AP - 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?

AP - It was a family Fourth of July for Democrat Barack Obama as his wife, daughters, sister and other relatives helped him make an Independence Day play for this reliably conservative state.

AP - 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.

AP - Only two Democratic presidential candidates have carried Montana since 1948. Barack Obama is betting he can do it in November.

Politico - It’s an axiom in presidential politics to ignore the early polls. Perhaps that’s one piece of conventional wisdom that’s better ignored.

AP - Obama and family celebrate Independence Day in red-state Montana ... Obama struggles to explain how his trip to Iraq could refine his policy on US presence there ... McCain calls campaign staff shake-up part of "natural evolution" ... Obama says 'mental distress' not valid for late-term abortions

AP - Democrat Barack Obama struggled Thursday to explain how his upcoming trip to Iraq might refine, but not basically alter, his promise to quickly remove U.S. combat troops from the war.

AP - "Compromise, hell!" Jesse Helms screamed in a 1959 editorial that captured what would become the legacy of his Senate career and his place in the conservative movement.

AP - The White House said Thursday that dangerous detainees at Guantanamo Bay could end up walking Main Street U.S.A. as a result of last month's Supreme Court ruling about detainees' legal rights. Federal appeals courts, however, have indicated they have no intention of letting that happen.

AP - Between surging oil prices, food inflation and a credit crunch that's depressed global growth, leaders from the Group of Eight economic powers face the gravest combination of economic woes in at least a decade when they gather next week.