U.S. Designates Syrian Al Nusra Front as Terrorist Group

Manu Brabo/Associated Press

Syrian Army defectors were detained by Syrian rebel fighters while their identities were investigated Monday in the village of Azaz, near the Turkish border.

WASHINGTON — The United States has formally designated the Al Nusra Front, the militant Syrian rebel group, as a foreign terrorist organization.

The move, which was expected, is aimed at building Western support for the rebellion against the government of President Bashar al-Assad by quelling fears that money and arms meant for the rebels would flow to a jihadi group.

The designation was disclosed on Monday in the Federal Register, just before an important diplomatic meeting Wednesday in Morocco on the political transition if Mr. Assad is driven from power. The notice in the register lists the Al Nusra front as one of the “aliases” of Al Qaeda in Iraq.

In practical terms, the designation makes it illegal for Americans to have financial dealings with the group. It is intended to prompt similar sanctions by other nations, and to address concerns about a group that could further destabilize Syria and harm Western interests.

France, Britain, Turkey and the Gulf Cooperation Council have formally recognized the Syrian opposition. European Union foreign ministers met Monday with the head of the Syrian opposition coalition, Ahmed Mouaz al-Khatib, in Brussels.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague said that he hoped the European Union would soon grant the group full recognition.

The Al Nusra Front comprises only a small minority of the Syrian rebels, but it includes some of the rebellion’s most battle-hardened and effective fighters.

“Extremist groups like Jabhat al-Nusra are a problem, an obstacle to finding the political solution that Syria’s going to need,” the American ambassador to Syria, Robert Ford, said last week in an appearance hosted by the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, a nongovernmental group.

But a growing number of anti-government groups — including fighters in the loose-knit Free Syrian Army that the United States is trying to bolster — have signed petitions or posted statements online in recent days expressing support for the Nusra Front. In keeping with a tradition throughout the uprising of choosing themes for Friday protests, the biggest day for demonstrations because it coincides with Friday Prayer, many called for this Friday’s title to be “No to American intervention — we are all Jabhet al-Nusra.”

Many Syrian fighters consider the Nusra Front a key ally because of its fighters’ bravery and reliable supply of money and arms. It has never come under the banner of the Free Syrian Army, shunning the Western aid and input that other groups have sought, but it coordinates closely with many who do.

Adding to the complication is that some groups in the Free Syrian Army have similar ideologies, follow the strict Salafist interpretation of Islam, and count among them fighters who joined the insurgency in Iraq — though they are not known to share the Nusra Front’s direct organizational connections to Al Qaeda in Iraq.

The Nusra Front celebrated another apparent battlefield achievement on Monday, declaring it had captured part of a large base outside the commercial hub of Aleppo. Activist groups and video posted online said that it had fought alongside other Islamic battalions including the Mujahedeen Shura Council and the Muhajireen Group.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based group that tracks events in Syria through a network of activists in the country, said that the rebels had taken control of the command center of the sprawling base and that many soldiers had fled. Videos showed gunmen taking possession of tanks and anti-aircraft weapons.

The decision to designate the group, the register noted, was made by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Nov. 20, in consultation with Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., and Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner.

The State Department appeared to delay the publication of the decision to synchronize it with the expected announcement in Morocco that the United States will formally recognize the Syrian opposition. The United States closed its embassy in Damascus in February because of escalating violence in the capital.

Because Mrs. Clinton is not feeling well, she will not travel to North Africa and the Middle East this week as planned. Deputy Secretary of State William J. Burns will lead the United States delegation at the Morocco meeting, an aide to Mrs. Clinton said Monday.

Michael R. Gordon reported from Washington and Anne Barnard from Beirut, Lebanon.

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Massive HP conference draws 10,000 attendees to ogle products, speakers, presentations

By Suzy Hansen

More than 10,000 customers, partners and attendees flocked to the Hewlett-Packard Discover conference in Frankfurt, Germany, this week to learn about HP’s latest products, exchange ideas, swap business cards and basically examine whether HP can improve the way their companies are run. The event was held at Messe Frankfurt, one of the world’s largest trade exhibition sites.

CEO Meg Whitman acknowledged in her speech on Tuesday that HP has gone through some rough times this past year. HP’s stock price has been nearly halved during her tenure. Whitman, however, pointed out that HP has $ 120 billion in revenue and is the 10th-largest company in the United States. In Q4, HP has generated $ 4.1 billion in cash flow.

