Stocks up moderately after Federal Reserve minutes
NEW YORK (AP) -- Wall Street advanced moderately Tuesday, as fresh details from the Federal Reserve on its efforts to combat the recession helped offset disappointing economic reports....

Fed: Economic woes will last despite radical moves
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Even as Federal Reserve officials slashed their key interest rate to a record low and pledged to use other unconventional tools to fight the worst financial crisis since the 1930s, they still feared the economy would be stuck in a painful rut for some time....

Apple cuts copy protection and prices on iTunes
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- Apple Inc. closed its final appearance at the Macworld trade show Tuesday by cutting the price of some songs in its market-leading iTunes online store to as little as 69 cents and disclosing that soon every track will be available without copy protection....

Skilling convictions upheld, resentencing ordered
HOUSTON (AP) -- A federal appeals court Tuesday upheld former Enron Corp. Chief Executive Jeffrey Skilling's convictions for his role in the energy giant's collapse but vacated his 24-year prison term and ordered that he be resentenced....

US service sector improves slightly in Dec.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- A measure of the U.S. services sector improved slightly in December, beating analysts' estimates, but pending home sales and factory orders both fell more than expected and the overall economic outlook remains grim....

Natural gas shortages slam many European nations
VIENNA, Austria (AP) -- The Russia-Ukraine natural gas dispute hit Europe with the force of a winter storm Tuesday, cutting or limiting supplies to at least a dozen nations. Tens of thousands of people were left without heat and governments scrambled to find alternate energy sources....

Legal fight in Dow-Kuwaiti deal looms
NEW YORK (AP) -- Dow Chemical will pursue legal action against a state-owned Kuwaiti company that scuttled a $17.4 billion joint venture just days before the deal was to close, and said Tuesday that talks for a similar arrangement with other investors are already under way....

Airlines fly into new year with wave of fare sales
ATLANTA (AP) -- A wave of fare sales has spread across the airline industry in the early days of the new year as the weak economy continues to put pressure on carriers to fill seats even after they drastically reduced capacity and some expressed willingness to cut more....

Oil gives up early gains on more bad economic news
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) -- Oil prices gave up early gains Tuesday as fresh signs of a deepening U.S. recession trumped tensions in the Middle East and worries over natural gas shortages in Europe....

Nation's health spending rises, but not so much
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Health care continued to take up a greater share of the economy in 2007, as spending on hospitals, doctors and other services increased 6.1 percent to $2.2 trillion....