Today's Headlines

Bloomberg:
- China has seen no signs of deflation and consumer prices are falling because of decreasing production costs and rising output, Zheng Jingping, a spokesman for the National Bureau of Statistics wrote.
- Democrats’ only hope of blocking the US Supreme Court nomination of Samuel Alito Jr. may be a filibuster, and key Republican senators say it would probably have little change of success.
- Crude oil is falling to a three-month low in NY as warm weather in the US further reduced fuel consumption that was cut after hurricanes pushed prices to records.
- President Bush announced a $7.1 billion plan to prepare the US for a possible avian influenza pandemic, including at least $2.2 billion for research.


Wall Street Journal:
- A private-equity company led by Jerry Kent will buy a group of cable systems from Cox Communications for as much as $3 billion.
- Google will resume scanning copyrighted library books into its search engine after a self-imposed interval, even as some publishers and authors try to block it from doing so without their approval.
- Visa International, American Express and other credit-card companies are trying to come up with ways to make it easier for people to charge small payments on their cards.
- An administration tax panel will present proposals today to change how US households and businesses are taxed.
- Lockheed Martin and three private-equity companies are discussing a purchase price for Computer Sciences of as much as $65 a share.
- Fabric7 Systems, a Silicon Valley start-up company, plans to use microprocessor chips from Advanced Micro Devices to build server computers to compete with IBM, Hewlett-Packard and Sun Microsystems.

NY Times:
- Johnson & Johnson’s proposed acquisition of Guidant will probably be approved by the FTC as early as today, citing executives.
- Sprint Nextel is expected to announce an agreement to offer wireless telephone service to customers of Comcast, Time Warner Cable and Cox Communications.

Financial Times:
- The US Treasury is expected to outline its thinking on the creation of a lending facility to alleviate shortages of Treasury notes in the repurchase market.

Interfax:
- Azerbaijan plans to raise oil production 42% to 572,000/day next year, compared with expected output this year.