Reuters - California firefighters held the line overnight on two wildfires burning along the California coast that threatened more than 4,000 homes and other structures, fire officials said on Friday morning.

Reuters - Former Sen. Jesse Helms, a die-hard anti-communist firebrand who championed a wide range of conservative causes in his 30 years in the Senate, died early on Friday, aged 86, his foundation said.

AP - Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal will meet in their third consecutive Wimbledon final after commanding semifinal victories Friday.

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 - 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 - Joey Chestnut reclaimed the top spot at the annual hot dog eating contest in Coney Island on Friday after first tying with archrival Takeru Kobayashi in a 10-minute chow-down and then beating him in a five-dog eat-off.

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

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 - Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama celebrated the Fourth of July with his family in Montana.

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 - "I cry with joy," Ingrid Betancourt said. And she did. After six years as a hostage in the Colombian jungle, the former Colombian presidential candidate and French citizen flew back to her beloved France to be embraced Friday as an icon by the country that raised her.

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.

AFP - China and Taiwan resumed regular direct flights Friday for the first time in six decades, ushering in what Beijing called a "new start" in their tense and testy relations.

AFP - Dozens of people were injured in an explosion at a gala concert in Minsk attended by Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko, Belarus officials told Russian news agencies.

Reuters - The Williams name will once again be engraved on the Wimbledon trophy in 2008.