Today's Headlines

Bloomberg:
- US Treasury officials are sounding out investors about the potential impact of naming China as a currency manipulator.
- Merrill Lynch will give up its fund management unit for a 49.8% stake in BlackRock(BLK).
- UK Prime Minister Tony Blair won the first of a series of votes on his Terrorism Bill, making it a crime to glorify or incite terrorism.
- Google(GOOG) and Yahoo!(YHOO) were among technology companies criticized by US lawmakers for agreeing to help Chinese authorities by censoring Internet searches nd handing over private data.
- Crude oil is falling below $59/bbl. in NY for the first time this year after the EIA reported US inventories soared.
- Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke, in his first report to Congress, said the US economy is in a sustained expansion that may require additional interest rate increases to restrain inflation.

Wall Street Journal:
- United Technologies’(UTX) Pratt & Whitney unit is likely to announce today that it will make spare parts for the top-selling CFM56 jet engine supplied by its rival, General Electric(GE).
- British and American women are drinking more than they did a few years ago, a trend that is worrying health-care officials even as it boosts sales for the alcoholic drinks industry.
- Johnson & Johnson(JNJ) will cut the size of its sales operations for the anemia drug, Procrit, because it has lost business to a competitor.
- Two US labor unions representing construction workers plan to quit the AFL-CIO to set up a separate association and boost membership, citing union officials.
- Nike Inc.(NKE) has created a new line of fitness dance apparel in an effort to boost the company’s brand appeal among women.
- Bristol-Myers Squibb(BMY) plans to license its Reyataz drug for AIDS without charge to generic drugmakers Aspen Pharmacare Holdings of South Africa and Emcure Pharmaceuticals of India.

NY Times:
- General Electric(GE) expects that over the next five years alternate energy products will more than triple to account for more than a quarter of the sales of energy equipment, its largest industrial business.
- Two car dealerships will open next month in Harlem, the first in the neighborhood in more than 40 years, continuing economic expansion in what has long been one of Manhattan’s poorest communities.

AFP:
- Iran is ready to use offensive action to counter any US aggression, citing the Islamic Republic’s Revolutionary Guards.

Daily Telegraph:
- Batman, the superhero who has previously fought the Joker and the Penguin, is to turn his attention to fighting Osama bin Laden in a new graphic novel, citing the writer Frank Miller.