changes at Jordan. She misses the pep rallies, the socializing, the school spirit that disappeared when her campus was divided in half and its student body shrunk.

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North Korea Gets Ready for Launching

SEOUL, South Korea — The name of the satellite that North Korea will attempt to put into orbit as early as next week helps explain why the country’s impoverished regime wanted its own satellite project. Kwangmyongsong, or Shining Star, was also a title for Kim Jong-il — the late father of the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, and the man whose legacy of nuclear and missile programs his son must consolidate to justify his own hereditary rule.

North Korea’s state news media make it clear that the country’s rocket and nuclear programs have become integral to its self-image as a small, poor but militarily powerful country, which bigger nations must placate with economic concessions, and to its ruling party’s claim to political legitimacy. Thus, analysts say, North Korea will push ahead with its plan to launch the satellite despite international warnings of more sanctions.

By Thursday, all three stages of an Unha-3 rocket had been assembled at a launching pad, waiting for fueling, according to South Korean officials. North Korea said the countdown could come as early as Monday.

The timing is urgent for North Korea and tricky for regional powers.

Dec. 17 is the first anniversary of the death of Kim Jong-il, an occasion his son’s government must mark with something it hopes will remind its people of the late leader’s greatness and the success of his son’s leadership. This year is also the 100th anniversary of the birth of Kim Il-sung, Kim Jong-un’s grandfather and the founder of the dynasty, as well as the year North Korea was to have become a “strong and prosperous nation.” Mr. Kim is running out of time to provide some evidence of that achievement.

And “what better time to paint Washington, Seoul, Tokyo and Beijing into a corner with a flare-up that demands crisis-management diplomacy than during leadership transition?” asked Lee Sung-yoon, a North Korea specialist at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University in Massachusetts, referring to elections and leadership changes unfolding in countries with the most at stake in the region.

“For Pyongyang, the perennial problem child in Northeast Asia, it pays to provoke,” Mr. Lee said, noting the North’s longstanding strategy of using military threats to grab the region’s attention and extract concessions.

This will be the second attempt by North Korea to send a satellite named after its late leader into orbit by year’s end. A rocket carrying a Kwangmyongsong satellite exploded in April shortly after takeoff. The mishap embarrassed Mr. Kim before the foreign journalists his government had invited to witness the launching. It also scuttled U.S. aid shipments and invited the comment from the country’s rival, South Korea, that the estimated $900 million Pyongyang had spent in developing and launching the rocket would have been better used to buy food for its hungry people. Mr. Kim hardly needs another embarrassment.

If successful, however, the rocket launching will bolster the claim North Korea made in October that it has missiles capable of reaching the U.S. mainland. Washington has said that the North Korean rocket is essentially a long-range missile minus a warhead, and therefore banned under U.N. resolutions. How close North Korea has come to mastering the technology necessary to deliver a nuclear payload by intercontinental ballistic missile is open to question.

The planned rocket launching comes amid signs that North Korea and Iran, Washington’s two leading proliferation concerns, have been strengthening their ties, including an agreement on scientific and technological cooperation signed in September. Iran said in 2009 that it had succeeded in putting a satellite into orbit with its Safir rocket. The Japanese and South Korean news media reported this week that Iranian specialists were in North Korea to help fix whatever caused the April launch failure.

“It’s time to formally consider the North Korean and Iranian missile development programs as an integrated one: A missile test in Iran helps North Korea, and a missile test in North Korea helps Iran in terms of sharing of test results and improved components,” said John S. Park, a nuclear security researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, adding that Chinese companies have served as intermediaries helping procure and transport components for the two nations.

The North Korean rocket presents one of the first foreign policy tests for Xi Jinping, the new Chinese leader. So far, Beijing appears to be following its standard playbook, not obsessing, publicly at least, over North Korea’s missile threats while encouraging the gradual economic reforms that it hopes will bring progress on denuclearization. The Chinese Foreign Ministry has called on “all sides” to remain “calm and restrained.”

Washington has condemned North Korea’s “highly provocative act.” But the administration of President Barack Obama, who will begin his second term in January, will probably need months to coordinate policy with the new leaderships its allies are in the midst of selecting. Japan is to hold parliamentary elections Dec. 16, and South Korea will elect a president Dec. 19.

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Celebrations planned as Wash. legalizes marijuana

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Intersection near L.A. library named for Ray Bradbury

The intersection of 5th and Flower streets in downtown Los Angeles was designated Ray Bradbury Square by city officials Thursday.

But a better description might be "the intersection of imagination and inspiration," author and producer Steven Paul Leiva told fans of the noted writer who died in June at age 91.

