The call girl involved in a scandal that brought down New York's former governor has dropped a lawsuit claiming "Girls Gone Wild" founder Joe Francis exploited her image and name on the Internet.

Fuel prices are soaring and credit markets tightening, but the super-rich are still lining up to pay tens of millions of dollars for mega yachts.

From his early days as television commentator and on through a three-decade career in Congress, former North Carolina Sen. Jesse Helms never left any doubt about his beliefs.

Police say a man lost part of his leg when fireworks went off inside his SUV in western Ohio.

A pair of out-of-control wildfires roared along California's central coast Friday, chewing through opposite ends of a parched forest and threatening a total of more than 4,500 homes.

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.

Joey Chestnut achieved frankfurter immortality Friday, outdueling his celebrated Japanese rival in an epic hot-dog eating contest that pushed both of the gluttonous gladiators to the brink.

At least one person fired a gun into a crowd in a street early Friday, killing four people and sending panicked revelers running for cover, police said.

Tropical Storm Bertha is still churning in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Africa.

Authorities say the lone survivor of a mid-air crash of two medical helicopters has died at a hospital.

Two supervisors at an Iowa meatpacking plant that was raided by federal immigration agents in May were arrested and charged with encouraging people to live in the United States illegally.

Dan Cook

A look at the super yacht industry:

The National Park Service is considering reopening Lady Liberty's crown for the first time since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, according to documents a congressman released on July Fourth.

On a pedestal in a Texas intersection hundreds of miles from where terrorists crashed planes seven years ago, two flight attendants and two pilots, rendered in bronze, now care for a traveling child.

At Fourth of July parades and barbecues around the Tar Heel state, Jesse Helms' supporters recalled this father of the conservative movement as the man who stood up for traditional values and the defeat of communism - but still had time to help his constituents.

About 400 members of the Rainbow Family threw rocks and sticks at 10 federal officers as they tried to arrest a member of the group, the U.S. Forest Service said Friday.

Expect fewer slices of red, ripe tomatoes next to the grill this holiday weekend.

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.

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