Mall Gunman Wanted to Kill 'Total Strangers'

The masked gunman who opened fire in the crowded Clackamas Town Center mall in suburban Portland, Ore., killing two and seriously injuring a third before killing himself, was trying to "kill as many people as possible."

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

Police have identified the gunman, but have not released his name, Sheriff Craig Roberts told "Good Morning America."

"We have been able to identify the shooter over this last night," Roberts said. "I believe, at least from the information that's been provided to me at this point in time, it really was a killing of total strangers. To my knowledge at this point in time he was really trying, I think, to kill as many people as possible."

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

The injured victim, identified by hospital officials as Kristina Shevchenko, has been taken to a hospital, according to Roberts.

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Nadia Telguz, who said she was a friend of Shevchenko, 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."

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.

By 4:40 p.m., police reported finding a group of people hiding in a storeroom. In a surreal moment, even the mall Santa was seen running for his life.

"I didn't know where the gunman was, so I decided to kind of eased my way out," said the mall Santa, who the AP identified as 68-year-old Brance Wilson.

More than 10,000 shoppers were at the mall during the day, according to police. 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 the FBI and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms are working with local agencies to trace the shooter's weapon.

Cell phone video shot at the scene shows the chaos soon after the shooting. When police arrived they were met head on by terrified shoppers, children and employees streaming out. Customers, even a little girl, were being lead out with their hands up.

"I think a variety of things happened that I think this could have been much, much worse," Roberts told "GMA." "And to give you some ideas, we got the call at 3:29, we had someone on scene within a minute, 30 seconds.

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Nine hurt as gunmen fire at Cairo protesters

CAIRO (Reuters) - Nine people were hurt when gunmen fired at protesters camping in Cairo's Tahrir Square on Tuesday, according to witnesses and Egyptian media, as the opposition called for a major demonstration it hopes will force President Mohamed Mursi to postpone a referendum on a new constitution.

Supporters of the Islamist leader, who want the vote to go ahead as planned on Saturday, were also gathering in the capital, setting the stage for further street confrontations in a political crisis that has divided the Arab world's most populous nation.

Police cars surrounded Tahrir Square in central Cairo, the first time they had appeared in the area since November 23, shortly after a decree by Mursi awarding himself sweeping temporary powers that touched off widespread protests.

The upheaval following the fall of Hosni Mubarak last year is causing concern in the West, in particular the United States, which has given Cairo billions of dollars in military and other aid since Egypt made peace with Israel in 1979.

The Tahrir Square attackers, some masked, also threw petrol bombs which started a small fire, witnesses said.

"The masked men came suddenly and attacked the protesters in Tahrir. The attack was meant to deter us and prevent us from protesting today. We oppose these terror tactics and will stage the biggest protest possible today," said John Gerges, a Christian Egyptian who described himself as a socialist.

The latest bout of unrest has so far claimed seven lives in clashes between the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood and opponents who are also besieging Mursi's presidential palace.

POLICE POWERS

The elite Republican Guard which protects the palace has yet to use force to keep protesters away from the graffiti-daubed building, now ringed with tanks, barbed wire and concrete barricades.

The army has told all sides to resolve their differences through dialogue, saying it would not allow Egypt to enter a "dark tunnel". For the period of the referendum, the army has been granted police powers by Mursi, allowing it to arrest civilians.

The army has portrayed itself as the guarantor of the nation's security but so far it has shown no appetite for a return to the bruising front-line political role it played after the fall of Mubarak, which severely damaged its standing.

Leftists, liberals and other opposition groups have called for marches to the presidential palace later on Tuesday to protest against the hastily arranged constitutional referendum planned for Dec 15, which they say is polarising the country and could put it in a religious straightjacket.

Mohamed ElBaradei, a prominent opposition leader and Nobel prize winner, called for dialogue with Mursi and said the referendum should be postponed for a couple of months due to the chaotic situation.

"This revolution was not staged to replace one dictator with another," he said in an interview with CNN.

Outside the presidential palace, anti-Mursi protesters huddled together in front of their tents, warming themselves beside a bonfire in the winter air.

