Celebrations planned as Wash. legalizes marijuana

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Dow, S&P rise, but Nasdaq sours with Apple in wild day

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A volatile trading session ended with U.S. stocks mostly higher on Wednesday, even as Apple, the most valuable company in the United States, suffered its worst day of losses in almost four years.

In a strange occurrence, Apple accounted for the entirety of the Nasdaq 100's <.ndx> fall of 1.1 percent, while the Dow industrials - which do not include Apple as a component - enjoyed the best day since November 28.

With the drop, Apple shed nearly $35 billion in market capitalization, its biggest one-day market-cap loss ever. The company's market value, or market capitalization, now stands at $506.85 billion.

"Today's move is because of index weightings, with the Nasdaq down because of Apple's decline," said Rex Macey, chief investment officer of Wilmington Trust in Atlanta. "The S&P is up because Apple isn't as big a weight in that index, and the Dow is up even more because it isn't there at all."

The broad market seesawed, with the S&P 500 dropping into negative territory before it rebounded off the 1,400 level, seen as a key support point over the past two weeks. Investors cited comments from President Barack Obama suggesting a potential near-term resolution to the "fiscal cliff" wrangling in Washington as a catalyst for the rebound.

Shares of The Travelers Cos Inc rose 4.9 percent to $74. The stock ranked as the Dow's top percentage gainer after the insurance company said it intended to resume stock buybacks it had temporarily suspended while it assessed its exposure to Superstorm Sandy. The company also said a preliminary estimate of net losses from Sandy was about $650 million after tax.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> rose 82.71 points, or 0.64 percent, to 13,034.49 at the close. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> gained 2.23 points, or 0.16 percent, to 1,409.28. But the Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> fell 22.99 points, or 0.77 percent, to end at 2,973.70.

Apple, the largest U.S. company by market capitalization and a big weight in both the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq, fell 6.4 percent to $538.79. Apple is down more than 20 percent from an all-time high reached in late September, putting the stock into bear market territory.

Banking shares were led higher by a 6.3 percent jump in Citigroup to $36.46 after the company said it would cut 4 percent of its workforce. The S&P financial sector index <.gspf> climbed 1.3 percent, and Bank of America hit a 52-week high of $10.55 before pulling back slightly. The stock, a Dow component, ended at $10.46, up 5.7 percent for the day.

Cyclical sectors, which are tied to the pace of economic growth, rallied on optimism about progress on a solution to avoid the fiscal cliff. An S&P index of industrial stocks <.gspi> rose 1.1 percent, buoyed by Caterpillar Inc , up 2.2 percent at $86.05, while an S&P index of energy shares <.gspe> climbed 0.7 percent. The Dow Jones Transportation Average <.djt> gained 0.9 percent, with CSX Corp jumping 2.7 percent to $20.16.

Still, Apple struggled throughout the session. Market participants cited a host of reasons for the drop in the iPad maker's stock, including a consultant's report about the company losing share in the tablet market and reports that margin requirements had been raised by at least one clearing firm, as well as year-end tax selling ahead of a possible rise in capital-gains tax rates next year.

On the Washington front, Obama told the Business Roundtable, a group of chief executives, on Wednesday that a fiscal cliff deal was possible "in about a week" if Republicans acknowledged the need to raise taxes on the wealthiest Americans.

Equities have struggled to gain ground recently because of concerns over the fiscal cliff - a series of mandatory spending cuts and tax increases effective in early January that could push the U.S. economy into recession next year. Recently equities have moved on any whiffs of sentiment from Washington in headlines about negotiations.

"Obama's comments generated a lot of optimism, but to the extent the market believes them, that's how much we're setting ourselves up for a decline if that deadline passes with no progress," said Macey, who helps oversee about $20 billion in assets.

In an interview on CNBC after the market closed, U.S. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner said that uncertainty over the fiscal cliff was standing in the way of stronger economic growth, and that there was no prospect for an agreement if tax rates didn't rise on the wealthiest taxpayers.

The stock of Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc fell 16 percent to $32.17 and ranked as the S&P 500's biggest percentage decliner. The company said it was acquiring Plains Exploration & Production Co and McMoRan Exploration Co in two separate deals for $9 billion in cash and stock in a major expansion into energy.

