Graphic details of Notorious B.I.G. murder revealed

The night rapper Notorious B.I.G. was gunned down in one of L.A.'s most famous unsolved homicides he had no drugs or alcohol in his system, according to a Los Angeles County coroner's report unsealed Friday.

A coroner's medical examiner ran toxicology screens for alcohol, cocaine, codeine, morphine and methamphetamine with negative results for all.

The autopsy report has been on a security hold and sealed for more than 15 years, ever since the rapper was killed in a drive-by shooting in March 1997.

DOCUMENT: Read Notorious B.I.G.’s full autopsy

The report shows that although he was shot four times, it was a single bullet that ended his life. One of the bullets entered the rapper's right hip, and fatally pierced several organs.

Notorious B.I.G., whose real name was Christopher George Latore Wallace, was killed by an unknown assailant on Wilshire Boulevard as the music star sat in the front passenger seat of a Chevrolet Suburban. The killing of the rapper, also known as Biggie Smalls, remains unsolved despite an LAPD task force that examined the death.

According to the autopsy, one bullet struck Wallace's left forearm and traveled down to his wrist while a another bullet hit him in the back and exited his body through his left shoulder.  Another shot  hit his left thigh and traveled through to his inner thigh before glancing off his scrotum. None of those rounds were fatal.

Notorious B.I.G.: FBI investigation files

The fatal shot, according to Dr. Lisa Scheinin, entered his right hip before slicing through his colon, liver, heart and part of his lung before wedging in his left shoulder area.

Two medium-caliber bullets were recovered from the hospital gurney, according to the report.

At the time of his death, Wallace was one of the biggest stars in rap music. His slaying shocked the hip-hop community, coming just months after the Las Vegas slaying of another marquee rapper, Los Angeles-based Tupac Shakur.

Once friends, the rappers became rivals whose respective camps regularly traded violent barbs in song lyrics and in interviews. Shakur's slaying also remains unsolved.

Various theories have linked the two homicides. Some believe the two men were killed as part of a rivalry between East Coast and West Coast rappers, or between their two music labels at the time, Los Angeles-based Death Row and New York-based Bad Boy Entertainment.

Amid questions about the killing, the FBI investigated various theories, including one from a former LAPD detective, who later publicly suggested that Wallace may have been killed by a hit man hired by a corrupt ex-LAPD officer on behalf of Marion "Suge" Knight, the founder of Death Row Records.

The FBI opened its probe after Wallace's family accused the city of covering up LAPD involvement in the rapper's slaying. Los Angeles police officials last year said they exhaustively searched for answers in the case without an arrest.

ALSO:

Man finds $175,000 in pot in backyard, then things get weird

D.A. dismissed tennis umpire case without seeing defense report

35,000 rubber ducks in Santa, reindeer outfits seized at L.A. port

-- Richard Winton

Follow Richard Winton (@LACrimes) on Twitter and Google+

Photo: Notorious  B.I.G. accepts his award for rap artist and rap single of the year at the 1995 Billboard Music Awards in New York. Credit: Mark Lennihan / Associated Press

Read More..

Cairo Protesters Take to Streets as Political Crisis Deepens

CAIRO — Supporters and opponents of the government of President Mohamed Morsi staged competing demonstrations on Friday after noon prayers, throwing Egypt deeper into political crisis.

Thousands of pro-government Islamists attended the funeral of two men killed in clashes on Wednesday outside the presidential palace, the site of continuing demonstrations by the opposition. “With blood and soul, we redeem Islam,” they chanted, while calling opposition leaders “murderers” the Associated Press reported.

Simultaneously, thousands of opposition protesters streamed in separate marches toward the presidential palace, gathering there to shout “Leave!, Leave,” even though Mr. Morsi does not make his residence in the building. Speakers accused the Muslim Brotherhood, which Mr. Morsi once helped lead, of sparking the violence by sending “hired thugs” to destroy a tent camp set up by the president’s opponents, the news agency reported.

Rival protests were reported throughout the country, including in Alexandria in the Nile delta, the tourist center of Luxor and Assiut, in the south, where marchers chanted “No Brotherhood, no Salafis, Egypt is a civic state,” the A.P. said.

