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SEATTLE (AP) — Washington state issued its first retail marijuana licenses on Monday in a series of middle-of-the-night emails alerting bleary-eyed pot-shop proprietors that they'll finally be able to open for business.

"We're pretty stoked," said John Evich, an investor in Bellingham's Top Shelf Cannabis, in a 2:30 a.m. Pacific time interview with The Associated Press. "We haven't had any sleep in a long time, but we're excited for the next step."

Randy Simmons, the state Liquor Control Board's project manager for legal marijuana, said Sunday night that the first two dozen stores were being notified so early to give them an extra few hours to get cannabis on their shelves before they are allowed to open their doors at 8 a.m. Tuesday — an opening that's expected to be accompanied by high prices, shortages and rationing.

The issuance of the retail licenses marked a major step that's been 20 months in the making. Washington and Colorado stunned much of the world by voting in November 2012 to legalize marijuana for adults over 21, and to create state-licensed systems for growing, selling and taxing the pot. Sales began in Colorado on Jan. 1.

It remained unclear how many of the pot-shops being licensed in Washington planned to open on Tuesday. Officials eventually expect to have more than 300 recreational pot shops across the state.

At Cannabis City, which will be the first and, for now, only recreational marijuana shop in Seattle, owner James Lathrop worked into the night Sunday placing no-parking signs in front of his building, hoisting a grand-opening banner and hanging artwork before he turned his attention to his email — and the official notification that he was a licensed marijuana dealer.

"I've had a long day. It really hasn't sunk in yet," he said early Monday.

He planned to hold off on opening his store until noon on Tuesday.

"Know your audience: We're talking stoners here," he said. "I'd be mean to say they need to get up at 5 a.m. to get in line."

With the emailed notifications in hand, the shops immediately worked to place their orders with some of the state's first licensed growers. As soon as the orders were received, via state-approved software for tracking the bar-coded pot, the growers could place the product in a required 24-hour "quarantine" before shipping it early Tuesday morning.

The final days before sales have been frenetic for growers and retailers alike. Lathrop and his team hired an events company to provide crowd control, arranged for a food truck and free water for those who might spend hours waiting outside, and rented a portable toilet.

At Nine Point Growth Industries, a marijuana grower in Bremerton, owner Gregory Stewart said he and his director celebrated after they worked through some glitches in the pot-tracking software early Monday and officially learned they'd be able to transport their weed 24 hours later, at 2:22 a.m. Tuesday.

"It's the middle of the night and we're standing here doing high-fives and our version of a happy dance," he said. "It's huge for us."

Pot prices were expected to reach $25 a gram or higher on the first day of sales — twice what people pay in the state's unregulated medical marijuana dispensaries. That was largely due to the short supply of legally produced pot in the state. Although more than 2,600 people applied to become licensed growers, fewer than 100 have been approved — and only about a dozen were ready to harvest by early this month.

Nevertheless, Evich said his shop in Bellingham wanted to thank the state's residents for voting for the law by offering $10 grams of one cannabis strain to the first 50 or 100 customers. The other strains would be priced between $12 and $25, he said.

In Seattle, among those who planned to buy some of the first pot at Cannabis City was Alison Holcomb, the lawyer who drafted Washington's law. She said it was a good opportunity to remind people of the big-picture arguments for ending nearly a century of prohibition and displacing the black market, including keeping nonviolent, adult marijuana users out of jail; redirecting profits away from criminal groups; and ending racial disparities in who gets busted.

"No one thought legalization could happen in our lifetime," she said. "I think this is going to be a little overwhelming for me."

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Follow Johnson at https://twitter.com/GeneAPseattle

HELSINKI (AP) — A Finnish couple has narrowly won the 19th World Wife Carrying Championships — a quirky competition in which men race to be the fastest while carrying a female teammate.

Ville Parviainen and Janette Oksman cleared the grueling 253.5 meter (278-yard) obstacle course in 63.75 seconds, less than a second ahead of Britain's Rich Blake Smith and Anna Marguerite Smith.

Thirty-six couples from a dozen countries including Australia, Japan, and the United States took part in the race, which was held Saturday in the central Finnish municipality of Sonkajarvi, north of the capital, Helsinki.

The rules stipulate that the woman must be over 17 years of age and weigh at least 49 kilograms (108 lb). Organizers say male contestants could "borrow a neighbor's wife" if they didn't have a female companion.

BEIJING (AP) — German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Monday that if reports that a German intelligence employee spied for the United States are proven true, it would be a "clear contradiction" of trust between the allies.

Speaking at a news conference in China, Merkel made her first public comments on the arrest last week of a 31-year-old man suspected of spying for foreign intelligence services.

German prosecutors say the man is suspected of handing over 218 documents between 2012 and 2014. German media, without naming sources, have reported he was an employee of Germany's foreign intelligence service who says he sold his services to the U.S.

"If the allegations are true, it would be for me a clear contradiction as to what I consider to be trusting cooperation between agencies and partners," Merkel said at a news conference in Beijing with the Chinese premier.

Germany has been stepping up pressure on the United States to clarify the situation. The issue threatens to strain German-U.S. relations again after earlier reports that the National Security Agency spied on Germans, including on Merkel's cellphone.

The German newspaper Bild reported Monday that German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere wants to include the U.S. among future German spy targets in response to the case.

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said if the allegations of U.S. involvement were true, the case could lead to unspecified changes in the two countries' "daily routine."

"Should the suspicions be confirmed that American intelligence agencies were involved, then that's also a political matter where one can't just go back to the daily routine," Steinmeier said during a visit to Mongolia, according to his office.

