AP - Auto industry cutbacks, double-digit unemployment and one of the nation's highest home foreclosure rates have left Detroit with a dreary economic future.

AP - The nation's largest fireworks display exploded in a spectrum of color over the East River, temporarily stealing the spotlight from New York's world-famous skyline and helping to create a brilliant end to a day of July Fourth celebrations nationwide.

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.

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 - Weary firefighters got no Independence Day reprieve from a pair of out-of-control wildfires that roared along California's central coast, chewing through opposite ends of an arid forest in the Los Padres National Forest.

AFP - Robert Mugabe ruled out the prospect of talks with his opponents on ending Zimbabwe's political crisis Friday unless they acknowledged his victory in a one-man presidential election.

AFP - Freed Colombian politician Ingrid Betancourt said Friday she owed her life to France as President Nicolas Sarkozy gave her a hero's welcome to Paris, turning the page on her six-year hostage ordeal.

Reuters - G8 leaders aim to present a united front against global inflation, driven by soaring oil and food prices, at a summit in Japan next week, but solving the problem requires more than just a strong message from rich nations.

Reuters - Poland spurned as insufficient on Friday a U.S. offer to boost its air defenses in return for basing anti-missile interceptors on its soil but said it remained open to talks with Washington.

Reuters - Iran responded on Friday to an incentives package offered by six world powers aimed at resolving a standoff over the Islamic Republic's disputed nuclear ambitions, the official IRNA news agency said.

Reuters - Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe, defiant despite growing African condemnation of his re-election, said on Friday the opposition must drop its claim to power and accept that he was the rightful head of state.

Reuters - French-Colombian politician Ingrid Betancourt landed in Paris on Friday to an emotional welcome from President Nicolas Sarkozy, who had made her release from captivity in the Colombian jungle a foreign policy priority.

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.