Today's Headlines

Bloomberg:
- Crude oil is falling another $.50/bbl. to $63.17/bbl. as investment fund speculation that gasoline inventories are too low to meet summer demand subsides.
- Former NY Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, who is favored among Republican presidential candidates, also leads the top Democratic contenders in head-to-head match-ups, a Quinnipiac University poll found. Giuliani leads NY Senator Hillary Clinton by 49% to 40% and is favored over Illinois Senator Barack Obama 44% to 41%.
- About 50 countries adopted a UN-sponsored plan to boost Iraq’s economy on the first day of a conference on the country’s security and economic future.
- Intel Corp.(INTC) CEO Otellini said profit will increase at a faster rate than sales this year as the chipmaker pushes ahead with its plan to lower costs by $2 billion.
- Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki told a major conference on Iraq’s economy and security that there has been progress toward reconciling his country’s warring factions and appealed for debt deduction to help jump-start the economy.
- US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will meet with Syria’s foreign minister one-on-one about quelling violence in Iraq, a senior State Department official said.
- UBS AG, the world’s biggest money manager, reported a third straight decline in quarterly profit and said it plans to scrap the hedge fund run by John Costas after losses in the US mortgage market.
- Democratic Senator Charles Schumer introduced legislation that would hold lenders liable for brokers and appraisers who make bad mortgage loans and called on banks to match $300 million in federal funds to prevent foreclosures.

Wall Street Journal:
- T-Mobile USA Inc. will introduce a line of cell phones this summer that can roam on so-called Wi-Fi hotspots, carrying calls on the Internet to reduce the cost of mobile phone use.
- Michael Elefante, a Boston-based trust and estates attorney, is at the center of the decision over News Corp.’s(NWS/A) $5 billion offer for Dow Jones(DJ).
- JPMorgan Chase(JPM) is developing a pilot project to sell mortgages to illegal immigrants in Maricopa Country, Arizona.

USA Today:
- The US government need to do more to stop terrorists from using the Internet and video games to recruit young people.

Washington Post:
- The Democrat-led US Congress is considering legislation to protect reporters from being forced to disclose the identities of their sources.

Market News Intl.:
- The European Central Bank may have less of a reason to raise interest rates further after Juen if the euro continues to appreciate, citing “well-informed central bank sources.”

Dagens Nyheter:
- Czech lawmakers approved a bill that would mandate the addition of biofuels to gasoline and diesel.

China Central TV:
- China National Petroleum Corp., the nation’s biggest oil producer, said it discovered a field in Bohai Bay that may contain 1 billion tons of oil reserves. A discovery by PetroChina in Bohai Bay may hold as much as 2.2 billion barrels of oil. China is encouraging its oil companies to step up efforts to drill off the country’s coast and in the remote deserts of Xinjiang in the west.

Sarmayeh:
- China may sign a $2 billion contract with Iran to build several dams, citing an energy official.