"The referendum must not take place. The constitution came after blood was spilt. This is not how a country should be run," said Ali Hassan, a man in his 20s.

Opposition leaders want the referendum to be delayed and hope they can get sufficiently large numbers of protesters on the streets to change Mursi's mind.

Islamists, who dominated the body that drew up the constitution, have urged their followers to turn out "in millions" in a show of support for the president and for a referendum they feel sure of winning.

OPPONENTS ANGERED

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 extra powers he said were necessary to secure the transition to stability after the uprising that overthrew Mubarak 22 months ago.

"The road Mohamed Mursi is taking now does not create the possibility for national consensus," said Sabahy. He forecast polarisation if constitution were passed.

The National Salvation Front also includes 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 street protests and megaphone politics, keeping Egypt off balance and ill equipped to deal with a looming economic crisis.

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

(Writing by Edmund Blair and Giles Elgood; Editing by Peter Graff and Janet McBride)

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Injured Navy serviceman expected to be in ICU for a few days: CGH

SINGAPORE: Changi General Hospital (CGH) said on Tuesday that Navy serviceman ME2 Jason Chee Weng Fai is still in critical condition and is expected to be in the Intensive Care Unit for a few days.

The hospital says Mr Chee has undergone surgery and is in the process of recovery.

The Weapon Systems Supervisor was injured on Monday when he got caught between a motorised winch and a rope on the Landing Ship Tank RSS Endeavour.

The serviceman was checking on a berthing rope that was being tightened when the incident happened.

The Singapore Armed Forces has said that it is investigating the cause of the incident.

- CNA/jc

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Households likely to get 9 subsidized LPG cylinders a year

NEW DELHI: The government will raise the cap on supply of subsidized cooking gas (LPG) to nine cylinders per household in a year from current restriction of six, oil minister M Veerappa Moily said.

"I think it is likely to go up definitely from six (cylinders) to 9 (cylinders)," he told reporters here.

The government had in September capped supply of subsidized LPG to six cylinders per household in a year. Any additional requirement is to be bought at market price of Rs 931 per 14.2-kg bottle.

Subsidized LPG costs Rs 410.50 per cylinder at present. Moily said the decision to raise the cap will be taken by the Cabinet "very shortly".

The original decision to cap supply at 6 cylinders was taken by the Cabinet committee on political affairs on September 13 and the decision to raise it would also have to be taken by the Cabinet panel, he said.

"I think as early as possible," he added. Moily said he has had two rounds of discussions with finance minister P Chidambaram on the impact of the decision to raise the cap.

The government will have to provide an additional Rs 9,000 crore annually if the cap is raised.

"We are working on that," he said on ways to mitigate the additional subsidy requirement. "We are working on certain formula to neutralise it," Moily said.

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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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Closing Tax Loopholes Not Enough to Avert 'Cliff'?

Closing "corporate tax loopholes" sure sounds good to the average, non-corporate American -- so good, in fact, that politicians talk about it all the time.

House Speaker John Boehner's fiscal-cliff proposal purports to raise $1.6 trillion in revenue by "clos[ing] special-interest loopholes and deductions while lowering rates."

The White House, meanwhile, has complained that Boehner hasn't offered specific loopholes to cut.

On the other side of the aisle, House Democrats have repeatedly offered up "closing overseas tax loopholes" as a means to pay for spending bills -- a plan Republicans routinely reject. In the last two and a half years, President Obama has often been heard griping about writeoffs for corporate jets.

For both Republicans and Democrats, "corporate tax loopholes" are an old saw. But, like most things in politics, raising revenue from "loopholes" gets a bit stickier when the specifics are hashed out.

A misconception about tax "loopholes," some experts say, is that they're loopholes -- gaps in the tax law that corporations have exploited against the law's intent.

Carolyn Kaster/AP Photo; Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP Photo

Fiscal Cliff Battle: President Obama vs. Speaker John Boehner Watch Video

"Most of these proposals were not 'loopholes,' these were incentives," said Eric Toder, co-director of the left-leaning Tax Policy Center.

For example, take the research-and-development tax credit. During the campaign, both Obama and Mitt Romney suggested making it permanent.

"One wouldn't call the research credit a loophole," Toder said.

