Mark Brooks

Benchmark oil for March delivery rose $1, or 1 percent, to $97.44 a barrel around midday on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

Hostess Brands is close to announcing that it has picked two investment firms -- C. Dean Metropoulos & Co. and Apollo Global Management -- as the lead bidders for its Twinkies and other snack cakes, according to a source close to the situation.

Ben Bernanke's term as chairman of the Federal Reserve expires one year from Thursday.

Vassos Shiarly says leaders from the other 16 EU countries that use the euro are in "high level" talks with Moscow about a contribution to the bailout.

The Bank of Israel said Tuesday that Stanley Fischer told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that he would step down on June 30. It gave no reason for his departure, which comes two years before his term is set to end.

According to a filing in U.S. bankruptcy court, McKee Foods has offered $27.5 million in cash for the cake brands, which include Devil Dogs, Funny Bones, and Yodels.

Gold for February delivery fell $3.70 to settle Monday at $1,652.90 an ounce. Gold prices have dropped 1.3 percent so far this year.

Benchmark oil rose 56 cents to finish at $96.44 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

Thorsten Heins, chief executive of Research In Motion, will reveal the first phone with the new BlackBerry 10 system in New York on Wednesday.

The three firms received a combined nearly $250 billion from the bailout fund. Only AIG has fully repaid its $182 billion bailout.

Apple says iOS version 6.1 adds the ability to access the "LTE" networks of 36 additional iPhone carriers.

The struggling department store chain this week is rolling out some of the hundreds of sales it ditched last year in hopes of luring back shoppers who were turned off when the discounts disappeared.

A quarterly survey by the National Association for Business Economics released Monday shows half of the economists polled now expect real gross domestic product -- the value of all goods and services produced in the United States -- to grow between 2 and 4 percent in 2013.

The euro fell to $1.3457 in afternoon trading from $1.3467. The British pound fell to $1.5690 from $1.5800.

The Luxembourg-based European Free Trade Association Court ruled that deposit-guarantee laws did not cover "a systemic bank failure of the magnitude experienced in Iceland."

Traders were reacting to a report that Russia's stockpiles of those metals are expected to be smaller this year.

Carl Icahn and Bill Ackman traded barbs about an old investment deal and on Ackman's position in the nutritional supplements distributor Herbalife.

The agency cut its rating on Cyprus to B from BB- and warned of more possible downgrades as it predicted that the banks' recapitalization needs could be as high as €10 billion ($13.5 billion).

In an interview Friday on his last day in office, Geithner told The Associated Press, "The economy is stronger than people appreciate."

Economist Barry Eichengreen warned that the debt crisis that has shaken Europe to its core could easily erupt again this year unless European leaders move faster to solve their problems.