News reports quoted several leaders of the opposition coalition as saying they would not join the dialogue proposed by Mr. Morsi in a speech on Thursday in which he blamed the outbreak of violence on a “fifth column.” He also vowed to proceed with a referendum on an Islamist-backed constitution that has prompted deadly street battles between his supporters and their opponents.

Mr. Morsi spoke a day after the growing antagonism between his supporters and the secular opposition triggered the worst outbreak of violence between political factions here since Gamal Abdel Nasser’s coup six decades ago. By the time the fighting ended, six people were dead and hundreds were wounded.

The violence also led to resignations that rocked the government, as advisers, party members and the head of the commission overseeing the planned vote on a new constitution stepped down, citing the bloodshed.

“The National Salvation Front is not taking part in the dialogue, that is the official stance,” Ahmed Said, a member of the coalition and head of the liberal Free Egyptians Party, told Reuters.

Several other prominent opposition figures, including Mohamed ElBaradei, the former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said they would not participate.

In a message on Twitter, Mr. ElBaradei said the president’s offer “lacks the basics of real dialogue.”

“We are for dialogue that is not based on arm-twisting and imposing a fait accompli,” he said.

The sight of protesters on Cairo’s streets has been common since the beginnings of Egypt’s transition toward democracy that began with the ouster of former President Hosni Mubarak last year.

In the latest protests, the target of the demonstrations has been the presidential palace in the wealthy suburb of Heliopolis, where protesters converged on Friday.

Since clashes there earlier this week, the elite presidential guard has ringed the palace with barbed wire, tanks and armored vehicles. After Mr. Morsi’s speech on Thursday, his opponents mocked his words and called for new demonstrations on Friday.

Some observers said the president speech echoed his predecessor, Mr. Mubarak, who always saw “hidden hands” behind public unrest. Mr. Morsi said that corrupt beneficiaries of Mr. Mubarak’s autocracy had been “hiring thugs and giving out firearms, and the time has come for them to be punished and penalized by the law.” He added, “It is my duty to defend the homeland.”

Mr. Morsi received a phone call on Thursday from President Obama, who expressed his “deep concern” about the deaths and injuries, the White House said in a statement.

“The president emphasized that all political leaders in Egypt should make clear to their supporters that violence is unacceptable,” the statement said, chastising Mr. Morsi and the opposition leaders as failing to urge their supporters to pull back during the fight.

Prospects for a political solution also seemed a casualty, as both sides effectively refused to back down on core demands.

David D. Kirkpatrick reported from Cairo, and Alan Cowell from London. Two employees of The New York Times contributed reporting from Cairo.

Read More..

Firm says first BlackBerry 10 phone to debut in March, QWERTY phone won’t launch until June

Research In Motion (RIMM) is gearing up for a series of make-or-break releases that could be considered the most important device launches in the company’s history. Everything is riding on the success of the RIM’s BlackBerry 10 platform, which will be unveiled in its finished state on January 30th next year. RIM CEO Thorsten Heins is on record confirming that BlackBerry 10 will launch in the first quarter and company COO Kristian Tear previously stated new BlackBerry devices will be available “not too long after” the platform is unveiled late next month, but exact timing is still a mystery. According to Boston-based brokerage firm Detwiler Fenton, however, RIM’s first two BlackBerry 10 handsets won’t launch until March and June, respectively.

“RIM’s stock has been on a tear recently thanks to a number of upgrades and optimism surrounding its upcoming BB10 platform,” Detwiler analysts wrote in a note to clients picked up by Forbes. “However, as we dig a little deeper, there appears to be a few issues that could set up for some disappointing numbers in the 2013 first half.”

The firm goes on state that AT&T (T) and T-Mobile will launch the first BlackBerry 10 smartphone some time in March, while Verizon Wireless (VZ) and Sprint (S) are targeting May launches. Detwiler also states that the second BlackBerry 10 smartphone, which will feature a touchscreen and a full QWERTY keyboard, might not launch until June.

