Today's P.M. News Roundup

Stocks rebounded on Tuesday despite earlier setbacks fueled by despairing quarterly reports from UBS and Fannie Mae and record oil prices. Around 2 p.m., the “Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 40.22 points or 0.3%,” the “Nasdaq Composite Index rose 0.6%, or 15.57 points,” and “The Standard & Poor's 500 was up 0.6%, or 9.02 points.”

Commodities prices were high in early morning trading today. U.S. light, sweet crude oil for June delivery reached a record-high $120.93 per barrel on the back of tensions with Iran and attacks on petroleum processing plants in Nigeria. CNBC reports that “Gold was also strong … but is still some way below a record of $1,030.80 an ounce reached on March 17."

Fannie Mae, the country’s biggest mortgage finance company, reported first-quarter losses of $2.19 billion, some $2.57 a share, worse than analysts’ projections of 64-cent-per share losses. Fannie Mae “will cut its dividend and raise $6 billion in capital to help overcome the worst housing slump since the Great Depression,” writes Bloomberg.

Silverjet, a U.K.-based business-class airline, “has had a number of discussions” with investors from the Middle East and Asia, said CEO Lawrence Hunt. This news follows last week’s $25 million investment by an anonymous backer from the United Arab Emirates, which could be followed by another $75 million.

Business Week suggests that Yahoo’s upcoming partnership with Google and the possibility that Microsoft will return with another offer are reasons that the search engine’s stocks saw a rebound yesterday. While dropping 22 percent at the start of trading, they closed yesterday down 15 percent on Friday.

Qwest Communications is leaving Sprint Nextel to partner with its rival Verizon Wireless, a joint venture between Verizon and U.K.-based Vodafone.

“Target announced Monday that it had struck a deal to sell a 47 percent interest in credit card receivables to JPMorgan Chase for an initial investment of $3.6 billion,” reports The New York Times’ Deal Book.

The U.S. dollar has shown the largest eight-day percentage increase since Jan. 7, 2005, rising by 2.57 percent from April 22 to May 2.

N.Y. Sen. Hillary Clinton appears to have the edge in today’s Indiana Democratic primary. Writes Politico, "Economically distressed cities with union influence, such as Anderson, Muncie and Richmond, present favorable terrain for Clinton, but they also have African American populations of between eight and 15 percent,” which may lean toward Ill. Sen. Barack Obama.

Raleigh, N.C. paper The News & Observer reports about today’s Democratic presidential primary in that state, “Just a few weeks ago, North Carolina was seen as an easy Obama victory. But the race has narrowed to the point that both Obama and Clinton were throwing everything into the fight.”

Authorities arrested 96 students today at San Diego State University in a drug bust, after a five-month investigation.

NPR reports, “FBI agents on Tuesday raided the offices of Special Counsel Scott J. Bloch, who oversees protection for federal whistleblowers. The agents seized computers and shut down e-mail service as part of an obstruction of justice probe, NPR has exclusively learned.”

N.Y. Atty. Gen. Andrew M. Cuomo announced the introduction of new legislation to stiffen New York's anti-film-piracy laws. First-time offenders could get up to a year in jail. Second-time offenses would be treated as felonies.

Georgia has scheduled the execution of William Earl Lynd tonight at 7 pm EDT. Convicted of murdering his live-in girlfriend, Lynd will be the nation’s first execution since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled last month that death by legal injection does not constitute cruel and unusual punishment.

Crops on Hawaii’s Big Island are withering in the sulfur dioxide emitted by Kilauea, a volcano in which a new vent opened in March. Flower famers Tony and Sam Bayaoa told the AP, "The first reaction was—did someone poison the plants? I’ve lost my livelihood.” The Bayaoas have lost 70 percent of their crop.

The provincial capital of Chile was evacuated today after the “Chaiten volcano spewed lava and blasted ash more than 12 miles (20 kilometers) into the sky,” the Associated Press reports.

Cyclone Nardis’ death toll in Myanmar is now some 22,000, report state news sources, with hundreds of thousands left homeless and without potable water. The ruling junta announced that it will postpone a referendum originally scheduled for Saturday in the hardest-hit areas of the country.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President George W. Bush are to ink a deal today that would give the United States access to Russian nuclear research. The treaty comes on the last day of Putin’s presidency.

The Awami National Party, which leads the ruling coalition in Pakistan’s strategic North West Frontier Province, a border region with Afghanistan, espouses a nonviolent approach to tackling extremism.

Helicopter shortages threaten NATO, UN and EU missions around the world, and the global demand for these most vital aircraft is likely to increase.

An Amnesty International study released today said Somali “civilians are caught in the middle as Ethiopian soldiers and troops of Somalia's Transitional Federal Government (TFG) battle remnants of the Islamic Courts Union, which was ousted by Ethiopian forces in 2006.”

Breastfeeding babies may increase their IQ, a new study from Canada's McGill University indicates.

The AP reports that “a Massachusetts study suggests that restaurant smoking bans may play a big role in persuading teens not to become smokers.”

Although the pesticide DDT was banned in the northern hemisphere in the 1970s, DDT levels in Antarctic penguins have remained constant.

Mukesh Ambani, head of India-based petrochemical giant Reliance Industries and the world’s fifth-richest man, is building the world’s first billion-dollar home, according to Forbes.

A New York court on Tuesday convicted former pool cleaner Jack Jordan for stalking and aggravated harassment. Jordan was “ordered to undergo psychological observation” and could face up to a year in jail.

Roger Clemens has apologized for his personal mistakes, saying, “Like everyone, I have flaws. I have sometimes made choices which have not been right."