Today's P.M. News Roundup

U.S. stocks rose Wednesday as investors found value in recently battered energy shares. “We’re seeing a rebound in energy companies because they’re oversold, and we’re seeing a rebound in the broader market, because it’s oversold,” said Art Hogan, chief market strategist at Jefferies & Co.

Washington Mutual Inc. shares fell 30 percent to a 17-year low Wednesday “and the perceived risk of its debt soared on worries the largest U.S. savings and loan will not find a buyer or raise enough capital to combat soaring mortgage losses,” Reuters reports.

“Lehman Brothers Holdings said today they lost $3.9 billion dollars in the third quarter, and announced a plan to sell some of its assets to raise cash, a move that comes after months of heavy losses related to the mortgage crisis,” ABC reports.

The European Commission has cut its growth forecast for the euro this year and indicated that it may also cut the 2009 forecast as U.S. and Asian economies slow down.

The Associated Press reports that “Oil prices edged just slightly higher Wednesday after OPEC vowed to abide by its quotas but decided not to take the more dramatic step of slashing production targets.”

Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc. has told one of its subsidiaries, Kansas Bankers Surety Co., to stop insuring bank deposits above the amount recommended by the government, “dealing a fresh blow to the financial-services industry as it tries to assuage anxious customers,” The Wall Street Journal reports.

British prosecutors will seek the retrial of seven men who were accused of a plot to blow up airplanes flying from London to the United States and Canada with homemade, liquid bombs. Three of the men were already found guilty of conspiracy to murder but the jury was unable to decide if they, and the four other men, planned to target planes.

Officials in South Korea are echoing those in North Korea, saying leader Kim Jong Il is on the road to recovery from a stroke, but is not gravely ill and is still in control of his country's his communist regime.

The Large Hadron Collider, which may give scientists the ability to determine how matter was created after the Big Bang, was switched on this morning to applause and cheers from researchers who gathered to watch the event.

A team of scientists from Seoul, South Korea, announced Tuesday that Snuppy, the world’s first cloned dog, is a father; 10 puppies were born in May after his sperm was used to artificially inseminate two cloned female dogs.

Navy Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Wednesday, “I’m not convinced we are winning in Afghanistan,” but added, “I am convinced we can.”

Initial evacuations have begun in Texas as Hurricane Ike heads towards the coast. The Category 1 storm is expected to strengthen over the Gulf of Mexico Wednesday and could become a Category 3 storm.

The owner and managers of the nation’s largest kosher meatpacking plant, Agriprocessors Inc., located in Iowa, were charged Tuesday with more than 9,000 misdemeanors alleging child labor law violations.

An influential auto safety group—the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety—is calling on states to raise the minimum age for driver’s license eligibility to 17 or even 18.

Four tree-sitters who had hoped to save a grove of trees at University of California Berkeley ended their protest Tuesday after reaching an agreement with campus officials. The four had been protesting for 21 months.

The Interior Department agency that collects oil and gas royalties has been caught up in a wide-ranging ethics scandal, reports The New York Times, "including allegations of financial self-dealing, accepting gifts from energy companies, cocaine use and sexual misconduct."

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama told an audience Tuesday that GOP nominee John McCain is just like unpopular President George W. Bush. “You can put lipstick on a pig,” Sen. Obama said. “It’s still a pig.” Sen. McCain’s campaign called the comments “offensive and disgraceful” and said Obama owes an apology to GOP vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin, who referenced lipstick in her acceptance speech. Obama’s team has responded by saying that he was not referring to Palin and that the GOP camp is engaging in a “pathetic attempt to play the gender card.”

Al Franken won the Democratic nomination Tuesday to run for a U.S. Senate seat in Minnesota. In November, he will face incumbent Republican Sen. Norm Coleman and the Independence Party’s Dean Barkley.

Leaders of WomenCount, a group launched earlier this year to support Hillary Clinton, are speaking out against what they say are examples of media sexism toward vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin, and warning the press “to back off.”

Nearly 40 percent of fish living in streams, rivers and lakes in the United States are in danger, according to the most detailed evaluation of the status of freshwater fishes in the last 20 years; 700 fish species are now listed as “imperiled.”

A new study shows that diabetics who control their blood sugar—even if only for the first decade after they are diagnosed—have a lowered risk of heart attack, death and other complications 10 or more years later.

Lance Armstrong, who announced Tuesday that he will emerge from retirement and return to professional cycling, said he was making his comeback to “raise awareness of the global cancer burden.”

Kenny Chesney has received seven nominations for the Country Music Association Awards. The singer has won the CMA’s “Entertainer of the Year” award three times in the past.

A judge has thrown out legal claims by a driving instructor and two etiquette teachers who say they were deceived by the makers of the film “Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan.” The film, starring British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen, has been hit by a number of legal claims.