The Media

Europe weighs options for new Greek package - Yahoo! News

BERLIN/VIENNA (Reuters) – European officials met on Tuesday to sketch out options for a second bailout package for Greece, with private sector participation still under discussion to help relieve the country of its massive debt burden.

Senior EU finance officials gathered in Vienna to prepare the ground for more high-level talks on the Greek debt crisis. Sources said a range of policy steps were on the table, including a "Vienna Initiative"-style debt rollover and bond maturity extensions.

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Top Cannes movies get box office boost - Yahoo! News

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) – Did winning the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival do the trick for "The Tree of Life," a new drama starring Brad Pitt and Sean Penn?

The film grossed an estimated $352,000 during its opening weekend in a total of four theaters in New York and Los Angeles. Its per-screen average of about $88,000 is a record for a film released by Fox Searchlight, surpassing the $80,000 average for "Black Swan" last year.

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ECB's Paramo: Spain must finish labor reform - Yahoo! News

MADRID (Reuters) – Financial markets will remain skeptical that Spain can steer clear of the crisis until the country manages to finish its reform of the labor market, a senior European Central Bank policymaker said in an interview.

"Markets are surprised that the government may not be capable of concluding a much needed labor reform ... Until we finish that reform we won't see the end of market distrust," said Jose Manuel Gonzalez-Paramo, Executive Board member of the ECB, in an interview in La Vanguardia newspaper on Sunday.

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Pentagon F-35 review postponed until mid-June - Yahoo! News

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A high-level Pentagon review of the Lockheed Martin Corp (LMT.N) F-35 fighter program has been postponed from this week until June 14, three sources familiar with the scheduled meeting said on Friday.

Defense Undersecretary Ashton Carter, the Pentagon's top weapons buyer, and other senior defense officials are due to establish a new procurement baseline at the meeting for the radar-evading F-35, or Joint Strike Fighter, which is currently estimated to cost $382 billion.

The new baseline -- against which any future cost growth will be measured -- will reflect a major restructuring of the program announced by Defense Secretary Robert Gates in February, the program's second major revamp in two years.

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Pending home sales plunge in April - Yahoo! News

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Pending sales of existing U.S. homes dropped far more than expected in April to touch a seven-month low, a trade group said on Friday, dealing a blow to hopes of a recovery in the housing market.

The National Association of Realtors Pending Home Sales Index dropped 11.6 percent to 81.9 in April, the lowest since September. Pending home sales lead existing home sales by a month or two.

Economists, who had expected pending home sales to fall 1.0 percent last month, said bad weather in some parts of the country might have affected home shopping.

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Corporate profits fall, jobless claims up - Yahoo! News

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Corporate profits contracted in the first quarter for the first time in more than two years and the economy grew at the same pedestrian pace as previously estimated, government data showed on Thursday.

Signs of the economy's struggle to regain speed were highlighted by an unexpected rise in the number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits last week.

"There is no doubt the economy has slowed. We will call the first half of 2011 as a soft patch," said Robert Dye, a senior economist at PNC Financial Services in Pittsburgh. "We should see growth accelerate in the second half in the 3.0 percent to 3.5 percent area."

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AIG stock falls after $8.7 billion share sale - Yahoo! News

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Shares of American International Group Inc fell more than 3 percent on Wednesday after the insurer and the U.S. Treasury sold $8.7 billion worth of stock.

The shares were down 3.3 percent at $28.48 in early trading on the New York Stock Exchange.

AIG and Treasury sold 300 million shares for $29 each on Tuesday. The sale by Treasury of 200 million shares reduced its stake in AIG to 77 percent from 92 percent, but it still has 1.5 billion shares left to sell to fully exit its investment.

Treasury needs to sell all of its shares at an average price of $28.73 to break even on its investment in the insurer.

Underwriters on the offering were led by Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Deutsche Bank Securities, Goldman Sachs & Co and JPMorgan.

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Hollywood star wants US law against labor trafficking - Yahoo! News

WASHINGTON (AFP) – Hollywood actress Julia Ormond pleaded with US lawmakers Monday to pass a law halting the sale of men, women and children into forced labor.

Ormond told a panel of lawmakers how children are "chained, whipped and scarred for life while working on our carpets" and "Mayan agricultural slaves in Florida pick my tomatoes" just to keep prices down and profit margins high.

"Just as those forced into sex slavery, they deserve our compassion" and a federal law to protect them, said Ormond, who in 2007 founded the Alliance to Stop Slavery and End Trafficking (ASSET).

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'Idol' finalist Scotty dominates Garner - Yahoo! News

GARNER, N.C. – Aversboro Coffee is the kind of place that opens its doors early if customers are waiting; if the chairs are down, folks are welcome to come in.

And it's become a gathering spot for people wanting to talk about all things Scotty McCreery, a finalist on Fox's "American Idol" who faces Lauren Alaina Suddeth of Rossville, Ga., Tuesday night in a last performance before a winner is crowned on Wednesday.

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Sony to post $3.2 billion annual loss on tax write-offs - Yahoo! News

TOKYO (Reuters) – Sony Corp will post its third straight annual net loss for the year that ended in March after writing off tax credits in the wake of Japan's earthquake and tsunami, the latest in a string of grim headlines on the consumer electronics giant.

The maker of PlayStation video games, Vaio computers and Bravia TVs has been battling to recover from the March 11 disaster, and more recently, a series of security breaches on its networks that affected more than 100 million user accounts.

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