AP - Those seeking the oohs and aahs of traditional Fourth of July fireworks could be sadly disappointed this year: Public displays and sales of boxed firecrackers are being canceled or scaled back across the nation, victims of a sluggish economy, wildfire fears and product shortages caused by a warehouse fire in China.

AP - His wife described him as a good man — when he was clean and sober — and his attorney said he was a model client who showed up at a recent court appearance dressed in a suit and tie.

AP - Authorities ordered the remaining residents of this scenic coastal community to leave Wednesday because an out-of-control wildfire, one of hundreds in California, had jumped a fire line and was threatening more homes.

AP - Instead of gathering at a vigil to offer prayers for the safe return of a missing 12-year-old girl, residents found themselves mourning the news that her body had been found.

AP - Three American hostages rescued from leftist guerillas in Colombia arrived safely in Texas late Wednesday and were taken to a hospital, where they were expected to reunite with their families and undergo tests.

AP - Tiffany was 12 when her mother died. That was the same year she ran away from her sister's house, lived on the streets for six weeks and met the man who two days later became her pimp.

AP - Weary crews battling wildfires across northern and central California are going to get help from the National Guard, the first time the state's troops have been called to ground-based firefighting duty since 1977.

AP - Investigators have spent two days digging at a property in northeast Georgia in search of clues advocates hope could lead to finding living suspects in the unsolved lynchings of four people in 1946.

AP - The high school where the principal claimed girls formed a pact to get pregnant is one of the few in Massachusetts with a day care center, leading some to wonder whether that sent a message that teen motherhood is OK.

AP - Police in Nicholas T. Sheley's town came to know him well as his crimes progressed from marijuana possession to domestic battery, then to resisting a peace officer and aggravated battery.

AP - A fugitive hedge-fund swindler who faked suicide on a Hudson River bridge and went on the run to avoid a prison sentence surrendered Wednesday in Massachusetts, the U.S. attorney's office said.