“Therefore, it is possible RIMM’s February quarter may only see a very small number of BB10 sales with the May quarter also coming in light due to limited QWERTY keyboard shipments and limited shipments to Sprint and Verizon,” the firm continued. “It’s our opinion RIM will ship approximately 400,000 BB10 units in the February quarter and 2.2 million to 2.5 million units in the May quarter. While this is clearly a North American / developed market view, we think this is the right way to look at the 2013 first half because the initial BB10 handsets are higher end and not targeted for emerging markets.”

When asked to comment on the Detwiler note, RIM spokesman Nick Manning reiterated the company’s earlier position. ”Details of the commercial availability for BlackBerry 10 will be announced at the global launch events on January 30,” Manning said in a comment provided to BGR via email. “Our executives have made it clear that the touch screen device will be available shortly after launch with the physical keyboard version to follow shortly after that.”

BGR’s own sources were not able to provide details regarding the exact timing of RIM’s upcoming launches, however we are hearing from reliable sources that RIM’s QWERTY-equipped BlackBerry 10 smartphone will launch well ahead of the June timeframe mentioned by Detwiler.

Get more from BGR.com: Follow us on Twitter, Facebook

Wireless News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Read More..

Eddie Redmayne: 5 Things You Should Know

By Mary Green and Julie Jordan

12/07/2012 at 10:15 AM EST

Eddie Redmayne, breakout star of Les Miserables, is receiving awards buzz as the student French revolutionary Marius, who falls in love with Cosette, played by Amanda Seyfried. Redmayne, who also played Michelle Williams's love interest in My Week with Marilyn, is enjoying a booming career. But you'd never know that the 30-year-old Brit has Kim Cattrall to thank for his success, or that he was destined for a role in Les Mis as a child. P.S.: Redmayne's also won a Tony and an Olivier Award for the play Red.

Here are five things you should know about Redmayne:

• Kim Cattrall's approval was pivotal: "I did a play in London called The Goat," he recalls. "I won a prize, and I couldn't go be there, but my parents went, and Kim Cattrall gave the prize. When my dad saw that Samantha from Sex and the City was giving me a prize, then it affirmed in my parents' mind that they were allowed to let their son continue to be an actor."

In fact, the two stars didn't meet til years later, but Cattrall is anxious to see his latest turn: "In 2005 I had the honor of presenting him the Ian Charlston Award as 'the most promising new comer' at the Evening Standard Awards in the U.K.," she told PEOPLE Thursday. "Unfortunately he was away working, but I did meet him a few years later and he told me his father was impressed he won the award but over the moon I was presenting. I have followed his career ever since and cannot wait to see him in Les Miserables."

• His first Les Mis experience: "I saw it when I was 7 and wanted to be Gavroche, [the young street urchin who helps the rebels]."

• His 'oh s--t' moment on set: "We were lying in the sewers half dead, swimming in s--t, and you're actually lying there for 12 hours. We're doing a close-up, and [director Tom Hooper] is saying, ‘Hugh, Eddie, you need to be still. Or it doesn't look like you're dead.' We're like, ‘Dude! We can't control our bodily functions.'"

•Be careful going to karaoke with him: "My karaoke song of choice is "Bat Out of Hell". About three minutes in to the 12-minute song, I keep getting ‘shut up!'"

•He's pals with Spider-Man: "Andrew Garfield is is one of my best friends," he says. "I get great inspiration from he and Tom Sturridge, friends of mine who are my age who are doing great work."

Redmayne in Les Miserables

Universal Pictures

Read More..

Smokers celebrate as Wash. legalizes marijuana

SEATTLE (AP) — The crowds of happy people lighting joints under Seattle's Space Needle early Thursday morning with nary a police officer in sight bespoke the new reality: Marijuana is legal under Washington state law.

Hundreds gathered at Seattle Center for a New Year's Eve-style countdown to 12 a.m., when the legalization measure passed by voters last month took effect. When the clock struck, they cheered and sparked up in unison.

A few dozen people gathered on a sidewalk outside the north Seattle headquarters of the annual Hempfest celebration and did the same, offering joints to reporters and blowing smoke into television news cameras.

"I feel like a kid in a candy store!" shouted Hempfest volunteer Darby Hageman. "It's all becoming real now!"

