NEW YORK — Wall Street gyrated and then steadied itself today, closing with a respectable advance although the Dow Jones industrials fell as much as 136 points and briefly dropped below the 12,000 mark before recovering.

Stocks bounced back and forth a day after concerns about faltering subprime mortgage lenders sparked a broad selloff. H&R Block Inc. had added to Wall Street's uneasiness by announcing after the closing bell yesterday its fiscal third-quarter losses would rise because of a $29 million writedown at its mortgage arm.

The anxiety over mortgage lenders, particularly the subprime lenders that make loans to people with poor credit, pushed the Dow down by more than 240 points yesterday, its second-biggest drop in nearly four years. Such concerns jostled stocks for much of today's session.

General Motors resumes profitability

DETROIT — General Motors Corp. accomplished something in the fourth quarter of 2006 that domestic automakers have been unable to do for some time: it reported a profit.

Now comes the hard part — repeating that success. The company's chief financial officer stopped short of promising it this year, but he did pledge continued improvement over last year's numbers.

For the quarter, the world's biggest automaker today reported net income of $950 million due to the benefits of cost cuts, higher automotive revenues and a gain on the sale of its finance division. It was a turnaround from a $6.6 billion loss in the same period a year ago.

GM, which is undergoing a massive overhaul that includes shedding thousands of jobs and closing plants to become more competitive with Asian automakers such as Toyota Motor Corp., wound up with a loss of $2 billion for all of 2006 compared with a restated loss of $10.4 billion in 2005.

Charges against former HP chief dropped

SAN JOSE, Calif. — A judge dropped all charges against former Hewlett-Packard Co. board Chairwoman Patricia Dunn, who was accused of fraud in the boardroom spying scheme that rocked one of Silicon Valley's most respected companies.

Three other defendants in the case also will avoid jail time after their lawyers entered no contest pleas today to misdemeanor charges of fraudulent wire communications in Santa Clara Superior Court.

Judge Ray E. Cunningham did not immediately accept the pleas by former HP ethics chief Kevin Hunsaker, and private investigators Ronald DeLia and Matthew DePante, and said the charges against them will also be dropped in September after they complete 96 hours of community service and make restitution.

State prosecutors announced earlier today that Dunn and the three other defendants had agreed to plead guilty to reduced charges and that Dunn would be spared community service because of her health. She revealed last year that she was being treated for advanced ovarian cancer.

FDA issues sleeping-pill warning

WASHINGTON — All prescription sleeping pills may sometimes cause sleep-driving, federal health officials warned today, almost a year after the bizarre side effect first made headlines when Rep. Patrick Kennedy crashed his car after taking Ambien.

It's a more complicated version of sleepwalking, but behind the wheel: getting up in the middle of the night and going for a drive — with no memory of doing so.

The Food and Drug Administration wouldn't say exactly how many cases of sleep-driving it had linked to insomnia drugs, but neurology chief Dr. Russell Katz said the agency uncovered more than a dozen reports — and is worried that more are going uncounted.

Given the millions of prescriptions for insomnia drugs, Katz called the problem rare, and said he was unaware of any deaths. But because sleep-driving is so dangerous — and there are precautions that patients can take — the FDA ordered a series of strict new steps today.

Lehman profit up 5.6 percent

NEW YORK — Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., the No. 4 U.S. investment house, said today that robust trading and overseas expansion drove its first-quarter profit up 5.6 percent, matching Wall Street expectations.

Quarterly profit after paying preferred dividends rose to $1.13 billion, or $1.96 per share, for the three months ended Feb. 28 from $1.07 billion, or $1.83 per share, in the year-ago period.

Revenue grew 13 percent to $5.05 billion from $4.46 billion a year earlier.

Wall Street expected earnings of $1.96 per share and revenue of $4.97 billion, according to analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial.

Despite relatively robust results, investors sent shares down 28 cents to close at $71.72 on the New York Stock Exchange.

Chiquita accused of trading with terrorists

WASHINGTON — Banana company Chiquita Brands International was charged today with doing business with a terrorist organization.

Federal prosecutors said the company and several unnamed high-ranking corporate officers did business with the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia. The group is described in court documents as a violent right-wing organization that the U.S. has designated as a terrorist organization.

The company also did business with the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, according to prosecutors.

The payments were approved by senior executives at the Cincinnati-based company, prosecutors wrote in court documents. Corporate books were kept to conceal the deals, prosecutors said.

White House may allow release of N. Korea funds

WASHINGTON — The Bush administration announced steps today that could enable the release of North Korean assets frozen in a Macau bank, an action sought by Pyongyang as part of a nuclear arms deal.

In a two-step decision, the Treasury Department also said it is severing ties between Banco Delta Asia and the U.S. financial system because of its alleged money laundering for North Korea.

At the same time, however, the department is expected to provide guidance to help overseas regulators identify highest-risk and lower-risk account holders. This risk assessment, in turn, could be used by Macau to release some North Korean money that has been frozen and is being held by the bank.

Banco Delta Asia holds roughly $25 million in frozen North Korean assets, the department said. The frozen accounts have been a major sore spot for the North Korean government and so angered Pyongyang that it had refused to participate in six-nation nuclear arms talks for more than a year.

Steel workers ratify contract offer

CINCINNATI — Union workers at AK Steel Holding Corp.'s Middletown Works overwhelmingly approved a contract offer that would end a nearly 13-month-old lockout, Machinists union officials said today.

The union said the ratification vote was 1,275 in favor, 226 against.

The agreement would send some 1,750 union employees back to work at the plant 30 miles north of Cincinnati. It is effective tomorrow and runs through September 2011.