“We are the No. 1 or No. 2 provider in almost every market,” Whitman told the crowd in Frankfurt.

Whitman emphasized  executives’ increasing concerns about security and said that it will be addressed by “a new approach”: HP’s security portfolio, with Autonomy and Vertica, which helps “analyze and understand the context of these events.” Executive Vice President of Enterprise Dave Donatelli spoke about converged infrastructure, or bringing together server, network and storage; their software-defined data centers; and their new servers, which “change the way servers have been defined.” George Kadifa, executive vice president of software, said 94 of the top 100 companies use HP software. HP is the sixth-largest software company in the world, with 16,000 employees in 70 countries, Kadifa added.

Also at the conference was Jeffrey Katzenberg, CEO of DreamWorks and an old friend of Whitman’s from their Disney days, who roused the crowd with a fun speech about his long relationship with HP. Katzenberg showed an old video of himself onstage with a lion, which nearly mauled him. This time, he appeared onstage with a guy in a lion suit. The lesson was to learn from past mistakes and move on.

“If I am smart enough to say ‘scalable multicorps processing,’ I am smart enough to not put myself onstage with a real lion again,” he joked.

The Discover conference is a key vehicle for HP to show off products it’s offering in the coming year. Among them were the latest ProLiant and Integrity servers, the 3PAR StoreServ 7000 and the StoreAll and StoreOnce storage systems. At the HP Labs section of the conference, attendees could learn about the cloud infrastructure or test HP’s new ElitePad 900.

Throughout the three-day event, which saw attendance grow by 30 percent this year, attendees wandered the enormous halls, milling around displays, watching videos, listening to speeches and participating in workshops. People gathered on clustered couches and chatted with new acquaintances, frequently stopping to plug in their various devices and recharge themselves with coffee. With people coming from all over the world, you could hear many languages spoken, from Arabic to French to the most bewildering of them all: the language of technology. Despite the large crowds, it was hard not to notice there were very few women among the thousands in attendance. In fact, when asked about this phenomenon, one female HP employee said, “Trust me, you aren’t the first person who has come up to me asking about this.”

Indeed, the Discover conference was like a forest of men in suits. The few women stood out like rays of sunlight. 

Regardless of their presence at this conference, women are making big strides in information technology. Among the leaders are HP CEO Whitman, who also led eBay; Carly Fiorina, who ran HP before Whitman; Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer; and Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg. Were the women at the Discover conference surprised by the low female turnout?

“No, for IT this is standard,” said Stefanie, a 30-year-old product manager from Germany. “Many are afraid of all the technical stuff, and you have to prove that you are capable of it. You get more women in retail and distribution but not in high-tech areas, at least not in Europe. In America there are more women in management positions and in general.”

Americans might assume that Europe, with its generous social programs that include free daycare, enables more women to ascend the corporate ladder. But that still doesn’t mean that a woman trying to balance a high-tech career and a family is always accepted in European society.

“There is still a lot of emphasis on the family,” Stefanie said. “It’s easier to move up in the U.S., where there is a culture of ‘having it all.’ It’s quite a fight to get there here.”

Still, the IT industry might seem inhospitable to women. Could this male-dominated profession be male-dominant because women have a hard time breaking in?

Stefanie disagreed. “No, they actually like working with women,” she said. “They want to.”

One male conference attendee, who asked not to be named, was less certain.

“There’s a lot of ego and testosterone,” he said. “It can’t be easy” for women.

Tech News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Hayden Panettiere Splits with Scotty McKnight

12/10/2012 at 07:50 PM EST

Hayden Panettiere and Scotty McKnight

Splash News Online

Is there a tear in her beer?

Nashville star Hayden Panettiere has broken up with her boyfriend of more than a year, New York Jets wide receiver Scotty McKnight, a source confirms to PEOPLE.

But the split doesn't appear to be the stuff of a sad country song. The actress, 23, is still friends with McKnight, 24, and one source tells TMZ that their pals wouldn't be surprised if they got back together.

This is Panettiere's second go at a relationship with an athlete. Before dating McKnight she was with Ukrainian boxer Wladimir Klitschko for about two years.
– Julie Jordan

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Surprise: New insurance fee in health overhaul law

WASHINGTON (AP) — Your medical plan is facing an unexpected expense, so you probably are, too. It's a new, $63-per-head fee to cushion the cost of covering people with pre-existing conditions under President Barack Obama's health care overhaul.

