The news at a glance

Energy: Rising oil prices threaten the recovery

Oil prices this week hit a 15-month high, propelled upward by “a combination of frigid weather, expectations of an improving economy, and new tensions between Russia and Belarus,” said Clifford Krauss in The New York Times. Signs of accelerating business activity in fast-growing markets such as India, which this week reported a substantial increase in oil imports, also helped push prices to nearly $82 a barrel. Russia and Belarus have been locked in a dispute over oil-export taxes, raising fears of a supply shortage in Europe, which depends on Belarus’ refineries to supply about 10 percent of its energy needs.

While higher oil prices may reflect the economic recovery, said Ronald White in the Los Angeles Times, they could also choke it off. Rising crude-oil prices will soon be felt at the gas pump, as refiners pass along their higher costs to consumers, analysts say. That “could put a damper on consumer confidence if Americans are forced to spend more money fueling their vehicles and heating their homes.”

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Autos: Saab runs out of options

“Quirky” Swedish carmaker Saab has reached the end of the road, said Paul Eisenstein in MSNBC.com. Saab is one of four GM-owned brands that the U.S. auto company said last year it would shutter or sell. Last fall it looked as if “pint-sized Koenigsegg, a European maker of elite sports cars,” would buy Saab, but the deal collapsed in December. Then Spyker, another specialty carmaker, stepped in, but it couldn’t raise the needed cash. With those options ruled out, Saab has begun to wind down its operations.

Health care: Novartis snags all of Alcon

Swiss pharmaceutical giant Novartis said this week it would buy

up all outstanding shares in Alcon, a leading eye-care company,

for $39.3 billion, said Haig Simonian in the Financial Times. Two years ago, Novartis bought 24.8 percent of Alcon from Nestlé for $10 billion and said it would eventually buy Nestlé’s remaining 52 percent stake. Novartis will pay Nestlé $28.1 billion for that stake and an additional $11.2 billion to Alcon’s minority shareholders. Simplifying Alcon’s ownership, said Novartis Chairman Daniel Vasella, “will eliminate uncertainties for employees and shareholders.”

Banking: Bank of America taps an insider

Bank of America has ended its search for a successor to CEO Kenneth Lewis, selecting Brian Moynihan, formerly BofA’s consumer-banking chief, said David Mildenberg in Bloomberg.com. Moynihan, 50, is tackling what might be the toughest job in banking. While the Obama administration presses the bank to lend more, BofA is scrambling “to stanch losses from existing credit cards and mortgages.”

Media: Fox and Time Warner end standoff

The Fox Network and Time Warner Cable “settled their noisy spat” last week, with a deal that increases the amount that Time Warner will pay to carry Fox’s shows, said Dave Carpenter in the Associated Press. The agreement follows Fox’s threat to pull its programs from Time Warner cable systems, serving more than 13 million households in markets including New York, Los Angeles, and Dallas. The companies did not disclose how much Time Warner would pay Fox for its programming. Analysts say such deals will likely result in higher cable fees for customers.