Washington and Colorado became the first states to vote to decriminalize and regulate the possession of an ounce or less of marijuana by adults over 21. Both measures call for setting up state licensing schemes for pot growers, processors and retail stores. Colorado's law is set to take effect by Jan. 5.

Technically, Washington's new marijuana law still forbids smoking pot in public, which remains punishable by a fine, like drinking in public. But pot fans wanted a party, and Seattle police weren't about to write them any tickets.

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

The mood was festive in Seattle as dozens of gay and lesbian couples got in line to pick up marriage licenses at the King County auditor's office early Thursday.

King County and Thurston County announced they would open their auditors' offices shortly after midnight Wednesday to accommodate those who wanted to be among the first to get their licenses.

Kelly Middleton and her partner Amanda Dollente got in line at 4 p.m. Wednesday.

Hours later, as the line grew, volunteers distributed roses and a group of men and women serenaded the waiting line to the tune of "Chapel of Love."

Because the state has a three-day waiting period, the earliest that weddings can take place is Sunday.

In dealing with marijuana, the Seattle Police Department told its 1,300 officers on Wednesday, just before legalization took hold, that until further notice they shall not issue citations for public marijuana use.

Officers will be advising people not to smoke in public, police spokesman Jonah Spangenthal-Lee wrote on the SPD Blotter. "The police department believes that, under state law, you may responsibly get baked, order some pizzas and enjoy a 'Lord of the Rings' marathon in the privacy of your own home, if you want to."

He offered a catchy new directive referring to the film "The Big Lebowski," popular with many marijuana fans: "The Dude abides, and says 'take it inside!'"

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

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

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

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

"The department's responsibility to enforce the Controlled Substances Act remains unchanged," said a statement issued Wednesday by the Seattle U.S. attorney's office. "Neither states nor the executive branch can nullify a statute passed by Congress."

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

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

Alison Holcomb is the drug policy director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Washington and served as the campaign manager for New Approach Washington, which led the legalization drive. She said the voters clearly showed they're done with marijuana prohibition.

"New Approach Washington sponsors and the ACLU look forward to working with state and federal officials and to ensure the law is fully and fairly implemented," she said.

___

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

Read More..

Soccer coach who molested boys 'a vulture,' judge says

This post has been corrected. See note at bottom for details.

An Anaheim man who worked as a soccer coach and martial arts instructor was sentenced to 298 years in prison Thursday for sexually assaulting 11 of his young students, according to the Orange County district attorney’s office.

Luis Alberto Pineda, 31, was convicted last month of committing forcible sodomy and other lewd acts on children and teen-agers whom he met through his coaching jobs, the district attorney’s office said.

Pineda was an assistant instructor at Moo Yea Do Martial Arts in Fullerton between 2005 and 2010, and coached in the North Orange County Youth Soccer Premier League, the D.A. said.

Authorities said Pineda befriended his victims’ parents and won their trust, and sexually assaulted the children after games and practices, during outings to dinner or movies, and while driving them home from soccer or karate class.

“Rats don’t do this to their children,” Orange County Superior Court Judge Richard King said in imposing a sentence of 298 years to life in state prison. “Vultures don’t do this to their children.”

[For the Record, Dec. 6, 1:55 p.m.: An earlier version of this post incorrectly said that Luis Pineda was sentenced to 285 years in prison. He was sentenced to 298 years.]

ALSO:

Northridge shooting victims identified as suspects await extradition

Woman assaulted, held captive in attic for two weeks, police say

Villaraigosa urges 'fiscal cliff' solution, defends Fix the Debt

-- Christopher Goffard

Photo: Luis Alberto Pineda. Credit: Orange County district attorney's office

Read More..

Resignations Continue in Egypt as Tanks Deploy Around Presidential Palace

Tara Todras-Whitehill for The New York Times

Egyptian soldiers put up barbed-wire fences near the presidential palace on Thursday in Cairo. More Photos »

CAIRO — Resignations rocked the government of President Mohamed Morsi on Thursday as tanks from the special presidential guard took up positions around his palace and the state television headquarters after a night of street fighting between his Islamist supporters and their secular opponents that left at least 6 dead and 450 wounded.