"We will work hard to answer the outstanding questions and then decide how to react," he said. "I hope that the U.S. can contribute to resolving this matter as quickly as possible."

In Berlin, former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said in an interview with Der Spiegel, posted online Monday, that the United States would never sign a commitment with any other nation not to spy on them.

"The U.S. will never sign a no-spy agreement (as demanded by Germany) with any other countries, not with you, not with Britain or Canada," Clinton was quoted as saying. "But that doesn't mean that the two countries and their intelligence agencies shouldn't clarify what's appropriate and what isn't."

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Associated Press writer Frank Jordans in Berlin contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON (AP) — A surprisingly robust job market is energizing the 5-year-old U.S. recovery and driving the economy closer to full health.

Employers added 288,000 jobs in June and helped cut the unemployment rate to 6.1 percent, the lowest since 2008. It was the fifth straight gain above 200,000 — the best such stretch since the late 1990s tech boom.

The stock market signaled its approval. The Dow Jones industrial average surged 92 points to top 17,000 for the first time.

The breadth and consistency of the job growth are striking in part because of how poorly the year began. The economy shrank at a steep 2.9 percent annual rate in the January-March quarter as a harsh winter contributed to the sharpest contraction since the depths of the recession.

Yet employers have shrugged off that setback. They've kept hiring.

The unemployment rate dipped from 6.3 percent in May to its lowest level since the financial crisis struck with full force in the fall of 2008, when the Wall Street firm Lehman Brothers went bankrupt.

"This has now become a textbook jobs expansion," said Patrick O'Keefe, director of economic research at the consultancy CohnReznick. "It is both broad and accelerating."

At least one nagging doubt is dampening the enthusiasm: Can the stepped-up hiring lead to higher incomes? Wages have yet to outpace inflation for most workers. Eventually, analysts say, the falling unemployment rate should cause pay to rise more sharply. But no one knows precisely when.

The jobs report did make clear that, five years after the recession officially ended, the U.S. economy is showing more vitality even as major economies in Europe and Asia continue to struggle.

Last month's solid hiring followed gains of 217,000 jobs in May and 304,000 in April, figures that were revised upward by a combined 29,000.

Over the past 12 months, the economy has added nearly 2.5 million jobs — an average of 208,000 a month, the fastest year-over-year pace since 2006.

Economists say the steady U.S. hiring should fuel more purchases of goods from Asia and Europe and strengthen those economies at least slightly. Much of Europe is suffering from high unemployment. And China is trying to moderate its economy's growth without slowing it too much.

"If we have some momentum going into the second half of the year, it helps the world economy because we're big consumers," said Stuart Hoffman, chief economist at PNC Financial Services.

The U.S. job gains in June were widespread. Factories added 16,000 workers, retailers 40,200. Financial and insurance firms increased their payrolls by 17,000. Restaurants and bars employed 32,800 more people. Only construction, which gained a mere 6,000, reflected the slow recovery of previous years.

Local governments added 18,000 education workers. But that might have been a quirk: Many schools that had been closed for snow days stayed open longer than usual in June, said Diane Swonk, chief economist at Mesirow Financial in Chicago.

Over the past three months, job growth has averaged a healthy 272,000. And in May, the economy surpassed the jobs total from December 2007, when the Great Recession officially began.

Researchers at the liberal Economic Policy Institute estimate that 6.7 million more jobs would have been needed to keep up with U.S. population growth.

One key challenge is whether the job gains will pull more Americans back into the workforce. Many people who lost jobs during the recession and were never rehired have stopped looking for work. Just 62.8 percent of American adults are working or are looking for a job, compared with 66 percent before the downturn.

The number of long-term unemployed has dropped 1.2 million over the past year to just under 3.1 million. But the government data suggests that numerous people without jobs have given up their searches — a trend that could drag on future U.S. growth.

And average pay has grown just 2 percent a year during the recovery, roughly in line with inflation and below the long-run average annual growth of about 3.5 percent.

The lack of strong wage growth means the Federal Reserve may not feel pressure to start raising short-term interest rates soon as a way of controlling inflation.

"We are still not seeing any significant pickup in wage growth," Paul Ashworth, chief U.S. economist at Capital Economics, wrote in a research note. "We suspect that Fed officials will continue to cling to the view that there is still plenty of slack in the labor market."

However, the steady hiring means businesses are increasingly competing to find workers.

"It's becoming more difficult to find the candidates that we're looking for," said Brandon Calvo, chief operating officer at Cosentino North America, a Houston-based firm that sells materials for kitchen counters and bathrooms.

The job gains have intensified despite the slump that kicked off 2014.

The economy's contraction in the first three months of this year was the sharpest since the recession. Ferocious winter storms caused factories to close and prevented consumers from visiting shopping malls and auto dealers.

Still, the frigid weather failed to freeze hiring. Job gains ramped up with the warmth of spring and summer.

"We've seen hiring growth out of the winter because it was stagnant," said Richard Bitner, vice president of marketing for Visiting Angels, a home health care services firm headquartered in Havertown, Pennsylvania.

Most economists say annualized economic growth likely reached a solid 3 percent to 3.5 percent in the April-June quarter. Growth over the entire year should be about 2 percent, they say, similar to last year's 1.9 percent expansion.

Several other signs point to the economy's brightening health.

Auto sales rose at the fastest pace in eight years in June. Factory orders picked up last month. And home sales strengthened this spring after having sputtered in the middle of last year when higher mortgage rates and rising prices hurt affordability.

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AP Economics Writer Paul Wiseman contributed to this report.