DA investigating Texas' troubled $3B cancer agency

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Turmoil surrounding an unprecedented $3 billion cancer-fighting effort in Texas worsened Tuesday when its executive director offered his resignation and the state's chief public corruption prosecutor announced an investigation into the beleaguered agency.

No specific criminal allegations are driving the latest probe into the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas, said Gregg Cox, director of the Travis County district attorney's public integrity unit. But his influential office opened a case only weeks after the embattled agency disclosed that an $11 million grant to a private company bypassed review.

That award is the latest trouble in a tumultuous year for CPRIT, which controls the nation's second-largest pot of cancer research dollars. Amid the mounting problems, the agency announced Tuesday that Executive Director Bill Gimson had submitted his letter of resignation.

"Unfortunately, I have also been placed in a situation where I feel I can no longer be effective," Gimson wrote in a letter dated Monday.

Gimson said the troubles have resulted in "wasted efforts expended in low value activities" at the agency, instead of a focused fight against cancer. Gimson offered to stay on until January, and the agency's board must still approve his request to step down.

His departure would complete a remarkable house-cleaning at CPRIT in a span of just eight months. It began in May, when Dr. Alfred Gilman resigned as chief science officer in protest over a different grant that the Nobel laureate wanted approved by a panel of scientists. He warned it would be "the bomb that destroys CPRIT."

Gilman was followed by Chief Commercialization Officer Jerry Cobbs, whose resignation in November came after an internal audit showed Cobbs included an $11 million proposal in a funding slate without a required outside review of the project's merits. The lucrative grant was given to Dallas-based Peloton Therapeutics, a biomedical startup.

Gimson chalked up Peloton's award to an honest mistake and has said that, to his knowledge, no one associated with CPRIT stood to benefit financially from the company receiving the taxpayer funds. That hasn't satisfied some members of the agency's governing board, who called last week for more assurances that no one personally profited.

Cox said he has been following the agency's problems and his office received a number of concerned phone calls. His department in Austin is charged with prosecuting crimes related to government officials; his most famous cases include winning a conviction against former U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay in 2010 on money laundering charges.

"We have to gather the facts and figure what, if any, crime occurred so that (the investigation) can be focused more," Cox said.

Gimson's resignation letter was dated the same day the Texas attorney general's office also announced its investigation of the agency. Cox said his department would work cooperatively with state investigators, but he made clear the probes would be separate.

Peloton's award marks the second time this year that a lucrative taxpayer-funded grant authorized by CPRIT instigated backlash and raised questions about oversight. The first involved the $20 million grant to M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston that Gilman described as a thin proposal that should have first been scrutinized by an outside panel of scientific peer-reviewers, even though none was required under the agency's rules.

Dozens of the nation's top scientists agreed. They resigned en masse from the agency's peer-review panels along with Gilman. Some accused the agency of "hucksterism" and charting a politically-driven path that was putting commercial product-development above science.

The latest shake-up at CPRIT caught Gilman's successor off-guard. Dr. Margaret Kripke, who was introduced to reporters Tuesday, acknowledged that she wasn't even sure who she would be answering to now that Gimson was stepping down. She said that although she wasn't with the agency when her predecessor announced his resignation, she was aware of the concerns and allegations.

"I don't think people would resign frivolously, so there must be some substance to those concerns," Kripke said.

Kripke also acknowledged the challenge of restocking the peer-review panels after the agency's credibility was so publicly smeared by some of the country's top scientists. She said she took the job because she felt the agency's mission and potential was too important to lose.

Only the National Institutes of Health doles out more cancer research dollars than CPRIT, which has awarded more than $700 million so far.

Gov. Rick Perry told reporters in Houston on Tuesday that he wasn't previously aware of the resignation but said Gimson's decision to step down was his own.

Joining the mounting criticism of CPRIT is the woman credited with brainstorming the idea for the agency in the first place. Cathy Bonner, who served under former Texas Gov. Ann Richards, teamed with cancer survivor Lance Armstrong in selling Texas voters in 2007 on a constitutional amendment to create an unprecedented state-run effort to finance a war on disease.