McMoRan Exploration soared 87 percent to $15.82 and Plains surged 23.4 percent to $44.50.

About half of the stocks traded on the New York Stock Exchange closed in positive territory, while about 54 percent of Nasdaq-listed shares ended lower.

Volume was higher than it has been in recent sessions, with about 6.93 billion shares changing hands on the New York Stock Exchange, the Nasdaq and NYSE MKT, above the daily average so far this year of about 6.48 billion shares.

(Editing by Jan Paschal)

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Rivals clash as Mursi deputy seeks end to Egypt crisis

CAIRO (Reuters) - Islamists battled with protesters outside Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi's palace on Thursday, after his vice president suggested amendments could be agreed to the draft constitution that has divided the nation.

Fires burned in the streets near the palace perimeter where opponents and supporters of Mursi threw stones and petrol bombs. Riot police tried to separate the two sides, but failed to halt fighting that extended from Wednesday into the early morning.

Residents, frustrated that police had not calmed the streets, set up makeshift road blocks nearby to check passers-by, scenes reminiscent of the popular uprising that toppled Mursi's autocratic predecessor Hosni Mubarak.

Five people were killed and 350 injured in the clashes, according to a statement released by the Ministry of Health.

"No to dictatorship," Mursi's opponents chanted, while their rivals chanted: "Defending Mursi is defending Islam."

Mursi's opponents accused him of creating a new autocracy by awarding himself extraordinary powers in a decree on November 22 and were further angered when an Islamist-dominated assembly pushed through a draft constitution that opponents said did not properly represent the aspirations of the whole nation.

The United States, worried about the stability of a state that has a peace deal with Israel and to which it gives $1.3 billion in military aid each year, called for dialogue.

A presidential source said Mursi was expected to make a statement later on Thursday. His opponents had earlier called on him to address the nation to help calm the streets.

Bidding to end the worst crisis since Mursi took office less than six months ago, Vice President Mahmoud Mekky said amendments to disputed articles in the constitution could be agreed with the opposition. A written agreement could then go to parliament, to be elected after a referendum on the constitution on December 15.

"There must be consensus," he told a news conference inside the presidential palace as fighting raged outside on Wednesday evening, saying opposition demands had to be respected.

PROTESTS SPREAD

Prime Minister Hisham Kandil called for calm to "give the opportunity" for efforts underway to start a national dialogue.

Protests spread to other cities, and offices of the Muslim Brotherhood's political party in Ismailia and Suez were torched.

But Mursi has shown no sign of buckling under pressure from protestors, confident that the Islamists, who have dominated both elections since Mubarak was overthrown in February 2011, can win the referendum and parliamentary election to follow.

On top of the support of the Brotherhood, which backed him for the presidency in the June election, Mursi may also be able to rely on a popular yearning for stability and economic revival after almost two years of political turmoil.

Egypt's opposition coalition blamed Mursi for the violence and said it was ready for dialogue if the Islamist leader scrapped the decree that gave him wide powers and shielded his decisions from judicial review.

"Today what is happening in the Egyptian street, polarization and division, is something that could and is actually drawing us to violence and could draw us to something worse," opposition coordinator Mohamed ElBaradei said on Wednesday.

"We are ready for dialogue if the constitutional decree is cancelled ... and the referendum on this constitution is postponed," he told a news conference.

But liberals, leftists, Christians, ex-Mubarak followers and others opposed to Mursi have yet to generate a mass movement or a grassroots base to challenge the Brotherhood.

'REAL DANGER'

Opposition leaders have previously urged Mursi to retract the decree, defer the referendum and agree to revise the constitution, but have not echoed calls from street protesters for his overthrow and the "downfall of the regime".

Mursi has said his decree was needed to prevent courts still full of judges appointed by Mubarak from derailing a constitution vital for Egypt's political transition.

Mekky said street mobilization by both sides posed a "real danger" to Egypt. "If we do not put a stop to this phenomenon right away ... where are we headed? We must calm down."

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton weighed into Egypt's political debate, saying dialogue was urgently needed on the new constitution, which should "respect the rights of all citizens".

