FRESNO, Calif. (AP) -- Just east of Victorville in California's Mojave Desert two bluffs rise 3,000-feet from the valley floor. A 1949 map by the U.S. Geological Survey officially gave them the name locals had called them for as long as anyone could remember: Pickaninny Buttes.

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- The Academy Awards are a big deal - even to A-listers. That's why a parade of stars came through the theater at the Hollywood & Highland Center Saturday to run through their lines and prepare to address their peers in front of a worldwide audience of millions.MUPPET REHEARSAL: Even celebrities of the felt variety took time to practice their lines. Though Kermit the Frog and Miss Piggy have been famous for decades, they still rehearsed like the dedicated pros they are.

Civilian cousins of the unmanned military aircraft that have tracked and killed terrorists in the Middle East and Asia are in demand by police departments, border patrols, power companies, news organizations and others wanting a bird's-eye view that's too impractical or dangerous for conventional planes or helicopters to get.

NEW YORK (AP) -- The New York Police Department targeted Muslim mosques with tactics normally reserved for criminal organizations, according to newly obtained police documents that showed police collecting the license plates of worshippers, monitoring them on surveillance cameras and cataloging sermons through a network of informants.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A 28-minute political ad offers a candidate something sound bites can never capture - a chance to explore a subject in depth.

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- It's only the 84th year of the Academy Awards, yet the nostalgia factor feels as though Hollywood is celebrating a centennial of some sort.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- With the month of March looming, tornado chasers are already watching the Southeast as a nasty storm brews with the potential to spin off a batch of tornadoes.

BAILEYVILLE, Maine (AP) -- A 3-year-old Maine girl, possibly confused by a dream, walked a mile to a grocery store in the middle of the night through freshly fallen snow, thinking her mother was inside buying pizza.

JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) -- Fed up with mounting legal bills and rattled by intense scrutiny of her family and work, Sarah Palin was ready to step down as Alaska's governor months before she left office in July 2009.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- With no financial relief in sight, the Postal Service is pushing ahead with cuts to more than 260 mail processing centers around the nation.