AFP - One of Britain's best-loved television characters, pub landlady Peggy Mitchell, will bow out of the show Friday after 16 years at the heart of the long-running soap "EastEnders".

AP - Will he or won't he? Negotiations between a local Muslim cleric and the leader of a tiny Florida church who had threatened to publicly burn copies of Islam's holy text left the heated debate in a state of confusion with the ninth anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks a day away.

AP - Will he or won't he? Negotiations between a local Muslim cleric and the leader of a tiny Florida church who had threatened to publicly burn copies of Islam's holy text left the heated debate in a state of confusion with the ninth anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks a day away.

AP - Weary firefighters hoped the worst was over from a wildfire that destroyed nearly 170 homes in the Rocky Mountains foothills, but crews monitored were monitoring hot spots early Friday amid concerns that erratic winds could fan the flames and send them into Boulder.

AP - Minutes after a woman was suspended from her job at a Kraft Foods Inc. plant and was escorted out, she returned with a handgun and opened fire, killing two people and critically injuring a third before being taken into custody, police said.

AP - Three U.S. mothers who have pleaded with Iranian authorities for more than a year to free their sons and daughter from a Tehran prison finally received a piece of the news they've been longing for.

AP - Three U.S. mothers who have pleaded with Iranian authorities for more than a year to free their sons and daughter from a Tehran prison finally received a piece of the news they've been longing for.

AP - A federal judge said she will issue an order to halt the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy, after she declared the ban on openly gay service members unconstitutional.

AP - Striving to gain the upper hand on a crucial political issue, President Barack Obama is faulting Republicans for refusing to help him turn around the sluggish economy or support some proposed new tax breaks for businesses that the GOP has backed in the past.

AP - Firefighters poured water on flaming and smoldering wreckage early Friday after a massive explosion sent blazes roaring through a neighborhood in the hills south of San Francisco, killing at least one person, destroying more than 50 homes and damaging dozens of others.

AP - Iran is denying an opposition group's claim that it is building a secret nuclear facility west of the capital.

AP - Flags flew at half-staff in the southern Russian city of Vladikavkaz on Friday and stunned residents laid flowers in a square where a suicide car bombing killed 17 people and wounded more than 140.

AP - A new mosque recently opened in this well-to-do suburb of Philadelphia, but not many people noticed.

AP - Convicted killer Cal Coburn Brown was executed early Friday by lethal injection for the rape, torture and murder of a Seattle-area woman, after delivering a statement complaining he was treated unfairly by the legal system.

AP - President Barack Obama has chosen one of his longtime economic advisers, Austan Goolsbee, to be the chairman of his Council of Economic Advisers, a White House official said.

AP - After three nights of violent protests, calm mainly prevailed over a gritty neighborhood where police fatally shot an illegal immigrant from Guatemala who was menacing officers with a knife.

AP - An Afghan insurgent commander who was allegedly planning bombings in Kabul on the eve of the Sept. 18 parliamentary elections and two of his associates have been killed in an airstrike, NATO said Friday.

AFP - An independent Australian politician whose support was crucial to keeping Prime Minister Julia Gillard in power Friday knocked back an offer to become a minister in her minority government.

AFP - US President Barack Obama will Friday step up his mid-term election campaign and appeal to voters dismayed by the stuttering economy with his first White House press conference since May.

AP - Japan's economy isn't quite as weak as first thought, but it still needs help, the government said Friday as it unveiled details of a new $11 billion stimulus package.

AP - At least three people were still missing early Friday after flooding caused by the remnants of Tropical Storm Hermine swept vehicles from Texas roads and overpowered swimmers in the Guadalupe River.

AP - A Metrolink commuter train struck and killed two people who may have been sleeping on the tracks and injured a third in Orange County on Thursday, authorities said.

Reuters - President Barack Obama has chosen Austan Goolsbee as the new head of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, U.S. administration officials said on Thursday, promoting a longtime adviser from his inner policy circle.

AP - New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady was unhurt in a two-vehicle accident near his home Thursday morning before practicing as usual with his team ahead of the season opener and agreeing to a four-year contract extension that, according to two people familiar with it, would make him the NFL's highest-paid player.

AP - The Mexican police officers who arrested infamous drug suspect Edgar Valdez Villarreal, alias "La Barbie," did not initially know who they had caught, according to a booking report obtained Thursday.

AFP - US President Barack Obama has chosen Austan Goolsbee, an economics professor currently working in his administration, to chair the Council of Economic Advisors, an official said.

AP - If Rahm Emanuel decides to run for Chicago mayor, the White House chief of staff would easily be the best-known figure in the race, with national name recognition that few others could match and invaluable experience from helping engineer the Democrats' takeover of the House in 2006.

AP - Donald Trump offered Thursday to buy out a major investor in the real estate partnership that controls the site near ground zero where a Muslim group wants to build a 13-story Islamic center and mosque.