- A day after Wall Street's worse sell-off of the new year, stocks have resumed their climb. They're sharply higher on news of a surge in U.S. home prices, strong earnings reports and signs of strength in Europe's economy.
- President Barack Obama says it appears Congress needs more time to work out a 10-year plan to cut more than $1 trillion from the deficit, so he's asking lawmakers to come up with a less ambitious plan for the time being. He's urging them to agree on enough spending cuts and tax revenue to delay the automatic cuts that are scheduled to kick in on March 1. He called on Democrats and Republicans to "keep on chipping away at this problem together."
- The Congressional Budget Office is predicting the budget deficit will drop below $1 trillion for the first time in President Barack Obama's time in office. It forecasts a deficit of $845 billion this year -- better than last year's $1.1 trillion shortfall but still enough red ink to require the government to borrow 24 cents of every dollar it spends. The CBO also projects that the economy will grow just 1.4 percent this year if $85 billion in across-the-board spending cuts take effect March 1.
- Federal officials say they've broken up a credit card fraud ring that spanned at least 28 states and eight countries. Eighteen people have been charged with participating in the scam based in New Jersey. U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman says the scammers used at least 7,000 fake identities to obtain 25,000 credit cards and stole at least $200 million.
- The three-week-old star of Budweiser's Super Bowl ad now has a name: Hope. Anheuser-Busch says its contest to name the foal born Jan. 16 generated more than 60,000 tweets, Facebook comments and other messages. The 60-second commercial ranked No. 1 on USA Today's Ad Meter, a ranking based on fan voting on the USA Today website through Facebook and Twitter.
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