The location, near the front entrance to the Central Library, is a fitting place to honor the author of "The Illustrated Man" and "The Martian Chronicles" because Bradbury was a lifelong supporter of libraries and wrote his early short stories and novels on library typewriters that were available to the public.

"Bradbury couldn't afford to go to college so he went to the public library instead," city Librarian John Szabo told a crowd of more than 100 on hand for the unveiling of the intersection's new signs. "He said he graduated at age 28 from the library."

Said one of Bradbury's daughters, Sue Bradbury Nixon:

"My father would say that the library was his university. He would lecture at libraries for free. He was concerned that without everyone's support libraries would close."

Bradbury's writing career began at age 12 when he met a carnival magician called Mr. Electrico, who touched him with his "electric sword" and caused his hair to stand on in end, which he later described as an epiphany.

"I knew something special had happened in my life," Bradbury would explain.

Those honoring Bradbury on Thursday recalled his poetically spun fantasy and horror tales, some of which reflected his fear that technology was causing humans to lose touch with their souls.

The theme of his 1953 bestseller "Fahrenheit 451," in which a totalitarian government destroys books, was not censorship but how technology such as television was deterring people from reading, he said.

Perhaps because of that fear, Bradbury pounded out his 1,000-word-a-day writing regimen on a typewriter instead of a computer and was reluctant to have his work published as e-books.

Nonetheless, he remained a futurist to the end. Actor Joe Mantegna, who had a role in the 1998 movie "The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit" — based on Bradbury's 1957 short story called "The Magic White Suit" — told the crowd that the author's dream was to have his ashes "put in a Campbell's soup can and sent to Mars."

"He was a science fiction writer who admitted he knew no science," said another friend, fellow science fiction author David Brin. "He couldn't solve an algebra problem. He'd say 'I don't write science fiction. I write fantasy.' But nothing made him happier than sitting next to Walter Cronkite during the moon landing."

Brin joked that Bradbury "nodded" in recognition to City Councilman Jose Huizar, who represents the downtown area, when a gust of wind knocked a large color portrait of him off an easel. It was caught by author Sam Weller, who wrote a 2005 biography of Bradbury.

He said a Fire Department ambulance's siren "saluted" Bradbury as it screamed down Flower Street, momentarily drowning out City Councilman Paul Koretz as he spoke to the crowd.

Although Bradbury was born in Waukegan, Ill., and his family didn't move to Los Angeles until he was 14, the new Ray Bradbury Square signs succinctly describe him as "Author-Angeleno."

bob.pool@latimes.com

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Oscar Niemeyer, Modernist Architect of Brasília, Dies at 104

Eraldo Peres/Associated Press

The Esplanade of Ministries in Brasília features some of the most famous works by the architect Oscar Niemeyer, including the Metropolitan Cathedral, center right. More Photos »

Oscar Niemeyer, the celebrated Brazilian architect whose flowing designs infused Modernism with a new sensuality and captured the imaginations of generations of architects around the world, died on Wednesday in Rio de Janeiro. He was 104.

The medical staff at the Hospital Samaritano in Rio, where he was being treated, said on national television that he died of a respiratory infection. Mr. Niemeyer was among the last of a long line of Modernist true believers who stretch from Le Corbusier and Mies van der Rohe to the architects who defined the postwar architecture of the late 1940s, ’50s and ’60s. He is best known for designing the government buildings of Brasília, a sprawling new capital carved out of the Brazilian savanna that became an emblem both of Latin America’s leap into modernity and, later, of the limits of Modernism’s utopian aspirations.

His curvaceous, lyrical, hedonistic forms helped shape a distinct national architecture and a modern identity for Brazil that broke with its colonial and baroque past. Yet his influence extended far beyond his country. Even his lesser works were a counterpoint to reductive notions of Modernist architecture as blandly functional.

“Brazil lost today one of its geniuses,” Dilma Rousseff, Brazil’s president, said in a statement issued Wednesday night. “Few dreamed so intensely, and accomplished so much, as he did.” Allied with the far left for most of his life, he suffered career setbacks during the rule of Brazil’s right-wing military dictatorships of the 1960s and ’70s, and he was barred from working in the United States during much of the cold war. As Modernism later came under attack for its sometimes dogmatic approach to history, his works were marginalized.

Still, Mr. Niemeyer never stopped working; he churned out major new projects through his 80s and 90s. And as the cold-war divide and architecture’s old ideological battles faded from memory in recent years, a younger generation began embracing his work, intrigued by the consistency of his vision and his ability to achieve voluptuous effects on a heroic scale. For his part, Mr. Niemeyer never wavered from a conviction that, as he once put it, “form follows beauty.”

