Bid would merge business media
General Electric Co. and Financial Times publisher Pearson PLC are discussing making a joint bid for Wall Street Journal publisher Dow Jones & Co., the Journal reported Sunday.
The joint venture would combine the Financial Times, Dow Jones and business channel CNBC in a privately held joint venture, the Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter. It would be owned in equal parts by GE and Pearson, with Dow Jones’ controlling shareholders, the Bancroft family, keeping a minority stake in the new company, the report said.
The people cautioned that the discussions between GE and Pearson were preliminary.
Covina, Calif.
Two killed when train hits car
A commuter train collided with a car attempting to cross its tracks on Sunday, killing the driver and his 10-year-old niece, authorities said.
The double-decker Metrolink train with 161 people aboard was traveling about 40 mph when it struck the sedan 25 miles east of downtown Los Angeles, said Covina police Sgt. John Curley.
Earl Brown, 53, and his niece were declared dead at the scene. A 12-year-old girl was airlifted to Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles with head injuries, Curley said. The names of the girl and another younger victim were not immediately released.
No one was seriously injured on the train.
There was no damage to the railroad crossing arm, authorities said. They did not know whether the man attempted to drive around the arm or whether the arm or other guard equipment was malfunctioning.
Crawford, Texas
Bush gets ties, CD for Father’s Day
President Bush unwrapped Father’s Days gifts Sunday at his Texas ranch where the skies let go a deluge of rain that turned roadside gullies into muddy ponds and closed the main road into this tiny Texas community.
From first lady Laura Bush, the president received several ties she purchased during their recent trip to Europe, White House spokesman Scott Stanzel said. Bush’s twin daughters gave him a CD they had made for him to listen to while exercising.
Bush flew back to Washington later in the day.
Washington
Web site to offer DNA test kits
For less than $200 and a cheek-swiped cotton swab, amateur historians will soon be able to add DNA results to family tree Web sites.
The rapidly growing field of online genealogical searches is expanding to genetic testing, courtesy of a new partnership between the Internet’s largest family history Web site, Ancestry.com, and Sorenson Genomics, a privately held DNA research firm.
Sorenson and Ancestry.com’s Provo, Utah-based parent company, The Generations Network, will reveal details of their venture today.
Ancestry.com plans to launch the DNA testing product by the end of summer, offering customers the possibility of finding DNA matches in the site’s 24,000 genealogical databases.
From wire reports