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 - The Pentagon has extended the tour of 2,200 Marines in Afghanistan, after insisting for months the unit would come home on time.
AP - Only two Democratic presidential candidates have carried Montana since 1948. Barack Obama is betting he can do it in November.
AP - Hugo Chavez, once a key mediator in securing hostage releases from Colombian rebels, could do little more than phone congratulations to President Alvaro Uribe after this week's bold rescue.
AP - Between surging oil prices, food inflation and a credit crunch that's depressed global growth, leaders from the Group of Eight economic powers face the gravest combination of economic woes in at least a decade when they gather next week.
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 - The White House said Thursday that dangerous detainees at Guantanamo Bay could end up walking Main Street U.S.A. as a result of last month's Supreme Court ruling about detainees' legal rights. Federal appeals courts, however, have indicated they have no intention of letting that happen.
AP - A-Rod and the Material Girl? That's a lot of hits. Reports that Yankees superstar Alex Rodriguez and Madonna have become close just as their marriages are disintegrating have both the celebrity gossip industry and the sporting world each a chatty bunch buzzing with questions about the two "friends."
AP - A spot in her seventh Wimbledon final already secured, Venus Williams headed back to Centre Court to catch the end of the next match. Scouting? Not really. More like rooting for her sister.
