WASHINGTON (AP) — Mitt Romney's first general-election TV commercial promises he would introduce tax cuts and approve the Keystone XL oil pipeline on the first day of his presidency.

The Republican candidate released the ad Friday, coupling it with a fundraising pitch. The 30-spot is upbeat, in contrast to an ad President Barack Obama is running that criticizes Romney as a businessman. Romney has called the Obama ad "character assassination."

If you're lucky enough to live in some parts of the United States, you may see gas pump prices fall to around $3.25 a gallon or less in the next week or two. Even West Coast drivers should get some relief from prices that are still above $4 a gallon.

Retail gasoline prices dropped by a penny to a national average of $3.71 per gallon on Friday. That's 22 cents less than the high of $3.94 per gallon reached in early April. Lower oil prices are the main reason. Weaker demand is also helping to push down prices, as consumers watch their spending in the sluggish economic recovery.

Generating power for your residence is no longer for the paranoid or the peculiar; more than 2,000 of California's heavy domestic energy users have signed up with Gen110 to meet most of their own power needs, and investors are sinking more money into the business as its burgeoning potential becomes apparent.

Gen 110 CEO and co-founder Jason Brown isn't your usual "energy guy." He is a relatively recent graduate of business school with a background in sales, not power engineering. His membership as part of Silicon Valley's technorati has been confirmed this week with the announcement of funding by the tech startup's venture capitalist of choice: Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.

An oil company exploration crew's chance discovery of a 200-year-old shipwreck in a little-charted stretch of the Gulf of Mexico is yielding a trove of new information to scientists, who say it's one of the most well-preserved wrecks ever found in the Gulf.

"When we saw it, we were all just astonished because it was beautifully preserved, and by that I mean for a 200-year-old shipwreck," said Jack Irion, maritime archaeologist with the Department of the Interior's Bureau of Ocean Energy Management in New Orleans.

BEIJING (AP) — China's government on Friday rejected a U.S. antidumping ruling against its makers of solar power equipment and Chinese manufacturers warned possible higher tariffs might hurt efforts to promote clean energy.

The conflict has worsened U.S.-Chinese trade tensions. The two governments have pledged to cooperate in developing renewable energy but accuse each other of violating free-trade pledges by subsidizing their own manufacturers.

"The U.S. ruling is unfair, and the Chinese side expresses its extreme dissatisfaction," said a Commerce Ministry spokesman, Shen Danyang, in a statement.

Natural gas is no longer at decade lows, but the price remains sensitive to reports of any significant increase in supply.

The price dropped Thursday as the government said supplies continue to build, at a time when mild weather is dimming demand in parts of the country.

President Barack Obama on Thursday declared a new chapter in U.S. relations with Myanmar, easing an investment ban and naming the first U.S. ambassador to the former pariah state in 22 years to reward it for democratic reforms.

Both Republican and Democrat senators welcomed the administration's move, but human rights activists said it was premature to reward a government that remains dominated by its military and still holds hundreds of political prisoners.