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 - The Pentagon has extended the tour of 2,200 Marines in Afghanistan, after insisting for months the unit would come home on time.

AP - Only two Democratic presidential candidates have carried Montana since 1948. Barack Obama is betting he can do it in November.

AP - Hugo Chavez, once a key mediator in securing hostage releases from Colombian rebels, could do little more than phone congratulations to President Alvaro Uribe after this week's bold rescue.

AP - Between surging oil prices, food inflation and a credit crunch that's depressed global growth, leaders from the Group of Eight economic powers face the gravest combination of economic woes in at least a decade when they gather next week.

AP - Wish "Yankee Doodle" a happy 250th birthday. Maybe.

AP - Arlan Ettinger will never forget the response he got when he took one of civil rights pioneer Rosa Parks' hats to a meeting at the Apollo Theater in New York.

AP - The White House said Thursday that dangerous detainees at Guantanamo Bay could end up walking Main Street U.S.A. as a result of last month's Supreme Court ruling about detainees' legal rights. Federal appeals courts, however, have indicated they have no intention of letting that happen.