AP - Barack Obama celebrated "active faith" as an obligation of religious Americans and a chief agent of societal change while speaking Saturday to a nearly all-black roomful of churchgoers, but hoping to reach far beyond them.

AP - Jesse Helms forever changed North Carolina politics and the conservative movement. The former senator did it without ever changing much about himself.

Reuters - Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama said on Saturday his plan to end the Iraq war was unchanged and he was puzzled by the sharp reaction to his statement this week that he might "refine" his timetable for withdrawing U.S. combat troops.

AP - A wildfire threatening hundreds of homes in Southern California spread slowly through scenic canyonlands Saturday, straining resources as crews struggled to contain hundreds of other blazes around the state.

AP - Even folks in the Optimist Club are having a tough time toeing an upbeat line these days.

AP - Riding a green lawn chair supported by a rainbow array of more than 150 helium-filled party balloons, Kent Couch took off Saturday in a third bid to fly from central Oregon all the way to Idaho.

AP - The knock on Brian Hart's door came at 6 a.m. An Army colonel, a priest and a police officer had come to tell Hart and his wife that their 20-year-old son had been killed when his military vehicle was ambushed in Iraq.

AP - Military intelligence agents posing as aid workers and a film crew flew to the jungle aboard a white helicopter, staging a mock humanitarian mission that rebels were told would ferry their hostages to another camp for talks on a prisoner swap.

AP - Iran indicated Saturday that it has no plans to meet a key Western demand that it stop enriching uranium, a day after Tehran sent the European Union a response to an international offer of incentives for halting enrichment.

Reuters - Firefighters in California have fended off a blaze threatening more than 3,000 homes in and around the coastal town of Goleta and are turning their attention to preventing its spread toward the nearby picturesque city of Santa Barbara, officials said on Saturday.

AP - Thrilled as she was to win her fifth Wimbledon singles championship, Venus Williams dialed down her celebration. No hopping in place and skipping to the net after match point, the way she's done so often on that Centre Court lawn. No giddy laughter and whoops of joy, as she's let out in the past.