The director of state broadcasting resigned Thursday, as did Rafik Habib, a Christian who was the vice president of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party and the party’s favorite example of its commitment to tolerance and pluralism. Their departures followed an announcement by Zaghoul el-Balshi, the new general secretary of the commission overseeing a planned constitutional referendum, that he was quitting. “I will not participate in a referendum that spilled Egyptian blood,” he said in a television interview during the clashes late Wednesday night.

With the resignations on Thursday, nine Morsi administration officials have quit in protest in recent days. In a day of tension and uncertainty unlike any other since the revolt that overthrew Hosni Mubarak nearly two years ago, state media reported that Mr. Morsi, of the Muslim Brotherhood’s political arm, was meeting with his top advisers and would deliver a public address in response to the clashes. The top scholar of Al Azhar, the center of Sunni Muslim learning that is considered Egypt’s chief moral authority, urged both sides to pull back from violence and seek “rational dialogue.”

The scale of the violence around the palace has raised the first doubts about Mr. Morsi’s effort to hold a public referendum on Dec. 15 to vote on a draft constitution approved by his Islamist allies over the objections of his secular opposition and the Coptic Christian Church.

About 1 p.m. Thursday, hundreds of his supporters who had camped outside his palace to defend it — many waking up with bandaged heads from wounds sustained from volleys of rocks and the blows of makeshift clubs the previous night — abruptly began to pull out of their encampment in unison, a development that suggested that their organizers in the Muslim Brotherhood had ordered a withdrawal. It took place just moments after several Brotherhood members camped there had vowed to stay put until the referendum, set for Dec. 15.

The Egyptian military, which seized power from Mr. Mubarak in February 2011, saying it was stepping in to protect the legitimate demands of the public, stayed silent after a statement Wednesday that it would not intervene in a dispute between political factions. The presidential guard that deployed Thursday is a separate unit that reports directly to the president.

Wednesday night’s battle was the worst clash between political factions here since the days of President Gamal Abdel Nasser’s military coup six decades ago, and Egyptians across the political spectrum responded with shock and dismay.

Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh, a popular former leader of the Muslim Brotherhood who ran for president as a liberal Islamist and has stayed on the sidelines of the escalating conflict between Mr. Morsi and his secular opponents, slammed the president and the Brotherhood for calling on their civilian supporters to defend the palace with force rather than relying the institutions of law enforcement.

“The palace is not a private property to the Muslim Brotherhood or Dr. Morsi; it belongs to us, all Egyptians,” Mr. Aboul Fotouh said in a televised news conference. He was flanked by a Morsi adviser who had just resigned and by a well-known revolutionary poet who is the son of Sheik Yusuf al-Qaradawi, perhaps the most influential religious scholar in the Sunni Muslim world and a spiritual guru to the Muslim Brotherhood.

Wednesday night’s clashes followed two weeks of sporadic violence around the country that erupted after Mr. Morsi, a former leader of the Muslim Brotherhood movement, seized temporary powers beyond the review of any court, removing the last check on his authority until ratification of the new constitution.

Mr. Morsi has said he needed the expanded powers to block a conspiracy by corrupt businessmen, Mubarak-appointed judges and opposition leaders to thwart Egypt’s transition to a constitutional democracy. Some opponents, Mr. Morsi’s advisers say, would sacrifice democracy to stop the Islamists from winning elections.

Mr. Morsi’s secular critics have accused Mr. Morsi and the Islamists of seeking to establish a new dictatorship, in part by ramming through a rushed constitution that they say could ultimately give new power over society to Muslim scholars and Islamists groups. And each side’s actions have confirmed the other’s fears.

Mai Ayyad contributed reporting.

Read More..

Brooke Burke-Charvet Recovering After Successful Thyroid Surgery

TV Watch

Dancing With the Stars

By Julia Haskins

12/06/2012 at 11:35 AM EST

Brooke Burke-Charvet is happy to report that she's doing well after undergoing thyroid surgery on Wednesday.

