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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Wall Street gains as Apple rebounds; fiscal talks eyed

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks managed slight gains by midday on Thursday as Broadcom's upbeat guidance and a turnaround in Apple shares helped lift technology stocks, while investors monitored news from Washington for signs of progress on the "fiscal cliff" negotiations.

Apple erased initial losses of as much as 3.7 percent at the open, which briefly brought the market capitalization of the world's largest publicly traded company below $500 billion. By midday, Apple's stock was up 2.3 percent at $551.35 - a day after its worst drop in four years.

Tech stocks also got a lift from chipmaker Broadcom , up 2.2 percent at $33.06 a day after it forecast fourth-quarter revenue at the high end of its target range, citing slightly better-than-expected sales in its mobile business.

The S&P technology index <.gspt> gained 1 percent and ranked as the best performer among the S&P 500's 10 major sectors. The PHLX semiconductor index <.sox> rose 0.9 percent.

But budget discussions commanded center stage for investors. President Barack Obama said there could be a quick deal to avert the "fiscal cliff" - huge tax hikes and spending cuts set to begin in January, possibly driving the U.S. economy back into recession next year - if Republican leaders agree to raise tax rates for those making more than $250,000 a year.

While Republican leaders in the U.S. House of Representatives insist that raising tax rates on the rich is not negotiable, some GOP lawmakers now see it as inevitable to avoid the fiscal cliff.

"It's really being held hostage to (the fiscal cliff negotiations) and the stock action of Apple," said Bruce Zaro, chief technical strategist at Delta Global Asset Management in Boston.

"We're back in the mode of there's a direct correlation between the market and Apple - traders seems to be focused on the movement of Apple, and what its impact is on the indices."

Without action from Congress in the next few weeks, tax cuts on capital gains and dividends will expire at the end of 2012.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> gained 8.64 points, or 0.07 percent, to 13,043.13. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> added 2.66 points, or 0.19 percent, to 1,411.94. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> climbed 19.82 points, or 0.67 percent, to 2,993.52.

Apple Inc's rank in China's smartphone market fell to No.6 in the third quarter as it faces tougher competition from Chinese brands, research firm IDC said on Thursday. Apple's 6.4 percent drop on Wednesday was its worst daily performance since December 2008 and dragged the Nasdaq Composite Index down 0.8 percent for the day.

Sirius XM Radio shares rose 1.8 percent to $2.83 after its board approved a $2 billion stock repurchase and declared a special dividend, giving a big payout to its largest shareholder, Liberty Media .

Garmin shares rose 4.7 percent to $41.56 after Standard & Poor's said it would add the navigation device maker to the S&P 500 index. Garmin will replace R.R. Donnelley & Sons after the close of trading on December 11.

(Reporting by Chuck Mikolajczak; Editing by Jan Paschal)

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Dispute Flares Over Energy Exploration in South China Sea

BEIJING — China and two of its neighbors, Vietnam and India, were locked in a new dispute on Tuesday over energy exploration in the South China Sea, a signal that Beijing plans to continue its hard line in the increasingly contentious waterway.

Vietnam accused a Chinese fishing boat of cutting a seismic cable attached to one of its vessels exploring for oil and gas near the Gulf of Tonkin, an act apparently intended to inhibit Vietnam from pursuing energy deposits.

Vietnam said Tuesday that in retaliation, it would send out new patrols, which would include the marine police, to guard against increasing encroachment by Chinese fishing boats in the South China Sea. India, which operates several joint ventures with Vietnam’s national energy company, Petro Vietnam, said it would consider sending navy vessels to protect its interests in the South China Sea.

The latest episode followed an announcement by Hainan Province in southern China last week that Chinese vessels would board and search ships in contested areas of the waterway, which includes vital shipping lanes through which more than a third of global trade moves.

The new tensions among China, Vietnam and India illustrate in stark terms the competition in the South China Sea for what are believed to be sizable deposits of oil and gas.