Oscar Ribeiro de Almeida Niemeyer Soares Filho was born in Rio de Janeiro on Dec. 15, 1907, one of six children of a typographer and his wife. His father owned a graphic arts business, and a grandfather was a judge on the country’s supreme court. A precocious talent, Mr. Niemeyer was trained at the National School of Fine Arts, where he soon drew the attention of its dean, Lucio Costa. Costa was at the center of a small group of architects working to bring the message of Modernist architecture to Brazil.

The timing was ideal. Costa was then designing the Ministry of Education and Health’s headquarters in Rio, and he invited Mr. Niemeyer to join his firm as a draftsman. In 1936, the ministry hired the Swiss-born architect Le Corbusier to contribute ideas for the design. Le Corbusier was already a legend in architecture, and the building would become the first major public project by a Modernist architect in Latin America.

Mr. Niemeyer, one of several draftsmen assigned to the project, absorbed Le Corbusier’s vision of a modern world shaped by the myth of the machine, and drew on the master’s belief in an architecture of abstract forms enlivened by a sensitive use of light and air.

A Vision Emerges

But Mr. Niemeyer was also a self-confident apprentice with a vision of his own; under Costa’s supervision, he made significant changes to Le Corbusier’s scheme. The columns supporting the building’s main office block were more than doubled in height, giving the structure a more slender profile. An auditorium that Le Corbusier had envisioned as a separate structure was tucked under the office block, creating a more compact urban composition.

Shielded from the sun behind rows of elegant baffles, the building had a clean, stripped-down style that made it a sparkling example of classical Modernism while heralding Brazil’s emergence as a vibrant center of experimentation.

Simon Romero contributed reporting from Rio de Janeiro.

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Kate Receives Hospital Visit from Pippa and James

12/05/2012 at 07:30 PM EST

James and Pippa Middleton

Alpha /Landov; Inset:Allpix/ plash News Online

The Duchess of Cambridge had more hospital visitors on Wednesday.

Just two days after husband Prince William, 30, was photographed leaving the King Edward VII Hospital in Central London where a pregnant Kate, 30, was admitted for hyperemesis gravidarum, her sister, Pippa Middleton, brother James and mom Carole (not pictured), also dropped by to keep the mom-to-be company.

Pippa was bundled up in a coat, sporting a tan-colored ensemble, while her brother was casually dressed in jeans and layered tops.

The Palace announced the Duchess's pregnancy Monday in a statement. "Their Royal Highnesses The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge are very pleased to announce that The Duchess of Cambridge is expecting a baby," it said. "The Queen, The Duke of Edinburgh, The Prince of Wales, The Duchess of Cornwall and Prince Harry and members of both families are delighted with the news."

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Study could spur wider use of prenatal gene tests

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Online:

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

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Marilynn Marchione can be followed at http://twitter.com/MMarchioneAP

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Expect Democrats to be robust, not reticent, in wielding power

SACRAMENTO — With their new supermajority power, Democratic legislative leaders promise they won't overreach. But bet on this: They'll reach just as far as they believe is safe.

"Yeah, you're darn right," Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento) told me.

Democrats achieved a historic two-thirds-plus majority in both legislative houses on election day. That's enough muscle to pass anything without Republican support, including constitutional amendments, which can be placed on a ballot without the governor's signature.

A two-thirds majority also can override any gubernatorial veto. But that's not likely to happen much, if at all. California governors possess extraordinary power to reward and punish.

But Democratic legislators do feel a responsibility — an obligation — to push their liberal constituents' agendas while they have an opportunity. The electorate did, after all, arm them with these supermajorities. Why squander the power?

This doesn't mean raising taxes immediately after voters approved Gov. Jerry Brown's Proposition 30. In fact, Steinberg quickly stomped on one Democratic senator, Ted Lieu of Torrance, after Lieu proposed tripling the vehicle license fee back to its former level.

Steinberg has been widely quoted as observing: "The voters do not want us to burst out of the gate to raise more taxes."

"We get the overreach warning," he told senators at their swearing-in last week. "We acknowledge it."

But he also said this, which hasn't been much quoted:

"Frankly, I think you can focus too much on overreach because there is an equally compelling danger. It is the danger of being so cautious, so worried about creating controversy that we fail to take advantage of unprecedented opportunities.

"Power is by definition fleeting. Misuse it and you'll lose. Fail to use it and it withers away."