The charge, buried in a recent regulation, works out to tens of millions of dollars for the largest companies, employers say. Most of that is likely to be passed on to workers.

Employee benefits lawyer Chantel Sheaks calls it a "sleeper issue" with significant financial consequences, particularly for large employers.

"Especially at a time when we are facing economic uncertainty, (companies will) be hit with a multi-million dollar assessment without getting anything back for it," said Sheaks, a principal at Buck Consultants, a Xerox subsidiary.

Based on figures provided in the regulation, employer and individual health plans covering an estimated 190 million Americans could owe the per-person fee.

The Obama administration says it is a temporary assessment levied for three years starting in 2014, designed to raise $25 billion. It starts at $63 and then declines.

Most of the money will go into a fund administered by the Health and Human Services Department. It will be used to cushion health insurance companies from the initial hard-to-predict costs of covering uninsured people with medical problems. Under the law, insurers will be forbidden from turning away the sick as of Jan. 1, 2014.

The program "is intended to help millions of Americans purchase affordable health insurance, reduce unreimbursed usage of hospital and other medical facilities by the uninsured and thereby lower medical expenses and premiums for all," the Obama administration says in the regulation. An accompanying media fact sheet issued Nov. 30 referred to "contributions" without detailing the total cost and scope of the program.

Of the total pot, $5 billion will go directly to the U.S. Treasury, apparently to offset the cost of shoring up employer-sponsored coverage for early retirees.

The $25 billion fee is part of a bigger package of taxes and fees to finance Obama's expansion of coverage to the uninsured. It all comes to about $700 billion over 10 years, and includes higher Medicare taxes effective this Jan. 1 on individuals making more than $200,000 per year or couples making more than $250,000. People above those threshold amounts also face an additional 3.8 percent tax on their investment income.

But the insurance fee had been overlooked as employers focused on other costs in the law, including fines for medium and large firms that don't provide coverage.

"This kind of came out of the blue and was a surprisingly large amount," said Gretchen Young, senior vice president for health policy at the ERISA Industry Committee, a group that represents large employers on benefits issues.

Word started getting out in the spring, said Young, but hard cost estimates surfaced only recently with the new regulation. It set the per capita rate at $5.25 per month, which works out to $63 a year.

America's Health Insurance Plans, the major industry trade group for health insurers, says the fund is an important program that will help stabilize the market and mitigate cost increases for consumers as the changes in Obama's law take effect.

But employers already offering coverage to their workers don't see why they have to pony up for the stabilization fund, which mainly helps the individual insurance market. The redistribution puts the biggest companies on the hook for tens of millions of dollars.

"It just adds on to everything else that is expected to increase health care costs," said economist Paul Fronstin of the nonprofit Employee Benefit Research Institute.

The fee will be assessed on all "major medical" insurance plans, including those provided by employers and those purchased individually by consumers. Large employers will owe the fee directly. That's because major companies usually pay upfront for most of the health care costs of their employees. It may not be apparent to workers, but the insurance company they deal with is basically an agent administering the plan for their employer.

The fee will total $12 billion in 2014, $8 billion in 2015 and $5 billion in 2016. That means the per-head assessment would be smaller each year, around $40 in 2015 instead of $63.

It will phase out completely in 2017 — unless Congress, with lawmakers searching everywhere for revenue to reduce federal deficits — decides to extend it.

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L.A. seeks controversial overhaul at LAFD's troubled 911 call center

Los Angeles officials are pressing for a major cost-cutting change at the Fire Department's troubled 911 call handling center despite a top commander's warning that making the move is too risky and would jeopardize public safety.

The plan, backed by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, the City Council and Fire Chief Brian Cummings, would switch dispatchers from 24-hour shifts to traditional eight-hour workdays, saving an estimated $3.2 million in overtime costs each year.

The changes could reduce the number of dispatch center call takers by as much as 20% to 40% depending on the shift, according to internal department records and interviews. Villaraigosa and other key officials are scheduled to discuss the proposal behind closed doors Tuesday, and could move to implement it as early as next month.