Some energy experts in China see the sea as an important new energy frontier close to home that could make China less dependent on its huge oil imports from the Middle East.

On Monday, China’s National Energy Administration named the South China Sea as the main offshore site for natural gas production. Within two years, China aims to produce 150 billion cubic meters of natural gas from fields in the sea, a significant increase from the 20 billion cubic meters produced so far, the agency said.

Earlier this year, China’s third-largest energy company, the state-owned China National Offshore Oil Corporation, began drilling with a rig in deep water in nondisputed waters off the southern coast of China.

The escalation in the South China Sea comes less than a month after Xi Jinping took office as China’s leader. Mr. Xi appears to have taken a particular interest in the South China Sea and the serious dispute between China and Japan over the islands known as Diaoyu in China and as Senkaku in Japan. Whether any of China’s most recent actions in the South China Sea were associated with Mr. Xi was not clear.

But Mr. Xi does lead a small group of policy makers clustered in the Maritime Rights Office, which serves to coordinate agencies within China, according to Zhu Feng, a professor of international relations at Peking University, and other Chinese experts. The unit is part of the office of the Foreign Affairs Leading Small Group, Mr. Zhu said. The leading small group, now headed by Mr. Xi, is widely believed to be China’s central policy-making group.

China’s Foreign Ministry reiterated on Tuesday that China opposed oil and gas development by other countries in disputed waters of the sea. China maintains that it has “undisputed” sovereignty over the South China Sea, and that only China is allowed to develop the energy resources.

“We hope that concerned countries respect China’s position and rights,” said the Foreign Ministry spokesman, Hong Lei.

Vietnam, which has long been wary of China but enjoys a relationship through its governing Communist Party, summoned the Chinese ambassador on Monday to protest the cutting of the seismic cable, the Vietnamese news media reported.

A Web site run by Petro Vietnam, the oil company, reported that the company’s exploration vessel Binh Minh 02 had its seismic cable severed by a Chinese fishing vessel on Friday. In May 2011, the Vietnamese authorities said a similar cable of the Binh Minh 02 was cut by three Chinese surveillance ships, resulting in weeks of anti-China protests in Hanoi.

In its decree on the new patrols, Vietnam said that civilian ships, supported by the marine police and a border force, would be deployed starting next month to stop foreign vessels that violate fishing laws in waters claimed by Vietnam.

A senior official of Petro Vietnam, Pham Viet Dung, was quoted in the Vietnamese news media as saying that large numbers of Chinese fishing boats, many of them substantial vessels, had recently entered waters claimed by Vietnam. The fishing vessels interfered with the operations of the oil company, he said.

India, whose state-run oil company, the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation, has a 45 percent interest in exploration with Petro Vietnam, also reacted strongly.

The head of the Indian Navy, Adm. D. K. Joshi, said that India was prepared to send navy vessels to protect its interests in the sea. “Now, are we preparing for it? Are we having exercises of that nature? The short answer is ‘yes,’ ” Admiral Joshi told reporters in India.

The most recent moves by China in the South China Sea have not won total support at home. Mr. Zhu, the professor, said he did not believe that China had become more assertive in the South China Sea.

But, he said, “the cable cutting is really unfriendly.”

Bree Feng contributed reporting.

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Leonardo DiCaprio & Miranda Kerr Party in N.Y.C. with Cameron Diaz

By Andrea Billups

12/05/2012 at 12:25 PM EST

Leonardo DiCaprio and Miranda Kerr

Jon Kopaloff/FilmMagic; Astrid Stawiarz/Getty

Miranda Kerr and longtime pal Leonardo DiCaprio joined a late-night dance party at new club Rosewood last Friday, partying with Cameron Diaz and a contingent of Australian models.

Their meet-up at the club comes amid some tabloid reports that Victoria's Secret model Kerr – who's married to Orlando Bloom, 35, and gave birth to their son Flynn in 2011 – was getting flirty with DiCaprio.