The Dancing with the Stars co-host stayed optimistic when faced with the threat thyroid cancer and preparing for the surgery. Now Brooke-Charvet is taking it easy after the successful thyroidectomy.

"I'm resting, recovering," she Tweeted Thursday, a day after her operation. "Surgery went well. Dr Adashek is a genius. Thx Dr! Feels like I got hit [by] a car :("

But the 41-year-old wife and mother is also thankful.

"Thank God it's over," she continued. "I'm clean, surgery went well & I can talk. Losing My voice was my biggest fear. Thx for all your prayers & light."

She later posted a photo of herself on her WhoSay page giving cancer an obscene gesture with a ringed middle finger, along with the caption, "Made it through my surgery, Thank God! so far so good F#@k Cancer! I'm recovering, I'm strong, I'm grateful for my brilliant Doctors."

Read More..

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.

___(equals)

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

Read More..

Church volunteer had sex with kids he met at church school, police allege

A well-known Orange County church has been roiled by allegations that a volunteer sexually assaulted children.

A Sunday school volunteer at Rock Harbor Church in Costa Mesa
allegedly formed relationships with children in his church and went on
to sexually abuse at least one of them multiple times between November
2009 and November 2011, according to church leaders and court documents.

Two families at Rock Harbor came forward with new allegations
against Christopher Bryan McKenzie, the pool cleaner accused of
years-long sexual relationships with at least three children younger
than 14, pastors said Monday night.

McKenzie, 48, of Costa Mesa, attended Rock Harbor and applied to be a
child-care volunteer at the 3,000-member campus in late 2007,
Communications Director Jeff Gideon said.

On Saturday, Newport Beach police announced
they had arrested McKenzie on suspicion of sexually abusing two boys,
one from the late 1990s to 2005 and one from 2005 to 2007. Neither had
ties to the church, police said.

At a Monday night meeting, Rock Harbor pastors announced two families from the congregation added allegations against McKenzie.

Lead Pastor Todd Proctor said the families approached Rock Harbor leadership after the announcement and were directed to police.

It's alleged McKenzie had substantial sexual conduct with one of the
children on at least three occasions, according to court documents.

In total, McKenzie is charged with inappropriate interaction with
four children. The fourth, who pastors said is also from Rock Harbor,
was allegedly used to distribute obscene material.

Pastors told congregants Monday that they don't believe McKenzie had
inappropriate contact with any children at the church or during a church
function. Volunteers are never allowed to be alone with children,
Proctor said.

However, he said, leaders believe McKenzie most likely met the
children and formed relationships with their parents at Rock Harbor
where he volunteered in a fifth-grade classroom for about five years.

At Rock Harbor, all child-care applicants are background checked,
screened on the Megan's Law website, must produce references and are
interviewed, leaders said.

McKenzie pleaded guilty to driving under the influence of
alcohol in 2007. Gideon said the team conducting a background check was
not informed of the incident. If a crime does appear on a volunteer’s
application, a committee weighs the severity and how much time has
elapsed, Gideon said.

McKenzie was ultimately granted approval to volunteer.

"Our kids probably had different levels of interaction with Chris,
and we need to recognize that," Proctor said, adding that he had spoken
to each of his three boys about the allegations. "One of my sons in
particular had way more exposure under Chris' leadership."

Throughout the meeting, pastors repeatedly encouraged parents to talk
to their children and contact police if they believe something
inappropriate occurred.

"It's all heartbreaking," Proctor said.

McKenzie was charged with 10 felony counts of lewd acts upon a child
younger than 14, four felony counts of using a minor for the
distribution of obscene matter, and two felony counts of distributing
pornography to a minor with sentencing enhancements for substantial
sexual conduct with a child and committing lewd acts upon a child
younger than 14 against more than one victim.

If convicted, he faces a maximum sentence of 45 years to life in state prison. He is being held on $1-million bail.

ALSO:

New litigation related to alleged lewd conduct at Miramonte

Officials blame leak, not explosion, for ammonia spill at Dole plant

More than 1,600 unidentified, unclaimed remains buried in Boyle Heights

--Jeremiah Dobruck, Times Community News

Photo: Christopher Bryan McKenzie. Credit: Daily Pilot

Read More..