AP - Independence Day is normally a booming time for tourism here, with visitors settling into cliffside vacation homes or trekking out to campgrounds nestled among the redwoods. But this year, the only out-of-towners in Big Sur are firefighters working around the clock to save the storied community from flames.

AP - President Bush will spend some time this July 4th at the home of the man who virtually wrote the Declaration of Independence. Bush plans to visit Thomas Jefferson's hilltop home, Monticello, in Charlottesville, Va. He'll taking part in Monticello's annual naturalization ceremony, addressing 76 new American citizens.

AP - Fireworks aren't the only thing skyrocketing on this Fourth of July. The price of gas has hit another all-time high.

AP - Barack Obama is celebrating the 4th of July in Butte, Montana, attending a parade and picnic. It's a state that usually gives its three electoral votes to a Republican. Only two Democrats have carried Montana since 1948. Republicans typically take it for granted and Democrats usually write if off. But this year, Obama is spending a sizeable amount of time and money to try to win it.

AP - Ingrid Betancourt, freed from captivity and humiliation in the jungles of Colombia, returns to her beloved France and a hero's welcome Friday in the gilded halls of the presidential palace.

AP - A homemade bomb exploded at an outdoor concert in Belarus' capital early Friday, injuring at least 50 people. Officials blamed hooligans.

AP - He's gone from hot-dog top dog to underdog. Renowned competitive eater Takeru Kobayashi is aiming to chomp his way back to the top of the annual Fourth of July hot dog eating competition on Coney Island after a disappointing three-dog loss last year shattered his six-year winning streak.

AP - Dismissing privacy concerns, a federal judge overseeing a $1 billion copyright-infringement lawsuit against YouTube has ordered the popular online video-sharing service to disclose who watches which video clips and when.

AP - Temporary farm markets deployed in parts of New Orleans recovering from Hurricane Katrina have given residents access to fresh fruit, vegetables, meat and seafood.

Investor's Business Daily - When Hurricanes Katrina and Rita ripped through the Gulf of Mexico in 2005, they tore into the Gulf fleet and crippled or destroyed 113 production platforms and 18 drilling rigs. Wave-tossed rigs dragged moorings across the seafloor and ripped up hundreds of miles of pipelines.

AP - One of the nation's largest insurance companies is lobbying Congress for permission to sell policies that cover damage from both wind and flood water, a plan billed as a way for insurers and homeowners to avoid costly litigation after disasters like Hurricane Katrina.

Reuters - There's been no shortage of thoughtful musical responses to Hurricane Katrina, but this album-length elegy by one of the city's foremost voices stands as something like the Mitchell Report of the bunch. "City That Care Forgot" is a righteous service indeed, all rage and soul and careful optimism, a place where the ballads drip and burn as much as the rockers, the barbs come quick and sharp ("Say it's a job well done, then you giggled like a bitch, and hopped back on the Air Force One"), and the best prognosis that the doctor can muster is, "We're getting there." Dr. John has enlisted much help here, including that of Eric Clapton, Willie Nelson and Terence Blanchard, and his own Lower 911 band can churn up bayou funk at the snap of a finger. But though "City" is a vicious rebuke, its greater power comes from its being shot through with a deep love and a deeper sadness.

AP - For the first time since Hurricane Katrina, the 1920s-era St. Charles Avenue streetcar will clack along its entire 13-mile route Sunday.

Reuters - Spike Lee may not be done with Hurricane Katrina yet.

AP - Just as south Louisiana's citrus growers are starting to recover from Hurricane Katrina, they have a new threat: a fatal citrus disease that has infected thousands of trees in Florida and is now in the Bayou State.

AP - President Bush, surveying the aftermath of devastating floods during a lightning-quick tour of the Midwest on Thursday, assured residents and rescuers alike that he is listening to their concerns and understands their exhaustion.

AP - Federal prosecutors want two more months to file their brief in Sept. 11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui's (zak-uh-REE'-uhs moo-SOW'-eez) appeal.