Clinton and Mursi worked together last month to broker a truce between Israel and Hamas Islamists in the Gaza Strip.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague called for restraint on all sides. He said Egypt's authorities had to make progress on the transition in an "inclusive manner" and urged dialogue.

Both Islamists and their opponents have staged big shows of strength on the streets since Mursi's decree, each bringing out tens of thousands of people.

State institutions, with the partial exception of the judiciary, have mostly fallen in behind Mursi.

The army, the muscle behind all previous Egyptian presidents in the republic's six-decade history, has gone back to barracks, having apparently lost its appetite to intervene in politics.

(Additional reporting by Yasmine Saleh and Marwa Awad; Writing by Edmund Blair; Editing by Will Waterman)

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In brewing rivalry, Instagram trims ties to Twitter

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Facebook Inc’s recently acquired photo-sharing service Instagram removed a key element of its integration with Twitter, signaling a deepening rift between two of the Web’s dominant social media companies.

Instagram Chief Executive Kevin Systrom said Wednesday his company turned off support for Twitter “cards” in order to drive Twitter users to Instagram’s own website. Twitter “cards” are a feature that allows multimedia content like YouTube videos and Instagram photos to be embedded and viewed directly within a Twitter message.

The move marked the latest clash between Facebook and Twitter since April, when Facebook, the world’s no. 1 social network, outbid Twitter to nab fast-growing Instagram in a cash-and-stock deal valued at the time at $ 1 billion. The acquisition closed in September for roughly $ 715 million, reflecting Facebook’s recent stock drop.

The companies’ ties have been strained since. In July, Twitter blocked Instagram from using its data to help new Instagram users find friends.

Beginning earlier this week, Twitter’s users began to complain in public messages that Instagram photos did not seem to display properly on Twitter’s website.

Systrom confirmed Wednesday that his company had decided its users should view photos on Instagram’s own Web pages and took steps to change its policies.

“We believe the best experience is for us to link back to where the content lives,” Systrom said in a statement, citing recent improvements to Instagram’s website.

“A handful of months ago, we supported Twitter cards because we had a minimal Web presence,” Systrom said, noting that the company has since released new features that allow users to comment about and “like” photos directly on Instagram’s website.

The move escalates a rivalry in the fast-growing social networking sector, where the biggest players have sought to wall off access to content from rival services and to their ranks of users.

“They’re both competing for slices of the same pie, the pie being users’ attention,” said Ray Valdes, an analyst with research firm Gartner.

If Facebook decides to offer advertising on Instagram, it’s important that the users visit Instagram’s own website, said Valdes. “If the eyeballs are elsewhere, you have less to work with in terms of monetization,” he said.

Photos are among the most popular features on both Facebook and Twitter, and Instagram’s meteoric rise in recent years has further proved how picture-sharing has become a key front in the battle for social Internet supremacy.

Instagram, which has 100 million users, allows consumers to tweak the photos they take on their smartphones and share the images with friends, a feature that Twitter has reportedly also begun to develop. Twitter’s executive chairman, Jack Dorsey, was an early investor in Instagram and had hoped to acquire it before Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg made a successful bid.

When Zuckerberg announced the acquisition in an April blog post, he highlighted Instagram’s inter-connectivity with other social networks.

“We think the fact that Instagram is connected to other services beyond Facebook is an important part of the experience,” Zuckerberg wrote. “We plan on keeping features like the ability to post to other social networks.”

A Twitter spokesman declined comment Wednesday, but a status message on Twitter’s website confirmed that users are “experiencing issues,” such as “cropped images” when viewing Instagram photos on Twitter.

(Reporting By Alexei Oreskovic and Gerry Shih; Editing by Nick Zieminski and Leslie Adler)

Internet News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Kate Receives Hospital Visit from Pippa and James

12/05/2012 at 07:30 PM EST

James and Pippa Middleton

Alpha /Landov; Inset:Allpix/ plash News Online

The Duchess of Cambridge had more hospital visitors on Wednesday.

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

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

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

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Study could spur wider use of prenatal gene tests

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Online:

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

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

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Wall Street slips as investors seek cliff progress

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks finished slightly lower in a quiet session on Tuesday as the back-and-forth wrangling over the "fiscal cliff" gave investors little reason to act.

