Today's Headlines

Bloomberg:
- Don Voelte, chief executive of Australia’s Woodside Petroleum Ltd., said oil prices at $60 a barrel were unsustainable.
- GM may use up most of its $19.2 billion in cash reserves in the event of a strike at Delphi, its largest auto-parts supplier, analysts said.
- Google shares are rising above $400 for the first time, propelled by soaring growth in online advertising and investors’ expectations that the company will continue to diversify its products beyond Internet search.
- US House Republican leaders dropped some cuts to the Medicaid health program in a $50 billion plan to reduce spending.
- Hedge funds that chase macroeconomic trends by investing in the stock, bond, currency and commodity markets posted their worst returns of the year in October as managers bet wrongly that the US dollar would drop in value.
- Gold in NY is rising to a 17-year high on investor demand for alternatives to the European currency and oil.
- Pennsylvania Congressman John Murtha, the senior Democrat on the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, called for the immediate withdrawal of US troops from Iraq.
- Manufacturing in the Philadelphia area expanded in November as companies began rebuilding depleted inventories to meet rising consumer demand.

Wall Street Journal:
- Ranbaxy Laboratories Ltd., the Indian generic-drugmaker, is talking with Roche Holding AG about licensing the rights to make the antiviral drug, Tamiflu.
- Nestle SA is focusing on making containers easier to open in response to one of its biggest complaints from consumers.
- Stirling Energy Systems, a Phoenix-based energy company, plans to place 20,000 solar dishes over four square miles of the Mohave Desert in California to collect and ship energy 80 miles south to Los Angeles.
- Silicon Labs, Intel, Texas Instruments and other semiconductor makers are producing single chips that put the key parts of a mobile telephone into one place.
- Sprint Nextel’s music download service functions well and marks a new advance for the music industry.
- EBay aims to offer a link between people and local services of all kinds.

Cnet:
- Sony began offering a free video-phone service for Internet users yesterday.

BBC:
- Saddam Hussein, the deposed Iraqi dictator, was punched several times by two court clerks after he insulted two of Shia Islam’s saints, citing Iraqi television.

Chicago Tribune:
- Tribune’s Chicago Tribune will cut about 100 jobs and vacant positions won’t be filled to help cut costs and compensate for a decline in circulation.

NY Post:
- NY City’s Department of Transportation has installed parking meters that accept credit cards in midtown Manhattan.

Washington Post:
- A US commander in Iraq yesterday decried calls by Democratic US senators to set a deadline for troop withdrawal, saying “setting a date would mean that the 221 soldiers I’ve lost this year, that their lives will have been lost in vain.”