LOS ANGELES – ABC said Tuesday that freshman hits “Desperate Housewives” (search) and “Lost” will be back next year, as well as “Alias” and “Boston Legal.” “Desperate Housewives,” a comedy-drama about suburban angst, is the network’s top-rated series of the current season with 22.8 million weekly viewers and ranks fourth …

TOKYO – North Korea could be preparing to fire a missile in the latest of several launchings in recent years, according to news reports Friday. A missile was moved close to a launch site in northeastern North Korea in recent days, Japan’s national broadcaster NHK said. The report quoted unnamed …

NEW YORK – Beyonce Knowles will celebrate her 25th birthday with the release of “B’Day,” her second solo album. The album will be released internationally on her birthday, Sept. 4, and in the United States on Sept. 5, Columbia Records announced recently. “B’Day” has all new music co-produced, written and …

NEW YORK – A murder — maybe two — a philandering husband, the discovery of a mysterious love child, an escape from a psychiatric hospital and a police sniper’s deadly shot ending a confrontation. It all rushed by in an action-packed, two-hour season finale of ABC’s “Desperate Housewives” on Sunday. …

PETATLAN, Mexico – Two people were killed in a grenade attack on a restaurant and a shop owner was gunned down as violence shook towns on Mexico‘s resort-studded Pacific coast. The grenade attack Wednesday injured 16 people in Petatlan, about 100 miles northwest of Acapulco. The federal Attorney General’s Office …

FORT SUPPLY, Okla. – Authorities in northeast Oklahoma said they were still looking Saturday for three men who escaped from a state prison at Fort Supply a day earlier. William S. Key Correction Center warden’s assistant Linda Eike identified the escaped men as 20-year-old Dennis W. Finch, 22-year-old Jake D. …

NEW YORK – Boeing Co. (BA) has reached a tentative settlement with the government that calls for it to pay $615 million to end a three-year Justice Department investigation into reported defense contracting scandals, a federal official familiar with the details of the agreement said Monday. While agreeing to the …

BOMBAY, India – The government Tuesday temporarily held up the release of the movie “The Da Vinci Code” in India after receiving complaints from Catholic groups, even though the national censor had cleared the film. Information and Broadcasting Minister Priya Ranjan Dasmunshi said he had received more than 200 complaints …

NEW YORK – Oil prices fell by almost $2 a barrel Wednesday after weekly government data showed rising supplies of gasoline and flat demand. Click here to visit FOXBusiness.com’s Energy page. Michael Guido, director of commodity strategy in New York for Societe Generale, said the recent softening of demand for …

NEW LONDON, Conn. – A Coast Guard Academy cadet testified at his court-martial Monday that he had consensual sex with his on-again, off-again girlfriend on the night she says he raped her. “I knew that she had been drinking but I didn’t really think she was that drunk or anything,” …