Top Stories in the News

AP - Global challenges like soaring oil prices and the Earth's rising temperature await President Bush at a summit of top industrialized nations, but first he must soothe emotions on a sensitive Japanese issue that's entangled in the nuclear standoff with North Korea.

AP - A wildfire threatening thousands of homes in Southern California spread slowly through scenic canyonlands Saturday, straining resources as crews struggled to contain hundreds of other blazes around the state.

AP - Barack Obama celebrated "active faith" as an obligation of religious Americans and a chief agent of societal change while speaking Saturday to a nearly all-black roomful of churchgoers, but hoping to reach far beyond them.

AP - The three American hostages rescued by Colombia's military said in their first public statement that they are doing fine and are thrilled to "return home to the country we love."

AP - Even folks in the Optimist Club are having a tough time toeing an upbeat line these days. Eighteen members of the volunteer organization's Gilbert, Ariz., chapter have gathered, a few days before this nation's 232nd birthday, to focus on the positive: Their book drive for schoolchildren and an Independence Day project to place American flags along the streets of one neighborhood.

AP - The knock on Brian Hart's door came at 6 a.m. An Army colonel, a priest and a police officer had come to tell Hart and his wife that their 20-year-old son had been killed when his military vehicle was ambushed in Iraq.

AP - Jesse Helms forever changed North Carolina politics and the conservative movement. The former senator did it without ever changing much about himself.

AP - "The Bachelor" is a bachelor no more. Andrew Firestone, star of the ABC-TV reality show, married Serbian model and actress Ivana Bozilovic Saturday, Firestone's publicist Alisha Mahon told The Associated Press.

AP - Using his trusty BB gun to help him return to Earth, a 48-year-old gas station owner flew a lawn chair rigged with helium-filled balloons more than 200 miles across the Oregon desert Saturday, landing in a field in Idaho.

AP - Kyle Busch raced side-by-side with Carl Edwards in the closing laps at Daytona International Speedway, each driver running wide open toward the win.

Reuters - Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama said on Saturday his plan to end the Iraq war was unchanged and he was puzzled by the sharp reaction to his statement this week that he might "refine" his timetable for withdrawing U.S. combat troops.

Reuters - The Mississippi River, the most important U.S. commercial waterway, reopened to water navigation on Saturday after much of it was closed for nearly a month due to the worst flooding in 15 years.

Reuters - Prospects that the G8 would reach a meaningful agreement to fight global warming at their annual summit dimmed on Sunday as leaders began arriving in northern Japan with a raft of global problems on their minds.

Reuters - President George W. Bush and Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda will discuss the next steps in the six-party talks over North Korea's nuclear status when they meet on the sidelines of the G8 summit in Japan, a White House official said on Saturday.

Reuters - Firefighters in California have fended off a blaze threatening more than 3,000 homes in and around the coastal town of Goleta and are turning their attention to preventing its spread toward the nearby picturesque city of Santa Barbara, officials said on Saturday.

Reuters - Colombia found explosives set to be used in bombs across the capital in reprisal for this week's rescue of leftist rebels' highest-profile hostages, including Ingrid Betancourt, military officials said on Saturday.

Reuters - A film secretly taken by a Zimbabwe prison guard and smuggled out of the country shows the extent of the rigging that took place for the June 27 presidential run-off vote, the Guardian said on Saturday.

Reuters - Venus and Serena Williams returned to Center Court three hours after doing battle in the singles final to secure the Wimbledon doubles title with a 6-2 6-2 thumping of American Lisa Raymond and Australian Samantha Stosur on Saturday.

AFP - Four people were arrested as Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda arrived on the northern island of Hokkaido on Sunday to chair a three-day summit of the Group of Eight powers.

AFP - South African President Thabo Mbeki, chief regional negotiator on the Zimbabwe crisis, met here Saturday with President Robert Mugabe and leaders of a breakaway faction of the main opposition party.