Today's Headlines

Bloomberg:
- President Bush and Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva agreed to share technology to develop alternative fuels and reduce reliance on oil imports from Venezuela.
- Copper prices in NY fell by the most in a week after inventories jumped 15% in China, the world’s biggest user, signaling slowing demand.
- Crude oil is falling close to $60/bbl., down $1.50/bbl., on forecasts of warmer weather and rising worries about global demand.
- US antitrust regulators delayed Express Scripts’(ESRX) $26.1 billion hostile takeover bid for Caremark Rx(CMX), giving an edge to CVS Corp.’s(CVS) competing offer.
- Treasuries declined the most this year as a stronger-than-expected forecast government jobs report reduced bets the Fed will cut rates by mid-year.
- Google Inc.(GOOG) CEO Eric Schmidt says media companies will someday see the light. To attract viewers, they have no choice but to put their TV shows and movies on video sites such as his company’s YouTube.

Wall Street Journal:
- AT&T(T) and Yahoo!(YHOO) are in talks about scaling back an alliance through which they sold Internet access to millions of US citizens.
- Fashion designer Marc Ecko plans to open 150 retail outlets by the end of 2009 to profit fro growing sales of his brands.
- Caribbean trade accords that exempt local ethanol producers from taxes on exports to the US of the biofuel have boosted investments on the islands into plants for the gasoline substitute.
- The US National Math and Science Initiative, a non-profit project, plans to announce a program to pay students to take Advanced Placement tests that often provide college credits.
- Hedge funds and other private capital pools are concerned that tax rule changes being considered by US Senate advisers might hurt their profits.

NY Times:
- Hedge funds are among the winners from the drop in the subprime lending business. Paulson & Co., an $11 billion hedge fund, created two funds last summer that focused on a drop in the subprime mortgage market. Its Credit Opportunities Funds now have over $1 billion and were up 67% for February.

Chronicle of Higher Education:
- Default rates on guaranteed student loans are expected to drop to 4.9% this year from last year’s 5.1%, citing preliminary data released by the US Education Dept.