AP - Dying of cancer, Thomas Amschwand did everything he was told to make sure his wife would collect on the life insurance policy he had through his employer.

AP - The government on Saturday increased the number of people reported being sickened in a record salmonella outbreak in which tomatoes are the leading suspect although investigators are testing other types of fresh produce.

AP - Moving from celebrity to senator isn't exactly an untraveled path. But that doesn't mean comedian Al Franken, who is vying for a Senate seat in Minnesota, will coast to Capitol Hill on a wide, smooth road.

Politico - Nearly a week after his controversial “Face the Nation” appearance last Sunday, retired Army Gen. Wesley Clark is taking a break from the presidential campaign — but many Democratic insiders think he has already been crossed off the list of Barack Obama’s potential running mates.

AP - Now that they're allies, Democrats Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton will help each other raise money in a series of fundraisers in New York next week.

AP - Home foreclosures will keep rising next year no matter who is elected president in November.

AP - John McCain calls himself an underdog. That may be an understatement. The GOP presidential candidate trails Democrat Barack Obama in polls, organization and money while trying to succeed a deeply unpopular fellow Republican in a year that favors Democrats. McCain also doesn't seem to have a coherent message let alone much of a strategy despite securing the nomination three months earlier than Obama.

AP - Barack Obama said Saturday that he was surprised at how the media has "finely calibrated" his recent words on Iraq, and denied that he intends to anything but end the war if he is elected.

Reuters - Twenty South Korean activist farmers have been detained by Japanese immigration for over 19 hours and expect to be deported, a spokesman for the group said, in further signs of growing security jitters from the host nation ahead of a G8 summit.

AP - "Compromise, hell!" Jesse Helms screamed in a 1959 editorial that captured what would become the legacy of his Senate career and his place in the conservative movement.

AP - Obama, family spend Fourth of July in red-state Montana, celebrate daughter's 10th birthday ... Florida Gov. Crist, possible running mate for John McCain, engaged to marry ... Obama woos Montana and its 3 electoral votes despite state's history of voting Republican ...

AP - Gov. Charlie Crist won't be sleeping alone in the governor's mansion much longer — he is engaged to a woman he met in New York City last September who quickly captured his heart.

AP - It was a family Fourth of July for Democrat Barack Obama as his wife, daughters, sister and other relatives helped him make an Independence Day play for this reliably conservative state.

AP - Is Barack Obama close to being shadowed by giant flip-flops and, worse, having the image stick with people all the way to the voting booth?