AP - In the months following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Princess Wijdan Al Hashemi and her friend Aliki Moschis-Gauguet noticed that the only depictions they saw of Muslim women showed figures behind veils, oppressed by their cultures.

AP - The head of the foundation building the Sept. 11 memorial told supporters Tuesday it's "essential" to open the memorial by the 10th anniversary of the terrorist attacks, disputing a report that the project couldn't be finished on time.

AFP - Construction of skyscrapers and an underground transport hub to replace the World Trade Center towers destroyed in the September 11 terror attacks will be delayed for years and cost far more than planned, New York officials said Monday.

Reuters - Rebuilding at the World Trade Center, site of the September 11 attacks, is behind schedule and over budget, and major problems mean new cost estimates and timetable must be drawn up, officials said on Monday.

AP - This was a sleepy Navy outpost before the U.S. began using it to hold prisoners in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks — and it may soon become one again.

AP - It will cost another $37.5 million to deconstruct a contaminated skyscraper at New York's ground zero.

AP - Vice President Dick Cheney's top adviser on Thursday refused to claim any responsibility for the adoption of harsh interrogation methods following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks during a combative exchange with congressional Democrats.

AFP - Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak ordered the army on Friday to prepare to raze the east Jerusalem house of a Palestinian whose rampage in a bulldozer killed three people, the ministry said.

Reuters - Israel responded to Thursday's rocket attack by again closing its border crossing with Gaza on Friday, dampening hopes among Gazans that a ceasefire between Hamas and the Jewish state might ease an Israeli-led blockade.

Reuters - An Israeli government proposal to demolish homes of Palestinians from Arab East Jerusalem who attack Israelis is legally viable, Israel's attorney-general wrote in a legal opinion.

AP - Israel says it is keeping Gaza's border crossings closed in retaliation for a rocket attack.

AFP - Israel received a report from the Lebanese Hezbollah militia that an Israeli airman reported missing in Lebanon since 1986 has been dead for more than 10 years, the Haaretz daily reported on Friday.

AFP - Hamas said on Friday it had suspended negotiations on the release of a captured Israeli soldier because the Jewish state was not respecting the terms of a truce with the Islamist movement.

AFP - Israel and Syria have agreed to extend indirect talks under Turkish mediation, Ankara's foreign ministry said Thursday.

AP - An Iranian diplomat said Thursday that four Iranians who disappeared in Lebanon in 1982 are alive in Israel and called for their release.

AFP - Indonesian police said Friday they were interrogating 10 suspects and examining some 20 improvised bombs after cracking a major cell of the Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) regional terror group.

AP - Federal prosecutors want two more months to file their brief in Sept. 11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui's (zak-uh-REE'-uhs moo-SOW'-eez) appeal.

AP - A terrorism suspect alleged to have deep ties to Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida has been set free on bail, British officials said Thursday in the second such case in less than three weeks after courts ruled the men could not be kept in jail indefinitely.

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.

AP - Sweden will pay 3 million kronor ($502,000) in compensation to an exonerated Egyptian terrorism suspect who was handed over to CIA agents and deported in 2001, the government said Thursday.

Reuters - An Algerian suspected of links to Osama bin Laden and bomb plots in the United States and France has been freed from a British prison after more than seven years but placed under house arrest while he fights deportation.

AFP - Indonesian police said Thursday they had cracked a terrorist cell linked to some of the region's most wanted fugitives after the arrest of 10 suspects with a cache of powerful homemade bombs.

AFP - A suspected Islamist extremist said to have "direct links" with Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden has been freed on bail in Britain after more than seven years in jail, court officials said Thursday.

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

AP - A federal judge in Riverside, Calif., has ordered two Marines released from jail despite their refusal to testify before a grand jury investigating the alleged killing of Iraqi detainees in 2004.

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.

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 - As of Thursday, July 3, 2008, at least 4,113 members of the U.S. military have died in the Iraq war since it began in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

AFP - Democratic White House hopeful Barack Obama insisted Thursday he had not changed his plan to order immediate troop withdrawals from Iraq, despite earlier saying he might refine his policies.

