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Medical marijuana advocates have a message for Democratic leaders and federal prosecutors with an eye on political office: Don't mess with pot.

Medical marijuana advocates have a message for Democratic leaders and federal prosecutors with an eye on political office: Don't mess with pot.

Aletta weakens to a tropical depression far out over the Pacific, expected to get weaker.

Military-dominated Myanmar's international rehabilitation gets another boost when its foreign minister meets Thursday with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and looks for progress in U.S. plans to ease economic sanctions.

Army leaders are launching a sweeping, independent review of how the service evaluates soldiers with possible post-traumatic stress disorder following recent complaints that some PTSD diagnoses were improperly overturned.

The House is debating a $642 billion defense budget for the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1 that adds billions of dollars to President Barack Obama's spending blueprint and rejects several of his proposals. The White House has threatened a veto. A look at some of the bill's disputed provisions:

For Senate Republicans, 2012 is starting a lot like 2010.

The Note’s Must-Reads are a round-up of today’s political headlines and stories from ABC News and the top U.S. newspapers. Posted Monday through Friday right here at www.abcnews.com Compiled by ABC News’ Carrie Halperin, Amanda Van Allen and Ben Waldron MITT ROMNEY USA Today’s Catalina Camia: “Mitt...

House Republicans are pushing ahead with a defense budget that adds billions of dollars, boosts nuclear weapons programs and slows cost-cutting reductions in the force.

PARIS (Reuters) - France wants Europe's new fiscal pact amended and fleshed out to include commitments to promote economic growth, Pierre Moscovici, France's newly appointed finance minister, said on Thursday, restating the stand of president Francois Hollande. "What we've said is the treaty will not be ratified as it stands," Moscovici told BFM TV. Moscovici is part of a new government formed after the swearing-in of Francois Hollande as France's first Socialist president in 17 years this week. ...

PARIS (Reuters) - French President Francois Hollande named a government dominated by moderate left-wingers on Wednesday after Socialist Party boss Martine Aubry, overlooked for the post of prime minister, said she no longer wanted to be part of the new cabinet. Hollande, sworn in on Tuesday as France's first Socialist president in 17 years, named Pierre Moscovici as finance minister and Laurent Fabius as foreign minister, key posts under Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault, like them a social democrat. ...

For the first time, racial and ethnic minorities make up more than half the children born in the U.S., capping decades of heady immigration growth that is now slowing.

Lost in the hoopla over the effort to recall Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker after he took on union rights is an ongoing secret investigation that has already ensnared a handful of the Republican governor's former aides.

Mapping the way out of an unpopular war, the United States and NATO are trying to build an Afghan army that can defend the country after 130,000 international troops pull out.

ATHENS (Reuters) - Prolonged electoral uncertainty has put Greece into a state of deep freeze, meaning whoever finally emerges as the new leader will take over a country already falling behind on its promises to lenders. The European Union and International Monetary Fund demanded extensive cuts and reforms as part of a 130 billion euro bailout package agreed in March. But Greece has had no elected government since an inconclusive election on May 6, and paralysis will continue for at least another month, even as funds dry up in the treasury. ...

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - U.S. plans for a possible military strike on Iran are ready and the option is "fully available", the U.S. ambassador to Israel said, days before Tehran resumes talks with world powers which suspect it of seeking to develop nuclear arms. Like Israel, the United States has said it considers military force a last resort to prevent Iran using its uranium enrichment to make a bomb. Iran insists its nuclear program is for purely civilian purposes. ...

TRIPOLI, Lebanon (Reuters) - A civilian died in fighting in Lebanon's port city of Tripoli on Wednesday night, security sources said, bringing the death toll to nine in five days of clashes in a city where sectarian tension has been growing over the revolt in neighboring Syria. The fighting in Tripoli, 70 km (43 miles) north of Beirut, highlights how violence in Syria can spill into Lebanon, which was garrisoned by Syrian troops until 2005. ...

KABUL (Reuters) - Clouds of hashish and cigarette smoke float across a screen showing a dancing Pakistani woman, who evokes yowls of excitement from the hundreds of Afghan men passing their time in one of the capital's rundown cinemas. Once a treasured luxury for the elite, Afghan film connoisseurs are deeply distressed by the dilapidated state of their cinemas, which reflect an industry on the brink of collapse from conflict and financial neglect. "Before our audiences were educated. ...

(Reuters) - Veteran Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich, a liberal stalwart who lost his primary race after redistricting forced him to run against another Democratic incumbent, said on Wednesday he had ruled out a congressional bid in Washington state. Kucinich, 65, had said after he was defeated in March by Marcy Kaptur, the longest-serving woman in the U.S. House of Representatives, that he was considering the possibility of relocating to Washington state to run for Congress anew. ...

BELGRADE (Reuters) - Challenger Tomislav Nikolic may not win, but he can sure spoil the party as Boris Tadic bids for a new term as president of Serbia and the right to lead the country into talks on joining the European Union. For the third time since 2004, reformist Tadic is poised to defeat Nikolic in Sunday's run-off, giving him five more years at the helm of Serbia as it slowly sheds the legacy of late strongman Slobodan Milosevic and the bloody collapse of Yugoslavia. ...