Steinberg told a story — conservatives might call it a "bleeding heart" tale — about visiting a "dental fair" after the last legislative session. Volunteer dentists were caring for poor people. In 2009, the Legislature stripped them of Medi-Cal dental coverage while trying to close a $42-billion budget deficit.

"What I saw I will never forget," the Senate leader said. "Endless lines…. Working Californians, many of them…. They had gone years without any dental care and needed surgery for dental abscesses, needed a root canal, people who had lost their teeth and wanted reconstructive surgeries so that they could go out and apply for a job with pride."

Restoring dental care for the poor is the type of spending-reach that Democrats probably will — and should — attempt.

Steinberg and Assembly Speaker John A. Pérez (D-Los Angeles) were both happy-talking as the Legislature convened.

"We have eliminated the structural deficit that has plagued California for years," Perez told Assembly colleagues, a bit premature in announcing an end to red ink. He added that legislators were in position "to pursue the long-term investments and planning that will usher in the next great era of California's history."

Steinberg said: "One difficult era is ending in California, and now a new and better era is beginning."

That optimism is a reflection of a gradually improving California economy and a recent report by nonpartisan Legislative Analyst Mac Taylor, the Legislature's fiscal guru. He projected a relatively minor deficit of $1.9 billion for the next budget year, down from nearly $13 billion a year ago.

Taylor cautiously projected surpluses starting in 2014, with a caveat: "If a steady economic recovery continues and the Legislature and the governor keep a tight rein on state spending."

All bets are off if Washington politicians allow the nation to fall off the so-called cliff into another recession. Surely one side will blink.

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Dispute Flares Over Energy Exploration in South China Sea

BEIJING — China and two of its neighbors, Vietnam and India, were locked in a new dispute on Tuesday over energy exploration in the South China Sea, a signal that Beijing plans to continue its hard line in the increasingly contentious waterway.

Vietnam accused a Chinese fishing boat of cutting a seismic cable attached to one of its vessels exploring for oil and gas near the Gulf of Tonkin, an act apparently intended to inhibit Vietnam from pursuing energy deposits.

Vietnam said Tuesday that in retaliation, it would send out new patrols, which would include the marine police, to guard against increasing encroachment by Chinese fishing boats in the South China Sea. India, which operates several joint ventures with Vietnam’s national energy company, Petro Vietnam, said it would consider sending navy vessels to protect its interests in the South China Sea.

The latest episode followed an announcement by Hainan Province in southern China last week that Chinese vessels would board and search ships in contested areas of the waterway, which includes vital shipping lanes through which more than a third of global trade moves.

The new tensions among China, Vietnam and India illustrate in stark terms the competition in the South China Sea for what are believed to be sizable deposits of oil and gas.

Some energy experts in China see the sea as an important new energy frontier close to home that could make China less dependent on its huge oil imports from the Middle East.

On Monday, China’s National Energy Administration named the South China Sea as the main offshore site for natural gas production. Within two years, China aims to produce 150 billion cubic meters of natural gas from fields in the sea, a significant increase from the 20 billion cubic meters produced so far, the agency said.

Earlier this year, China’s third-largest energy company, the state-owned China National Offshore Oil Corporation, began drilling with a rig in deep water in nondisputed waters off the southern coast of China.

The escalation in the South China Sea comes less than a month after Xi Jinping took office as China’s leader. Mr. Xi appears to have taken a particular interest in the South China Sea and the serious dispute between China and Japan over the islands known as Diaoyu in China and as Senkaku in Japan. Whether any of China’s most recent actions in the South China Sea were associated with Mr. Xi was not clear.

But Mr. Xi does lead a small group of policy makers clustered in the Maritime Rights Office, which serves to coordinate agencies within China, according to Zhu Feng, a professor of international relations at Peking University, and other Chinese experts. The unit is part of the office of the Foreign Affairs Leading Small Group, Mr. Zhu said. The leading small group, now headed by Mr. Xi, is widely believed to be China’s central policy-making group.

China’s Foreign Ministry reiterated on Tuesday that China opposed oil and gas development by other countries in disputed waters of the sea. China maintains that it has “undisputed” sovereignty over the South China Sea, and that only China is allowed to develop the energy resources.

“We hope that concerned countries respect China’s position and rights,” said the Foreign Ministry spokesman, Hong Lei.

Vietnam, which has long been wary of China but enjoys a relationship through its governing Communist Party, summoned the Chinese ambassador on Monday to protest the cutting of the seismic cable, the Vietnamese news media reported.

A Web site run by Petro Vietnam, the oil company, reported that the company’s exploration vessel Binh Minh 02 had its seismic cable severed by a Chinese fishing vessel on Friday. In May 2011, the Vietnamese authorities said a similar cable of the Binh Minh 02 was cut by three Chinese surveillance ships, resulting in weeks of anti-China protests in Hanoi.