Now Bonner says politics have sullied an agency that she said was built to fund research, not subsidize private companies.

"There appears to be a cover-up going on," Bonner said.

Peloton has declined comment about its award and has referred questions to CPRIT. The agency has said the company wasn't aware that its application was never scrutinized by an outside panel, as required under agency rules.

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Follow Paul J. Weber on Twitter: www.twitter.com/pauljweber

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Mali’s Prime Minister Arrested by Military

BAMAKO, Mali – Soldiers arrested Mali’s prime minister at his residence late Monday night, in new turmoil in a West African nation racked by military interference and an Islamist takeover in the north.

Associated Press

Prime Minister Cheikh Modibo Diarra appeared on state television and announced his government’s resignation on Tuesday.

Hours later, Prime Minister Cheikh Modibo Diarra appeared grim-faced on national television to announce his government’s resignation. A spokesman for soldiers who seized power earlier in the year — and later nominally relinquished to Mr. Diarra — confirmed the prime minister’s arrest on Tuesday morning, accusing him of “playing a personal agenda” while the country faced a crisis in the north.

Mr. Diarra was taken by soldiers late Monday to the military encampment at Kati, just outside Bamako, the capital, where Capt. Amadou Sanogo, the officer who led the March military coup, and others told him “there were proofs against him that he was calling for subversion,” said a military spokesman, Bakary Mariko.

On Tuesday morning, the streets of Bamako appeared calm following what appeared to be the country’s second coup d’état in less than a year. But the new upheaval was likely to be considered a setback in western efforts to help Mali regain control of territory lost to Al Qaeda-linked militants earlier in the year.

The west has watched with growing alarm as Islamists radicals have constructed a stronghold in the country’s vast north and the United Nations, regional African bodies, France and the United States have engaged to aid the faltering Malian army in a military strike to take back the lost north. Those efforts have so far not coalesced in a coherent plan, despite numerous meetings and United Nations resolutions. More meetings at the United Nations were planned for later this month.

The latest political turmoil in the capital will almost certainly slow down any campaign in the north, however. Already, the United States has expressed reluctance to provide too much direct military assistance, given the shakiness of the political order here. Those doubts will likely only increase following the latest upheaval.

Mr. Diarra — appointed last spring as a caretaker prime minister until new elections, interrupted by the coup, could be organized — was known to disagree with Captain Sanogo on military policy.

He has been an advocate of immediate international military assistance to recapture the north from the Islamists. Captain Sanogo has rebuffed suggestions that the Malian military was incapable of handling the job on its own. Indeed, the captain for weeks resisted the notion that troops from other African nations should even approach the capital.

While Mr. Diarra has made the rounds of foreign capitals, pleading for help to fight the increasingly aggressive Islamists, military leaders have remained at the Kati base, grumbling.

That conflict was evident in the declarations of the military’s spokesman on Tuesday. “Since he has been in power, he has been working simply to position his own family,” Mr. Mariko, the spokesman, said. “There has been a paralysis in government.”

On Monday night, around 11 p.m. here, as Mr. Diarra was preparing for a flight to Paris for a medical checkup exam when the soldiers appeared at his home, and took him to Kati, Mr. Mariko said. “He was getting ready to go to the airport,” Mr. Mariko said.

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The Voice Semi-Finals Bring Out the Best in Singers

TV Watch

The Voice

By Julia Haskins

12/11/2012 at 07:45 AM EST

From left: Adam Levine, CeeLo Green, Christina Aguilera, Blake Shelton and The Voice host Carson Daly

Mark Seliger/NBC

Talk about peaking at the right time.

The final four contenders on The Voice left the coaches nearly at a loss for words – in a good way! – during Monday night's semifinals.

Even Adam Levine and Christina Aguilera, without any team members left, conjured up some kind words. They just had to get over their astonishment first.

