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.

AP - The Pentagon has extended the tour of 2,200 Marines in Afghanistan, after insisting for months the unit would come home on time. The 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, which is doing combat operations in the volatile south, will stay an extra 30 days and come home in early November rather than October, Marine Col. David Lapan confirmed Thursday.

AP - Larry Harmon, who turned the character Bozo the Clown into a show business staple that delighted children for more than a half-century, died Thursday of congestive heart failure. He was 83.

Reuters - The Williams name will once again be engraved on the Wimbledon trophy in 2008.

AP - Three U.S. hostages rescued from Colombian rebels after more than five years in captivity are in good condition and undergoing the transition back to normal life, military officials said Thursday.

AP - Baseball's drug-testing program was threatened when federal prosecutors seized player records and samples four years ago, baseball commissioner Bud Selig and union head Donald Fehr said in letters to Congress released Thursday.

AFP - Colombian-French politician Ingrid Betancourt was Thursday tearfully reunited with her children for the first time in six years, a day after her dramatic jungle rescue from Marxist rebels.

Reuters - U.S. President George W. Bush will attend the opening ceremonies of the Olympic Games in China next month, the White House said on Thursday.

Reuters - Some 2,200 U.S. Marines battling insurgents in southern Afghanistan have had their tour of duty extended by 30 days, U.S. officials said on Thursday.

AFP - US President George W. Bush will attend the August 8 opening ceremonies of the Beijing Olympic Games despite appeals from human rights activists that he boycott the gala, the White House said Thursday.

Reuters - A massive, out-of-control wildfire bearing down on the scenic coastal town of Big Sur was exhibiting "extreme fire behavior" that had authorities fearing for nearly 1,800 homes and businesses in its path and ordering residents to get out.

Reuters - U.S. employers cut workers for a sixth straight month in June for the longest such streak since 2002 and the country's vast service sector unexpectedly contracted, underscoring the economy's frailty.

Reuters - Ingrid Betancourt, the symbol of rebel hostages in Colombia, hugged and wept with her children for the first time in six years on Thursday after a military rescue that dealt a severe blow to already weakened guerrillas.

Reuters - Britain has received new U.S. assurances that the CIA did not secretly smuggle terrorist suspects through its territory, but critics said on Thursday the government had failed to ask Washington the right questions.

Reuters - French-Colombian politician Ingrid Betancourt, three Americans and 11 other hostages held for years in jungle captivity were rescued on Wednesday from leftist guerrillas by Colombian troops posing as aid workers.

AP - Sheryl Crow is urging people to get involved in saving America's wild horses.

AFP - French-Colombian politician Ingrid Betancourt, three US nationals and 11 other hostages were rescued from Marxist FARC rebels Wednesday, freed from years in captivity by a daring Colombian military raid.

AP - Vermont State Police say they have found a body believed to be that of a missing 12-year-old girl.

AP - Grappling with a record death toll in an overshadowed war, President Bush promised Wednesday to send more U.S. troops into Afghanistan by year's end. He conceded that June was a "tough month" in the nearly seven-year-old war.

AP - Orders to U.S. factories turned in the slowest performance in three months in May as a surge in demand for commercial aircraft was not enough to offset weakness in autos, heavy machinery and steel.

AP - Rescued hostage Ingrid Betancourt says the military operation that freed her from Colombian rebels was "absolutely impeccable" and took her completely by surprise.

AP - A Palestinian laborer driving a construction vehicle rammed into packed buses, tossed cars into the air and rolled over pedestrians in a deadly rampage Wednesday that killed three people and wounded dozens in Jerusalem.

AP - Authorities ordered most of the remaining residents of this scenic coastal community to leave Wednesday because an out-of-control wildfire, one of hundreds of California, had jumped a fire line and was threatening more homes.

AP - Brett Favre is considering coming out of retirement, according to an ESPN report. ESPN's Chris Mortensen said Wednesday that a Packers source told him the 38-year-old Favre told coach Mike McCarthy in the past two weeks that he has the itch to play.