WebMD to cut 14 percent of workforce to reduce expenses

(Reuters) – Health information website WebMD Health Corp said it will cut around 250 jobs, or 14 percent of its workforce, to reduce costs.

The company, which had about 1700 employees according to Thomson Reuters data, said it would take a charge of about $ 6 million to $ 8 million in the fourth quarter, primarily on severance and other restructuring-related costs.

WebMD, which is a popular and long-trusted destination for checking health and disease related information, has lost its sheen for investors in recent times as it struggled to convert its growing user base into a steady revenue stream.

The company named a former Pfizer Inc executive Cavan Redmond as CEO earlier this year, entrusting the industry veteran with the task of reviving the website’s flagging business.

Its previous CEO, Wayne Gattinella, resigned after the company took itself off the auction block in January.

WebMD also said on Tuesday that it plans to streamline its operations and focus resources on increasing user engagement, customer satisfaction and innovation, and expects these efforts to reduce annualized operating expenses by about $ 45 million.

While most of the job cuts will be effective at the end of the year, other cost saving actions will be implemented in the first quarter of 2013, the company said in a statement.

The company reported a third-quarter loss in November, compared with a profit in the year-ago quarter, and said revenue fell 13 percent.

WebMD’s shares, which have lost nearly 40 percent of their value over the past six months, were down about 2 percent in premarket trade. They closed at $ 13.85 on Monday on the Nasdaq.

(Reporting by Esha Dey in Bangalore; Editing by Roshni Menon)

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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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Egypt opposition fears violence from Brotherhood

CAIRO (AP) — They showed a military-style precision: Crowds of bearded Islamists proclaiming allegiance to Egypt's President Mohammed Morsi and chanting "God is great" as they descended on tents set up by anti-Morsi protesters outside the presidential palace, swinging clubs and firing rifles. They set up a detention facility, interrogating and beating captured protesters.

The scene from bloody clashes outside the presidential palace a week ago hangs over Egypt's political crisis as a daunting sign of how much more violent the confrontation could become between Morsi's Islamist supporters and the opposition that has launched a giant wave of protests against him.

Opponents of Morsi accuse his Muslim Brotherhood supporters of unleashing highly trained cadres — fired up with religious slogans — to crush their political rivals. They fear last week's violence was a signal that the Brotherhood will use force to push its agenda and defend its political gains in the face of a persistent protest movement demanding that Morsi withdraw a draft constitution largely written by his Islamist allies.

Ahead of a new mass rallies planned by both sides Tuesday, masked gunmen attacked anti-Morsi protesters in Cairo's central Tahrir Square before dawn, firing birdshot at them and wounding nine. It was unclear who was behind the attack, said security officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the press.

Officials from the Brotherhood and its political party deny using violence to quell critics. Regarding the clashes last Wednesday, the worst violence yet in the crisis, they say Morsi supporters were defending the palace and accuse the protesters of starting the battles. They claim their side suffered more deaths and injuries during the clashes, which left at least eight people dead. More broadly, the Brotherhood accuses former regime supporters of paying thugs in an organized campaign to topple Islamists from power, pointing to a series of attacks on Brotherhood offices the past weeks.

"The group and the party don't use violence and have no inclination to the use of violence," said Mourad Aly, a Brotherhood party spokesman. He added, "We will never allow an attack or breach on the palace."

However, when last week's violence began, the only protesters outside the palace were around 100 conducting a sit-in in the tents, and the allegiances of those killed remain controversial. Opponents and rights lawyers charge that the Brotherhood has tried to convince some families to declare their deceased sons as Brotherhood.

Testimonies and videos that have emerged from the nearly 15 hours of street clashes show an organized group of disciplined Islamists, working in units and carrying out military-type exercises as they broke up the tent sit-in at the palace.

Opponents of the Brotherhood frequently accuse the group of running a "militia." The group is known for its tight discipline, and it acknowledges that many of its young members undergo organized martial arts training — but it vehemently denies forming any militias.

Tharwat el-Kherbawy, a former Brotherhood member and now an opponent of the group, said the Brotherhood's central organizational doctrine — calling on members to "hear and obey" their leaders — gives it a military-like structure.