Cee Lo Green had nothing but praise for his team members, Trevin Hunte, who sang "Wind Beneath My Wings," and Nicholas David, who sang "You Are So Beautiful."

"It was so heartfelt, so beautiful," Green said of David's performance, which the singer dedicated to his family.

Blake Shelton also had admiration for his contestants, Cassadee Pope and Terry McDermott. Pope sang Keith Urban's version of "Stupid Boy," a choice hand-picked by her coach. "Nobody that's ever been on this show can do what you just did," Shelton told her.

Aguilera, meanwhile, remarked that Pope's tone was so clear, it could be mistaken for Auto-Tune.

McDermott's rendition of the Beatles' "Let It Be" had Levine stumbling over his words, but he came up with a glowing review. "Thank God for you, Terry," he said. "You're so wonderful." And Shelton? "In my absolute heart I believe that that was musical perfection," he told McDermott.

The Voice returns Tuesday with the next elimination.

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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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New UC logo a no-go with students and alumni

University of California officials said they were trying to project a "forward-looking spirit" when they replaced the university system's ornate, tradition-clad logo with a sleek, modern one.

What they got was an online revolt complete with mocking memes, Twitter insults and a petition to restore the old logo. Students and alumni have taken to Facebook and Photoshop to express their displeasure, showing the new symbol ready to be flushed down a toilet and as a permanently stalled computer operating system. One critic suggested the controversial image be tattooed on its creators' foreheads as punishment.

UC campuses in the past have been the site of war protests, sit-ins against tuition hikes and Occupy camping demonstrations. This week, the schools are dealing with a unlikely debate about graphic design and whether the new logo demeans the university.

"To a generation all too familiar with circular, fading loading symbols, this is an attempt to be revolutionary. But it comes off as insensitive," Reaz Rahman, a 21-year-old UC Irvine senior who started the online petition, said of the UC's new logo. "To me, it didn't symbolize an institution of higher learning. It seemed like a marketing scheme to pull in money rather than represent the university."

UC officials were caught on the defensive. They emphasize that the traditional seal, with its "Let There Be Light" motto, a drawing of an open book and the 1868 date of UC's founding, is not being abandoned and still will be used on such things as diplomas and official letterhead. But they say that the 1910 seal is so ornate that it does not reproduce well for many Internet uses and that it is often confused with variations created by the 10 individual UC campuses. UC websites are now adorned with the new logo.

It was introduced with little fanfare about six months ago and is now being extended to more UC websites and publications. Officials said it is adaptable and will provide a unified image for fundraising, recruiting and public affairs campaigns.

"We want to convey that this is an iconic place that makes a difference to California and that there is a UC system," said Jason Simon, the UC system's director of marketing communication.

In various colors, it shows a large U that echoes the shape of the old seal's book and contains an interior C at the bottom. The words "University of California" are on its right, and Simon complained that critics usually don't include that text in their depictions of the logo.

Simon said UC has received much favorable feedback about the logo, which was developed by an in-house team of designers. There are no plans to immediately change it in response to the protests, but he suggested that the symbol might evolve over time.

Marketing and design experts said emotional responses are common when institutions change their marketing images. For example, over the past few years, changes in the logos for Tropicana Pure Premium orange juice and the Gap clothing chain triggered consumer protests and the companies then restored the original.

Drastic changes in long-time logos disrupt "a sense of connection," explained Kali Nikitas, chairwoman of the graduate program in graphic design at the Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles. "It's as if you show up at the same coffee shop for years and they start serving you a different coffee. Your routine is broken," she said. And at colleges and universities, reactions can be particularly powerful, she added, "since people really love tradition and legacy at their alma mater. They are really passionate about where they go to school and view it as the cornerstone of their lives."

The older UC logo, she said, conveys a sense of stability while the new one looks "incredibly progressive." She said that people probably will come to accept the new one and "in five years, no one will care."