But a club source at Rosewood said the two were simply out for a little music and dancing with a group that included Naomi Campbell's billionaire boyfriend Vladimir Doronin.

"Miranda and Leo are really good friends, been friends for years," the source says "It was a PG -13 fun night. ... It was one big table [of people] ... dancing on top of the banquette."

Adds a source close to the Victoria's Secret model: "Miranda is visiting Orlando this weekend in London, and all the rumors about them having trouble are much ado about nothing." (Bloom has been in South Africa shooting his latest film Zulu, according to reports.)

Kerr, 29, and DiCaprio have been spotted around town together – at The Darby on Nov. 10 for a birthday bash for DiCaprio, dining with a group at ABC Kitchen on Nov. 21 and, most recently, at Rosewood last Friday.

DiCaprio, who turned 38, recently split with model girlfriend Erin Heatherton.

Meanwhile, a second source calls any talk of a romance between DiCaprio and Kerr "B.S," adding, "They are just friends."

• Reporting by SHARON COTLIAR, CARLOS GREER and LIZ MCNEIL

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Longer tamoxifen use cuts breast cancer deaths

Breast cancer patients taking the drug tamoxifen can cut their chances of having the disease come back or kill them if they stay on the pills for 10 years instead of five years as doctors recommend now, a major study finds.

The results could change treatment, especially for younger women. The findings are a surprise because earlier research suggested that taking the hormone-blocking drug for longer than five years didn't help and might even be harmful.

In the new study, researchers found that women who took tamoxifen for 10 years lowered their risk of a recurrence by 25 percent and of dying of breast cancer by 29 percent compared to those who took the pills for just five years.

In absolute terms, continuing on tamoxifen kept three additional women out of every 100 from dying of breast cancer within five to 14 years from when their disease was diagnosed. When added to the benefit from the first five years of use, a decade of tamoxifen can cut breast cancer mortality in half during the second decade after diagnosis, researchers estimate.

Some women balk at taking a preventive drug for so long, but for those at high risk of a recurrence, "this will be a convincer that they should continue," said Dr. Peter Ravdin, director of the breast cancer program at the UT Health Science Center in San Antonio.

He reviewed results of the study, which was being presented Wednesday at a breast cancer conference in San Antonio and published by the British medical journal Lancet.

About 50,000 of the roughly 230,000 new cases of breast cancer in the United States each year occur in women before menopause. Most breast cancers are fueled by estrogen, and hormone blockers are known to cut the risk of recurrence in such cases.

Tamoxifen long was the top choice, but newer drugs called aromatase inhibitors — sold as Arimidex, Femara, Aromasin and in generic form — do the job with less risk of causing uterine cancer and other problems.

But the newer drugs don't work well before menopause. Even some women past menopause choose tamoxifen over the newer drugs, which cost more and have different side effects such as joint pain, bone loss and sexual problems.

The new study aimed to see whether over a very long time, longer treatment with tamoxifen could help.

Dr. Christina Davies of the University of Oxford in England and other researchers assigned 6,846 women who already had taken tamoxifen for five years to either stay on it or take dummy pills for another five years.

Researchers saw little difference in the groups five to nine years after diagnosis. But beyond that time, 15 percent of women who had stopped taking tamoxifen after five years had died of breast cancer versus 12 percent of those who took it for 10 years. Cancer had returned in 25 percent of women on the shorter treatment versus 21 percent of those treated longer.

Tamoxifen had some troubling side effects: Longer use nearly doubled the risk of endometrial cancer. But it rarely proved fatal, and there was no increased risk among premenopausal women in the study — the very group tamoxifen helps most.

"Overall the benefits of extended tamoxifen seemed to outweigh the risks substantially," Dr. Trevor Powles of the Cancer Centre London wrote in an editorial published with the study.

The study was sponsored by cancer research organizations in Britain and Europe, the United States Army, and AstraZeneca PLC, which makes Nolvadex, a brand of tamoxifen, which also is sold as a generic for 10 to 50 cents a day. Brand-name versions of the newer hormone blockers, aromatase inhibitors, are $300 or more per month, but generics are available for much less.

