Mark Brooks

In New York benchmark oil for March delivery dropped by $1.60 to finish at $96.17 a barrel.

S&P said Monday that it has been told by the Department of Justice that it intends to file a civil lawsuit focusing on S&P's ratings on some mortgage-backed securities in 2007.

There no longer seems much doubt that the spending cuts, known in the nation's capital as "the sequester," will occur in some form.

While people may still use pennies, the government has issued guidelines urging store owners to start rounding prices to the nearest nickel for cash transactions.

Spain's Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy is denying allegations that he and his party received secret cash payments from businesses.

A finance ministry statement Monday said that, not counting the cost of servicing Greece's debt mountain, the government posted a modest budget surplus of €434 million ($588 million) last year.

The grain has climbed 2.2 percent this week and advanced in three out of the last four weeks since falling to a six-month low of $6.80 a bushel Jan. 4.

The euro rose to $1.3660 in afternoon trading from $1.3574 late Thursday.

The University of Michigan's final January survey of consumer sentiment rose to 73.8. That's up from a preliminary reading of 71.3, released on Jan. 18. And it's slightly better than December's reading of 72.9.

Shares of a number of pizza, chicken wing, and beer makers rose Friday ahead of the big game, an annual festival of gluttony that is celebrated by fans and non-fans alike.

European publishers bleeding money and readers had asked governments in France, Germany, and Italy to make Google pay.

Of the major oil- and gas-producing states, Texas gained seven rigs, Oklahoma six, Alaska and California gained three and North Dakota two.

Obama has renominated current director Richard Cordray, who had been named in a recess appointment last year.

Three years since the crisis started in Greece, the 17 European Union countries that use the euro have made a hopeful start to 2013, with promising economic data and troubled countries such as Italy and Spain enjoying lower borrowing costs.

The nationwide average price for a gallon of gas jumped 4 cents overnight to $3.46 a gallon, according to AAA.

A foal born Jan. 16 at Anheuser-Busch's Warm Springs Ranch near the mid-Missouri town of Boonville is featured in an ad that will appear in Sunday's game between the NFC champion San Francisco 49ers and AFC champion Baltimore Ravens.

Gold for April delivery lost $19.60, more than 1 percent, to settle at $1,662 per ounce.

The 64-34 vote in the Democratic-controlled Senate sent the measure to President Barack Obama, who has said he will sign it.

Chevron said the changes will better integrate its supply and trading activities and allow the gas and midstream business to boost the value of the company's upstream and downstream assets.

The Labor Department said Thursday that weekly applications for unemployment benefits rose 38,000 to a seasonally adjusted 368,000.