The mountain rescue unfolded like a graceful ballet. Pasadena, Calif., cops saved two-dozen Caltech students in tutus, Superman capes and other weird attire after they got stuck on the Mount Wilson Toll Road during a hazing stunt, according to The Pasadena Star-News. A representative for the California Institute of Technology …

BERLIN – He has three nominations, but George Clooney doesn’t expect to win any Oscars this year. Clooney is a directing and screenplay nominee for “Good Night, and Good Luck” and a supporting-actor nominee for the provocative oil-industry thriller “Syriana.” “I don’t think we’re going to win any,” a deadpan …

WASHINGTON – Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice warned Iran and other Middle East powers on Friday not to fund a Palestinian government led by Hamas and questioned whether the militant Islamic group could raise badly needed cash without changing its policies. In an interview with Arab journalists, Rice delivered a …

NEW YORK – Stocks rallied on Wednesday as a stronger-than-expected profit from aerospace company Boeing Co. (BA) and a sharp drop in crude oil prices overshadowed Google Inc.’s (GOOG) first earnings shortfall as a public company. Shares of Boeing, a Dow component, climbed 4.9 percent to $71.62 on the New …

WASHINGTON – The White House will make 125 recommendations for how the government could have reacted better to Hurricane Katrina in a report to be released Thursday on the catastrophe and the Bush administration’s response to it. The findings are expected to be critical of the government’s response, but not …

MOUNTAIN HOME, Ark. – A teenager suspected in a brutal rampage at a Massachusetts gay bar died Sunday from wounds suffered a day earlier in a shootout with Arkansas police after he fatally shot a police officer who had stopped his car and a woman he had picked up in …

NEW YORK – Luxury home builder Toll Brothers Inc. (TOL) Tuesday further reduced its forecast for home sales in the current year, as new orders for the first quarter fell 29 percent on slumping demand. Toll’s is often seen as a bellwether for the U.S. housing market. The company’s deteriorating …

SAN FRANCISCO – California’s top court heard arguments Tuesday in the case of a former assistant on the hit show “Friends” who claims she was subjected to sexual harassment in writing meetings. Citing free-speech rights, lawyers for the show’s producers, Warner Bros. Television Productions, insisted that trash talk during writers’ …

DALLAS – Four police officers were shot Thursday as they tried to serve a federal drug warrant on a home in southwest Dallas. One officer was in serious condition with a gunshot wound to the head, Dallas Police Lt. Rick Watson said. The others were in fair condition at Parkland …

WASHINGTON – Three former executives at Berkshire Hathaway’s (BRK-A) General Re insurance unit and a former American International Group (AIG) executive have been indicted by a federal grand jury on fraud charges, a Justice Department official said Thursday. Indictments were returned Wednesday by a grand jury in Alexandria, Va., charging …