The results pose a quandary for breast cancer patients past menopause and those who become menopausal because of their treatment — the vast majority of cases. Previous studies found that starting on one of the newer hormone blockers led to fewer relapses than initial treatment with tamoxifen did.

Another study found that switching to one of the new drugs after five years of tamoxifen cut the risk of breast cancer recurrence nearly in half — more than what was seen in the new study of 10 years of tamoxifen.

"For postmenopausal women, the data still remain much stronger at this point for a switch to an aromatase inhibitor," said that study's leader, Dr. Paul Goss of Massachusetts General Hospital. He has been a paid speaker for a company that makes one of those drugs.

Women in his study have not been followed long enough to see whether switching cuts deaths from breast cancer, as 10 years of tamoxifen did. Results are expected in about a year.

The cancer conference is sponsored by the American Association for Cancer Research, Baylor College of Medicine and the UT Health Science Center.

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

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Blue chips lead Wall Street bounce back

Facebook (FB) announced on Tuesday that it will begin opening Facebook Messenger to consumers who do not have a Facebook account, starting in countries like India and South Africa, and later rolling out the service in the United States and Europe. This is a belated acknowledgement of a staggering strategic mistake Facebook made two years ago. That is when the messaging app competition was still wide open and giants like Facebook or Google (GOOG) could have entered the competition. WhatsApp, the leading messaging app firm, had just 1 million users as late as December 2009. By the end of 2010, that number had grown to 10 million. Right now, it likely tops 200 million, though there is no current official number

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Egyptians Protesting Draft Constitution Are Met With Tear Gas

CAIRO — Egyptian riot police fired tear gas Tuesday night at tens of thousands of demonstrators who were converging on the presidential palace in Cairo to protest the country’s new draft constitution, which was rushed to completion last week by an assembly dominated by Islamists.

It was the first time that the government of Mohamed Morsi, Egypt’s first democratically elected president, has resorted to such forcible tactics against demonstrators. The huge scale of the protests on Tuesday dealt a blow to the legitimacy of the new charter, which goes before the country’s voters in a referendum scheduled for Dec. 15.

The secular and anti-Islamist groups that organized the protests say that the draft constitution allows religious authorities too much influence over the Egyptian state, and have even likened it to the blueprints drawn up for Iran by Ayatollah Khomenei before the 1979 revolution there.

Protest organizers are still debating whether to urge Egyptians to vote against the constitution or to boycott the referendum entirely. Either way, many have their eyes on elections for a new parliament that would be held two months after the constitution is approved. They hope to capitalize on a public backlash against the heavy-handed tactics employed in the constitution-drafting process by the president’s Islamist allies to gain seats in the new parliament and diminish the Islamists’ political power.

The country’s private media outlets mounted a protest of their own against the draft constitution’s limits on freedom of expression. Eleven newspapers withheld publication on Tuesday, and at least three private television networks said they would not broadcast on Wednesday.

“You are reading this message because Egypt Independent objects to continued restrictions on media liberties, especially after hundreds of Egyptians gave their lives for freedom and dignity,” declared a short statement set against a black background on the Web site of Egypt Independent, the English-language sister publication of the country’s largest independent daily, Al Masry Al Youm, on Tuesday morning. (By the afternoon, the Web site was back to normal.)

The one-day blackout and the mass march in Cairo were the most pointed actions yet in a push by liberal and secular groups to block the draft constitution, which was approved on Friday by the Islamist-dominated assembly despite the boycotts and objections of almost all its non-Islamist delegates.

Mr. Morsi, of the Muslim Brotherhood’s political party, has sought to claim authority above any judicial review so that his Islamist allies could get the constitution through quickly, an act that itself prompted loud protests. Mr. Morsi argued that he needed the powers to overcome potential obstructions from judges appointed by Hosni Mubarak, the deposed president, or from secular opponents who he said were seeking to derail the transition to democracy.

