AP - Former Sen. Jesse Helms, who built a career along the fault lines of racial politics and battled liberals, Communists and the occasional fellow Republican during 30 conservative years in Congress, died on the Fourth of July. He was 86.

AP - Some quotes of Jesse Helms, who died on the Fourth of July at age 86:

AP - More than a dozen people, some wearing orange protective gear, pulled rakes and shovels from a dingy shopping cart and started working on a parched patch of land along a busy off-ramp of the Hollywood Freeway.

AP - Independence Day is normally a booming time for tourism at Big Sur, 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 - The Fourth of July weekend has always been one of the most exciting times of the year for Coney Island: Crowds line the boardwalk to watch the hot-dog eating contest, visitors take terrifying roller coaster rides, and beachgoers frolic in the sand and surf.

AP - Back on U.S. soil, three American hostages rescued from Colombia rebels are now in the process of reintegrating into a society they've been absent from for more than five years.

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 - Wish "Yankee Doodle" a happy 250th birthday. Maybe.

AP - Arlan Ettinger will never forget the response he got when he took one of civil rights pioneer Rosa Parks' hats to a meeting at the Apollo Theater in New York.

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 - A suburban Chicago man locked his two young daughters in a wire cage hidden in the back of his pickup truck because he didn't have a baby sitter, officials said Thursday.

AP - Minors who commit crimes while in the United States illegally will be turned over to federal immigration officials, a reversal of a nearly 20-year-old San Francisco policy, Mayor Gavin Newsom said Thursday.

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 - As the hunt wound down for the man suspected in a killing spree that left eight people dead in two states, a disheveled Nicholas T. Sheley walked calmly into a Subway restaurant in suburban St. Louis, asked to use the phone and called his lawyer — all but ensuring his capture.

AP - Starting next month, it will be "TGIT" for Utah state employees. As in: "Thank God It's Thursday."

AP - A hedge fund cheat who tried to fake his own death and spent nearly a month as a fugitive told a judge Thursday that he really did try to commit suicide while on the run, saying he thought it would be better to do himself in than turn himself in.