Today's Headlines

Bloomberg:
- Hedge funds are “extremely willing” to heed requests for better systems to prevent worldwide financial shocks, provided regulators are specific in their demands, an executive director at the Alternative Investment Management Association said.
- Copper futures are falling 3% in NY on speculation that demand is slowing in China, the world’s biggest consumer of the metal.
- Crude oil is falling $1.24/bbl. to $65.03 on speculation that US refineries will increase gasoline production from current unusually low levels.
- Gold and silver prices are falling in NY on speculation that the US dollar will continue rising.
- Bonds backed by subprime US mortgages are rallying as lenders tighten their underwriting standards and demand increases from managers needing the securities to fill collateralized debt obligations.
- Shares of US homebuilders, led by Standard Pacific(SPF) jumped on expectations that housing demand may rebound after US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said the slump in demand was largely over.
- Fremont General(FMT) will sell its commercial real-estate unit for $1.9 billion and bring in new managers led by billionaire banker Gerald J. Ford.
- OSI Restaurant Partners(OSI), owner of the Outback Steakhouse chain, agreed to a sweetened $3.1 billion takeover offer from a group led by Bain Capital Partners LLC and Catterton Partners.
- Robert Zoellick, a former US trade representative, is the favorite to succeed Paul Wolfowitz as president of the World Bank, says Irish bookmaker Paddy Power.
- US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, kicking off talks with China’s economic leaders, said the meeting must yield results to damp “anti-China” sentiment.
- Treasuries fell, pushing the benchmark 10-year yield to a three-month high, as traders speculated the US economy is gathering momentum.
- Intel Corp.(INTC) and STMicroelectronics NV plan to combine their unprofitable flash-memory businesses into a new company, creating the world’s largest maker of chips that store software in mobile phones.
- HSBC Holdings Plc, Europe’s biggest bank by market value, has “contained” a deterioration of its US mortgage loan portfolio, said CEO Geoghegan.

Wall Street Journal:
- AstraZeneca Plc, the UK’s second-largest drugmaker, Pfizer Inc., Novartis AG, Sanofi-Aventis SA and other drug companies are making a major push to develop biological drugs.
- CNN will probably announce an agreement by which it will be able to offer local news on its Web site, in a bid to gain a share of the rapidly expanding market for local online advertising.
- US food banks that distribute soup, cereals and other products to needy families are running short of donations as manufacturers and retailers cut down on damaged and mislabeled goods.
- Intel Corp.(INTC) is seeking to add new features to make personal computers better tools for calling and holding business conferences, citing the company’s director of business-client architecture, Steve Grobman.
- China has been urged to take steps to improve product safety, citing Nancy Nord, a US safety organization executive.

NY Times:
- Chinese government investigators are examining whether two Chinese companies exported contaminated toothpaste.
- Corporate directors last year fired or forced out failing executives at a higher rate than a decade ago, a study by consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton found.
- Google Inc.(GOOG) urged the FCC to let companies resell radio spectrum in a real-time auction, the same way it sells advertisements.

AP:
- NYC mayor Republican Michael Bloomberg ordered all city cabs to be hybrid vehicles within five years.

Financial Times:
- China’s agreement to buy a $3 billion stake in Blackstone Group LP buyout fund is a “political masterstroke” that will simultaneously please both Wall Street and Washington, DC.

El Nacional:
- Nine of every ten Venezuelans are frightened of crime, suggesting that rising homicide and robbery rates are affecting people in all social classes, citing a survey by a non-government research group.

Toronto Globe and Mail:
- Royal Dutch Shell Plc may be the main customer for a nuclear power plant proposed for northeastern Alberta as the oil company tries to tap multibillion-barrel limestone-trapped reserves.

Dagens Industri:
- Oil prospectors and mining companies are flocking to the stock market to sell shares on the Nordic exchange.

Shanghai Securities News:
- China needs to raise deposit rates by a “relatively big margin” to help correct an “excessively loose” money supply that helped push up stock prices, a government researcher wrote.

Tehran Times:
- China and Iran completed talks to develop the North Pars gas field that may produce as much as 20 million metric tons of liquefied natural gas a year.