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 - 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 - Some quotes of Jesse Helms, who died on the Fourth of July at age 86:

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.

AP - When staffers at a Brooklyn hospital spotted a middle-aged woman lying face-down on a waiting room floor last month, it hardly seemed like cause for alarm.

AP - Authorities protecting a dolphin family in a New Jersey river are stepping up enforcement over the July Fourth holiday.

AP - Tropical Storm Bertha has formed in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Africa.

AP - A hedge fund cheat who tried to fake his own death and spent nearly a month as a fugitive told a judge Thursday that he really did try to commit suicide while on the run, saying he thought it would be better to do himself in than turn himself in.

AP - As the hunt wound down for the man suspected in a killing spree that left eight people dead in two states, a disheveled Nicholas T. Sheley walked calmly into a Subway restaurant in suburban St. Louis, asked to use the phone and called his lawyer — all but ensuring his capture.

AP - A Texas man who spent more than 15 years in prison after being wrongly convicted of kidnapping and robbery raised both arms skyward and collapsed in his mother's embrace Thursday after being told he was a free man.

AP - Minors who commit crimes while in the United States illegally will be turned over to federal immigration officials, a reversal of a nearly 20-year-old San Francisco policy, Mayor Gavin Newsom said Thursday.