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Oil prices rose above $57 a barrel Monday as traders considered whether last week's push to above $60 was justified amid signs of weak crude demand. Attacks on oil facilities in Nigeria helped support prices.

Lowe's Cos. Inc. said Monday that its fiscal first-quarter profit fell 22 percent but still managed to top Wall Street's expectations as it cut prices on fewer items.

His trademark smirk gone, a shackled Drew Peterson learned in court Monday he'll remained locked up a while longer.

As Americans grow accustomed during the recession to spending more time at home and living in the same places longer, home-improvement companies are regaining momentum.

Hoping to do for the written word what iTunes did for music, the online document-sharing service Scribd is opening an Internet store that will offer new sales opportunities for authors and publishers, and possibly spawn more bargains for book lovers.

Reassuring news about housing and banking have convinced investors to return to the stock market. The Dow Jones industrial average is ending up about 235 points on Monday, making up more than half of last week's losses.

At 789 Chrysler lots across America sit 44,000 potential bargains, cars and trucks that are stuck between shellshocked dealers and a troubled company that no longer wants their services.

The worst seems to be over, President Barack Obama's budget director said Sunday. But he also warned against taking signs of economic recovery as a reason to celebrate or delay changes in health care policy.

When gas prices hit $4 a gallon last summer, Joyce and Ricky Eagle of Warrenton, Va., simply padded their travel budget a little before tooling around the Midwest in their motor home.

After acing their "stress tests," some big banks are rushing to raise capital and return billions in federal bailout money. But don't expect it to replenish government coffers.

It's not all doom and gloom in the U.S. economy. Some products are bucking the recession and flying off store shelves. Sales of chocolate and running shoes are up. Wine drinkers haven't stopped sipping; they just seem to be choosing cheaper vintages.

Talk at the community center in this small Navajo town isn't as focused on the economy as it is in many places off the reservation. That's because the people living on the largest American Indian reservation have been largely unscathed by the recession.

Looking for signs of economic recovery? Try counting the number of trucks on the road.Trucks carry almost all the manufactured and retail goods in the country -- from refrigerators to lumber, detergents to toys.

A decision by troubled automaker General Motors to drop 20 percent of its dealers in the U.S. is due in part to an oversized network that created stiff internal competition and gave shoppers too much leverage to talk down prices, hurting chances for future sales.

The investigation into the commuter plane crash in upstate New York that killed 50 people in February has exposed the long hours and low pay of some U.S. regional airline pilots. Lawmakers now are wondering if such working conditions are more widespread and pose safety risks.

ComEd promoted Cheryl Hyman to vice president, operations strategy and business intelligence, a new department that will cover the area of operational strategic initiatives, business intelligence and operational analysis and serve as the strategic arm of the company. Hyman was previously director of government and legislative affairs.