In its decree on the new patrols, Vietnam said that civilian ships, supported by the marine police and a border force, would be deployed starting next month to stop foreign vessels that violate fishing laws in waters claimed by Vietnam.

A senior official of Petro Vietnam, Pham Viet Dung, was quoted in the Vietnamese news media as saying that large numbers of Chinese fishing boats, many of them substantial vessels, had recently entered waters claimed by Vietnam. The fishing vessels interfered with the operations of the oil company, he said.

India, whose state-run oil company, the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation, has a 45 percent interest in exploration with Petro Vietnam, also reacted strongly.

The head of the Indian Navy, Adm. D. K. Joshi, said that India was prepared to send navy vessels to protect its interests in the sea. “Now, are we preparing for it? Are we having exercises of that nature? The short answer is ‘yes,’ ” Admiral Joshi told reporters in India.

The most recent moves by China in the South China Sea have not won total support at home. Mr. Zhu, the professor, said he did not believe that China had become more assertive in the South China Sea.

But, he said, “the cable cutting is really unfriendly.”

Bree Feng contributed reporting.

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The Voice Reveals Top Four Contestants

TV Watch

By Julia Haskins

12/04/2012 at 09:35 PM EST

The Voice"'s top six contestants were under double pressure Monday night when they had to sing two songs each. But there was even more stress at Tuesday's elimination.

"It went as well as it could have gone," Team Blake's Terry McDermott said on Monday of his performances of "I Want to Know What Love Is" and Rod Stewart's "Stay with Me." "There was a lot of pressure stripping a song down, but it worked to my advantage."

"I felt good," said Team Cee Lo's Trevin Hunte, who performed "Walking on Sunshine" and Jennifer Hudson's "And I Am Telling You (I'm Not Going)." "I'm confident. I feel like I've really grown. I'm definitely happy with my performance. I just want to see how America votes."

His chance came Tuesday when he and McDermott stood alongside competitors Nicholas David (Team Cee Lo), Cassadee Pope (Team Blake), Melanie Martinez and Amanda Brown (both Team Adam) to hear host Carson Daly reveal the voting results. Keep reading to find out ...

America saved McDermott, Hunte and Pope, but Martinez said goodbye to the competition for good. "I love all of you who have supported me," she said to her fans. "I'm just so grateful for you."

Brown also met the same fate, making David the final member of the top four.

The semi-final show airs Monday at 8:00 p.m. on NBC.

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Study: Drug coverage to vary under health law

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

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

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

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

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

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Online:

Avalere Health: http://tinyurl.com/d3b3hfv

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L.A. police seek owners of 11,000 pieces of stolen jewelry

Gold earrings, diamond studs, wedding rings and designer watches sparkled like a jeweler's cabinet at a shopping mall — and there's more where that came from, police said.

On Tuesday, Los Angeles Police Department Sgt. Matt Plugge displayed more than 11,000 stolen items at the Valley Bureau headquarters, showing them off more like a high-end jeweler than a law enforcement official.

Plugge said he is now seeking to reunite some pieces with their rightful owners.

"They come from hundreds of homes," Plugge said. "It is not so much the value here but that sentimental value. We're talking wedding rings, pieces of family jewelry with all the emotions attached. These are special items to someone."

The valuables were stolen in hundreds of so-called knock-knock burglaries in which the brazen thieves would knock on the door and bust in when no one answered. They could ransack the home for valuables in a few minutes.

As the San Fernando Valley and L.A.'s Westside saw a surge in home burglaries early this year, authorities created a task force to help catch the crafty crooks.

Investigators have arrested more than 55 suspected burglars and more than a dozen alleged associates, including two suspected fences who knowingly bought the stolen merchandise, Police Det. Joe Esquivel said. Many of the suspects arrested are active gang members who also allegedly stole a variety of guns, police said.

In many cases, burglars turned the stolen booty into cash within hours, police said

"We'd catch them dividing up the cash in the parking lot of the fence," Plugge said. "The fences quickly split the jewels from the gold. We found multiple gold bars we suspect were once jewelry."

Informants and undercover surveillance led detectives to two suspected fences who owned several stores in downtown L.A. At Fine Silver Max's Jewelry and Guadalajara Jewelry on South Broadway, detectives in September recovered many items and arrested two store operators.

Burglary and armed robbery suspects were observed repeatedly engaging in hasty transactions that were so frequent that investigators said they saw one burglary crew finish up its business as another arrived.