Trading volume was light as legislators continue to negotiate a deal to avoid a $600 billion package of tax hikes and federal spending cuts that would begin January 1 and could push the economy into recession.

Just 5.86 billion shares changed hands on the New York Stock Exchange, the Nasdaq and the NYSE MKT, below the year's daily average of 6.48 billion shares.

A key measure of investor anxiety has remained muted. The CBOE Volatility Index or VIX <.vix>, a gauge of market anxiety, was at 17.12, up 2.9 percent. It has not traded above 20 since July.

Optimism for progress was dented after remarks by President Barack Obama, who rejected a Republican proposal to resolve the crisis as "out of balance" and said any deal must include a rise in income tax rates on the wealthiest Americans.

"People don't know if what's going on is political posturing or real negotiations that represent progress," said Bernard Baumohl, managing director and chief global economist at the Economic Outlook Group in Princeton, New Jersey.

Expectations of higher taxes on dividends beginning in 2013 have pushed many companies to pay special dividends this year or advance their next payback to investors. Coach became the latest to move up the date of its next dividend payment, and the news lifted shares of the upscale leather-goods maker earlier in the session. By the close, though, Coach was down 1.2 percent at $57.52.

One of the S&P 500's top sectors for the day was health care <.gspa>, considered a defensive group.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> fell 13.82 points, or 0.11 percent, to 12,951.78 at the close. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> dipped 2.41 points, or 0.17 percent, to 1,407.05. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> shed 5.51 points, or 0.18 percent, to close at 2,996.69.

The market has been sensitive to rhetoric from Washington, as a failure to reach an agreement could send the U.S. economy back into recession. Still, many expect a resolution to be found, which could extend the S&P 500's rally of 12 percent so far this year.

Differences within the Republican Party came to the fore on Tuesday as one senator opposed to raising taxes lashed out at Republican House Speaker John Boehner for proposing to increase revenue by closing some tax loopholes.

Congressional Republicans recently proposed steep spending cuts to bring down the budget deficit, but gave no ground on Obama's call to raise tax rates on the rich. The proposal was quickly dismissed by the White House.

"We're on hold trying to figure it out, but investors are stressed since they have to make decisions soon about how to proceed with their investments if taxes are indeed going up. We could see a real pick-up in volume over the next week or so," Baumohl said.

Netflix Inc was the S&P 500's top percentage gainer, advancing 14 percent to $86.65 after Walt Disney Co agreed to give the company exclusive TV distribution rights to its movies, starting in 2016.

Intel Corp shares rose 2.2 percent to $19.97 after the top chipmaker sold $6 billion in bonds to fund stock buybacks and other business activities.

Darden Restaurants Inc shares plunged 9.6 percent to $47.40 as the S&P 500's worst performer after the company warned that its latest quarter would miss expectations after unsuccessful promotions led to a decline in sales at its Olive Garden, Red Lobster and LongHorn Steakhouse chains.

In contrast, Big Lots Inc surged 11.5 percent to $31.27 after the close-out retailer posted a smaller-than-expected loss and boosted its full-year adjusted earnings forecast.

MetroPCS Communications shares tumbled 7.5 percent to $9.96 after Sprint Nextel appeared unlikely to make a counter-offer for the wireless service provider.

Almost half of the stocks traded on the New York Stock Exchange closed lower, while 50 percent of Nasdaq-listed shares closed in negative territory.

After the closing bell, Pandora Media Inc

shares plunged 23 percent after the company reported its third-quarter results.

(Editing by Jan Paschal)

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NATO warns Syria not to use chemical weapons

BRUSSELS/BEIRUT (Reuters) - NATO told Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on Tuesday that any use of chemical weapons in his fight against encroaching rebel forces would be met by an immediate international response.

The warning from NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen came as U.S. government sources said Washington had information that Syria was making what could be seen as preparations to use its chemical arsenal.

Syrian forces meanwhile bombarded rebel districts near Damascus in a sustained counter-attack to stem rebel gains around Assad's power base as the insurgency may be entering a decisive phase.

International concern over Syria's intentions has been heightened by reports that its chemical weapons have been moved and could be prepared for use.

