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.
NEW ORLEANS - Fuel prices are soaring and credit markets tightening, but the super-rich are still lining up to pay tens of millions of dollars for mega yachts.
LANSING, Mich. - Arlan Ettinger will never forget the response he got when he took one of civil rights pioneer Rosa Parks' hats to a meeting at the Apollo Theater in New York.
ALBANY, N.Y. - Wish "Yankee Doodle" a happy 250th birthday. Maybe.
MILWAUKEE - At least one person fired a gun into a crowd in a street early Friday, killing four people and sending panicked revelers running for cover, police said.
NEW YORK - Joey Chestnut achieved frankfurter immortality Friday, outdueling his celebrated Japanese rival in an epic hot-dog eating contest that pushed both of the gluttonous gladiators to the brink.
MIAMI - The call girl involved in a scandal that brought down New York's former governor has dropped a lawsuit claiming "Girls Gone Wild" founder Joe Francis exploited her image and name on the Internet.
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.
Some quotes of Jesse Helms, who died on the Fourth of July at age 86:
LOS ANGELES - More than a dozen people, some wearing orange protective gear, pulled rakes and shovels from a dingy shopping cart and started working on a parched patch of land along a busy off-ramp of the Hollywood Freeway.
NEW YORK - The Fourth of July weekend has always been one of the most exciting times of the year for Coney Island: Crowds line the boardwalk to watch the hot-dog eating contest, visitors take terrifying roller coaster rides, and beachgoers frolic in the sand and surf.
FORT SAM HOUSTON, Texas - Back on U.S. soil, three American hostages rescued from Colombia rebels are now in the process of reintegrating into a society they've been absent from for more than five years.
FAIRFIELD, Conn. - A combative cat named Lewis who frightened the neighbors and got his owner into legal trouble two years ago has done so well under house arrest that the case has now been scratched.
LOS ANGELES - Larry Harmon wasn't the original Bozo the Clown, but he was the real one. Harmon, who portrayed the wing-haired clown for more than half a century, died Thursday of congestive heart failure, said his publicist, Jerry Digney. He was 83.
When Kevin Grosenheider received a call early Monday from his friend, Raymond Gagnon, asking him to dispose of a safe, he decided to help him out.
POSEN, Ill. - A suburban Chicago man locked his two young daughters in a wire cage hidden in the back of his pickup truck because he didn't have a baby sitter, officials said Thursday.
CLEVELAND - A federal jury on Thursday convicted the former top accountant at the Cleveland Catholic Diocese of tax charges and acquitted him of more serious charges related to alleged kickbacks.
NEW YORK/SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - A U.S. judge's order to Google Inc to turn over YouTube user data to Viacom Inc sparked an outcry on Thursday from privacy advocates in the midst of a legal showdown over video piracy.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Former U.S. sprinter Tim Montgomery, an Olympic gold medalist now banned from the sport, pleaded guilty on Thursday to distributing heroin.