Both stores ignored a city law requiring secondhand stores and pawnshops to obtain a fingerprint and record a form of identification when exchanging personal property for cash.

Fine Silver Max's operator, Ismael Monje, who owned two nearby electronic businesses, was also charged with nine counts, including identity theft and receiving of stolen property, said Sandi Gibbons, spokeswoman for the district attorney's office.

Farshad Yaghoobi, owner of Guadalajara Jewelry, was arrested on suspicion of receiving stolen goods at his Beverly Hills home but has not yet been charged.

About 50 people have come forward to identify their items since images were placed on the LAPD website.

"We are asking people to contact us and provide some proof it is their item," Plugge said.

That would include a police report, appraisal, a receipt or a picture of them wearing it.

Photos of the property can be found at http://www.lapdonline.org. Type "fence burglaries" into the search box and a link will appear to the hundreds of photos. If you see a piece that is yours, send an email to lapdvctf@lapd.lacity.org or call (818) 644-8091.

richard.winton@latimes.com

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Syrian Government Beset by Battles and Diplomatic Setbacks

Narciso Contreras/Associated Press

A kitchen in a residence in Aleppo, Syria, damaged Sunday in fighting between Free Syrian Army fighters and government forces.

BEIRUT, Lebanon — Fierce fighting on the battlefield and setbacks on the diplomatic front increased pressure on the embattled Syrian government on Monday as fresh signs emerged of a worsening battle for control of the capital.

A senior Turkish official said that Russia had agreed on Monday to a new diplomatic approach that would seek ways to persuade President Bashar al-Assad to relinquish power, a possible weakening in Russia’s steadfast support for the government. Fighting raged around Damascus, the Syrian capital, and its airport, disrupting commercial flights for a fourth straight day.

A prominent Foreign Ministry spokesman was said to have left the country amid reports of his defection, and both President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton issued warnings that any use of chemical weapons by a desperate government would be met with a strong international response. A Western diplomat confirmed that there were grave concerns in United States intelligence circles that Syrian leaders could resort to the use of the weapons as their position deteriorates.

The Syrian Foreign Ministry, repeating earlier statements, told state television that the government “would not use chemical weapons, if it had them, against its own people under any circumstances.”

The United Nations said it was withdrawing nonessential international staff from Syria, and the European Union said it was reducing activities in Damascus “to a minimum,” as security forces pummeled the suburbs with artillery and airstrikes in a struggle to seal off the city from its restive outskirts and control the airport road. A senior Russian official spoke for the first time in detail about the possibility of evacuating Russian citizens.

Mr. Assad has held on longer than many had predicted at the start of the 21-month uprising. He still has a strong military advantage and undiminished support from his closest ally, Iran. Military analysts doubt the rebels are capable of taking Damascus by force, and one fighter interviewed on Monday said the government counteroffensive was inflicting heavy losses. There were still no firm indications from Russia that it was ready to join Turkey and Western nations in insisting on Mr. Assad’s immediate departure.

But the latest grim developments follow a week of events that suggested the Assad government was being forced to fight harder to keep its grip on power. Rebels threatened its vital control of the skies, using surface-to-air missiles to down a fighter plane and other aircraft. The opposition also gained control of strategic military bases and their arsenals, and forced the government to shut down the Damascus airport periodically. The Internet was off for two days.

A Russian political analyst with contacts at the Foreign Ministry said that “people sent by the Russian leadership” who had contact with Mr. Assad two weeks ago described a man who has lost all hope of victory or escape.

“His mood is that he will be killed anyway,” Fyodor Lukyanov, editor of a Russian foreign affairs journal and the head of an influential policy group, said in an interview in Moscow, adding that only an “extremely bold” diplomatic proposal could possibly convince Mr. Assad that he could leave power and survive.

“If he will try to go, to leave, to exit, he will be killed by his own people,” Mr. Lukyanov said, speculating that security forces dominated by Mr. Assad’s minority Alawite sect would not let him depart and leave them to face revenge. “If he stays, he will be killed by his opponents. He is in a trap. It is not about Russia or anybody else. It is about his physical survival.”

Many observers — United Nations personnel in Syria, Arab diplomats and opposition activists — stress that it is difficult to reliably assess the state of the government. But taken together, the day’s events suggested that the government’s position was declining more sharply than it had in months and that an international scramble to find a solution to the crisis was intensifying.

Nabil al-Araby, the head of the Arab League, said on Monday that the government could fall at “any time,” Agence France-Presse reported.

“I think there will be something soon,” he said. “Facts on the ground indicate very clearly now that the Syrian opposition is gaining, politically and militarily.”