When the Brotherhood met a stronger than expected protest movement, "they had no hesitation in hastening to implement their ideas and resorting to violence," he said. "If their empowerment project is facing resistance, this resistance must be quelled."

Wednesday's showdown was the fiercest display of the Brotherhood's strength, but similar, smaller attacks on opponents by Brotherhood members took place at least three times earlier this year when secular and liberal groups criticized the Brotherhood's grip on power.

During last Wednesday's fighting, nearly 140 anti-Morsi protesters were tortured and interrogated at a makeshift detention center set up by the Brotherhood along the walls of the presidential palace, according to witnesses. The detained protesters were filmed making forced confessions that they had received foreign funds, according to some who were held and an Egyptian journalist who snuck into the site.

One of the victims, Yehia Negm, an Egyptian diplomat, told The Associated Press he was dragged on the ground to the center where he was beaten. He is suffering from multiple injuries in the head, eye, nose, and ribs from beating and had remains of pellets in his forehead from gunfire during the clashes.

"When they found my ID that says a diplomat, they started accusing me of working with security agencies, of being a spy and of serving foreign countries," Negm said. "They rained beatings down on me. They started yelling at me, saying, 'You infidels, you want to burn the country down, you are not Muslims.'"

Around 20 Islamists manned the center, made up of metal barricades erected against the palace wall, said Mohammed Elgarhy, a local journalist with the daily Al-Masry Al-Youm who snuck in and spent nearly four hours there. Among them was a man he recognized as a well-known Brotherhood lawyer and two others he overheard speaking with a Brotherhood leader. The others, who he said he believed were Brotherhood members, carried out the beatings and interrogations.

"The Brotherhood were carrying out the job of the Interior Ministry," Elgarhy told AP. "They would arrest anyone they suspected ... asking them questions such as who paid for you to come here."

Troops from the Central Security Forces guarded the site, but did not interfere, he said. The Brotherhood has not addressed accusations about the detention center but says it did seize protesters and hand them over to police.

The violence came a day after hundreds of thousands marched on the palace in Cairo's upper middle class district of Heliopolis, demanding Morsi withdraw the draft constitution and sweeping powers that he had given himself in a series of decrees.

After the rally, around 100 protesters remained in the tent camp. In response, the Brotherhood called a "general mobilization" of its members, and its spokesman said the group will protect the legitimacy of the president and state institutions.

The next day, last Wednesday, thousands of Islamists lined up on a main boulevard near the palace, chanting "Power, Resolve, Faith, Morsi's men are everywhere," and threatening to douse the tents with gasoline, according to video of the scene posted on YouTube.

The Islamists then stormed the camp, chanting "God is great" and "Islamic law is fundamental in Egypt," as they tore down tents and chased away the protesters. They then ransacked the tents. Brotherhood supporters claimed they found evidence of drug use at the camp — though they never showed any — and that burnt charcoal and processed cheese in the tents proved the protest was foreign funded, without explanation. The accusations were reminiscent of those leveled by the regime of ousted President Hosni Mubarak against the protesters who rose up against his rule in early 2011.

As news of the attack spread, more anti-Morsi protesters arrived on the scene. Buses, shown parked nearby in videos, brought in Brotherhood supporters. By sunset a full-fledged street battle transformed Heliopolis into a war zone, spreading over at least three fronts near the palace. Protesters and witnesses put the number of Morsi supporters at up to 12,000 compared to several thousand protesters.

Bearded men in short robes waved sticks in the air as they chased groups of young men and women down darkened alleys while gunfire echoed in the background.

A resident of a building overlooking one front line said Morsi supporters appeared to be operating by what a well-rehearsed plan. They came prepared with metal sheets for barricades and motorcycles with small trailers attached brought loads of stones to pelt protesters with. The resident spoke on condition his name not be used for fear of retribution.

Some Morsi supporters were armed with rifles, firing from the edges of the front lines to avoid being detected, said Mahmoud Zaghloul, a 22-year old protester who got hit with a rock in his head. He also said many in the Morsi camp came prepared with helmets with plexi-glass face screens.

At least one video shown on a private TV station shows a man in the Morsi camp, wearing a full helmet, taking a professional shooter position, bending his knees and aiming with a rifle.

"One of the most disturbing things was how they chanted 'God is Great' as they aimed at us," as if they were firing at infidels, Zaghloul said.

