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NEW YORK — Oil prices dropped about $1 per barrel Thursday amid speculative selling after topping $77 a barrel earlier in the day.

Light, sweet crude for September delivery fell 93 cents to settle at $74.95 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange after climbing earlier on a drop in crude oil inventories at a key Oklahoma terminal.

September Brent crude lost $1.14 to settle at $75.18 a barrel Thursday on the ICE Futures exchange in London.

Meanwhile, the Dow Jones industrials dove more than 400 points, though there was no obvious catalyst behind both markets dropping in tandem, said Tim Evans, an energy analyst at Citigroup in New York.

DEARBORN, Mich. — Ford surprised Wall Street Thursday by posting its first quarterly profit in two years.

Then it spoiled the party by warning investors that it still expects big losses in the next two quarters and no return to full-year profitability until 2009.

Ford squeezed most of the gains out through cost cutting, mainly with a roughly 30 percent decline in jobs, and good sales overseas.

Now Ford needs its North American division to start turning a profit. That could be difficult with the company's U.S. rivals and Japanese automakers breathing down its neck.

Still, investors applauded Ford's $750 million second-quarter profit — also helped by higher net pricing on its vehicles. Ford shares rose on a day when many other companies' shares tumbled.

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Federal safety regulators announced the voluntary recall of about 1,000 "baby bling" pacifiers Thursday, saying the trendy infant toys decorated with Swarovski crystals and faux gems pose a choking hazard.

Consumer Product Safety Commission officials said the crystals, attached with glue, can easily come off and be swallowed by an infant. Crystals also contain high amounts of lead.

Almost 15 million pieces of children's jewelry have been recalled over the past two years for excessive lead content.

Two of the five Internet-based retailers cited in the first-ever bling binky recall are based in South Florida: Dara Linda's Baby Bling and Jewelry Design, of Davie, and MJM Crystal Designs in Boca Raton. Neither company returned phone and e-mail requests for comment.

Bling binkies have become a hot item over the last two years, as some celebrity couples outfitted their newborns with bejeweled accessories.

OAKLAND, Calif. — Health care provider Kaiser Permanente faces a $3 million fine for what state regulators say were haphazard investigations into patient complaints and physician performance.

It was the second rebuke in a year for the nation's largest HMO. Last summer, the state fined Kaiser $2 million over mismanagement of a kidney transplant program.

The director of the California Department of Managed Health Care, Cindy Ehnes, said her agency reviewed nine Kaiser hospitals and found inconsistencies in how questionable cases were handled.

She said the fine could be reduced to $2 million if Kaiser makes necessary improvements.