PHOTOS: Inside the 911 call center

Although many other fire agencies hire lower-paid civilians to answer 911 calls, LAFD call takers are firefighters. They make an average of $95,700 a year in base salary, and earn extra pay working 56-hour-a-week schedules. City officials say the proposed staffing overhaul is a response to a court ruling last year that made the city liable for $8 million in unpaid dispatcher overtime.

Over the years, proposals to use civilian employees at the LAFD dispatch center have faced opposition from past chiefs and union officials, who argued that firefighters had more experience and training than civilian operators.

The current proposal comes as the LAFD is under scrutiny for failing to meet national standards for processing emergency calls and suffers recurring breakdowns in its 30-year-old computerized dispatch system. Assistant Chief Daniel McCarthy, the call center commander, warned in a June report to the chief that making the staffing changes before new computer equipment is in place "would be a tragedy for those we are sworn to protect."

A series of computer system crashes this year forced dispatchers to manually track rescuers in the field using golf tees and pegboards. In March, The Times reported that breakdowns delayed responses in four emergencies, including a South Los Angeles structure fire in which two people died.

In the event of a system failure under the new staffing plan, the department would not have enough personnel to manually dispatch units, McCarthy said in his report. In an interview, he said the city also would be more vulnerable during sudden, large-scale emergencies because a smaller crew of dispatchers would be less able to handle a surge in calls.

"It's just a matter of time," said McCarthy, who is overseeing development of the revised staffing plan. "It will be a disaster."

A new Times analysis of more than 1 million LAFD 911 responses over the last five years found that spikes in calls from unexpected disasters have grown larger in recent years.

When storms, heavy winds or brush fires hit, hundreds of additional calls flood the center. On the two busiest days last year, incoming calls spiked up to 80% over normal, with dispatchers answering more than 1,600 calls, the analysis found.

Deputy Chief David Yamahata said Monday that the concerns raised in McCarthy's report will be addressed as a final staffing plan is developed and presented to the firefighters' union. "We are aware of his issues and we are looking into it," said Yamahata, who oversees McCarthy and the dispatch center, and serves as the chief's spokesman for the proposal.

LAFD dispatchers work 24-hour shifts about 10 days a month. While on the clock, they take turns answering phones, training and sleeping. The work schedule means that in the event of an emergency, 26 firefighters and three captains are quickly available to handle calls. That happened 22 times during one four-month stretch this year, largely due to computer breakdowns, according to McCarthy's report. Yamahata said that under the new proposal, as many as 20 dispatchers would be on duty on some shifts.

Cummings is under pressure from council members and Villaraigosa to make the changes because the projected savings already are built into this year's budget. The LAFD goes an additional $266,000 in the red each month that the staffing changes are delayed, according to City Administrative Officer Miguel Santana. Officials with the firefighters' union say the proposal won't save as much money as Santana says.

Villaraigosa declined to comment for this story. Councilman Mitchell Englander, who heads the council's Public Safety Committee, said he had not read McCarthy's report, but wanted to review it. Previously, he argued that routinely paying dispatchers overtime "is just something we simply can't afford."

The budget shortfall is compounding the department's recent troubles. In the spring, officials acknowledged releasing faulty performance reports that made it appear rescuers were getting to emergencies faster than they were.

City auditors later found serious flaws with the LAFD's data analysis and discovered that rescuers were taking longer to respond to emergencies than before recession-driven budget cuts began in 2009.

A Times analysis in May found the dispatch center falls far behind a national standard that rescue units be alerted within one minute on 90% of 911 calls. Last year, the LAFD met the one-minute standard 15% of the time, down from 38% five years ago, the analysis found.

When powerful Santa Ana winds whipped through the city on the night of Nov. 30 last year, large swaths of the Westside and part of Los Angeles International Airport went dark. The dispatch center received more than 1,000 emergency calls between 6 p.m. and 2 a.m., more than in a typical 24-hour period.

Inside the dispatch center, the first sign of a major incident is often an abrupt backlog of unanswered 911 calls, which triggers a red warning light on a large, wall-mounted screen. It can be chaotic, dispatchers say, as firefighters scramble to field calls before people hang up or get disconnected. Dispatchers must assess each emergency while toggling between five computer terminals displaying available rescue units and other data. "We're right on the razor's edge," said veteran LAFD dispatcher Lauren deRosier.

