In this week's reader mailbag, a look at using a store's return policy to get a discount.

Like other school districts nationwide, Chicago is facing budget cuts – meaning layoffs and crowded classrooms. The teachers' union is being asked to make concessions, including their guaranteed annual pay raise.

President Obama said in his Oval Office address that he wants "up to 90 percent" of the Gulf oil spill leak contained by the end of the month. He is putting his faith in an uncertain BP plan.

AP - President Barack Obama wrested a $20 billion compensation guarantee and an apology to the nation from British oil giant BP Wednesday, announcing the company would set up a major claims fund for shrimpers, restaurateurs and others whose lives and livelihoods are being wrecked by the oil flooding into the Gulf of Mexico.

AP - It was "obviously" a homicide case, a former prosecutor says, but authorities didn't have the evidence to present it to a grand jury at the time. Twenty-four-years lapsed and three other killings occurred before another prosecutor did.

AP - President Barack Obama's plea for more stimulus spending as insurance against a double-dip recession hit a roadblock in the Senate on Wednesday, the victim of election-year anxiety over huge federal deficits.