"The possible use of chemical weapons would be completely unacceptable for the whole international community and if anybody resorts to these terrible weapons I would expect an immediate reaction from the international community," Rasmussen told reporters at the start of a meeting of alliance foreign ministers in Brussels.

The chemical threat made it urgent for the alliance to send Patriot anti-missile missiles to Turkey, Rasmussen said.

The French Foreign Ministry referred to "possible movements on military bases storing chemical weapons in Syria" and said the international community would react if they were used.

Britain has told the Syrian government that any use of chemical weapons would have "serious consequences", Foreign Secretary William Hague said.

U.S. President Barack Obama on Monday told Assad not to use chemical weapons, without saying how the United States might respond. The Foreign Ministry in Damascus said it would never use such weapons against Syrians.

CLASSIFIED INTELLIGENCE

The U.S. has collected what has been described as highly classified intelligence information demonstrating that Syria is making what could be construed as preparations to use elements of its extensive chemical weapons arsenal, two U.S. government sources briefed on the issue said.

One of the sources said that there was no question that the US "Intelligence community" had received information pointing to "preparations" under way in Syria related to chemical weapons. The source declined to specify what kind of preparations had been reported, or how close the intelligence indicated the Syrians were to deploying or even using the weapons.

Western military experts say Syria has four suspected chemical weapons sites, and it can produce chemical weapons agents including mustard gas and sarin, and possibly also VX nerve agent. The CIA has estimated that Syria possesses several hundred liters of chemical weapons and produces hundreds of tonnes of agents annually.

The fighting around Damascus has led foreign airlines to suspend flights and prompted the United Nations and European Union to reduce their presence in the capital, adding to a sense that the fight is closing in.

The army fightback came a day after the Syrian foreign ministry spokesman was reported to have defected in a potentially embarrassing blow to the government.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 200 people were killed across Syria on Monday, more than 60 of them around Damascus. Assad's forces bombarded districts to the south-east of the capital on Tuesday, near to the international airport, and in the rebel bastion of Daraya to the south-west.

Opposition footage posted on the Internet showed a multiple rocket launcher fire 20 rockets, which activists said was filmed at the Mezze military airport in Damascus.

Reuters could not independently verify the footage due to the government's severe reporting restrictions.

In central Damascus, shielded for many months from the full force of a civil war in which 40,000 people have been killed, one resident reported hearing several loud explosions.

"I have heard four or five thunderous blows. It could be barrel bombs," she said, referring to makeshift bombs which activists say Assad's forces have dropped from helicopters on rebel-dominated areas.

MORTAR ATTACK

The state news agency said that 28 students and a teacher were killed near the capital when rebels fired a mortar bomb on a school. Rebels have targeted government-held residential districts of the capital.

The mainly Sunni Muslim rebel forces have made advances in recent weeks, seizing military bases, including some close to Damascus, from forces loyal to Assad, who is from Syria's Alawite minority linked to Shi'ite Islam.

Faced with creeping rebel gains across the north and east of the country, and the growing challenge around the capital, Assad has increasingly resorted to air strikes against the insurgents.

A diplomat in the Middle East said Syrian Foreign Ministry spokesman Jihad Makdissi had left the country and defected, while the British-based Observatory said it had information that he flew from Beirut on Monday afternoon heading for London.

In Beirut, a diplomat said Lebanese officials had confirmed that Makdissi spent several days in Beirut before leaving on Monday, but could not confirm his destination.

"We're aware of reports that he has defected and may be coming to the UK. We're seeking clarification," a Foreign Office spokeswoman in London said.

Makdissi was the public face to the outside world of Assad's government as it battled the 20-month-old uprising. But he had barely appeared in public for several weeks before Monday's report of his defection.

He had little influence in a system largely run by the security apparatus and the military. But Assad's opponents will see the loss of such a high profile figure, if confirmed, as further evidence of a system crumbling from within.

The United Nations and European Union both said they were reducing their presence in Syria in response to the escalated violence around the capital.

A spokesman for U.N. humanitarian operations said the move would not stop aid deliveries to areas which remained accessible to relief convoys.

