Wednesday morning headlines

Still wobbly after a bout with kidney stones. Postings will be hit and miss.

Stocks keep falling: Not a lot but enough to remind everyone that the spring surge is history. Dow is off about 30 after two hours.

Oil down to low $60s: As good an indicator as any that the economy is going nowhere fast. U.S. light crude for August delivery dropped $1.24 to $61.69 a barrel, off from last month's $70+ prices. Perhaps another reason for the price drop: A new effort by regulators to crack down on speculators. (Reuters)

Gloomy news for shipping: Trade at international ports could fall more than 10 percent this year, a decline that will be seriously felt in Socal, one of the world's biggest centers for shipping. Only some improvement is expected next year. From the LAT:

The ramifications for the Los Angeles and the Long Beach ports will be felt in some of the best-paying blue-collar jobs in the nation, as longshore workers lose hours at the docks, truckers have fewer containers to carry and railroad traffic ebbs. The Inland Empire, which has the nation's second-highest unemployment rate among urban areas because of the collapse of its warehouse and distribution system, will continue to suffer, said Jack Kyser, chief economist for the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp.

No urgency on CA budget: Seems like lawmakers and the governor are willing to wait it out as much as several more weeks. That's when the state finally runs short of cash to make legally mandated payments to schools and bondholders. From the San Jose Mercury:

An extended delay would come at a huge cost to California's prestige, possibly sending its credit rating into junk-bond territory and driving an untold number of companies that rely on state money out of business. "We're in deep trouble in September, if not sooner," Chiang said in an interview Tuesday.

L.A. traffic better, still bad: Car pool lanes and mass transit helped shed two hours of wait-time in rush-hour traffic in 2007, according to the Texas Transportation Institute. But L.A. traffic remains worst in the nation, with drivers wasting an average of 70 hours. The average driver in the U.S. lost 36.1 hours. (AP)

Amgen gets lift: Some promising test results from the T.O.-based company's experimental osteoporosis drug is boosting the stock almost 16 percent this morning. The tests show reduced and delayed serious bone complications among patients with advanced breast cancer. From Reuters:

Amgen is awaiting U.S. approval of denosumab as a treatment for post-menopausal osteoporosis. Potential use of the medicine to avert bone damage among cancer patients could provide a lucrative additional sales avenue for the company's most valuable experimental medicine. Amgen, based in Thousand Oaks, California, is one of the world's biggest biotech companies, but has posted disappointing sales in recent quarters due to concerns about the safety of its anemia drugs and the impact of the global recession.