The Arab League has long called for Mr. Assad to step down. But Russia, Mr. Assad’s most powerful ally, has held out the possibility of his staying in power during a transition, so the Russian government’s apparent shift of emphasis carried more weight.

Anne Barnard reported from Beirut, Lebanon, and Ellen Barry from Moscow. Reporting was contributed by Sebnem Arsu in Istanbul, Peter Baker in Washington, Hwaida Saad, Neil MacFarquhar and Hania Mourtada in Beirut and Christine Hauser in New York.

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‘The Daily’ doomed by dull content and isolation

LOS ANGELES (AP) — It was too expensive. It lacked editorial focus. And for a digital publication, it was strangely cut off from the Internet. That’s the obituary being written in real time through posts, tweets and online chats about The Daily, the first-of-its-kind iPad newspaper that is being shut down this month.

Rupert Murdoch‘s News Corp. said Monday that The Daily will publish its final issue on Dec. 15, less than two years after its January 2011 launch. The app has already been removed from Apple’s iTunes, where it once received lukewarm ratings.

The Daily had roughly 100,000 subscribers who paid either 99 cents a week or $ 40 a year for its daily download of journalism tailored for touch screens. But that wasn’t enough to sustain some 100 employees and millions of dollars in losses since its launch. At the time of its debut, News Corp. said The Daily’s operating costs would amount to about half a million dollars a week, or around $ 26 million a year.

When News Corp. launched The Daily, it was touted as a bold experiment in new media. The company hired top-name journalists from other publications, such as the New York Post’s former Page Six editor, Richard Johnson, and said it poured $ 30 million into the newspaper’s launch. Now, the company is acknowledging that The Daily no longer has a place at News Corp., which is being split in two to separate its publishing enterprises from its TV and movie businesses.

Murdoch said in a statement that News Corp. “could not find a large enough audience quickly enough to convince us the business model was sustainable in the long-term.” Some employees are being hired in other parts of the company.

Critics say The Daily’s day-to-day mix of news, opinion and info-graphics wasn’t that different from content available for free on the Internet. And despite a high-profile launch that drew lots of media attention, the publication failed to build a distinctive brand. There was no ad campaign touting its coverage and stories weren’t accessible to non-subscribers, so it didn’t benefit from buzz that comes from social networks like Twitter and Facebook.

Trevor Butterworth, who wrote a weekly column for The Daily called “The Information Society,” says the disconnect between the app and the broader Internet curtailed its reach. He was laid off in July when the publication shrank from 170 workers to about 120. As part of the purge, The Daily cut its dedicated opinion section and dropped sports coverage in favor of using a feed from its News Corp. sister outfit, Fox Sports.

“Stories weren’t widely shared or widely known,” says Butterworth. “It felt like I was writing into the void.”

When it launched, The Daily was meant to take advantage of the explosion of tablet computer sales, and the notion that people generally read on them in the morning or evening, like a magazine.

But each issue came in a giant file — sometimes 1 gigabyte large — and took 10 or 15 minutes to download over a broadband connection, which is unheard of for news apps, says Matt Haughey, the founder of MetaFilter.com, one of the first community blogs on the Internet.

Because the stories weren’t linkable, The Daily didn’t benefit from new Internet traffic that would have come from content aggregators like Flipboard and Tumblr.

“They ignored the obvious, which was the Web,” Haughey says. Although many people are foregoing buying a laptop for the lightweight convenience of a tablet, the day hasn’t arrived yet when all online access will come through apps rather than the Web. “Maybe in five or 10 years, the Web will be less important,” he says. “For now it seems like they were missing out.”

It may also have been a problem that News Corp. launched The Daily from scratch into an environment where readers tend to gravitate toward trusted sources and established brands. According to a 2011 Pew Research Center survey, 84 percent of mobile device users said a news app’s brand was a major factor in deciding whether to download it.

One of the intangible challenges The Daily had was standing out in a sea of online journalism, both paid and free. Some national newspapers, such as The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, have carved out a niche with informed coverage of sometimes complex topics and have gained paying digital subscribers by limiting the number of free articles they offer online.

Gannett Co., which publishes USA Today and about 80 other newspapers, has succeeded in raising circulation revenue at local papers by putting up so-called online “pay walls,” taking advantage of the fact that there are few alternative sources of coverage for certain communities.

Without a unique coverage niche or a local monopoly, The Daily was caught between two worlds.

By being digital-only, the publication didn’t have a defined coverage area. It was “in competition with everybody and everything,” says Joshua Benton, director of the Nieman Journalism Lab at Harvard University. Yet it failed to carve out its own niche in that larger universe, he says.

