Today's Headlines

Bloomberg:
- Pennsylvania’s seven-decade monopoly on wine sales is ending after a judge overturned the commonwealth’s ban on Internet and mail-order shipments.
- Oil may fall to $50.16 a barrel, halting a four-year rally that quadrupled prices, said Citibank, the world’s largest bank.
- The World Health Organization said a $135 million international effort stopped a polio epidemic that paralyzed almost 200 children for life in west and central Africa.
- Silver Lake Partners, a buyout firm that specializes in technology companies, will purchase Serena Software for $1.2 billion and take the company private.
- UBS AG and Goldman Sachs Group raised their forecasts for the US dollar versus the euro and yen, and Lehman Brothers Holdings said investors should add to bets the dollar will gain against Europe’s currency.
- Crude oil is falling to the lowest in more than three months as rising US imports make up for production shut by storms in the Gulf of Mexico.

Wall Street Journal:
- Nike Inc. is re-launching Los Angeles Lakers All-Star Kobe Bryant as an endorser.
- Microsoft’s shares, which have lost favor with investors looking for growth, are much sought-after by those wanting bargains.
- Merck will have a harder job defending liability cases over its Vioxx painkiller in its home state of New Jersey after a state court judge told lawyers she wanted to hear cases involving plaintiffs who took the drug for 18 months or longer.

NY Times:
- United Airlines plans to hire 2,000 flight attendants over the next year, adding such employees for the first time since the 9/11 terrorist attacks pushed the airline industry into decline.
- State transportation agencies in Maryland and Virginia plan to test tracking cell phones to provide traffic information.
- A lack of workers may be hurting New Orleans’ recovery from the damages caused by Hurricane Katrina, citing local officials and business leaders. Some employers, such as Southern Electronic, are paying two to three times the regular wage to attract workers.
- The US National Academy of Televisions Arts & Sciences, which rules on the Daytime Emmy Awards, plans to announce a new category of prizes for original video content created for mobile devices such as cellular phones and Apple Computer’s iPod.

Washington Post:
- US envoy to the United Nations John Bolton said yesterday that inaction by UN members jeopardizes the passage of initiatives to overhaul the bureaucracy of the scandal-tarnished world body.

AFP:
- US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice made an unannounced visit to Iraq today, arriving in Mosul in the north of the country with a full entourage of officials and media.