Today's Headlines

Bloomberg:
- Crude oil is falling again, pulled lower by natural gas, after an EIA report showed that US inventories of the competing fuel jumped.
- France considers itself a terrorist target after an al-Qaeda leader this week asked an Algerian group to lead attacks against French “apostates,” Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin said.
- Natural gas plunged below $5 per million btus for the first time in almost two years in New York as cool weather cut demand and a very mild hurricane season curtailed speculation.
- Nintendo will start selling its latest video-game console on Dec. 2 in Japan, betting a low price will lure holiday shoppers and make up for a debut that comes three weeks after Sony Corp.(SNE) introduces the PlayStation 3.
- Amnesty International, the London-based human-rights group, today accused Muslim group Hezbollah of war crimes for deliberately targeting Israeli civilians during the Lebanon war.
- Gold in NY fell to the lowest since June and is now 20% off its recent highs as falling energy prices ease inflation concerns.

Wall Street Journal:
- Prices of flash-memory chips used in digital music players and cameras have begun to level off since late August after falling for months.
- Wal-Mart(WMT) hired designer Colin Cowie to produce the chain’s first celebrity-designed line of home-decoration products.
- Microsoft(MSFT) founder Gates and his wife Melinda are to give $68.2 million in grants through their charitable foundation to battle three deadly parasitic diseases which kill or disable millions of people each year.
- Oil prices are close to five-month lows and that’s good news for many companies. Appaloosa Management LP, a $4 billion hedge fund, is among investors that have bought airline carriers’ shares recently.
- Verizon Communications(VZ) replaced software and personnel from Microsoft(MSFT) working on a television set-top box with some of its own after delays and technical glitches.
- Bristol-Myers Squibb(BMY) options trading rose this week on speculation the drugmaker may be up for sale.

NY Times:
- World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz’s tough stance on corruption in poor countries is coming under criticism from colleagues at the bank and financial officials abroad.
- Google’s(GOOG) philanthropy unit is a for-profit organization that will pay taxes as it uses $1 billion in seed money to fulfill its mandate of fighting poverty.

Boston Globe:
- The Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Sloan School of Management will be getting new quarters as part of a $750 million, 1 million-square-foot expansion over the next few years.

NY Sun:
- Al Franken, who hosts a talk show on Air America Radio, says the network is in financial trouble since he hasn’t been paid recently.

Washington Post:
- Prosthetic limbs, parts of which can be controlled by thought alone, offer amputees using the devices a chance to almost “feel” their missing arm or leg and better control the artificial limb.

Globe and Mail:
- Open Text(OTEX), the Canadian software maker that’s buying rival Hummingbird, may be a takeover target for a larger company such a Hewlett-Packard(HPQ).

Yediot Ahronot:
- Nice Systems(NICE), a maker of digital-recording equipment, is in talks to acquire chief competitor Witness Systems(WITS) for more than $750 million.