Cashing in by closing the biggest "loopholes" could be a politically fraught endeavor. To generate meaningful revenue, House Republicans would have to sign off on measures that raised it from taxing the overseas profits of multinational corporations, from ending immediate writeoffs of equipment purchases, or from ending a credit for domestic manufacturing.

When the Joint Committee on Taxation scored some of these provisions, as part of a tax-reform bill pushed by Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden and then-GOP-senator Judd Gregg, it found the government could save significantly:

Savings Over 10 Years: 2011-2021

Taxing Overseas Profits of Multinational Corps: $582.7 billion. In other words, the "overseas tax loophole" Democrats are fond of trashing. While most countries with large economies tax only profits made at home, the U.S. code taxes all income everywhere. To offset the different, U.S. multinational corporations receive credits to prevent double taxing. They also can defer paying any tax on foreign income, until they transfer the money back to the United States.

Taxing that profit could generate significant revenue. But this could be controversial, and large corporations would fight it. A senior aide to one business lobbying group said ending foreign-income deferral would amount to double-taxing U.S. companies and put them at a disadvantage to foreign competitors; one supporter of ending deferral suggested U.S. companies have been able to hide profits overseas, avoiding taxes altogether.

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Egypt's Mursi gives troops security role in referendum

CAIRO (Reuters) - Egypt's Islamist president has given the army temporary power to arrest civilians to help secure a constitutional referendum seen by the Muslim Brotherhood as a triumph for democracy and by its liberal foes as a religious straitjacket.

President Mohamed Mursi, bruised by the political uproar in which protesters have besieged his graffiti-besmirched palace to demand his downfall, has rescinded a November 22 decree giving him wide powers, but has not budged on the referendum date.

A decree issued by Mursi late on Sunday means the armed forces can arrest civilians and refer them to prosecutors until the results of the referendum are announced.

Despite its limited nature, the edict will revive memories of Hosni Mubarak's emergency law, also introduced as a temporary expedient, under which military or state security courts tried thousands of political dissidents and Islamist militants.

A cabinet source said ministers had reviewed the decree last week, saying troops had secured elections during a military-run transition after Mubarak but, with a civilian president in charge, now needed a decree to allow them to play that role.

Protests and violence have racked Egypt since Mursi decreed himself extraordinary powers he said were needed to speed up a troubled transition since Mubarak's fall 22 months ago.

Whatever the outcome of Saturday's referendum, the crisis has polarized Egypt and presages more instability at a time when Mursi needs to enact tough policies to steady a fragile economy.

With the political crisis heating the streets, Mursi suspended tax increases on Monday, only hours after the measures had been officially enacted, 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.

"VIOLENT CONFRONTATION"

Islamists and their opponents are planning rival rallies in different parts of Cairo before the vote set for Saturday.

Rejecting the referendum, opposition groups have called for mass protests on Tuesday, saying Mursi's eagerness to push the constitution through could lead to "violent confrontation".

Islamists 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 with their loyal base and perhaps with the votes of Egyptians weary of turmoil.

The opposition National Salvation Front, led by liberals such as Mohamed ElBaradei and Amr Moussa, as well as leftist firebrand Hamdeen Sabahy, has yet to call directly for a boycott of the referendum or to urge their supporters to vote "no".

Instead it is contesting the legitimacy of the vote and of the whole process by which the constitution was drafted in an Islamist-led assembly from which their representatives withdrew.

The opposition says the document 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.

"Inevitability of referendum deepens divisions," was the headline in Al-Gomhuriya newspaper on Monday. Al Ahram daily wrote: "Political forces split over referendum and new decree."

Mursi issued another decree on Saturday to supersede his November 22 measure putting his own decisions beyond legal challenge until a new constitution and parliament are in place.

While he gave up extra powers as a sop to his opponents, the decisions already taken under them, such as the dismissal of a prosecutor-general appointed by Mubarak, remain intact.

"UNWELCOME" CHOICE

Lamia Kamel, a spokeswoman for former Arab League chief 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.

A spokeswoman for ElBaradei, former head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog, said: "We do not acknowledge the referendum. The aim is to change the decision and postpone it."

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 the 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".

