Today's Headlines

Bloomberg:
- Crude oil is falling another $1.37/bbl. to $61.82/bbl. in NY as investment fund speculation that gasoline supplies aren’t adequate to meet summer driving demand subsides.
- Sunoco Inc.(SUN), the largest gasoline refiner in the US Northeast, will shut its Tulsa, Oklahoma, refinery for most of June for “maintenance,” the company’s vp of investor relations and planning said. Historically low refinery utilization as a result of a rash of refinery “outages” has been the main reason for the recent surge in gasoline prices.
- US ethanol daily average production rose 2.9% to 386,000 bbl./day last month, according to a Dept. of Energy report.
- Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva broke the patent on Merck’s(MRK) AIDS drug Efavirenz after the company’s offer to cut prices failed to satisfy demands from the country’s health ministry.
- Interactive Brokers Group(IBKR) shares gained 10% after the second-largest US IPO this year made the electronic derivatives trader more valuable than the company that owns the Chicago Board of Trade.
- NY state is drafting a new plan to renovate the Penn Station area that includes expanding the train terminal, moving Madison Square Garden and adding 5.5 million square feel of office space.
- Two hurricanes and three tropical storms may strike the US East and Gulf coasts this year. The forecasters lowered their prediction for the number of tropical storms that will form in the Atlantic during the June-to-November season to 16 from 17.
- Shares of PetroChina, the nation’s largest oil producer, surged after the company announced China’s biggest oil discovery in 50 years.
- Saudi Arabia aims to increase its crude-oil reserves by 76% and gas reserves by 40%.
- Bank of America Corp.(BAC) will buy a minority stake in a hedge fund created by its former chief investment officer, joining other lenders in expanding into the fast-growing industry.

Wall Street Journal:
- Imposing deadlines on Iraq could lead to greater violence and insecurity by helping the resistance and weakening moderates, US Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte said in an editorial. Diplomatic, political and economic progress is being made that is the basis for a stable Iraq, he wrote.
- Wealthy US collectors are equipping their wine cellars with motion sensors, video surveillance, infrared alarms and other expensive security paraphernalia to protect their valuable assets.
- Florida is calculating the electoral impact of a decision to allow convicted felons to retain their civil rights, including the right to vote. At least 950,000 released felons in Florida may regain their voting rights.
- Max Baucus, the head of the US Senate finance committee, said rules on taxation of hedge-fund managers deserve a review because they might be outdated. Baucus, a Montana Democrat, said aides have been reviewing whether fund managers should pay higher taxes on profit.
- The US Treasury Dept. will soon announce changes designed to stop complaints that European and Asian financial markets are winning business because of the regulatory and legal climate in the US.
- Rupert Murdoch, the CEO of News Corp.(NWS/A) who made a bid to buy Dow Jones(DJ), said he wouldn’t make broad changes to the Wall Street Journal if his offer is accepted.

NY Post:
- Microsoft Corp.(MSFT) has asked Yahoo! Inc.(YHOO) to enter formal negotiations over a possible acquisition, citing unidentified banking sources. The company is working with Goldman Sachs(GS) over a possible deal. An agreement between the two would raise the combined companies’ share of the search advertising market to 27% compared with Google’s(GOOG) 65%. Yahoo has been valued at as much as $50 billion by Wall Street analysts.
- Westwood One(WON), a provider of sports, weather and traffic information, has hired UBS to find a possible buyer.
- Ion Media Networks(ION) yesterday approved a takeover bid from hedge fund Citadel Investment Group and NBC Universal.

Financial Times:
- European Union finance ministers will stop short of calling for restrictions on hedge funds in recommendations due next week.
- Billionaire Sam Zell, who is making an $8.2 billion purchase of Tribune Co.(TRB), said he isn’t interested in selling the LA Times, the Chicago-based media chain’s biggest newspaper.
- A US Supreme Court ruling last week that will make it easier to challenge existing patents is a welcome change which should help cut back on undeserved patents.

Reuters:
- ICAP Plc’s stock jumped on speculation the world’s biggest broker of trades between banks may be the target of a takeover by Deutsche Boerse AG.

Globe and Mail:
- Thomson Corp. is in takeover talks with Reuters Group Plc, which said today that it received an approach from an undisclosed company.

El Universal:
- Venezuela was one of two countries in Latin America and the Caribbean to record foreign capital outflows last year, citing the UN’s Economic Commission on Latin America and the Caribbean. Foreign companies took $543 million out of Venezuela last year while the region, led by Brazil, Mexico and Chile, received $72 billion of direct foreign investment.