Some in the anti-Morsi camp also had firearms, witnesses said. At least one amateur video circulating online that showed an anti-Morsi protester pointing a pistol from behind a barricade at the opposing camp.

The exact circumstances of the online videos could not be independently confirmed, but their contents were consistent with other AP reporting.

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Taliban to attend Paris meeting on Afghanistan

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — The Taliban will attend a meeting in France to talk about Afghanistan's future but will not discuss peace and reconciliation, the militant group's spokesman said Monday.

The meeting, organized by a French think tank on the outskirts of Paris, is not expected to produce results, but it will produce a rare face-to-face gathering of Afghanistan's major players. Only one such meeting, far less inclusive, has been held this year with Taliban participation. It was organized by a Japanese university in Kyoto six months ago.

Zabiullah Mujahid said two of the Taliban's representatives will attend next week's meeting to outline their policies. Representatives from Afghanistan's High Peace Council, political parties opposed to the Taliban, and the militant Islamist group Hezb-e-Islami also are expected to attend.

French Foreign Ministry deputy spokesman Vincent Floreani said the intra-Afghan conference would take place this month under the auspices of the Foundation for Strategic Research. It will be closed to the media and will involve "all components of Afghan society," he said. He declined to specify the date or indicate the location, citing security concerns.

Peace talks with the Taliban remained stalled, but there are signs of increasing efforts to get them back on track. U.S.-backed talks broke down last March in a dispute over the release of five Taliban detainees held in U.S. custody in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai wants the peace talks to be led by his government and the peace council, a body he set up to negotiate with the insurgency.

It was unclear who would represent the Afghan government, but an official who asked not to be named because he was not authorized to speak to reporters said that Education Minister Farooq Wardak may attend along with one other official.

Pakistan is also a key player in the peace process, and its release of a number of Taliban prisoners earlier in the month was seen as a key step in its participation. The cooperation of Pakistan, which has long-standing ties to the Taliban, is seen as pivotal in restarting the talks. The United States and its allies are trying to get movement ahead of the Afghan presidential election in 2014, the year that most foreign combat troops are set to leave the country.

"Two people are going from the Taliban side. We are not giving the names now," Mujahid said. "We are not going to talk about the peace process. We will express our ideas and policy. We are not going to discuss peace. This gathering is not about peace."

Ghairat Baheer, who will attend and represent his father-in-law Hekmatyar, said Hezb-e-Islami was supporting the initiative by the French because it focused on a discussion among Afghans.

"It is a good forum for exchanging views and expressing oneself and understanding each other's point of view," Baheer said. "The intra-Afghan dialogue is the only solution. The Taliban have shown a willingness to participate."

Muhammad Mohaqeq, a member of the peace council and top leader of Afghan Shiites and the Hazara minority ethnic faction, said the peace process would be a topic for discussion at the meeting.

"There will be people from the government side, from Hezb-e-Islami and the Taliban," he said. "We are going to talk about the peace process and all sides will be there. We will also talk about the elections and the situation in Afghanistan."

Mohaqeq, a member of the National Front, which represents members of the former Northern Alliance that fought the Taliban before the U.S. invasion 11 years ago, said he and another two people from the group will attend. One of the two is Ahmad Zia Masood, the brother of the late Northern Alliance chief Ahmad Shah Masood, considered a national hero by anti-Taliban forces.

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Associated Press writers Jamey Keaten in Paris and Kathy Gannon in Islamabad contributed.

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Hug It Out: Public Charter and District Schools Given $25 Million to Get Along

If you need a loan, ask Bill and Melinda Gates. Or better yet, ask one of the seven cities that are splitting a new $ 25 million grant courtesy of the couple’s philanthropic foundation.

The funds are going to promote cross collaboration between charter and district schools, which have previously operated in a strict and contentious independence from one another.

The foundation announced the award this week, and the cities benefiting are Boston, Denver, Hartford (CT), New Orleans, New York City, Philadelphia and Spring Branch (TX).

How did they get so lucky? They’re among a group of 16 communities that signed the Gates-sponsored “District-Charter Collaboration Compacts” pledging for an open-source collaboration between public charter and district public schools.