Such debates have reached college campuses because schools are looking for ways to better compete for donations and applicants, said Petrula Vrontikis, a graphic design professor and branding expert at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena. "It is much more about brand differentiation," she said, noting that many of the old college seals looked too much alike. UC has shifted dramatically, she said, "from an institutional look to a marketing look that is young-skewed and vibrant."

But some young people rejected it with online mockery and slashing comments, similar to the ways they reacted to last year's pepper-spraying of student demonstrators by UC Davis police.

"New UC logo is an abomination," wrote one Twitter-user "Back to the drawing board." Another tweeted that "Whoever signed off on this UC logo should be forced to have it tattooed on their forehead for life."

David Bocarsly, UCLA student body president, attributed some of the unusual attention to exam period procrastination.

"During finals week, you have more people on their computers than ever looking for something to do other than study," said Bocarsly, a senior.

Tomo Hirai, a 24-year-old UC Davis graduate, thought the new UC logo looked like "a loading logo" for a computer operating system such as Windows or Mac.

"It cheapened the entire UC System," Hirai said. "That's not what you do to 144 years of history."

So about 30 minutes on Adobe Photoshop was all it took for Hirai to create a logo with the C endlessly circling.

This past weekend, after Hirai shared his modified logo with the world, he said he received a letter from the UC Davis alumni association seeking a donation.

"I'm not paying them a single penny," he said, adding that the logo debacle was the "bitter icing on the cake."

larry.gordon@latimes.com

matt.stevens@latimes.com

Times staff writer Samantha Schaefer contributed to this report.

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India Ink: Congress Party Craters in Gujarat

KESHOD, India
The prospects of the Indian National Congress party in the battleground state of Gujarat are dwindling by the day, analysts and potential voters say, a situation that could ultimately advance Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi’s bid to become prime minister.

Sonia Gandhi, the president of the Congress party, drew smaller-than-expected crowds in Gujarat this weekend, just days ahead of state elections, and important party members and aides have defected in recent weeks. Some supporters say they have lost hope.

“I’ve been a Congress supporter since I was in college,” said Meena Raval, 44, a homemaker from Rajkot who holds a master’s degree in English literature. “But there is a vast difference between Congress leaders of the 1980s and 1990s and those of today,” she said. “It’s hard to win an election, let alone come to power, without a strong, powerful leader.”

Unlike in Rajkot in early October, when Mrs. Gandhi’s rally attracted nearly 150,000 people, there were only about 15,000 attendees at a rally in Mandvi and 10,000 at Keshod this weekend. Many seemed to be local tribal women, who were keener to see how Mrs. Gandhi, probably India’s best-known politician, looked than to listen to what she had to say.

“I didn’t understand what she was saying,” said Ramaben Prajapati, 34, a vegetable seller from a village near Keshod. “But I thought she was very honest. I was impressed by her personality and body language.”

Gujarat voters go to the polls on Dec. 13 and 17th in a two-part election, when they will decide whether to re-elect Mr. Modi for a third term. How he fares in this election could help determine whether he becomes the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party’s candidate for prime minister in India’s next national elections.

Allegations that Mr. Modi encouraged, or did not do enough to stop, the 2002 riots in Gujarat which left hundreds dead, mostly Muslims, have dogged his political career and made him one of India’s most polarizing politicians. Still, the state’s ability to attract foreign investment and build infrastructure since he took power have gained accolades, and new supporters.

Mr. Modi’s no-expenses-spared state election campaign includes rallies across the state led by a three-dimensional avatar that speaks in numerous locations at once.

The political fight has become increasingly nasty in recent weeks, with Congress party members accusing Mr. Modi of hypocrisy and lying, and he, in turn, calling Congress and the Gandhi family a corrupt organization with no other political agenda but to criticize Mr. Modi.

