Checklist

Regional

U Salisbury, Md.-based Perdue Farms Inc. said competitor Tyson Foods Inc. should be more honest about antibiotic use in its chickens. Perdue and Sanderson Farms Inc. are asking a federal judge to order Tyson to stop making what they say are misleading claims. The companies said their products, not just Tyson’s, are antibiotic-free.

U Philip Morris USA of Richmond, the nation’s No. 1 tobacco company, said it filed federal lawsuits against two companies it accuses of importing counterfeit cigarettes and unauthorized use of the Marlboro trademark. Philip Morris filed the lawsuits against Sorensen Lighted Controls of Hartford, Conn., a manufacturer of indicator lights; and Damakali SA de CV of Mexico.

U Dominion Resources Inc., owner of Virginia’s biggest utility, said it plans to develop a 300-megawatt wind generation facility in central Illinois to capitalize on rising demand for renewable energy. Prairie Fork Wind Farm would have 150 to 200 turbines built over 25,000 acres, about 25 miles southeast of Springfield, the Richmond-based company said.

U Alexandria defense contractor VSE Corp. said that its Engineering and Logistics Division won a 36-month Army Reserve equipment readiness contract worth up to $149.1 million for maintenance, upgrade and refurbishment.

National

U Financial crises do not happen in a vacuum and the U.S. banking debacle is linked to imbalances in an economy that favored spending at the expense of saving, said Paul Volcker, a former Federal Reserve chairman. “You can’t go on forever spending more than you’re producing. You have to rely on unorthodox finance to sustain it,” he said.

U The Transportation Department says Northwest Airlines Corp. and Delta Air Lines Inc. should be allowed to share routes and revenue on flights across the Atlantic. The airlines have long sought permission to coordinate schedules and share money from the flights. Transportation officials say it would allow the airlines, and three foreign competitors, to act as a single carrier on trans-Atlantic routes.

U A federal judge gave preliminary approval to a deal that would require Chrysler LLC’s hourly retirees to pay more for health care and would shift the automaker’s retiree health care obligations to a union-administered trust. U.S. District Court Judge Robert Cleland tentatively approved the agreement, and set a June 30 public hearing on it.

U Verizon Communications Inc., the phone company spending $23 billion to upgrade its systems to offer faster Internet speeds, asked a judge to block Time Warner Cable Inc. from airing misleading ads about its fiber-optic service. Verizon claimed that Time Warner ads misrepresent the capabilities of Verizon’s FiOS, such as asserting that a satellite dish is needed to receive the service.

U Fraudulent tax returns filed as a result of identity theft jumped more than sixfold over the past five years, but the Internal Revenue Service rarely pursues or prosecutes such cases unless they have a large tax impact, a Treasury Department watchdog said. The report cited two main incentives for the identity theft: to file a fraudulent return to steal a tax refund or to obtain employment.

U Former AT&T chief executive David Dorman will become Motorola Inc.’s chairman next month as the struggling cell-phone maker tries to fix its slumping fortunes and split itself into two companies. The announcement was made two days after Motorola ended a proxy fight with activist investor Carl Icahn, agreeing to seat two of his nominees on its board of directors.

U The Food and Drug Administration said an industrial chemical was found in an antibiotic made by Cubist Pharmaceuticals when used with a certain drug pump. The FDA said significant levels of a chemical used to make rubber were found in the Cubicin that had been stored in Readymed pumps, manufactured by Cardinal Health.

U Shareholder groups said they would withdraw resolutions on climate change at Ford Motor Co.’s annual meeting because the automaker has outlined plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The New Jersey-based Tri-State Coalition for Responsible Investment and the Connecticut state treasurer’s office said Ford offered detailed targets for reducing the emissions 30 percent by 2020.

U Vanguard Group Inc., the second-largest U.S. mutual-fund manager, “inadvertently” failed to disclose that one of its funds held a 6.7 percent stake in Bear Stearns Cos. at the end of last year. The Vanguard Windsor II Fund held 7.8 million Bear Stearns shares, the Valley Forge, Pa., company said. Vanguard said it filed the disclosure under the wrong Securities and Exchange Commission identification number.

International

U Japan’s upper house approved Masaaki Shirakawa as head of the central bank and rejected Hiroshi Watanabe as deputy, ending a three-week leadership vacuum while prolonging a political standoff. Mr. Shirakawa, 58, was appointed in time to attend this week’s Group of Seven meeting of finance officials in Washington.

U Oasis Hong Kong Airlines Ltd., the 17-month-old budget carrier that challenged Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd. on some of its most profitable routes, ceased operations, crippled by high landing fees and rising oil prices. KPMG was appointed as provisional liquidator and the airline is seeking new investors, Chief Executive Stephen Miller said at a Hong Kong news conference.

U A privacy panel of the European Union wants Internet search engine providers like Google and Yahoo to delete data taken from users after six months, even when they operate abroad. The report from the EU-funded privacy watchdog recommended that search engines follow European data protection rules regardless of their headquarters’ location.

U Roughly 60 data analysts staged a rare and noisy street demonstration in downtown Oslo to protest Norway’s adoption of Microsoft Corp.’s document format as the international standard. Last week, the International Standards Organization narrowly voted in favor of using Microsoft’s Office Open XML, or OOXLM, format as a world standard.

U A union leader said that Venezuela’s government has decided to nationalize the country’s largest steel manufacturer, only days after announcing a takeover of major cement companies. Carlos Becerra, a leader of the Unified Union of Steel Industry Workers, said the government told the union it will immediately nationalize the steel producer, Sidor.

U Venezuela wants to replace Exxon Mobil Corp. as its partner in a U.S. oil refinery partly controlled by its state-run oil company, the oil minister said. Rafael Ramirez said Venezuela is “planning to have another operator” for a refinery located in the New Orleans suburb of Chalmette that is jointly owned by Exxon and Venezuela’s state-run oil company, Petroleos de Venezuela.

U Banks worldwide must improve their financial transparency and strengthen their approach to managing risk in the wake of the global credit crisis, financial specialists said. In an interim report released in Frankfurt, Germany, the Institute of International Finance — a global association of financial institutions — said the industry itself must restore confidence.

U Daimler AG expects sales increases for its luxury cars in markets like China and Russia to offset expected slowdowns in major markets like the U.S. Speaking ahead of the start of the company’s annual shareholder meeting in Berlin, Chief Executive Dieter Zetsche warned that “the economic climate suggests that things will get tougher rather than easier.”

From wire dispatches and staff reports