"U.N.-funded aid supplies delivered through SARC (Syrian Arab Red Crescent) and other charities are still moving daily where the roads are open," Jens Laerke told Reuters in Geneva.

"We have not suspended our operation, we are reducing the non-essential international staff."

Three remaining international staff at the European Union delegation, who stayed on in Damascus after the departure of most Western envoys, crossed the border into Lebanon on Tuesday after pulling out of the Syrian capital.

(Additional reporting by David Brunnstrom in Brussels, Khaled Yacoub Oweis in Cairo, Erika Solomon, Oliver Holmes and Ayat Basma in Beirut, Mark Hosenball, Mohammed Abbas and David Cutler in London, and Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva; Editing by Giles Elgood)

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Toshiba’s 10-inch Excite 10 SE tablet sells for $349.99, comes with Jelly Bean

While every other company is busy chasing the 7-inch tablet market, Toshiba (TOSBF) is keeping its eye on people interested in 10-inch tablets. Its new Excite 10 SE Android tablet is fairly similar to its Excite 10 LE, sporting a 10.1-inch 1280 x 800 resolution display, NVIDIA Tegra 3 quad-core processor, 16GB of internal storage, 3-megapixel rear camera, HD front camera, microSD card slot and Android 4.1 Jelly Bean. It doesn’t have the iPad’s eye-popping Retina display or the Samsung (005930) Nexus 10′s crisp 2,560 x 1,600 resolution with 300 pixels per inch, but it’s more than adequate for most basic tablet tasks. And at $ 349.99, it’s not a bad deal for a 10-inch tablet. The Excite 10 SE goes on sale December 6th and will be available from ToshibaDirect.com and select retail stores. Toshiba’s press release follows below.

Toshiba expands excite family of tablets with new 10-inch model

New Excite 10 SE Tablet Powered by Android 4.1 Starting at $ 349.99 MSRP

IRVINE, Calif. — Dec. 4, 2012 — Toshiba’s Digital Products Division (DPD), a division of Toshiba America Information Systems, Inc., today announced the availability of the Excite™ 10 SE tablet, a multimedia-rich tablet with a 10.1-inch touchscreen, powered by Android™ 4.1, Jelly Bean. The Excite 10 SE offers an affordable option for people looking for a powerful and versatile tablet for the home, starting at only $ 349.99 MSRP[i].

“Our Excite family of tablets continues to grow with options to suit a wide range of consumer needs, from portability and gaming to versatility and power,” said Carl Pinto, vice president of marketing of Toshiba America Information Systems, Inc., Digital Products Division. “We designed the Excite 10 SE to be a full featured tablet that offers a pure Android, Jelly Bean experience, while maintaining an attractive price point.”

The Excite 10 SE features Android 4.1, Jelly Bean, which improves on the simplicity and usability of Android 4.0. Moving between customizable home screens and switching between apps is effortless, while the Chrome™ browser and new Google Now intelligent personal assistant and Voice Search apps makes surfing the web fast and fluid.

Slim and light at only 0.4 inches thick and weighing 22.6 ounces[ii], the Excite 10 SE is encased with a textured Fusion Lattice finish, making it comfortable to hold and easy to carry. The tablet offers a vibrant 10.1-inch diagonal AutoBrite™ HD touchscreen display[iii] plus the NVIDIA® Tegra® 3 Super 4-PLUS-1™ quad-core processor[iv] that delivers smooth web browsing and outstanding performance for games, HD movies and more.

Stereo speakers with SRS® Premium Voice Pro create an optimized audio experience for music, video and games, while providing greater clarity for video chatting via the tablet’s HD front-facing camera. The Excite 10 SE also includes a 3 megapixel rear-facing camera with auto-focus and digital zoom for capturing HD video and photos. Featuring a wide range of connectivity, the tablet includes 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi®, Bluetooth® 3.0, as well as Micro SD and Micro USB ports for expandability. The tablet also charges conveniently via the Micro USB port.

Availability

The Excite 10 SE will be available starting at $ 349.99 MSRP for the 16GB model at select retailers and direct from Toshiba at ToshibaDirect.com on December 6, 2012.

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The Voice Reveals Top Four Contestants

TV Watch

By Julia Haskins

12/04/2012 at 09:35 PM EST

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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