Under the cost-cutting staffing plan, the department would summon firefighters from surrounding stations to help take calls in a major emergency, Yamahata said. Asked if that would work during a widespread disaster, he said: "Only time will tell."

The new plan would move the city closer to the Los Angeles County Fire Department's 911 operation, where dispatchers are civilians and in 2010 earned $64,000 on average with overtime. The center serves 58 cities and vast unincorporated areas with a population larger than the city of Los Angeles.

The county's dispatcher teams rotate every 12 hours, with 15 dispatchers working during the day and 13 at night. If a call surge occurs on a weekday, five extra people with dispatching experience who do other jobs are available on site. At night and on weekends, extra dispatchers must be summoned from their homes, which can take several hours, said Chris Bundesen, the acting assistant chief in charge of the county's dispatch center.

"The people here on the floor have to hold the line until we can call people in," he said. "That's a challenge."

robert.lopez@latimes.com

ben.welsh@latimes.com

kate.linthicum@latimes.com

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Memo From Italy: In Italy, Mario Monti Morphs From Technocrat to Politician

ROME — For months, he had flirted with the idea of staying out of politics, but in the end former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi just could not resist. His statement on Saturday that he would seek office again out of a sense of “responsibility” for Italy effectively ended the mandate of Prime Minister Mario Monti, who said he would step down after Parliament passes a budget bill this month.

Mr. Monti’s surprise announcement on Saturday raised the prospect of more political uncertainty and market turmoil for Italy, Europe’s fourth-largest economy, in what is expected to be a gloves-off political campaign. But it also increased the possibility that Mr. Monti might run as a candidate — a shift from the role of an apolitical leader — who is open to governing if no clear winner emerges from elections expected as soon as February.

Three years into Europe’s debt crisis, the new developments in Italy underscored the clash between the economically sound and the politically sustainable. While Mr. Monti, an economist and a former European commissioner, has reassured investors and helped keep Italian borrowing rates down, the tax increases and spending cuts passed by his Parliament have eroded lawmakers’ standing with voters.

Mr. Monti’s grasp of economics and experience in European politics made him a power broker who took regular calls from the White House and worked with France and Spain to wring euro-zone concessions from a reluctant German chancellor, Angela Merkel.

“He’s ushered in a turning point in Italian politics and has been a major influence in Europe,” said Thomas Klau, director of the Paris office of the European Council on Foreign Relations. “He has helped turn Italy into a serious country again in the eyes of foreign investors and also many of its own citizens.”

Even if Mr. Monti decides not to run as a political candidate, his decision to step down sets the stage for a battle that pits him — a subtly ironic technocrat who attended Wagner’s “Die Lohengrin” at La Scala on Friday — against Mr. Berlusconi, who made his announcement at the training site of his soccer team, A. C. Milan.

“The war will be between Monti and Berlusconi,” said Massimo Franco, chief political commentator for the newspaper Corriere della Sera. “The moderate votes are in play, not the leftist ones.”

Although Mr. Berlusconi said he was motivated by a sense of responsibility, European leaders and market analysts immediately accused him of the opposite. Martin Schulz, president of the European Parliament, called his return to politics “a threat for Italy and Europe,” the ANSA news agency reported.

With the aid of Mario Draghi, president of the European Central Bank, Mr. Monti calmed the financial markets this year, but investors and European leaders now worry that many of Mr. Monti’s initiatives could be undone by future governments.

In an interview with the business newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore, José Manuel Barroso, president of the European Commission, said that Italy was at risk of being hit by deeper financial problems. “The next elections must not serve as a pretext for putting in doubt how indispensable these measures are,” he said. “The relative calm on the markets does not mean we are out of the crisis.”

Analysts said that Mr. Monti’s decision to step down ahead of schedule was aimed at preventing Mr. Berlusconi from running a campaign that undermined him. Mr. Berlusconi, always attuned to the national mood, even of voters increasingly weary of him, now looks poised to run a populist campaign that will criticize Mr. Monti for foisting unpopular measures on Italians and that may attack the adoption of a single currency for eroding Italian sovereignty.

Stepping down now, rather than early next year, as was expected, also puts Mr. Monti in the fray. “Monti becomes a politician at this point,” said Stefano Folli, a political columnist for Il Sole 24 Ore. “If Monti helps create a space on the ballot for an electoral alliance that recognizes the seriousness of what has been achieved, this could create a new political balance. That’s the challenge.”

