in the news

ATLANTA (AP) - CNN should cover international news and the environment, not the "pervert of the day," network founder Ted Turner said Wednesday as the first 24-hour news network turned 25.

ROME (Reuters) - Italy should consider leaving the single currency and reintroducing the lira, Welfare Minister Roberto Maroni said in a newspaper interview on Friday. Maroni, a member of the euro-skeptical Northern League party, told the Repubblica daily Italy should hold a referendum to decide whether to return to the lira, at least temporarily. He also said European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet was one of those chiefly responsible for the "disaster of the euro. "The euro "has proved inadequate in the face of the economic slowdown, the loss of competitiveness and the job crisis," Maroni said.

June 2 (Bloomberg) -- Dutch and French voters have now spoken, delivering crushing defeats to the European Union's proposed new constitution. And the fallout will be immense. …And the economics of integration that have dominated Europe for the last 30 years have come to an end. Forget convergence. The big trend in the next few years will be Europe's economies going their own way, not with each other. In time, even the euro's survival might be called into question.

WASHINGTON -- Federal authorities may prosecute sick people who smoke pot on doctors' orders, the Supreme Court ruled Monday, concluding that state medical marijuana laws don't protect users from a federal ban on the drug. (WSJ)

Since June 2004, the Fed has raised its short-term rate target to 3% from 1% and has signaled plans to raise it further, while the 10-year Treasury bond yield has fallen to less than 4% from 4.7%. That sort of decline in long-term rates "is clearly without recent precedent," Mr. Greenspan said via satellite to the International Monetary Conference, a meeting of bankers from around the world, in Beijing. (WSJ)

WASHINGTON -- During last year's presidential campaign, John F. Kerry was the candidate often portrayed as intellectual and complex, while George W. Bush was the populist who mangled his sentences. But newly released records show that Bush and Kerry had a virtually identical grade average at Yale University four decades ago (Boston Globe)

June 8 (Bloomberg) -- Executives at Berkshire Hathaway Inc.'s General Re unit knew four years ago that American International Group Inc. would use a reinsurance transaction to ``cook the books,'' according to phone transcripts cited in a suit from regulators.

Kirk Kerkorian's Tracinda Corp. said it has nearly doubled its stake in General Motors Corp. to 7.2% but fell well short of its goal of amassing an 8.8% stake, in part because some investors are betting the stock is poised to rise. (WSJ)