The Statue of Liberty, closed since the destruction wrought by Superstorm Sandy, reopened to the public this Fourth of July as Americans across the country mark the U.S. Independence Day holiday with fireworks and barbecues.

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and other officials presided over a celebratory ribbon-cutting Thursday to mark the reopening of the national landmark. Some repairs to brick walkways and docks are still underway, but much of the work has been completed since Sandy swamped most of the national landmark's 12-acre (5-hectare) site.

The annual Fourth of July hot dog eating contest was set to roll Thursday in Coney Island, with chomp champs Joey Chestnut and Sonya Thomas defending their respective men's and women's titles.

Chestnut, 29, is a six-time winner who set the record — 68 hot dogs and buns in 10 minutes — in 2009 and tied it last year. Thomas, 45, powered through 45 dogs to take the women's championship last year and also won in 2011, the first year women competed separately.

In a third-floor room of a London hospital with orange and white walls draped with Tibetan prayer flags, roughly a dozen people gathered recently to perform vocal exercises and sing songs, including folk music from Ghana and Polynesia.

While the participants were drawn to the session by a fondness for music, they also had an ulterior motive for singing: to cope better with lung disease. The weekly group is led by a professional musician and is offered to people with respiratory problems including asthma, emphysema, and Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disorder, or COPD.

Syria's President Bashar Assad claimed in an interview published Thursday that countries conspiring against Syria have "used up all their tools" in their campaign to overthrow his regime.

In comments to the state-run Al-Thawra newspaper, Assad rejected the idea that what has been happening in Syria since more than two years is a revolution. Instead, he insisted it is a conspiracy by Western and some Arab states to destabilize his country.

Cambodia has joined hands with Australia in an effort to use the Internet to help preserve its fabled Angkor Wat temple complex.

The Australian Embassy announced Thursday that a recently opened website, angkorsunsets.com, will give tourists recommendations for where in the 160-square-mile (400-square-kilometer) complex one can watch spectacular sunsets.

The Bank of England has opted to refrain from pumping more money into the UK economy in its first meeting since new Governor Mark Carney's arrival.

The Monetary Policy Committee kept interest rates at 0.5 percent Thursday and decided against expanding its stimulus program.

Nestle SA says it will cut infant formula prices in China by an average of 11 percent starting Monday amid an investigation into alleged price-fixing by several foreign companies.

The price cuts by the company's Wyeth Nutrition unit will be maintained through 2014, and the prices of some products will be cut by up to 20 percent, Nestle spokesman Jonathan Dong said in an email Thursday.

With a 3-D printer, a petri dish and some cells from a cow, U.S. researchers are growing synthetic ears that can receive — and transmit — sound.

The Princeton University scientists send bovine cells mixed in a liquid gel through the printer, followed by tiny particles of silver. The printer is programmed to shape the material into a "bionic ear" and forms the silver particles into a coiled antenna. Like any antenna, this one can pick up radio signals that the ear will interpret as sound.

The billion-dollar sale of navigation company Waze to Google may finally be putting Israel on the map as a major player in consumer Internet innovation.

Israel's high-tech sector has been dominated by firms that made products for other businesses, like computer chips or communications gear. But in recent years Internet and mobile companies have emerged as the majority of Israeli startups, and many have found success in the global market.

Mark Cavendish will never be the greatest Tour de France rider, because he will never win the race five times like Eddy Merkcx of Belgium and Frenchman Bernard Hinault. Still, the sprinter with thighs like thick hams could outdo both of those legends — by winning more stages than them at cycling's premier race.

By Cavendish's warp-speed standards, his 24th stage win on Wednesday was like taking candy from a baby. The teammates who led Cavendish to the finish, sucking him along in their wheels, building up his speed, were toiling like clockwork. Stamping on his pedals, head down, thighs pumping like pistons, Cavendish then whooshed off alone for the last 150 meters (yards), leaving everyone else in his wake.