“Its lack of editorial focus played a role,” Benton notes. “It was sort of a pleasant, middle-brow, slightly tabloidy mix of news and features. And there’s lots of that available for free online. I would imagine if ‘The Daily’ were starting again now, they would invest more in establishing their brand identity early on.”

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PHOTO: See Molly Mesnick's Baby Belly

Noah Graham

Happy holidays! Celebrities gathered to celebrate the season Saturday, attending the Second Annual Santa’s Secret Workshop in West Hollywood, Calif. Presented by Bill Horn and Scout Masterson and held at the Andaz Hotel, the event benefitted L.A. Family Housing.

Among the revelers: Bachelor alums Jason and Molly Mesnick — whose first child together is due in March — attending their first event since announcing the happy news.

“I’m just about six months and feeling really good,” Molly tells PEOPLE.

“I’m at a perfect stage now so I’m trying to get as much done around the house as I possibly can while I have the energy.”

Also in attendance? Tori Spelling, Malin Akerman, Tiffani Thiessen, Ali Landry, David Boreanaz, Marla Sokoloff, Kaitlin Olson and Rob McElhenney, Angela Bassett, Ian Ziering, Amanda Righetti, Marshall and Jamie Anne Allman, Kimberly Van Der Beek, Spencer Grammer and more.

Guests enjoyed manicures from Mom.me, cookie decorating with Jenny Cookies, photos with Santa from HP, create-a-card with Snapfish.com, and a craft bar from Jo-Ann Fabrics and Crafts.

Styled by Sybarite Designs, the event featured companies such as  SodaStream, Corolle, Stokke, Orbit Baby, Ergo Baby, Teddy Needs a Bath, Funktion, Numi Numi Design, Ju-Ju-Be, Innobaby and Joovy showcasing their latest products — be sure to enter this week’s giveaway for a chance to win them all!

Noah Graham

It was a family affair for Tori Spelling, who brought the whole gang for their first public event since 3-month-old Finn‘s birth in August.

Joining the actress, husband Dean McDermott and their newborn are Hattie, 13 months, Stella, 4, and Liam, 5½.

“I’m not going to lie. It’s a little crazy. It’s hard work,” Spelling tells PEOPLE.

“I think three was safe. Four tips you over the edge a little bit. Maybe it’s because they’re 10 months apart — but we’re so blessed. It keeps you on your toes.”

Noah Graham

With her first child on the way in April, Malin Akerman was all smiles at the event, posing with her growing belly.

“I’m feeling great,” the actress tells PEOPLE. “I’m closing in on five months now so it’s getting more and more exciting as time goes by.”

Noah Graham

White Collar star Tiffani Thiessen gave 2-year-old daughter Harper Renn a leg up at the event.

On the Landry-Monteverde family’s list? Meeting Santa! PEOPLE.com blogger Ali Landry held 13-month-old son Marcelo Alejandro while husband Alejandro Monteverde snuggled in behind 5-year-old daughter Estela Ines.

Noah Graham

Tiffany Rose/WireImage

Ravishing redhead Amanda Righetti showed off her growing belly at the event — The Mentalist star is due this winter with her first child.

Noah Graham

No Bones about it – David Boreanaz‘s children look like him! The actor and wife Jaime Bergman brought kids Jaden, 10, and Bella, 3, to meet Santa.

Always Sunny in Philadelphia stars Kaitlin Olson and Rob McElhenney brought their elder son Axel, 2, to the event, but little Leo, 7 months, sat this one out.

Tiffany Rose/WireImage

Noah Graham

Meeting Santa was twice as nice for Angela Bassett and Courtney B. Vance, who brought along their 6-year-old twins Bronwyn Golden and Slater Josiah (peace out, dude).

Tiffany Rose/WireImage

Who cares about photos — it’s time for a snack! PEOPLE.com blogger Kimberly Van Der Beek gives 2-year-old daughter Olivia (plus her doll!) a lift.

Picture perfect! Ian Ziering gets daughter Mia, 19 months, in the frame while enjoying the craft table. The actor and wife Erin expect their second child in May.

Meagan Reidinger

Meagan Reidinger

With a baby doll in tow, PEOPLE.com blogger Marla Sokoloff and her little lady, 9-month-old Elliotte, check out the event.

Spencer Grammer arrived with her main men — husband James Hesketh and their son, 13-month-old Emmett.

Tiffany Rose/WireImage

Tiffany Rose/WireImage

The event was a baby bump debut for Marshall and Jamie Anne Allman as well — the True Blood and Killing stars just announced that they’re expanding their family — by two. Twins are on the way this spring!

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