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In the minds of most Americans, it does not really turn to summer until the Fourth of July. And in fact not all of the omens for the holiday were grim. San Diego was shaken by the most powerful earthquake ever recorded there (4.6 on the Richter scale), but only some vases and plumbing were broken. Neither the new lava flow from Hawaii's Kilauea volcano nor the tornadoes that swirled through eastern Iowa and northern Illinois killed anyone. Not good news, but not disasters either: if those were acts of God, at least he pulled his punches. —By Kurt Andersen. Reported by Steven Holmes/Hoover Dam, with other bureaus