Bloomberg:
- The government of Sudan is breaching a UN arms embargo by moving weapons into the western region of Darfur, citing a report by Amnesty International.
- Six New Jersey men were arrested for allegedly plotting a terrorist attack against soldiers at Fort Dix. The men planned to gain entry and use automatic weapons to kill as many soldiers as they could at the base.
- NY Mayor Michel Bloomberg may run for governor against incumbent Eliot Spitzer in 2010.
- Senate aides, looking for new sources of revenue, are studying how Harvard, Yale and Stanford are using offshore hedge funds to avoid tax bills.
- The US House Financial Services Committee will proceed with legislation to aid subprime borrowers if mortgage lenders don’t act to keep people from losing their homes, a subcommittee chairwoman said.
- Shares of Countrywide Financial(CFC) jumped as much as 9.6%, the biggest gain in the S&P 500 Index, on speculation the largest US mortgage lender may be the target of a takeover or leveraged buyout.
- US retailers’ sales probably fell for the first time in four years last month as an earlier Easter and the coldest April in a decade discouraged purchases of lightweight clothing, gifts and garden equipment.
- Hewlett-Packard(HPQ) said second-quarter earnings and sales beat its forecast.
- Corn prices in Chicago are falling 3.5%, heading for the biggest drop in a month, after a government report showed US farmers planted more acres than expected last week.
Wall Street Journal:
- Bank of America(BAC), BNP Paribas SA, Citigroup Inc.(C) and other investment banks are planning to start a system in July that will distribute bond and derivatives prices to clients.
- US cable operator Cox Communications(COX) will disable the fast-forward feature that lets television skip ads, as part of an agreement with ABC and ESPN to offer hit programs and football games on demand.
- Fannie Mae(FNM) and Freddie Mac(FRE) would benefit from an amendment proposed for the legislation creating a regulator to oversee the mortgage companies’ portfolios.
- CBS Corp.’s(CBS) Simon & Schuster book-publishing subsidiary will start an Internet book channel called Bookvideos.tv next month. The channel will be hosted on Google’s(GOOG) YouTube.com and other video-sharing sites.
- People increasingly use search engines to find information over the Internet and about 7% of all inquiries on the Web use a person’s name, citing the search engine Ask.com.
NY Times:
- Chevron Corp.(CVX) will admit it should have known former dictator Saddam Hussein was collecting kickbacks on oil purchased from Iraq through a corrupt United Nations program. The company will pay $25 million to $30 million, the largest penalty for a US company connected to the UN/Iraq oil-for-food scandal.
- A weaker dollar has resulted in Irish investors buying property in NY that is less expensive than real estate in Ireland and the UK.
Chronicle of Higher Education:
- New Orleans colleges and universities expect freshman enrollments to rise after declines following Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005. Tulane University said on Monday that it expects a 56% increase in enrollments this fall. Loyola Univ., Xavier Univ., the Univ. of New Orleans and Dillard University reported anticipated increases from 30% to 100%.
Indianapolis Star:
- Allegations of cheating resulted in disciplinary action against almost half of second-year students at Indiana University’s School of Dentistry.
Financial Times:
- Worldwide mergers and acquisitions topped $2 trillion, driven by cheap debt and light antitrust scrutiny, citing Dealogic. The numbers are 63% higher than in the same period of 2006, when $1.235 trillion worth of deals were announced. Leveraged-buyout firms also have big pools of cash to spend. April was the busiest month in history, with $647 billion in deals announced. The busiest industry was financial services, with $410.6 billion worth of transactions.
- Dow Jones(DJ) investors may be hoping that Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp.(NWS/A) makes a higher bid, because an outside offer may be unlikely.
Nikkei English News:
- Japan will propose halving so-called greenhouse gases by 2050 at next month’s Group of Eight summit in Germany.
Xinhua News Agency:
- China’s crude oil import bill will only rise by 4.8% this year despite the country’s much stronger economic growth.
Kuwait News Agency:- Kuwait Petroleum Corp. doubled the budget for the new al-Zour refinery to $12 billion, citing the company’s managing director.
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