Communication between these two models is unusual to say the least; they’ve had a long and illustrious history of battling each other over tax dollars, students and even building space.

But when charter schools first opened 20 years ago, their original purpose was to create an experimental educational space which would then share its best methods with public district schools. Instead, the two grew into rivals and critics of each are vehemently opposed to the other.

Among the complaints, charter schools are seen as selfishly siphoning off the most motivated students from the district while upholding a rich-poor educational divide and failing to live up to the promise of a better education. Others say its district schools that are the issue for their unionized teacher complacency and a consistent inability to keep a large margin of students from falling through the cracks.

In truth, neither system is a slam-dunk, and both are experiencing closures nationwide due to underperformance.

The goal of the District-Charter Collaboration Compacts is to restore the original relationship of the two camps, effectively establishing a regular protocol of sharing their best practices, innovations and resources.

Don Shalvey, the deputy director at teh Gates Foundation told The New York Times, “It took Microsoft and Apple 10 years to learn to talk. So it’s not surprising that it took a little bit longer for charters and other public schools. It’s pretty clear there is more common ground than battleground.”

But what will this grand collaboration yield? If all goes according to plan, students from both camps will benefit from new teacher effectiveness practices, college-ready tools and supports, and innovative instructional delivery systems.

According to the Gates Foundation, only one-third of students meet the criteria of college ready by the time they graduate. And most of the kids who don’t are often minority students from lower income areas. By creating collaborative aims with charter and district, kids from all over can have access to a wider swath of teaching frameworks and curriculums. 

Related Stories on TakePart:

• Public Dollars for Private Schools? Voices from the Voucher Debate

• School Vouchers: The Debate Heats Up Across the U.S.

• Howard Fuller: One of the Most Powerful Educators in America

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A Bay Area native, Andri Antoniades previously worked as a fashion industry journalist and medical writer.  In addition to reporting the weekend news on TakePart, she volunteers as a webeditor for locally-based nonprofits and works as a freelance feature writer for TimeOutLA.com. Email Andri | @andritweets | TakePart.com

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Singer feared dead in Mexican plane crash

MONTERREY, Mexico (AP) — Mexico's music world mourned Jenni Rivera, the U.S.-born singer presumed killed in a plane crash whose soulful voice and openness about her personal troubles had made her a Mexican-American superstar.

Authorities have not confirmed her death, but Rivera's relatives in the U.S. say they have few doubts that she was on the Learjet 25 that disintegrated on impact Sunday in rugged territory in Nuevo Leon state in northern Mexico.

"My son Lupillo told me that effectively it was Jenni's plane that crashed and that everyone on board died," her father, Pedro Rivera, told dozens of reporters gathered in front of his Los Angeles-area home. "I believe my daughter's body is unrecognizable."

He said that his son would fly to Monterrey Monday.

Messages of condolence poured in from fellow musicians and celebrities.

Mexican songstress and actress Lucero wrote on her Twitter account: "What terrible news! Rest in peace ... My deepest condolences for her family and friends." Rivera's colleague on the Mexican show "The Voice of Mexico," pop star Paulina Rubio, said on her Twitter account: "My friend! Why? There is no consolation. God, please help me!"

Born in Long Beach, California, Rivera was at the peak of her career as perhaps the most successful female singer in grupero, a male-dominated regional style influenced by the norteno, cumbia and ranchero styles.

A 43-year-old mother of five children and grandmother of two, the woman known as the "Diva de la Banda" was known for her frank talk about her struggles to give a good life to her children despite a series of setbacks.

She was recently divorced from her third husband, was once detained at a Mexico City airport with tens of thousands of dollars in cash, and she publicly apologized after her brother assaulted a drunken fan who verbally attacked her in 2011.

Her openness about her personal troubles endeared her to millions in the U.S. and Mexico.

"I am the same as the public, as my fans," she told The Associated Press in an interview last March.

Rivera sold 15 million records, and recently won two Billboard Mexican Music Awards: Female Artist of the Year and Banda Album of the Year for "Joyas prestadas: Banda." She was nominated for Latin Grammys in 2002, 2008 and 2011.

Transportation and Communications Minister Gerardo Ruiz Esparza said "everything points toward" the wreckage belonging to the plane carrying Rivera and six other people to Toluca, outside Mexico City, from Monterrey, where the singer had just given a concert.

