Jesse Helms remembered...Bush heckled...Obama celebrates

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) A long-time conservative senator whose opposition to Communism defined his foreign policy views has died.

Jesse Helms of North Carolina was 86. The chairman of The Jesse Helms Center in North Carolina says, "He stood by the things that he believed in."


CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (AP) He was there to welcome some new U.S. citizens on this Fourth of July and never mentioned the war in Iraq or the battle against terrorism. But anti-war protesters were on hand as President Bush visited Thomas Jefferson's Virginia estate today. They shouted out calls for Bush's impeachment nine times during the president's brief remarks.

BUTTE, Mont. (AP) Barack Obama has been celebrating a couple of birthdays today the birthday of the United States, at an Independence Day parade in Montana, and also the tenth birthday of his daughter Malia. Obama says he's making a play for every state in November, including reliably Republican ones like Montana.

PARIS (AP) Ingrid Betancourt says she's "crying from joy," now that she's again "breathing the air of France." The French and Colombian citizen today returned to the country where she spent much of her childhood, just days after her rescue from rebels in the Colombian jungle. She'll be undergoing medical exams tomorrow in Paris.

LIVERMORE, Calif. (AP) A flight instructor and a student are dead after a crash of a helicopter near a Northern California freeway overnight. The crash in Livermore knocked power lines into traffic and started a grass fire.

(Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.) APNP 07-04-08 1355CDT | save this article / add to your favorites list