Meanwhile, key members of the party in Gujarat are abandoning it. Members of the state’s legislative assembly and hundreds of party officials have switched from the Congress to the opposition in recent weeks. Defectors include lawmakers Kuvarji Halpati, Lalsinh Vadodia, Brijrajsinh Jadeja, Bhavsinh Rathod and party officials Mahendrasinh Rana, Ashok Dangar, Girish Parmar, Asifa Khan Pathan and Poonam Madam.

The most high-profile departure has been former deputy chief minister Narhari Amin, from Ahmedabad, who was at the forefront of the party’s election campaign until Nov. 30. On Dec. 6, he joined the B.J.P., along with many of his aides. Mr. Amin’s defection came after the party denied him a spot on the ballot from the state capital of Gandhinagar. “As a sincere and senior leader I felt insulted because the Congress gave tickets to unknown faces,” Mr. Amin said in an interview. “Is this the price of loyalty? There was no way I could have stayed in Congress after being so treated.”

Mrs. Gandhi and one of her close aides, Ahmed Patel, rushed several top Congress leaders from New Delhi to Gujarat to persuade Mr. Amin to change his mind, but he refused. Nearly 80 key Congress workers from Ahmedabad and another 100 from across Gujarat have joined the B.J.P. along with him, Mr. Amin said. “In all, nearly 20,000 people from Congress across Gujarat have joined the B.J.P. in the last few weeks,” he said, including mayors and chiefs of district and village councils.

“Congress just can’t stop the B.J.P. juggernaut,” Mr. Amin said. “We’ll ensure that Modi makes a hat-trick of a win in Gujarat.”  

The Congress general secretary for Gujarat, Kashmira Nathwani, conceded in an interview that there have been “some cases” of defection and a “feeling of disappointment in some quarters.” Still, she said, “Congress is as strong as ever in Gujarat and it’s all thanks to its millions of supporters and strong leadership at the state as well as national level.”

Participants at last weekend’s rallies, though, said Mrs. Gandhi lacked the vigor and zeal she had displayed in Rajkot earlier this year.

“I was hoping she would forcefully answer some of the questions Narendra Modi had asked her at one of his public rallies,” said Manish Chauhan 22, an engineering student and Congress supporter from Junagadh, who had come to Keshod to hear her. “But she was a big disappointment. She appeared to be quite subdued and her attitude was defeatist.”

Some voters say that Congress has given them few reasons to vote for the party, instead telling them why they should vote against Mr. Modi.

“There are many issues the Congress leaders can take up, but all the time they are seen busy bashing Modi and hardly talking about any other serious matter,” said Popat Bharwad, 28, a roadside tea seller from Rajkot, who described himself as passionately interested in Indian politics and cricket. “This gives Modi more publicity and gradually distances people from Congress.”

Many Congress supporters in Gujarat now say they can’t see their party winning this state election, or any others in the near future.

“I’ve always been a Congress loyalist, but we have to face the reality – we have little hope to regain power in Gujarat,” said one sociology professor from Rajkot, who asked not to be identified because he did not want to offend associates from the Congress party. “The problem is Congress just doesn’t have a leader of Modi’s charisma and dynamism.”

Bharatiya Janata Party leaders, not surprisingly, agreed. “There is so much defection in Congress that it will be wiped out from Gujarat in coming years,” predicted Naresh Kanodiya, a Gujarati actor and a former member of the state legislative assembly for the B.J.P.

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Syrian Rebels Now Have a Tank Powered by a Playstation Controller

As Syria‘s rebels work to overthrow the tank-equipped Assad regime, they’ve learned that it helps to have tanks of their own. They deserve bonus points for integrating video game technology. This is no exaggeration. Have a look at the opposition forces’ “100 percent made in Syria” armored vehicle, the Sham II.

RELATED: What Dennis Kucinich Really Said in Syria

Named for ancient Syria and assembled out of spare parts over the course of a month, the Sham II sort of rough around the edges, but it’s got impressive guts. It rides on the chassis of an old diesel car and is fully encased in light steel that’s rusted from the elements. Five cameras are mounted around the tanks outside, and there’s a machine gun mounted on a turning turret. Inside, it kind of looks like a man cave. A couple of flat screen TVs are mounted on opposite walls. The driver sits in front of one, controlling the vehicle with a steering wheel, and the gunner sits at the other, aiming the machine gun with a Playstation controller.

