Quick Overview

• Senate GOP kills Obama plan for  hiring 400,000  teachers and first responders.

• (FT)The European banking crisis is spilling over into commodities trading with French banks, the main financiers of trading houses, reining in their lending.

• Microsoft (MSFT) sales rose 7.3 %. Net income rose 6.1% to 68 cents a share from 62 cents a year earlier.
• Nokia (NOK) +5.55% reported a loss but better-than-expected unit volume.

• The end of the world is nigh. Again! The Oakland-based Family Radio International that stirred a global frenzy when it predicted the rapture would take 200 million Christians to heaven on May 21, now says the cataclysmic event will destroy the globe on Friday.

• Greek politicians have  passed a tough austerity package while the country has been paralyzed by a 48-hour general strike.

• Western Digital Corporation, the world's leading manufacturer of hard disk drives, said global supply may be constrained for several quarters because of flooding in Thailand. Thai floods have affected 14,254 factories and businesses in 20 provinces, according to the Labor Ministry.

• Brazil lowered interest rates by 50 basis points to 11.5 per cent, the second such cut in six weeks.

• 18,000 of U.S. busiest bridges are structurally deficient.

• (FT) Dexia, the stricken Franco-Belgian lender that has been at the centre of recent market turmoil, loaned €1.5bn of fresh capital to its two largest institutional shareholders which then used the cash to buy Dexia shares before 2008, the Financial Times has learnt.