Monday Afternoon Business Brief

The stock market today was as choppy as the "fiscal cliff" deal-making that has been yanking it around. Stocks opened little changed but jerked higher at midday as headlines began to cross that the bare bones of a deal had been worked out to avoid a drastic series of tax increases and government spending cuts set to kick in after a midnight deadline.

• Oil prices rose Monday with hopes that U.S. political leaders are getting closer to avoiding the "fiscal cliff" just hours before the deadline. In afternoon trading benchmark oil rose 67 cents to $91.47 per barrel in New York.
• The FDA has approved a Johnson & Johnson tuberculosis drug that is the first new medicine to fight the deadly infection in more than four decades. Sirturo is for use with older drugs to fight a hard-to-treat strain of TB that has not responded to other medications. However, the agency cautioned that the drug carries risks of potentially deadly heart problems.
• A federal judge has ruled a property management company owned by the founder of Domino's Pizza doesn't have to immediately implement mandatory contraception coverage in the health care law. U.S. District Judge Lawrence Zatkoff ruled Sunday in favor of Tom Monaghan and his Domino's Farms Corp., near Ann Arbor, Mich.
• A new Pew study reports that around 13 percent of Americans aged 16 and older used a mobile device to visit a library website during the past year. Patrons ages 18-49 were the most likely to use a mobile device for the library, while those 65 and older were the least likely.

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