AP - 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.

Reuters - Jesse Helms, a die-hard anti-communist firebrand who championed a wide range of conservative causes in his 30 years in the U.S. Senate, died early on Friday, aged 86, his foundation said.

AP - 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.

AP - For years Spain's famed Prado museum had its suspicions about one of its most prized Goyas. Now the museum says it is certain the painting is not by the 18th-century master.

AP - 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.

AP - It's Staff Sgt. Edgar Covarrubias' second Fourth of July in Iraq. No family barbecue, no fireworks, but Covarrubias says he'll call his mom, wife and kids to share the day anyway.

AP - 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.

AP - The National Park Service is considering reopening Lady Liberty's crown for the first time since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, according to documents a congressman released on July Fourth.

AFP - Freed Colombian politician Ingrid Betancourt said Friday she owed her life to France, in an emotional visit to Paris where she received a hero's welcome after her six-year hostage ordeal in the jungle.

Reuters - Democrat Barack Obama mixed presidential politics with parades and barbecue on U.S. Independence Day on Friday, celebrating his daughter's birthday with a picnic and fireworks in Montana.

AFP - A defiant Robert Mugabe ruled out the prospect of talks with his opponents on ending Zimbabwe's political crisis Friday unless they acknowledged his victory in a one-man presidential election.

Reuters - U.S. defending champion Joey Chestnut won the annual Nathan's Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest on Friday by downing 64 hot dogs in a competition that stretched into a first-ever overtime.

AP - Add up all of Roger Federer's greatness on grass courts, and the numbers are striking: 40 wins in a row at Wimbledon, 65 overall on the surface.

Reuters - French-Colombian politician Ingrid Betancourt was given a hero's welcome on Friday in France, where President Nicolas Sarkozy had made her release a foreign policy priority and thousands had campaigned for her freedom for years.

Reuters - Iran responded on Friday to an incentives package offered by six world powers aimed at resolving a standoff over its disputed nuclear ambitions.

Reuters - Poland spurned as insufficient on Friday a U.S. offer to boost its air defenses in return for basing anti-missile interceptors on its soil but said it remained open to talks with Washington.

AP - President Bush invoked the memory of Thomas Jefferson Friday in welcoming new U.S. citizens at a naturalization ceremony at Monticello, saying "I'll be proud to call you a fellow American."

Reuters - California firefighters held the line overnight on two wildfires burning along the California coast that threatened more than 4,000 homes and other structures, fire officials said on Friday morning.

Reuters - Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe, defiant despite growing African condemnation of his re-election, said on Friday the opposition must drop its claim to power and accept that he was the rightful head of state.

Reuters - Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama waded into controversy on Thursday over his plans to withdraw U.S. combat troops from Iraq, first saying he might "refine" his views but later declaring his stance had remained unchanged for more than a year.

AP - Republican presidential candidate John McCain said Thursday that a shake-up in the leadership of his campaign was part of a "natural evolution" as the organization becomes more national in scope.

AP - A Texas man who spent more than 15 years in prison after being wrongly convicted of kidnapping and robbery raised both arms skyward and collapsed in his mother's embrace Thursday after being told he was a free man.

AP - Democrat Barack Obama struggled Thursday to explain how his upcoming trip to Iraq might refine, but not basically alter, his promise to quickly remove U.S. combat troops from the war.