His opponents say the Islamists are trying to ram through a flawed constitution that will allow them to push Egyptian society in the direction of religious conservatism.

Among other criticisms, analysts and human rights groups say the draft contains loopholes that could eviscerate its provisions for freedom of expression. Although it ostensibly declares a right to free speech, the constitution also expressly prohibits “insults” to “religious prophets.”

The charter declares that one purpose of the news media is to uphold public morality and the “true nature of the Egyptian family,” and it specifies that government authorization will be required to operate a television station or a Web site.

“The protection of freedom of expression is fatally undermined by all the provisions that limit it,” said Heba Morayef, a researcher with Human Rights Watch who has studied the text. “On paper, they have not protected freedom of expression. It is designed to let the government limit those rights on the basis of ‘morality’ or the vague concept of ‘insult.’ ”

What’s more, critics say, the push to ratify the draft coincides with a cascade of accusations from Egypt’s new Islamist leaders that elements of the media are biased against them, and even that they are part of a counterrevolutionary conspiracy to thwart the transition to democracy rather than let Islamists win.

As part of a decree expanding his own powers until the passage of the constitution, Mr. Morsi recently passed a law for “protection of the revolution” that covered crimes including insults to the president, the Parliament or the courts. And he created a specially designated circuit within the court system to try those suspected of violating the law, along with those accused of abuses against civilians under the Mubarak government.

Mr. Morsi’s justice minister has already initiated investigations against at least three journalists for insulting the judiciary — the branch of government with the most crucial role in protecting the free press, said Ms. Morayef of Human Rights Watch.

“You are calling insulting the authorities a crime against the revolution?” she said. “That is authoritarianism. That is a lack of understanding of what ‘free expression’ means.”

The Web site of the state newspaper Al Ahram reported that at least 60 of its own journalists had joined a march to protest the constitutional restrictions.

Advisers to Mr. Morsi counter that the draft constitution expands on the negligible protections of free expression that prevailed under Mr. Mubarak, and noted that in one of his few previous presidential decrees, Mr. Morsi acted to support media freedom. In the Mubarak era, insulting the president was a crime punishable by imprisonment. But after a newspaper editor was jailed for that offense in late August, Mr. Morsi changed the law to forbid incarceration until a court verdict, allowing the imprisoned journalist, Islam Afifi of Al Dustour, to go free without spending even a night behind bars.

Adding to the suspense, a top Egyptian court on Tuesday postponed an expected session to consider the legitimacy of Mr. Morsi’s expansion of his powers until passage of the constitution.

And his party issued a statement warning prominent leaders of the secular opposition that it would hold them responsible for any acts of violence that occurred. It directed the warning at three former presidential candidates: Mohamed ElBaradei, the former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency; Hamdeen Sabahi, a Nasserite party leader; and Amr Moussa, a foreign minister under Mr. Mubarak.

Mayy El Sheikh contributed reporting.

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Is the iPad Mini as Good as the iPad?

The iPad Mini‘s screen doesn’t have the same “resolutionary” Retina display as its bigger brother, but don’t worry: the Apple snobs appear to have gotten over that. After spending time with his new baby-tablet, The New York Times‘s Nick Bilton gave in, calling the gadget his new “Desert Island Device.” (It replaced his iPhone, by the way.) The inferior screen had worried Bilton like it had others, but no longer: ”I used it for two weeks and my concerns about the screen’s quality are completely irrelevant.” It’s not that Bilton prefers the “fuzzy” screen, as he called it. But the portability of the lightweight Mini outweighs that for him, making this tablet, in his opinion, really the best tablet Apple has ever made.

