Wednesday morning headlines

Spitzer to resign: It’s happening today and takes effect Monday. Lt. Gov. Paterson will be sworn in as governor shortly afterward, becoming the first African-American to hold that post in NY. (ABC News) Meanwhile, the WSJ reports that his legal team is already preparing a defense. They say that the guy did not violate federal money-laundering or structuring laws because he didn't hide the transactions, which were in his name and from his bank accounts. His lead lawyer, Michele Hirshman of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, is said to be in negotiations with the U.S. Attorney's office.

Slaughterhouse owner testifies: Steve Mendell, head of Hallmark/Westland Meat Co. in Chino, said this morning on Capitol Hill that no unsafe beef was processed at his plant, and a Humane Society video showing sick cows being pushed with a forklift depicted animals headed for euthanasia. "They were not slaughtered, ground or sold," he said in prepared testimony before a House panel. "They were euthanized and removed." It was his first public comment since the release of the video, which led to the largest-ever beef recall. From AP:

Mendell said he's received death threats. He contended that his company has a long record of good safety procedures and was in the process of taking extensive corrective actions in response to the video when the Agriculture Department shut him down and called for a recall of product produced over the past two years. "Our company is ruined. We cannot continue," Mendell said. Some 220 employees have lost or are about to lose their jobs, he said.

Another big day for stocks?: The Dow is up more than 100 points after forecasts from Caterpillar and Bear Stearns spurred speculation that profits will rebound this year. (Bloomberg)

Amgen under fire: NYT, LAT and WSJ all have advances on tomorrow's meeting of drug regulators that could place further restrictions on the use of Amgen’s anemia drugs Epogen and Aranesp, and the Johnson & Johnson drug Procrit. Among the choices to be discussed would be to eliminate use of the drugs for patients with certain types of tumors or for patients who still have hope of curing their cancers. From the NYT:

One of the big unanswered question is this: If the anemia drugs really are “Miracle-Gro for cancer,” as one F.D.A. adviser famously put it in a similar meeting last year, then what is the mechanism behind that? What do the drugs do to tumors? All the drugs are synthetic forms of a human hormone called erythropoietin, or Epo, that spurs production of red blood cells.

[CUT]

Amgen says there is no convincing evidence that Epo does anything in the body besides spur red blood cell production. The company thinks the excess deaths in the trials among Epo users might stem from blood clots. The clinical trials in question all used the anemia drugs to raise patients’ red blood cell levels more than what is recommended in the drugs’ labels. At those levels, blood clots are a known side effect. “There’s really no necessity to advance another explanation,” Dr. Roy Baynes, an Amgen vice president, said in an interview.

No worry about getting caught: Anthony Pellicano's onetime assistant Tarita Virtue said the Hollywood gumshoe told her that authorities weren't going to find any evidence of his alleged wiretapping. In her second day of testimony under a grant of immunity, Virtue said she became worried when Pellicano allegedly wiretapped the ex-girlfriend of a client. The calls were being routed directly into Pellicano's Sunset Strip offices with the help of a phone company technician who also is on trial. (LAT)

Tribune innovation: Well at least that's the idea in hiring Lee Abrams as its first-ever chief innovation officer. Abrams was senior vice president and chief creative officer at XM Satellite Radio Holdings Inc. On his personal blog (leeabrams.blogspot.com), he offered some thoughts on how a newspaper might help its Internet site stand out. "Maybe a slogan that's not hokey, marketing speak or typical could help define the Web strategy," he wrote. Slogans such as "The Universe at Your Finger" or "Everything . . . All the Time" might give a newspaper site some "character" and suggest "the unbelievable depth of information." I'm sure that will do the trick. (LAT)

Socal misses out on funds: The area will still get $1.65 billion but local officials had been hoping for $2.2 billion. Transportation funds traditionally have been allocated statewide on a 60/40 basis favoring Socal, but local officials argued that they were entitled to more because the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach process about 85 percent of the state's international trade. Nocal officials countered that their ports and trade routes also handle important stuff. (Daily News)