NEW YORK - Americans across the country mixed patriotism and plain old good fun to mark Independence Day on Friday, with solemn ceremony alternating with parades and hot-dog-eating hijinks.
BIG SUR, Calif. - A pair of out-of-control wildfires roared along California's central coast Friday, chewing through opposite ends of a parched forest and threatening a total of more than 4,500 homes.
RALEIGH, N.C. - Former Sen. Jesse Helms, an unyielding champion of the conservative movement who spent three combative and sometimes caustic decades in Congress, where he relished his battles against liberals, Communists and occasionally a fellow Republican, died on the Fourth of July. He was 86.