RELATED: Prepare for an iPad Mini This Month

Considering all the fawning over the Retina display on the iPad proper, it’s pretty amazing to see reviewers toss that upgrade for something that Steve Jobs forbid the company to create. Bilton’s not the only one to prefer the new cousin, even if it is technically worse. Noted Apple-phile Jonathan Gruber said he hadn’t touched the fourth-generation iPad that Apple released this year as well “I’ve gone small and fuzzy,” he wrote. When the Retina display first came out, Gruber called it “pure joy” for his “dream iPad.” But a funny thing happened on the way out of the hype cycle: Apple put out something the masses were supposed to like more than the techies, and that just made everyone like it even more. Call it a holiday miracle, but the Apple snobs may be snobs no more.

Gadgets News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Shania Twain & Jennifer Lopez: Looking Bangin' in Bodysuits

Stylewatch
Style News Now

12/04/2012 at 10:00 AM ET

Arnulfo Franco/AP (2)

If this is what being in your 40s looks like, then sign us up now!

Shania Twain kicked off her Las Vegas residency over the weekend, taking the stage at Caesars Palace in a shimmering skintight bodysuit.

“The show is very fun for me,” Twain, 47, told reporters. “I was a bit worried that we were staying in the same place. Was I going to lose that edge? But I’ve never had a show this exciting before.”

Her glimmering look called to mind the Zuhair Murad bodysuit Jennifer Lopez, 43, wore while touring the world this summer. “My utmost wish is for each costume to create a ‘Wow!’ effect the moment she steps on stage,” Murad told PEOPLE at the time. “Jennifer has a beautiful body and wears each look perfectly.”

Yes, we know, there are likely rigorous workouts, serious shapewear, personal chefs and good genes involved in looking this hot in a bodysuit, but we’re giving major props to these women anyway. May we have bodies that look even half that great when we hit that age!

PHOTOS: SEE MORE STARS IN SIMILAR LOOKS IN ‘FASHION FACEOFF’

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CDC says US flu season starts early, could be bad

NEW YORK (AP) — Flu season in the U.S. is off to its earliest start in nearly a decade — and it could be a bad one.

Health officials on Monday said suspected flu cases have jumped in five Southern states, and the primary strain circulating tends to make people sicker than other types. It is particularly hard on the elderly.

"It looks like it's shaping up to be a bad flu season, but only time will tell," said Dr. Thomas Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The good news is that the nation seems fairly well prepared, Frieden said. More than a third of Americans have been vaccinated, and the vaccine formulated for this year is well-matched to the strains of the virus seen so far, CDC officials said.

Higher-than-normal reports of flu have come in from Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee and Texas. An uptick like this usually doesn't happen until after Christmas. Flu-related hospitalizations are also rising earlier than usual, and there have already been two deaths in children.

Hospitals and urgent care centers in northern Alabama have been bustling. "Fortunately, the cases have been relatively mild," said Dr. Henry Wang, an emergency medicine physician at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

Parts of Georgia have seen a boom in traffic, too. It's not clear why the flu is showing up so early, or how long it will stay.

"My advice is: Get the vaccine now," said Dr. James Steinberg, an Emory University infectious diseases specialist in Atlanta.

The last time a conventional flu season started this early was the winter of 2003-04, which proved to be one of the most lethal seasons in the past 35 years, with more than 48,000 deaths. The dominant type of flu back then was the same one seen this year.

One key difference between then and now: In 2003-04, the vaccine was poorly matched to the predominant flu strain. Also, there's more vaccine now, and vaccination rates have risen for the general public and for key groups such as pregnant women and health care workers.

An estimated 112 million Americans have been vaccinated so far, the CDC said. Flu vaccinations are recommended for everyone 6 months or older.

On average, about 24,000 Americans die each flu season, according to the CDC.

Flu usually peaks in midwinter. Symptoms can include fever, cough, runny nose, head and body aches and fatigue. Some people also suffer vomiting and diarrhea, and some develop pneumonia or other severe complications.

A strain of swine flu that hit in 2009 caused a wave of cases in the spring and then again in the early fall. But that was considered a unique type of flu, distinct from the conventional strains that circulate every year.

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Online:

CDC: http://www.cdc.gov/flu/weekly

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