Most Popular

NEW YORK - Joey Chestnut reclaimed the top spot at the annual hot dog eating contest in Coney Island on Friday after first tying with archrival Takeru Kobayashi in a 10-minute chow-down and then beating him in a five-dog eat-off.

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.

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.

ALTON, Ill. - An Illinois woman says her beloved miniature dachshund gnawed off her right big toe while she was asleep. Linda Floyd told the Alton Telegraph for a story Wednesday that her beloved Roscoe was euthanized because of safety concerns.

LONDON (Reuters) - Oil's meteoric rise since the start of the year to nearly $150 has distressed consumers and policy makers the world over, but the stark reality is prices are likely to rise higher still.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Thomas Beatie, who was born a woman but after surgery and hormone treatment lives as a man, has given birth to a girl at an Oregon hospital, People magazine reported on Thursday.

SYDNEY, Australia - "Crocodile Dundee" star Paul Hogan challenged Australian tax authorities Friday to track him down in the United States after a newspaper report that he was under investigation for tax evasion.

BUTTE, Mont. - Is Barack Obama close to being shadowed by giant flip-flops and, worse, having the image stick with people all the way to the voting booth?

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - All four members of supergroup ABBA appeared together on Friday at the Swedish premiere of the film "Mamma Mia!," delighting fans with their first public showing for years.

BAGHDAD (AFP) - More than 1,200 US troops serving in Iraq signed up for extended service in the military to mark America's national day on Friday.

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - All four members of supergroup ABBA appeared together on Friday at the Swedish premiere of the film "Mamma Mia!," delighting fans with their first public showing for years.

NEW YORK - Joey Chestnut reclaimed the top spot at the annual hot dog eating contest in Coney Island on Friday after first tying with archrival Takeru Kobayashi in a 10-minute chow-down and then beating him in a five-dog eat-off.

BOGOTA, Colombia - Video recorded during the rescue of 15 rebel hostages shows them filing grim-faced toward the helicopter that would fly them to safety, then hugging one another and crying with joy after they are aloft and realize they are free.

07/04/2008 - DEAR MARGO: I despise going to wakes and funerals.

07/03/2008 - DEAR MARGO: I have been married for 25 years and have two children, one adult and one teenager.

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.

WASHINGTON - "Compromise, hell!" Jesse Helms screamed in a 1959 editorial that captured what would become the legacy of his Senate career and his place in the conservative movement.

NICE, France - They'll always have Nice.

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.

ARGANDA DEL REY, Spain - Soul diva Amy Winehouse sipped from a glass of red wine and looked a bit unsteady on her feet as she appeared in front of a large audience at the Rock in Rio music festival southeast of Madrid on Friday.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Exhausted California firefighters worked on Friday to contain two wildfires threatening homes along the coast before sundown, when shifting winds were expected to give the blazes more power.

ROME (Reuters) - The Italian government declared a state of emergency at the Pompeii archaeological site on Friday to try to rescue one of the world's most important cultural treasures from decades of neglect.

SANTA MONICA, Calif. - Michael Turner, a comic book artist who drew covers for major titles such as "Superman/Batman," "The Flash" and "Civil War,'" has died. He was 37.

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Scientists with the US Phoenix lander will make their first analysis of Martian ice fragments in coming days but it could be the last done in one of the probe's small ovens, NASA said on its website Friday.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Larry Harmon, the alter ego behind Bozo the Clown for more than 50 years, died on Thursday of congestive heart failure at age 83, his spokesman said.

SEA BRIGHT, N.J. - Authorities protecting a dolphin family in a New Jersey river are stepping up enforcement over the July Fourth holiday.

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina - Lost scenes from the sci-fi classic "Metropolis," recently discovered in the archives of a Buenos Aires museum, were shown to journalists for the first time in decades on Thursday.

WASHINGTON - The Pentagon has extended the tour of 2,200 Marines in Afghanistan, after insisting for months the unit would come home on time.

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.

BAGHDAD - Syria has returned a marble artifact to Iraq that was stolen from one of the country's archaeological sites.