Thursday, March 22, 2007

Today's Headlines

Bloomberg:
- Corn prices in Chciago are falling after a government report indicated that high prices have slowed demand for the biggest US crop.
- Michael Shaoul, CEO of investment research firm Oscar Gruss & Son Inc. in NY said the recent rally in copper is driven by speculative financial flows to investment funds rather than any improvements in the supply/demand situation for the metal.
- Oil is rising $2/bbl. as investment fund speculation increases on the belief that demand will improve later this year.
- KB Home(KBH) said fiscal first-quarter profit fell 84%, however this exceeded analysts’ estimates and the company’s cancellation rate fell to 31% from 48% in the fourth quarter. The shares are .50 higher on the report.
Wall Street Journal:
- Iberdrola SA’s success in persuading regulators worldwide to support investments in biodiesel, solar and wind power may spur bigger investments in alternative energy.
- Bear Stearns Cos.(BSC) is the latest financial group to apply to start an activity managed exchange-traded fund.
- Banks are using video face-recognition systems developed by 3VR Security Inc. to thwart people trying to pass fraudulent checks.
- The SEC is exploring ways to prevent possible manipulation of corporate elections by improper voting.

NY Times:
- Illegal immigrants in the US are increasingly stealing the identities of their legal counterparts and citizens to help get jobs. Employers, prosecuted for hiring illegal immigrants, are increasing applicant scrutiny, pushing illegal immigrants to abandon fake papers in favor of stealing identities or buying them from traffickers.

LA Times:
- News Crop.(NWS) and NBC Universal plan to create an online video site to compete against Google’s(GOOG) popular YouTube.

Star-Ledger:
- New Jersey lawmakers have introduced a bill to ban the use of mobile phones or other wireless communication devices to send text messages while driving.

USA Today:
- Congress has added $3.7 billion to the emergency spending bill to reward farm interests that make large contributions to Democrats. The proposed bill includes $74 million for storage fees for peanut growers, $25 million for spinach growers, $252 million for mild subsidies, and $3.3 billion for crop and livestock losses. Republicans said the provisions are designed to gain support from moderate Democrats for a US pullout from Iraq.

AP:
- A federal judge today struck down a 1998 US law that made it a crime for Web site operators to let children access porn. In the ruling, a setback to government efforts to rein in online pornography, US District Judge Lowell Reed Jr. of Pennsylvania said parents can protect children through software filters and less restrictive means that do not limit the free speech rights of others. The law was challenged by sexual health sites, the online magazine Salon.com and other Web sites backed by the American Civil Liberties Union.

Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung:
- A Muslim woman, whose request for a fast-track divorce was rejected, successfully argued her case should be reheard because the judge said the Koran allows a man to beat his wife.

Facts:
- Angel Gurria, secretary general of the OECD, said the cooling US housing market doesn’t constitute a crisis and he’s optimistic about the global economic outlook.

Le Temp:
- Switzerland sent a senior diplomat to Tehran to offer the Iranian government help in ending the dispute over its nuclear program.

Valor Economico:
- Norse Energy Corp. ASA, an oil and gas explorer, is among 29 Norwegian investors spending $170 million to for a venture with Brazil’s Grupo Albertina to expand ethanol production.

Ultimas Noticias:
- Venezuelans spend as much as 12 hours a month looking for foodstuffs in supermarkets, suggesting that shortages of basic foods are eroding living conditions mostly for the poor, citing a poll.

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