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

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 - 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.

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."

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.