AP - Barack Obama's policy for bringing U.S. troops home from Iraq as stated on his Web site:

AP - Iraq's prime minister plans trips to Europe and the Persian Gulf this month, apparently hoping improved security at home will pay dividends in greater international support — including from a country that did not back the U.S. invasion.

AP - Only two Democratic presidential candidates have carried Montana since 1948. Barack Obama is betting he can do it in November.

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 - 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 - Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama says "mental distress" should not qualify as a justification for late-term abortions, a key distinction not embraced by many supporters of abortion rights.

Politico - The realization almost always prompts a double take, a moment of inspection, maybe even a debate: Is baby-faced Barack Obama, the symbol of a younger political generation, actually aging in front of us?

AP - It will be a red-state Fourth of July for Barack Obama, who hopes to find votes as well as fireworks in places that blue-state Democrats often bypass in presidential elections.

AP - Barack Obama's campaign is considering having him accept the Democratic presidential nomination at Invesco Field at Mile High instead of the Pepsi Center, the chosen site for the Democratic National Convention, two people with knowledge of convention planning said Thursday.

AP - Barack Obama's presidential campaign distanced itself Thursday from a mailer by Georgia Democratic Senate hopeful Vernon Jones that shows them together under Obama's signature slogan: "Yes we can."

AP - A 60-pound tortoise that escaped from a family's garage last month is back home after a 2 1/2-week adventure that took him through three northwestern Indiana towns.

AP - Benjamin Franklin and Betsy Ross celebrated the eve of the Fourth of July not with fireworks but with wedding vows.

AP - A college student claimed it was all a joke when he put his vote in this fall's presidential election up for sale on the Web auction site eBay. But prosecutors didn't see the humor.

AP - 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.

AP - An 1851 artillery gun carried into battle by Arkansas military school students who joined the Confederate Army was unveiled in its home state Thursday after nearly 150 years.

Reuters - At "Buns and Guns" you can order a "Kalashnikov" sandwich from a bullet-shaped menu, prepared by chefs in military fatigues with the roar of explosions as background music.

Reuters - A drunken 78-year-old Swede stole a dinghy after a night out in the Danish town of Helsingor and tried to row back to Sweden, but fell asleep halfway, Danish police said on Monday.

Reuters - Fifteen camels, two zebras and several llamas and pot-bellied pigs escaped from a circus visiting Amsterdam early Monday, police said.

USATODAY.com - Amrikiya. Beikoku. Estados Unidos de America. Etats-Unis d'Amerique. Hoa Ky. iMelika. Meiguo. Sayukta Rajya Amrika. Vereinigte Staaten von Amerika.

USATODAY.com - Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama on energy policies: ?

USATODAY.com - San Francisco Chronicle, in an editorial: "It's hard to miss the point. … North Korea blew up a 60-foot cooling tower at its main nuclear complex and invited foreign media to film away. (President) Bush himself read out the change in policy to give it full force.

The Christian Science Monitor - It's as easy as grilling hot dogs to revel in Fourth of July rituals. Fireworks, parades, flags, and picnics help bind Americans. But the holiday is also a time for each person to recall the good in the nation's past ? and renew faith in the good still to come. That private patriotism is hard to show, as Barack Obama and even war hero John McCain have learned.

The Christian Science Monitor - Is freedom a virtue or a vice? That question goes to the heart of some of the past century's most violent conflicts. And it seems to be driving much of the criticism against the US today. But as it's described in the quintessential work on freedom ? the US Declaration of Independence ? liberty is worthy of all the world's admiration.

HuffingtonPost.com - Colombia's audacious rescue of hostages held by the FARC, including American contractors Marc Gonsalves, Thomas Howes and Keith Stansell, adds an extra bang to the July 4 holiday. But we shouldn't forget the alarming backstory leading up to their captivity, which reveals a lot about the failings of government contracting, and government in general.

The Nation - The Nation -- Barack Obama is serious about going where no Democrat has gone before -- or, to be precise, where no Democrat has gone in a very long time.

