After cleaning up in the Nobel science prizes, the United States on Friday scored another coup: the peace prize for a president less than nine months in office.

It has been clear for some time that U.S. business is getting better. The coming week will give investors an idea of how much.

Struggling states and towns got a dose of badly needed money this summer from a Cash for Clunkers program that poured hundreds of millions of dollars of tax revenue into their budgets.

A year ago this weekend, the Dow Jones industrial average had just finished a slow-motion crash. Over eight days, it fell 2,400 points, or 22 percent, and stood at 8,451.

President George W. Bush meets Saturday with finance officials from Japan, Germany, Britain, France, Italy and Canada. The message: The world’s biggest economies are acting in concert to contain the meltdown.

Japan suspended beef shipments from an American meatpacker Saturday over its failure to remove cattle parts banned under a bilateral agreement, as officials here raised concerns about U.S. safeguards against mad cow disease.

California lawmakers on Saturday planned to resume negotiations on a deal to upgrade the state’s decades-old water system, a day after talks broke up with about a dozen issues yet to be resolved.

The number of job seekers competing for each opening has reached the highest point since the recession began, according to government data released Friday.