Today's Headlines

Bloomberg:
- Wal-Mart Stores said April sales rose .9%, the smallest gain in five months, as record-high gas prices had more shoppers limiting purchases to food and other necessities.
- Merck named company insider Richard Clark to succeed CEO Gilmartin, whose almost 11-year tenure included losing the company’s spot as the world’s largest drugmaker and the recall of the Vioxx painkiller.
- GM and Ford had their debt ratings cut to junk by S&P.

Wall Street Journal:
- The US budget proposal for fiscal 2006 would more than double premiums paid by companies to the Pension Benefit Guaranty over the next five years.
- Some US environmentalists are breaking with longstanding opposition to cutting trees and say the best way to save forests may be by using them.
- Northrop Grumman is pondering whether to link up with the French company EADS to bid against Boeing for a contract to supply aerial-refueling tankers to the US Defense Department.
- More US executives like 87-year-old billionaire Kirk Kerkorian are staying at the desks into the seventh and eighth decades of their lives, defying common expectations that most people retire at 65.
- Massey Energy, the fourth-biggest US coal producer, and other coal mining companies are facing shortages of workers that may curtail expansion plans and cause electricity prices to rise.
- The Chicago Merc will list futures on three exchange-traded funds next month.
- More companies are being targeted by blackmailers who threaten to paralyze computer systems unless they are paid tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars.
- Lawyer Sean Coffey’s tactics have boosted demand for him in the field of class-action securities litigation, and his next target is HealthSouth.
- Royal Philips Electronics, LG Electronics and Samsung Electronics may benefit as flat-panel screen prices recover.

NY Times:
- A location committee for California stem cell research efforts will choose between San Francisco, Sacramento and San Diego as the city that will house research headquarters.

Washington Post:
- Increased US imports of Chinese textile goods hasn’t reduced purchases from US clothing makers.
- The US military is examining reports that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, leader of the al-Qaeda network in Iraq, may be ill or wounded and was present in a hospital last week in the al-Anbar province.

Fort Worth Star-Telegram:
- American Airlines and its pilots union are opposing legislation that would increase the mandatory retirement age for commercial pilots to 65 from 60.