AP - After battling rowdy renters and out-of-control keggers for decades, this Jersey shore party town has finally decided to lighten up a little.
AP - 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.
AP - Weary firefighters got no rest during the holiday weekend as a pair of out-of-control wildfires roared across the landscape along California's central coast at opposite ends of the arid Los Padres National Forest.
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 - 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 - Riding a green lawn chair supported by a rainbow array of more than 150 helium-filled party balloons, Kent Couch took off Saturday in a third bid to fly from central Oregon all the way to Idaho.
AP - 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.
AP - 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.
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 - 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 - 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.
AP - Tropical Storm Bertha continues to speed across the Atlantic Ocean.