"There is nothing recognizable, neither material nor human" in the wreckage found in the state of Nuevo Leon, Ruiz Esparza said. The impact was so powerful that the remains of the plane "are scattered over an area of 250 to 300 meters. It is almost unrecognizable."

A mangled California driver's license with Rivera's name and picture was found in the crash site debris.

No cause was given for the plane's crash, but its wreckage was found near the town of Iturbide in Mexico's Sierra Madre Oriental, where the terrain is very rough.

The Learjet 25, number N345MC, took off from Monterrey at 3:30 a.m. local time and was reported missing about 10 minutes later. It was registered to Starwood Management of Las Vegas, Nevada, according to FAA records. It was built in 1969 and had a current registration through 2015.

Also believed aboard the plane were her publicist, Arturo Rivera, her lawyer, makeup artist and the flight crew.

Though drug trafficking was the theme of some of her songs, she was not considered a singer of "narco corridos," or ballads glorifying drug lords like other groups, such as Los Tigres del Norte. She was better known for singing about her troubles in love and disdain for men.

Her parents were Mexicans who had migrated to the United States. Two of her five brothers, Lupillo and Juan Rivera, are also well-known singers of grupero music.

She studied business administration and formally debuted on the music scene in 1995 with the release of her album "Chacalosa". Due to its success, she recorded two more independent albums, "We Are Rivera" and "Farewell to Selena," a tribute album to slain singer Selena that helped expand her following.

At the end of the 1990s, Rivera was signed by Sony Music and released two more albums. But widespread success came for her when she joined Fonovisa and released her 2005 album titled "Partier, Rebellious and Daring."

Besides being a singer, she is also a businesswoman and actress, appearing in the indie film Filly Brown, which was shown at the Sundance Film Festival, as the incarcerated mother of Filly Brown.

She was filming the third season of "I love Jenni," which followed her as she shared special moments with her children and as she toured through Mexico and the United States. She also has the reality shows: "Jenni Rivera Presents: Chiquis and Raq-C" and her daughter's "Chiquis 'n Control."

In 2009, she was detained at the Mexico City airport when she declared $20,000 in cash but was really carrying $52,167. She was taken into custody. She said it was an innocent mistake and authorities gave her the benefit of the doubt and released her.

In 2011, her brother Juan assaulted a drunken fan at a popular fair in Guanajuato. In the face of heavy criticism among her fans and on social networks, Rivera publicly apologized for the incident during a concert in Mexico City, telling her fans: "Thank you for accepting me as I am, with my virtues and defects."

On Saturday night, Rivera had given a concert before thousands of fans in Monterrey. After the concert she gave a press conference during which she spoke of her emotional state following her recent divorce from former Major League Baseball pitcher Esteban Loaiza, who played for teams including the New York Yankees and Los Angeles Dodgers.

"I can't get caught up in the negative because that destroys you. Perhaps trying to move away from my problems and focus on the positive is the best I can do. I am a woman like any other and ugly things happen to me like any other woman," she said Saturday night. "The number of times I have fallen down is the number of times I have gotten up."

Rivera had announced in October that she was divorcing Loaiza after two years of marriage.

There have been several high-profile crashes involving Learjets, known as swift, longer-distance passenger aircraft popular with corporate executives, entertainers and government officials.

A Learjet carrying pro-golfer Payne Stewart and five others crashed in northeastern South Dakota in 1999. Investigators said the plane lost cabin pressure and all on board died after losing consciousness for lack of oxygen. The aircraft flew for several hours on autopilot before running out of fuel and crashing in a corn field.

Former Blink 182 drummer Travis Barker was severely injured in a 2008 Learjet crash in South Carolina that killed four people.

That same year, a Learjet slammed into rush-hour traffic in a posh Mexico City neighborhood, killing Mexico's No. 2 government official, Interior Secretary Juan Camilo Mourino, and eight others on the plane, plus five people on the ground.

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Associated Press Writer Galia Garcia-Palafox and Olga R. Rodriguez contributed to this report from Mexico City.

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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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SEAL Team Six member killed in raid to free kidnapped doctor

One of the Special Operations troops involved in the raid to free an American doctor from the Taliban in eastern Afghanistan died of his wounds today.