Polls show that the center-left Democratic Party is likely to place first in elections, but without enough votes for a majority. But the party remains divided over which ally to choose to form a government.

Mr. Berlusconi is expected to secure enough votes to stay in Parliament and keep his immunity from prosecution in various trials, but not enough votes to govern.

“It is extremely unlikely that we will see a dynamic unfolding which would bring Mr. Berlusconi back to power,” Mr. Klau said. “So even if Mr. Monti were to leave the political stage for good, we would not go back to the political situation we were in before.”

Although Parliament has blocked some of the measures on Mr. Monti’s agenda — in recent weeks, lawmakers have proposed more than 1,500 amendments to the budget bill — the budget is likely to be approved, as is a law that requires Italy to balance its budget each year.

But analysts said that other changes aimed at improving Italy’s competitiveness were at risk. And before the end of the legislative session this month, lawmakers must also vote on a bill that would simplify the tax code, another meant to streamline the cumbersome bureaucracy and a measure that to allow the Ilva steel plant — a major economic engine for Italy — to stay open while it modernizes to meet environmental standards.

As the debt crisis has lingered, such local issues, as well as Italy’s chaotic political system, have taken on international importance.

On Sunday, Ferruccio de Bortoli, the editor in chief of Corriere della Sera, offered his review of the political drama: “The ‘Lohengrin’ at La Scala ended in applause. The Italian tragedy continues. The libretto still needs writing, so does the music. The guaranteed audience is international, but unfortunately not terribly forgiving about the cast. The curtain never falls.”

Reporting was contributed by Elisabetta Povoledo from Rome, Stephen Castle from London and Jack Ewing from Frankfurt.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: December 9, 2012

An earlier version of this story stated that the the Ilva steel plan was responsible for 8 million euro. The correct number was 8 billion euro.

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Ghana’s Mahama wins election – electoral body’s Facebook page

ACCRA (Reuters) – Ghana incumbent President John Dramani Mahama was elected to a new term with 50.7 percent of votes cast, according to results posted on the Electoral Commission‘s Facebook page on Sunday.

It was not immediately possible to verify the results with an Electoral Commission official.

Mahama, who became president in July after the death of ex-leader John Atta Mills, was facing top rival Nana Akufo-Addo – who took 47.4 percent of the vote, according to the Electoral Commission’s Facebook page. http://www.facebook.com/ECGOVGH

(Writing by Richard Valdmanis; Editing by Myra MacDonald)

Social Media News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Tim McGraw and Faith Hill Kick Off Special Series of Las Vegas Shows

By Mark Gray

12/09/2012 at 05:00 PM EST

Tim McGraw and Faith Hill

Denise Truscello/WireImage

Tim McGraw and Faith Hill looked at each other, their hands on each others knees and shared a passionate kiss just after midnight Sunday morning.

The moment was a long time coming – it capped off their first weekend as a Las Vegas headlining act.

Earlier in the 90 minute show, McGraw told the crowd at the Venetian that he and his wife were going to "have fun tonight" and it genuinely seemed like they did, singing with each other for several songs while still letting the other perform their solo hits. Though the show – called the Soul2Soul series – is technically not the same "residency" show Las Vegas is known for, the couple will perform for 10 weekends through April.

At a press conference several months ago, McGraw and Hill promised a "personal" show, and they delivered in a big way. In fact, it got very personal as McGraw complimented his wife on her flowing black dress, saying, "It's gonna look good on the floor later."

The duo also took a moment to sit down and speak with the crowd. Though they didn't field any questions, they spoke about the most common questions they get asked. "We always get asked what was the music we heard first, who influenced us," Hill said.

Rather than answer it, the duo then sing a few of their main influences – Hill sang George Strait; McGraw sang The Eagles.

"I love doing other people's music, better than my own," McGraw joked.

With few bells and whistles, the show puts the focus squarely on it's two superstars, and considering the rousing ovations McGraw and Hill received Saturday, that's perfectly fine with their fans.

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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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Rise in renewable energy will require more use of fossil fuels

The Delta Energy Center, a power plant about an hour outside San Francisco, was roaring at nearly full bore one day last month, its four gas and steam turbines churning out 880 megawatts of electricity to the California grid.