RELATED: It’s Never a Good Idea to Put Your Torture Victims on YouTube

Sham II is heading up to the devastated city of Aleppo to join the combat forces there. Meanwhile, rebel forces continue to close in on Damascus and Assad’s shrinking regime. Diplomats have already begun to speculate about what the Syrian president’s next move would be. We do know that Assad has been exploring the option of seeking political asylum in the Middle East or in Latin American. However, it looks more likely that Assad and his cronies will retreat to the Alawite-controlled mountains on Syria’s Mediterranean coast. The only other alternative — chemical weapons attack notwithstanding — would be for Assad to stay in the palace and fight to the end. And can you imagine standing helpless as a fierce machine like Sham II roared up the palace steps? Run, Bashar. Run.

RELATED: The CIA Is Guiding Weapons into Syria

Gaming News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Prince Harry Will Be a 'Wonderful Uncle,' Says Family Friend

By Simon Perry

12/10/2012 at 07:45 AM EST

He may be serving in Afghanistan, but Prince Harry is already gearing up for uncle duty when sister-in-law Kate gives birth.

And expect fun and fireworks from the playful prince.

"He will be a wonderful uncle – [think of] the mischief he will want to get up to with the [children]!" a friend tells PEOPLE. "I can see it already."

That would match his behavior at that other great occasion in William and Kate's life – their wedding. It was Harry, 28, who had the young flower girls scurrying around his feet at the Palace reception, a guest told PEOPLE at the time.

Harry, who is serving as an Apache attack helicopter pilot on a tour of Afghanistan until early next year, has had to make do with phone calls to and from his brother and sister-in-law since they broke the happy news of their pregnancy.

And he is said to have sent Kate, who is recuperating at home following her attack of severe morning sickness, a get-well message from the frontline.

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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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Angel's statue offers solace to the grieving

Brandon Ty Garner died on the day he was born: July 1, 2011.

He came into the world at 24 weeks, 5 days. His lungs hadn't developed. He lived for six hours.

Very few people ever saw him.

Nearly a year and a half later, his parents remain swaddled in grief.

They visit his grave twice a week, even though it's an hour's drive from their Menifee home, and decorate it for each holiday he cannot share with them.

Recently they put up a small Christmas tree, full of colorful lights and ornaments. They surrounded it with stuffed animals, some wearing Santa hats.

Most people, they say, do not understand.

But on the night of Dec. 6, Janet and Ty Garner, both 33, were far from alone in their sorrow.

At El Toro Memorial Park in Lake Forest, in the children's section where Brandon is buried, several hundred people gathered before a bronze angel on a pedestal.

Some stood. Some sat in camp chairs. Extended families huddled on blankets on the grass.

They held candles. They listened to songs. They let the tears fall freely. They didn't try to hold them in.

And when the time came, they lined up to speak the names of their lost children and to lay down white carnations on long green stems.

Children's voices squeaked: "My sister Emma." "My big brother Jack." Adult voices cracked and quivered at "our baby girl," "my great-grandson," "our beautiful, beautiful boy."

One young couple grieved for newborn twins who had died the month before. An older man remembered his son, a fire captain, who had died years back, fully grown.

For nearly 20 minutes the names kept coming, one lapping over the next, as flowers filled the angel's open hands and blanketed her feet.

Similar scenes played out at more than 100 angels across the country.

The Dec. 6 tradition started with a self-published book, "The Christmas Box," which has become a staple of grief support groups.

In the 1993 story by Richard Paul Evans, a woman never stops mourning her daughter, who died at age 3 on that day.

The fictional child's grave features a statue of an angel.

After Evans had one erected in Salt Lake City, others followed. (The statues can be ordered through his website.)

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