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AP - The Los Angeles County sheriff has escalated his war of words against California medical marijuana dispensaries, saying as many as 97 percent operate as criminal enterprises.

AP - Federal investigators said Friday that a suspicious fire that damaged construction equipment at the site of a future mosque in Tennessee was arson and offered a $20,000 reward for information leading to an arrest.

AP - Republican Dan Maes, Democrat John Hickenlooper and American Constitution Party candidate Tom Tancredo are officially on the November ballot in the race for Colorado governor.

AP - One of the investors in a proposed Islamic center near ground zero is a Long Island medical clinic owner whose expressions of sympathy for Palestinians included a donation to a charity later shut down for links to Hamas.

AP - A weakening but still dangerous Hurricane Earl steamed toward the gray-shingled cottages and fishing villages of Cape Cod on Friday, disrupting people's vacations on the unofficial final weekend of the short New England summer.

AP - Hurricane Earl played havoc with travelers' Labor Day weekend plans even as it weakened Friday on its path up the East Coast toward New England.

Reuters - Pakistan's Taliban on Friday threatened to launch attacks in the United States and Europe "very soon" and dismissed a move by Washington to add the group to its terrorism blacklist.

AP - Both supporters and opponents of a proposed Islamic cultural center should stand against rallies planned for the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, groups representing some relatives of attack victims said Thursday.

AP - Nation of Islam Minister Louis Farrakhan said Thursday an Islamic community center and mosque planned near ground zero should be built because Muslims were among those of many faiths who died in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

AP - American officers are taking up posts at Paris' Charles de Gaulle Airport to help identify potential terrorists or other high-risk passengers heading to the United States.

AP - Obama: `I am hopeful, cautiously hopeful, but hopeful' about achieving peace.

AP - Jordan's King Abdullah II suggests that failure of new peace talks between Isarel and the Palestinians would be a victory for terrorists seeking to derail the process.

AP - A powerful 7.1-magnitude earthquake struck much of New Zealand's South Island early Saturday and caused widespread damage, but there were just two reports of serious injuries. Looters broke into some damaged shops in Christchurch, police said.

AFP - Former ministers called Friday for new inquiries into phone-hacking by a Rupert Murdoch-owned newspaper amid fresh criticism of the tabloid's ex-editor, who is now a top government advisor.

Time.com - After a notable absence, the Secretary of State has been a very visible presence at the current negotiations. Will it pay off?

Time.com - Thailand's opposition movement expressed fears Friday over the appointment of General Prayuth Chan-ocha as the new commander of the Royal Thai Army

AP - A Honduran who survived the massacre of 72 migrants in Mexico helped untie the only other survivor — a wounded Ecuadorean — and the two fled together, an official said Friday.

AP - A UPS cargo plane with two crew members on board crashed shortly after takeoff Friday outside Dubai, officials said.

The Upshot - Here's our daily roster of stories that evaded full-on blog treatment: • Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer has announced she will not participate in anymore debates after her embarrassing showing this week. (Arizona Daily Star) • A Malaysian man known as the "Lizard King" has pleaded guilty to smuggling 95 live boa constrictors in his luggage. [...]

AP - A German court ruled Friday that Google Inc.'s subsidiary YouTube LLC must pay compensation after users uploaded several videos of performances by singer Sarah Brightman in violation of copyright laws.

AFP - Google has agreed to pay 8.5 million dollars (US) to settle a privacy lawsuit over a Buzz social networking tool added to free email service Gmail in February, according to court documents.

PC World - Some of the first fruits of a European Union-funded project led by IBM are making their way into the field of cloud computing, in the form of a virtual machine migration technology.

PC World - More people browsed the Internet last month with a device running Apple's mobile operating system, iOS, than used Linux to do so. That's a first for Apple, according to NetMarketShare, a firm that produces metrics on the market share of browsers, operating systems and search engines.

NewsFactor - Samsung Electronics is predicting it will sell 20 million to 25 million smartphones this year. The company also aims to ship 50 million smartphones in 2011, J.K. Shin, the president of Samsung's mobile communications division, told South Korean media outlet EDaily on Friday.