A U.S. official confirmed the service member killed in the raid was a member of SEAL Team Six, the same unit that killed Osama bin Laden in May 2011.

"I was deeply saddened to learn that a U.S. service member was killed in the operation, and I also want to extend my condolences to his family, teammates and friends," Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said in a statement released today. "The special operators who conducted this raid knew they were putting their lives on the line to free a fellow American from the enemy's grip. They put the safety of another American ahead of their own, as so many of our brave warriors do every day and every night. In this fallen hero, and all of our special operators, Americans see the highest ideals of citizenship, sacrifice and service upheld. The torch of freedom burns brighter because of them."

President Obama also praised the Special Operations force for their bravery.

"Yesterday, our special operators in Afghanistan rescued an American citizen in a mission that was characteristic of the extraordinary courage, skill and patriotism that our troops show every day," he said today.

"Tragically, we lost one of our special operators in this effort," he said. "Our thoughts and prayers go out to his family, just as we must always honor our troops and military families. He gave his life for his fellow Americans, and he and his teammates remind us once more of the selfless service that allows our nation to stay strong, safe and free."

Dr. Dilip Joseph and two colleagues were kidnapped Dec. 5 by a group of armed men while returning from a visit to a rural medical clinic in eastern Kabul Province, according to a statement from their employer, Colorado Springs-based Morning Star Development. The statement said the three were eventually taken to a mountainous area about 50 miles from the border with Pakistan.

Morning Star's crisis management team in Colorado Springs was in contact with the hostages and their captors almost immediately, the statement said.

On Saturday evening in Afghanistan, two of the three hostages were released. Morning Star did not release their names in order to protect their identities. Dr. Joseph remained in captivity.

Gen. John R. Allen, the commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, ordered the mission to rescue Joseph when "intelligence showed that Joseph was in imminent danger of injury or death", according to a military press release.

Morning Star said Joseph was in good condition and will probably return home to Colorado Springs in the next few days.

A Defense Department official told ABC that Joseph can walk, but was beaten up by his captors.

Joseph has worked for Morning Star Development for three years, the organization said, and travels frequently to Afghanistan.

"Morning Star Development does state categorically that we paid no ransom, money or other consideration to the captors or anyone else to secure the release of these hostages," the organization said.

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Hundreds of fishermen missing in Philippine storm

NEW BATAAN, Philippines (AP) — The number of people missing after a typhoon devastated parts of the southern Philippines jumped to nearly 900 after families and fishing companies reported losing contact with more than 300 fishermen at sea, officials said Sunday.

The fishermen from southern General Santos city and nearby Sarangani province left a few days before Typhoon Bopha hit the main southern island of Mindanao on Tuesday, triggering flash floods that killed more than 600, Civil Defense chief Benito Ramos said.

Ramos said the fishermen were headed to the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea and to the Pacific Ocean. He said there has been no contact from them for a week.

"We have declared them missing," he said. "Maybe they are still alive."

Ramos said they may have sought shelter on the many small islands in the Spratlys and the Celebes Sea, and lost battery power and have not been able to call.

He said the coast guard, navy and fishing vessels have launched a search.

After slamming into the southern Philippines, the typhoon moved out to sea but then veered back toward the country's northwest on Saturday, prompting worries of more devastation. As of late Sunday, however, it had begun to dissipate and weaken into a low pressure area as it moved farther into the South China Sea, about 105 kilometers (65 miles) west of the Philippines' Ilocos Norte province.

Rescuers continued searching for bodies or signs of life under tons of fallen trees and boulders in the worst-hit town of New Bataan, where rocks, mud and other rubble destroyed landmarks, making it doubly difficult to search places where houses once stood.

Hundreds of refugees, rescuers and aid workers took a break Sunday to watch the Manny Pacquiao-Juan Manuel Marquez fight on a big TV screen, only to be dismayed by their hero's sixth-round knockout.

Elementary school teacher Constancio Olivar said people fell silent when Pacquiao, who comes from the southern Philippines where the storm hit, fell heavily to the canvas and remained motionless for some time.

"It was like a double blow for me — this disaster and this defeat," said Olivar, whose house was destroyed in the storm. "We were all crestfallen. Everyone fell silent, stunned. It was like we saw a tsunami."