The Nation - The Nation -- Kai Wright's moving Nation cover story from last week's issue of the magazine put a human face on the subprime mortgage foreclosure crisis and illuminated a little remarked upon aspect of the catastrophe -- the way that the mortgage industry has effectively stolen much of black America's hard-won wealth. (The total loss of wealth for people of color due to the subprime crisis could reach $213 billion, including $92 billion for African-Americans and $98 billion for Latinos.)

Kevin Sites in the Hot Zone - Chapter 15: Coming HomeIn this final chapter of "A World of Conflict," Kevin Sites returns home to the U.S., only to confirm what he suspected -- that in the year that he was gone little had changed.

Kevin Sites in the Hot Zone - Chapter 14: Israel-Hezbollah WarThe war between Israel and Hezbollah shook the landscape in the Middle East.

Kevin Sites in the Hot Zone - Chapter 13: Sri LankaKevin Sites covered Sri Lanka as violence erupted between the government and Tamil Tiger rebels, pushing a nation with so much to lose back to the brink of all-out war. In rebel-held territory Sites interviewed Tiger fighters about their tactics and reported on the many effects of war still seen in the region.

Kevin Sites in the Hot Zone - Chapter 12: Nepal and KashmirKevin Sites covered Nepal during a time of sweeping political change that followed mass nationwide protests, forcing the autocratic King to cede power.

Kevin Sites in the Hot Zone - Chapter 11: Child BrideIn Afghanistan, Kevin Sites met a 12-year-old girl named Gulsoma, whose incredible story of resilience resonated with millions of people worldwide. She was only six years old when she was sold to a neighbor family in Kandahar as a child bride.

Kevin Sites in the Hot Zone - Chapter 10: AfghanistanReporting from Afghanistan in spring 2006, more than four years after the U.S.-led coalition ousted the Taliban, Kevin Sites found that war is not over in the country.

Kevin Sites in the Hot Zone - Chapter Nine: ChechnyaIn Chechnya during the winter of 2005-2006, Kevin Sites reported on a region still reeling from lingering conflict between Russia and Islamic separatists. The conflict engulfed Chechnya in the 1990s, and even now, half of the population is yet to return. Those that have eke out a living amid the rubble.

Kevin Sites in the Hot Zone - Chapter Eight: Iran

AP - 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.

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.

Reuters - Former U.S. sprinter Tim Montgomery, an Olympic gold medalist now banned from the sport, pleaded guilty on Thursday to distributing heroin.

AP - Federal prosecutors want two more months to file their brief in Sept. 11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui's (zak-uh-REE'-uhs moo-SOW'-eez) appeal.

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 - Federal prosecutors in Miami have indicted two men on charges of illegally providing U.S.-made military aircraft parts to Iranian buyers.

AP - Former track star Tim Montgomery, once dubbed "the world's fastest man," pleaded guilty Thursday to distributing heroin, averting a trial set for next week.

AP - A Vermont man whose 12-year-old niece was found dead near his home carefully orchestrated events and e-mails to make it appear she had gone to see someone she met online, prosecutors said Thursday as they charged him with kidnapping.

AP - 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.

AP - Warren Ferguson

AP - Irina Baronova, world renowned in the 1930s as part of a trio of Russian-born dancers dubbed the "Baby Ballerinas," has died at her home in Australia. She was 89.

AP - Fortune teller Madam Marie, a figure of rock 'n' roll mythology thanks to Bruce Springsteen, has died. She was in her mid-90s.

AP - Garven F. Hudgins, a former Associated Press foreign correspondent who covered the trial of Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem, has died, his family said. He was 84.

AP - Clay Felker, who revolutionized the magazine genre as founding editor of New York, bringing readers a smart, sassy mix of gossip and news that was replicated relentlessly across the country, died Tuesday. He was 82.

AP - Angel Tavira, a one-handed violinist who dedicated his life to Mexican folk music and won a Cannes Film Festival award for his first movie at age 82, has died. He was 84.

AP - Edgar Vincent, who represented Placido Domingo, Beverly Sills, Mikhail Baryshnikov and a bevy of stars in classical music during a six-decade career, died Thursday following an operation in New York. He was 90.