Is Barack Obama close to being shadowed by giant flip-flops and, worse, having the image stick with people all the way to the voting booth? Four years ago, Republicans branded as a "flip-flop" even the slightest...

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama celebrated the Fourth of July with his family in Montana. Cheers greeted Obama, his wife, Michelle, and their two daughters as they arrived to watch the town parade. The...

Moving from celebrity to senator isn't exactly an untraveled path. But that doesn't mean comedian Al Franken, who is vying for a Senate seat in Minnesota, will coast to Capitol Hill on a wide, smooth road. Franken, a...

Barack Obama is celebrating the 4th of July in Butte, Montana, attending a parade and picnic. It's a state that usually gives its three electoral votes to a Republican. Only two Democrats have carried Montana since...

Only two Democratic presidential candidates have carried Montana since 1948. Barack Obama is betting he can do it in November. With just three electoral votes and its reputation as a red state, Montana rarely sees...

Two teenagers who drove to Oniontown after a series of YouTube videos portrayed the hamlet as a run-down, backwoods dump were pelted with rocks by an angry group of young residents, authorities said. The two...

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...

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. ...

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. ...

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...

Could Ingrid Betancourt become Colombia's next president? It was one of the first questions she was asked after being freed in a daring helicopter rescue from six years in rebel captivity. Betancourt was running for...

A college basketball player from Serbia accused of severely beating a schoolmate in the United States fled the country because he does not trust the U.S. justice system, his lawyer said Friday. Miladin Kovacevic, who...

Four members of Myanmar's main pro-democracy party who campaigned against a constitution proposed by the military government have been jailed for one year. Nyan Win, a spokesman for the National League for Democracy,...

Italy's government moved Friday to help combat damage to the buried ancient city of Pompeii, which has been damaged by decay and inadequate management, officials said. The government granted Pompeii emergency status, a...

The global food crisis will only worsen because of climate change, the U.N. climate chief said Friday, urging leaders of the world's richest countries meeting in Japan next week to set goals to reduce carbon emissions...

Oil prices fell more than $1 a barrel Friday from record levels set a day earlier on hopes that tensions surrounding Iran's nuclear program could ease and cut the chances of American or Israeli military action against...

BCE Inc, Canada's largest telecommunications company, said Friday it has agreed on terms of a $35 billion sale to a group led by the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan in the biggest leveraged buyout ever. The deal is...

Bradford & Bingley PLC said Friday it is revising its plans to raise new capital after U.S. private equity fund Texas Pacific Group pulled out of its agreement to invest more than $350 million in the mortgage...

!!-- pobj:NVJH104-0604081247 -->!!-- pobj:NVJH101-0604081241 -->!!-- pobj:NVJH102-0604081351 -->!!-- pobj:NVJH103-0604081420 -->Despite the weak U.S. dollar, a boom in international travel around the world hasn't...

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. The well-heeled buyers of the floating mansions are increasingly coming...

A man has sued Eminem, claiming the rapper punched him two years ago while they were in the bathroom of a Detroit strip club. The Detroit News reports Miad Jarbou of Royal Oak filed the lawsuit Thursday in Oakland...

Workers at Milan's famed La Scala opera house say they will stage a strike next week that will cancel the first three performances of Franco Zeffirelli's production of "La Boheme." Union representative Giancarlo Albori...

As thousands of singers converge on Nashville for an international convention of barbershop harmony music, the old-fashioned music style is facing discord among its fans. The 70-year-old Barbershop Harmony Society...

Larry Harmon wasn't the original Bozo the Clown, but he was the real one. Harmon, who portrayed the wing-haired clown for more than half a century, died Thursday of congestive heart failure, said his publicist, Jerry...

A-Rod and the Material Girl? That's a lot of hits. Reports that Yankees superstar Alex Rodriguez and Madonna have become close just as their marriages are disintegrating have both the celebrity gossip industry and the...

Cullen Jones rocketed to an American record in the 50-meter freestyle preliminaries at the U.S. Olympic swimming trials on the Fourth of July. Jones touched in 21.59 seconds, lowering the old mark of 21.76 set by Gary...

Kevin Youkilis' drive squirted out of the webbing of Johnny Damon's glove and bounced up off the top of the left-field wall in the third inning of Friday's game between the Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees. And...

Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal will meet in their third consecutive Wimbledon final after commanding semifinal victories Friday. Federer outplayed Marat Safin 6-3, 7-6 (3), 6-4 with a nearly flawless performance,...

Indians closer Joe Borowski, last year's American League saves leader, was designated for assignment on Friday. The right-hander blew his fourth save in 10 chances on Wednesday against the Chicago White Sox, and was...

Mark Martin will make one final effort to win the NASCAR championship that's eluded him the past 26 years by driving for storied Hendrick Motorsports next season. The 49-year-old Martin has run a partial schedule the...

As clergy involvement in politics stirs debate, Roman Catholic priests and deacons in the Denver Archdiocese are being instructed not to endorse or donate money to political candidates. The directive came from Denver...

Plans to translate the Bible into patois _ Jamaica's unofficial language _ have ignited a fiery debate that stretches beyond the shores of this island nation. Some Jamaicans object to the project because they say...

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (BP)--A silly story is told about a little boy asking his father a question, "Dad, do they have the Fourth of July in England?" "Yes, oh yes, son they do have a fourth of July in England. They just...

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP)--Specialty license plates on cars can signal the driver's support of an array of topics from the environment to animals to college sports teams, but those that support belief in God have faced...

PUERTO CABEZAS, Nicaragua (BP)--When Marie Davidson heard Jim and Viola Palmer talk about their ministry among the Miskito people of Nicaragua, she was deeply moved. And when, more than a year later, she heard Hurricane...

A slice of cool, fresh watermelon is a juicy way to top off a Fourth of July cookout and one that researchers say has effects similar to Viagra _ but don't necessarily expect it to keep the fireworks going all night...

Scientists have new evidence that the brain chemical best known for regulating mood also plays a role in the mystifying killer of seemingly healthy babies _ sudden infant death syndrome. Autopsied brain tissue from...

A Filipino teenager who came to New York so doctors could perform surgery to untwist her severely clubbed feet took her first unaided steps Wednesday in pink-and-white sneakers _ the first shoes she's ever worn. "I'm...

A slice of cool, fresh watermelon is a juicy way to top off a Fourth of July cookout and one that researchers say has effects similar to Viagra _ but don't necessarily expect it to keep the fireworks all night long. ...

A Filipino teenager who came to New York so doctors could perform surgery to untwist her severely clubbed feet took her first unaided steps Wednesday in pink-and-white sneakers _ the first shoes she's ever worn. "I'm...

Dismissing privacy concerns, a federal judge overseeing a $1 billion copyright-infringement lawsuit against YouTube has ordered the popular online video-sharing service to disclose who watches which video clips and...

Syria has returned a marble artifact to Iraq that was stolen from one of the country's archaeological sites. The marble block roughly 4 feet (1.2 meters) tall and 1 1/2 feet (half a meter) wide contains an engraving of...

The Phoenix lander's first chemical sniff of Martian soil did not turn up any trace of the building blocks of life. Its next whiff could be its last. Engineers said a short circuit that occurred last month in one of...

From climate change to volcanoes and earthquakes, the world's growing challenges have leaders in earth science proposing a merger of agencies that study the planet. Creation of a new Earth Systems Science Agency is...

This doesn't sound good: The nonprofit agency in charge of the Internet's addresses recently lost track of its own. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or ICANN, said it happened when an Internet...

A wet Independence Day was forecast for much of the nation, with showers and thunderstorms projected for the Pacific Northwest, the mid-Atlantic, the Ohio Valley and the Southeast. Clear skies were expected over the...

Showers and thunderstorms were forecast Thursday for the central Plains as a cold front moves through the region. The storms could produce damaging winds, hail and possibly tornadoes. Flooding was also a threat for some...

A cold front was forecast to sweep into the northern Plains on Wednesday, triggering showers and thunderstorms from the Plains to the Great Lakes. The storms were expected to strengthen throughout the day, stretching...

The West was expected to be stormy and warm on Tuesday, with severe thunderstorms packing strong winds and hail possible in Montana and Idaho. Thunderstorms, gusty winds and lightning also were forecast for the Four...

Widespread showers and thunderstorms pounded the Eastern Seaboard early Monday, while a warm day dawned across the Midwest, Plains and much of the West. A line of storms stretched from New England to Florida and into...