Nearly 400,000 people, mostly from Compostela Valley and nearby Davao Oriental province, have lost their homes and are crowded inside evacuation centers or staying with relatives.

President Benigno Aquino III declared a state of national calamity on Friday, which allows for price controls on basic commodities in typhoon-affected areas and the quick release of emergency funds.

Officials said Sunday that 316 people were killed in Compostela Valley, including 165 in New Bataan, and 301 in Davao Oriental. More than 45 people were killed elsewhere. Nearly 900 are missing, including the fishermen and 440 from New Bataan alone.

Davao Oriental authorities imposed a curfew there and ordered police to guard stores and shops to prevent looting.

The typhoon destroyed about 18 percent of the banana plantations in Mindanao, causing losses estimated at 12 billion pesos ($300 million), according to Stephen Antig, executive director of the Pilipino Banana Growers and Exporters Association.

The Philippines is the world's third-largest banana producer and exporter, supplying international brands such as Dole, Chiquita and Del Monte.

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Associated Press writers Oliver Teves and Hrvoje Hranjski in Manila contributed to this report.

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MiFi With Touchscreen is a Road Warrior’s Dream

Meet the Novatel MiFi Liberate: the first mobile access point with a touchscreen, letting you configure it without connecting it to a computer.

If you’re not familiar with mobile access points, these handy gadgets allow you to hook up to the Internet via cellular networks. It’s useful, often essential, if you’re in an area that has no Wi-Fi. If you’re in range of a cellular tower, this MiFi Liberate lets you connect 10 Wi-Fi devices of any kind to the Internet.

[More from Mashable: Google Considering Wireless Network [REPORT]]

Mobile access points are ideal for frequent travelers, accommodating anyone who needs to get online wherever they are. Just the fact that you’re no longer at the mercy of hotels and their Wi-Fi price-gouging makes it worth the cost of admission.

The Novatel MiFi device we tested connects to the AT&T LTE network. That resulted in spectacular upload and download speed, rivaling that of wired broadband networks. The speed of LTE is variable — depending on how many people are using it and how close you are to one of its broadcast towers — but if you’ve been limping along with 3G connectivity, you’ll probably be astonished at the difference.

[More from Mashable: Samsung Galaxy Camera Goes on Sale Nov. 16]

How fast was this MiFi Liberate? We took multiple readings in a variety of locations. It averaged a zippy 19.70 Mbps for downloads, and a tremendous 20.66 Mbps for uploads. That kind of speed can make a big difference in your work, especially if you’re dealing with large files. In many ways, though, that’s more of a testament to the speed of AT&T’s network, rather than the alacrity of this particular device. Your mileage may vary.

Lovely Touchscreen

The best new feature of this device is its excellent 2.8-inch LCD capacitive touchscreen, the first of its kind. It responds to the slightest touch, letting you easily wander around its menus. And even while using that gorgeous screen, it still has in excess of 10 hours of battery life per charge.

That screen can come in handy in unexpected ways. For example, we were impressed with the way it indicated when a device has connected. Once it has, you can drill down farther, finding out more about that device. The screen adjusts for orientation, righting itself when you turn it upside down just like smartphones do.

If you and others are connected to this MiFi unit, it lets you share movies, photos and music via DLNA, with all of you accessing content on a microSD card inserted into the side of this versatile gadget.

It’s Expensive

All that versatility and convenience doesn’t come cheap. While the MiFi Liberate costs $ 49.99 with a two-year contract, you’ll also need to pay a monthly tariff for your LTE connectivity. Because of its blazing speed, we’re thinking you might want to spring for the 5 GB a month plan for $ 50 from AT&T. That takes the MiFi Liberate out of the value-priced category, and into one that you hope your boss will be willing to pay for.

After spending a couple of weeks with this unit, it was easy to conclude that the Novatel MiFi Liberate is the best portable access point we’ve ever tested.

If you need connectivity on the go at the fastest possible speed, this one will do the trick. And if you want to observe and adjust the unit on a bright and responsive touchscreen, look no further.

MiFi Liberate, Side View

It’s nice and small, except for that bulge, which contains a changeable lithium-ion battery.

Click here to view this gallery.

This story originally published on Mashable here.

Tech News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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