Today's Headlines

Bloomberg:
- The Dow Jones Industrial Average is making another all-time high today as interest rates fall and election uncertainty winds down.
- YouTube Inc., the popular online video Web site that is being bought by Google(GOOG), was named best invention of the year by Time magazine.
- FedEx(FDX) scrapped its order for the troubled Airbus A380 jumbo jet and said it would purchase 15 Boeing(BA) 777 jets instead.
- US Treasuries are rising the most in a week on expectations international investors will add to their holdings at auctions this week.
- One of Britain’s top al-Qaeda terrorists will serve at least 40 years in prison for plotting to kill thousands of people through a series of attacks in the US and the UK.
- Baldor Electric, a maker of electric motors and drives, agreed to buy Rockwell Automation’s power systems business for $1.8 billion to expand into transmission products and larger motors.
- Energy consumers, including the US, European nations and China, must encourage alternative energy to avoid excessive costs, environmental damage and supply disruptions in coming decades, the International Energy Agency said.
- Oil prices at current levels are damaging world economic growth and a moderate price would be one that is “significantly” lower than $60 a barrel, the head of the IEA said.
- Crude oil is falling slightly on speculation that US inventories rose last week and doubts that OPEC will make promised output cuts.
- Saudi Aramco, the world’s largest state-owned oil company, plans to spend $80 billion over 5 years to increase crude production, company VP Al-Falih said.
- Corn and soybean prices in Chicago may fall on speculation farmers will increase sales as the US harvest nears completion and supplies in storage climb.
- Marathon Oil(MRO), the fourth largest US energy company, said it will go through with a $3.2 billion project that will expand its Garyville, Louisiana, refinery’s processing capacity by 73%.

Wall Street Journal:
- ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, Fox News and the AP will tighten control over exit poll findings to prevent confusion that caused complaints about accuracy after the 2004 elections. Results were leaked two years ago from early polls that were posted by bloggers inaccurately called some states for Senator John Kerry, inaccurately suggesting that he would defeat President Bush.
- Verizon Communications(VZ) is negotiating with YouTube about bringing the Internet site’s videos to mobile phones and televisions.
- Expedia(EXPE) is offering customers loyalty points collected by Citigroup(C) credit-card holders to encourage people to make more bookings.
- The Humane Society, a group 10 million-strong in the US, is working to ensure candidates who support its animal-welfare agenda are elected to Congress this year. The group has spent $3.4 million on congressional elections and promoting initiatives that ban dove hunting in Michigan and determine the size of pigpens in Arizona.

NY Times:
- New York City is considering a plan that would allow people to change their genders on birth certificates even if they hadn’t had sex-change operations. Under the plan, which is likely to be passed by the city’s Board of Health, people born in New York will be able to make the change if they have affidavits from doctors and mental-health professionals that explain whey they should be considered members of the other sex.
- Comcast(CMCSA) has agreed to carry News Corp.’s(NWS) planned business channel, which would be spun off from the Fox News Channel. News Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch indicated the channel would “definitely” begin in 2007.

NY Post:
- Federated Department Stores(FD) plans to give division presidents more freedom over holiday promotions to help increase sales.

NY Daily News:
- Clorox’s(CL) Glad product line will post ads on 2,200 sanitation trucks to promote cleanliness in NYC and discourage littering.

AP:
- Syria is ready to resume peace talks with Israel, citing remarks by Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem.
- Southeast Asian nations have reached a preliminary agreement to strengthen the fight against terrorism, citing diplomats.

Washington Post:
- Gannett Co.(GCI), the largest US newspaper chain, is increasingly trying to involve readers in news-gathering.

Xinhua News:
- China discovered a coal mine with estimated reserves of 6.4 billion tons in the northern Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.