On the horizon, across an industrial shipping channel on the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, scores of wind turbines stood dead still. The air was too calm to turn their blades — or many others across the state that day. Wind provided just 33 megawatts of power statewide in the midafternoon, less than 1% of the potential from wind farms capable of producing 4,000 megawatts of electricity.

As is true on many days in California when multibillion-dollar investments in wind and solar energy plants are thwarted by the weather, the void was filled by gas-fired plants like the Delta Energy Center.

One of the hidden costs of solar and wind power — and a problem the state is not yet prepared to meet — is that wind and solar energy must be backed up by other sources, typically gas-fired generators. As more solar and wind energy generators come online, fulfilling a legal mandate to produce one-third of California's electricity by 2020, the demand will rise for more backup power from fossil fuel plants.

"The public hears solar is free, wind is free," said Mitchell Weinberg, director of strategic development for Calpine Corp., which owns Delta Energy Center. "But it is a lot more complicated than that."

Wind and solar energy are called intermittent sources, because the power they produce can suddenly disappear when a cloud bank moves across the Mojave Desert or wind stops blowing through the Tehachapi Mountains. In just half an hour, a thousand megawatts of electricity — the output of a nuclear reactor — can disappear and threaten stability of the grid.

To avoid that calamity, fossil fuel plants have to be ready to generate electricity in mere seconds. That requires turbines to be hot and spinning, but not producing much electricity until complex data networks detect a sudden drop in the output of renewables. Then, computerized switches are thrown and the turbines roar to life, delivering power just in time to avoid potential blackouts.

The state's electricity system can handle the fluctuations from existing renewable output, but by 2020 vast wind and solar complexes will sprawl across the state, and the problem will become more severe.

Just how much added capacity will be needed from traditional sources is the subject of heated debate by utility officials, government regulators and policy experts. The concerns are expected to come to a head next year when the state must adopt a 10-year plan for its energy needs.

"This issue is someplace between a significant concern and a major problem," said electricity system expert Severin Borenstein, a professor at UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business. "There is definitely going to be a need for more reserves."

Borenstein said state legislators and the governor did not consider all of the details, such as unleashing this new demand for fossil fuel generators, when they set the 33% mandate for renewable energy. The state now gets 20% of its power from renewables, in part from older hydro and geothermal energy. Gov. Jerry Brown has advocated upping the goal to 40%.

The cost to consumers in the years ahead could be in the billions of dollars, according to industry experts. California's electricity prices are already among the highest in the nation and are projected to rise sharply in coming years. At the moment, the need for reserve power isn't considered a cost of renewable power, though consumers have to bear its costs as well.

The California Independent System Operator, the nonprofit company that runs the grid, estimates that by 2020 the state will need to double its reserve capacity. California now maintains a margin of 7% to 8% above projected daily demand, in case a nuclear power plant goes offline or outages occur. But when 33% of the state's power comes from renewables, that margin will have to rise to 15%, said Stephen Berberich, the firm's chief executive.

Nobody knows whether Berberich's estimate is right or how much the added capacity will cost. The California Energy Commission, which has responsibility for licensing new power plants and forecasting future power demand, said it doesn't have the analytical tools necessary to know how much reserve power will be needed.

"It is frankly in the development stage," said Mike Jaske, the commission's senior policy analyst for electricity supply.

The independent system operator is warning that by 2017 the state will be short by about 3,100 megawatts of flexible power that it can dedicate to meeting reserve needs — about what three nuclear reactors produce. The company is pushing the state Public Utility Commission to require that capacity. The commission has been noncommittal so far.

Solar and wind advocates reject those concerns. They say renewables can provide their own reserve cushion because solar and wind generators will be spread across vast areas of the state. If wind power is down in one region, it might be up in another. If wind power is down statewide, desert sunshine might boost solar.

On the day last month when wind energy provided just 33 megawatts of power statewide, a brilliant sun spiked solar plant output.

The independent system operator "likes to show these frightening graphs for shock value," said Nancy Rader, executive director of the California Wind Energy Assn.

Edward Randolph, director of the Public Utility Commission's energy division, said the independent system operator understandably wants more reserves because its primary focus is on the reliability of the system. The PUC is focused on cost. If there is an immediate problem with reserves, the PUC can order utilities to make more available. And in three to five years, batteries, flywheels or other new technology can provide storage that would make reserves much less necessary, he said.

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