A military source said the declaration read on state media did not herald a move by the army to retake control of Egypt, which it relinquished in June after managing the transition from Mubarak's 30 years of military-backed one-man rule.

The draft constitution sets up a national defense council, in which generals will form a majority, and gives civilians some scrutiny over the army - although not enough for critics.

In August Mursi stripped the generals of sweeping powers they had grabbed when he was elected two months earlier, but has since repeatedly paid tribute to the military in public.

So far the army and police have taken a relatively passive role in the protests roiling the most populous Arab nation.

The elite Republican Guard has yet to use force to keep protesters away from the presidential palace, where clashes with Islamists killed seven people and wounded 350 last week.

The Muslim Brotherhood has voiced anger at the Interior Ministry's failure to prevent protesters setting fire to its headquarters in Cairo and 28 of its offices elsewhere.

(Additional reporting by Edmund Blair; editing by Philippa Fletcher)

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21 workers gather at security firm to demand for wages

SINGAPORE: A group of workers, including 13 Singaporeans, gathered at their security firm on Monday morning demanding for payment of their wages.

21 local and Malaysian workers accused Elk Security for failing to pay their wages on time as well as contribute to their CPF accounts.

Following discussions between the Manpower Ministry (MOM) and the firm, all parties agreed that the November salaries will be paid on December 11.

MOM said there was a delay in the payment of the workers' salary for the month of November as the company director was overseas and the cheques could not be issued on time.

The ministry will also be investigating the employers for possible offences under the Employment Act.

- CNA/lp

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India, China, Brazil to emerge as key global players: US report

WASHINGTON: Asia will have surpassed North America and Europe combined in terms of global power by 2030 with China, India and Brazil becoming especially important to the global economy, according to a new US intelligence assessment.

"The diffusion of power among countries will have a dramatic impact by 2030," says the fifth installment in the US National Intelligence Council's series aimed at providing a framework for thinking about the future released here Monday.

The report "Global Trends 2030: Alternative Worlds," released by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the apex body of 16 US intelligence agencies, says China alone will probably have the largest economy, surpassing that of the United States a few years before 2030.

"In a tectonic shift, the health of the global economy increasingly will be linked to how well the developing world does-more so than the traditional West," the report said.

"In addition to China, India, and Brazil, regional players such as Colombia, Indonesia, Nigeria, South Africa, and Turkey will become especially important to the global economy.

"Meanwhile, the economies of Europe, Japan, and Russia are likely to continue their slow relative declines," the report said.

Despite their growing economic clout, developing countries will face their own challenges, especially in their efforts to continue the momentum behind their rapid economic growth, it said.

With slowing growth China "faces the prospect of being trapped in middle-income status, with its per capita income not continuing to increase to the level of the world's advanced economies."

"India faces many of the same problems and traps accompanying rapid growth as China: large inequities between rural and urban sectors and within society; increasing constraints on resources such as water; and a need for greater investment in science and technology to continue to move its economy up the value chain," the report said.

"Insufficient natural resources - such as water and arable land - in many of the same countries that will have disproportionate levels of young men increase the risks of intrastate conflict breaking out, particularly in Sub-Saharan African and South and East Asian countries, including China and India," it said.

"Three different baskets of risks could conspire to increase the chances of an outbreak of interstate conflict: changing calculations of key players- particularly China, India, and Russia; increasing contention over resource issues; and a wider spectrum of more accessible instruments of war."

South Asia, the report said: "faces a series of internal and external shocks during the next 15-20 years. Low growth, rising food prices, and energy shortages will pose stiff challenges to governance in Pakistan and Afghanistan."

"Afghanistan's and Pakistan's youth bulges are large-similar in size to those found in many African countries. When these youth bulges are combined with a slow-growing economy, they portend increased instability."

However, it said, "India is in a better position, benefiting from higher growth, but it will still be challenged to find jobs for its large youth population. Inequality, lack of infrastructure, and education deficiencies are key weaknesses in India."

How the United States' international role evolves during the next 15-20 years was a big uncertainty, the report said.

"Whether the US will be able to work with new partners to reinvent the international system will be among the most important variables in the future shape of the global order," it said.

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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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