Today's Headlines

Bloomberg:
- Jordan’s King Abdullah II said Iraq has made “great strides” since the US-led liberation of the country in March 2003 toppled dictator Saddam Hussein’s regime.
- Japan’s deflation will last for an eighth year, the central bank said, making it less likely it will soon end its policy of keeping rates at zero and pumping cash into the world’s second-largest economy.
- BHP Billiton, the world’s biggest mining company, said third-quarter iron ore production rose 14% to the second-highest ever.
- Confidence in French President Jacques Chirac fell to its lowest since he was re-elected in 2002, after his televised appeal to vote for the European Union constitution failed to win support, an opinion poll showed.
- US House and Senate Republicans reached a tentative agreement on a budget plan for the 2006 fiscal year that trims about $10 billion from spending on the Medicaid health program over five years and calls for about $70 billion in tax cuts.
- Crude oil is falling for a fourth straight day, dipping below $50 a barrel in NY, as a slowdown of the global economy coincides with rising inventories.
- US T-notes are rising after a government report showed the economy expanded at a slower pace than forecast in the first quarter.

Wall Street Journal:
- Iraq’s Daawa party, headed by Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, is breaking with its anti-American tradition and cultivating ties with the US in a bid to stabilize the Middle East nation.
- Berkshire Hathaway’s annual meeting on April 30 will take place under a cloud of legal and regulatory scrutiny.
- Marvel Enterprises is setting up a studio to make its own movies based on its characters, and it will distribute them through Viacom’s Paramount Pictures.
- IBM secured a $352 million contract from the Univ. of Pittsburgh Medical Center.
- Emerson Electric, Bristol-Myers Squibb and other US companies are delaying the repatriation of foreign profit pending clarification of new US tax rules.
- Private equity firms such as Carlyle Group, Texas Pacific Group and KKR have been approached by Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley about being taken public.
- Apple’s Tiger operating system to retrieve old and missing files is far better than competing built-in search functions on either the Mac or Microsoft’s Windows, Walter Mossberg wrote.
- SBC Communications is to offer exclusive videos and music through an Internet site, called Blue Room.
- UnitedHealth Group plans to track the health risks of drugs based on its members’ medical claims, and market the data to regulators, drug companies and others.

NY Times:
- Internet phone resellers are flourishing as customers flock to buy services that replace more costly and annoying landline phones.
- Sprint Corp. said customers of its high-speed residential Internet service will be able to remotely access video, music and other media files on their home computers with a new service called Personal Media Link.

Tex Report:
- China’s Maanshan Iron & Steel Co. will lower prices of hot-rolled coil by $36 per metric ton for its domestic customers next month.