NEW YORK (AP) -- Yahoo Inc. began pressing a case to major shareholders Monday that its board and management deserve a chance to prove they made the right move when they rejected a $47.5 billion takeover offer from Microsoft Corp.

The missed opportunity to sell to Microsoft infuriated many Yahoo shareholders, prompting activist investor Carl Icahn to agitate for replacing Yahoo's nine directors and reviving negotiations with Microsoft. If he gains control of the board, Icahn intends to fire Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang as chief executive.

In response, Yahoo has assembled a 32-page presentation for shareholders to elaborate on the points it has been emphasizing since Microsoft withdrew its bid May 3.

Investors will decide the dustup in a vote scheduled Aug. 1 at Yahoo's annual meeting. That leaves another month for the Sunnyvale, Calif.-based company and Icahn to disparage each other.

And with Yahoo shares sliding back toward $19.18 -- their value before Microsoft's bid -- Yahoo's management is facing even more pressure to end the financial malaise that triggered the takeover bid in the first place. Yahoo shares fell 67 cents Monday to close at $20.66.

Icahn didn't respond to a request for comment Monday, but he wrote on his blog last week that he would share his latest opinions on Yahoo "shortly."

Yahoo argues that entrusting the company's fate to Icahn would be foolhardy because his strategy

NEW YORK (AP) -- The price of crude oil hit yet another record on the last day of a tumultuous first half, spurting past $143 a barrel before ending lower on demand fears and a resilient dollar. Crude has shot up nearly 50 percent since the start of the year, in large part on the dollar's troubles, and analysts expect that trend to remain intact as the second half of 2008 begins.

A government report lowering oil and gasoline demand estimates and a dollar hanging tough nullified investor concerns over supply, a fragile global economy and continued tensions in the Middle East.

"What this shows is that demand destruction in the U.S. is a lot larger than previously thought," said Phil Flynn, an energy analyst at Alaron Trading Corp. in Chicago. "There are more signs that demand is deteriorating."

Light, sweet crude for August delivery lost 21 cents to settle at $140.00 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. In early electronic trading, the contract hit a record $143.67.

The Energy Information Administration reported that oil usage in April was lower than previously estimated, falling to 4.2 percent to 19.768 million barrels per day from 20.631 million. That was 3.9 percent lower than in April 2007 and the lowest level for the month in six years.

The price of oil, which began 2008 at $96 a barrel, has risen in part on expectations of higher demand in China and other developing nations. But its almost relentless advance has also forced consumers and

These simple steps will ensure your retirement and insurance money ends up in the right hands.

As you may already know, June is the most popular month in this country for weddings. So now that the marrying month is almost over, I thought it might be a good idea to turn the focus to - what else? - divorce!

I don't mean to be a downer about it, but the reality is, the divorce rate in America has hovered pretty close to the 50% mark for years now. And while there are lots of financial (not to mention emotional) complexities related to divorce, financial planners say one of the most common mistakes people make after getting un-hitched is simply failing to update the beneficiary forms on their retirement accounts.

And that can lead to all kinds of unintended financial consequences years, or even decades, down the road.

Here's why: if you get divorced, you'll probably make a point of updating your will to exclude your ex-spouse. But what you may not realize is that your will has no bearing whatsoever on who inherits any money sitting in your qualified retirement accounts - including an IRA, 401(k), 403(b) or traditional company pension plan - at the time of your death.

And that means you might unwittingly be enriching your ex-spouse - while simultaneously cutting off the people you really want to leave your money to. "It happens all the time," says Howard Hook, a CPA and

The big spender who won this year's "Power Lunch with Warren Buffett" charity auction with a record high bid of $2,110,100 is Zhao Danyang of the Hong-Kong based Pure Heart China Growth Investment Fund, according to a spokesperson for San Francisco's Glide Foundation.

I spoke with Zhao by telephone late tonight. He told me his investment philosophy is very similar to Buffett's and he has "lots of questions" to ask him. He's especially interested in Buffett's opinion on China and its economy, in light of the fact that country has "grown up" very quickly.

An article in Asia Times Online last February described Zhao as an early investor in China's class-A shares, who liquidated all five of his firm's mainland funds to lock in profits from that market's enormous gains. That decision, says Asia Times, was "like a stone thrown into a quiet lake" because Zhao had been praised for establishing a China fund in 2004 "when the market at the time was dominated by bears."

Zhao told me he decided to sell when price to earnings ratios grew too high and he started having trouble finding "cheap and good" stocks.

Zhao says he sold before Buffett's own decision to eliminate his stake in PetroChina last fall based on its massive price appreciation.

Pure Heart's website includes a page on its investment philosophy headlined "Abandon Pure Technical Analysis and Adhere to Company Fundamentals."

Glide is also a big winner tonight as it gets 100 percent of the proceeds from the eBay Charity Works

FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) -- Conglomerate Siemens AG, wracked by a wide-ranging corruption scandal, will cut up to 4 percent of its work force worldwide, or about 17,200 jobs, a pair of newspapers reported Saturday.

The Sueddeutsche Zeitung reported that the Munich-based company was set to shed the jobs -- mostly white-collar and administrative -- without citing any sources. The Wall Street Journal also reported a similar figure, citing a person who was familiar with the matter.

Siemens did not comment on either report, only to say that it did not comment on market rumors.

The German paper said that of the cuts to the company's global work force of approximately 435,000 staffers, some 6,400 could come in Germany, where it employs around 136,000 people.

Both papers said the company cited the rough economic conditions worldwide as one reason for the cuts, but Siemens CEO Peter Loescher warned earlier this year that the company faced a bumpy road.

In March, Siemens issued a profit warning saying that weaker-than-expected performance in its major business projects this quarter was going to pull earnings down by approximately $1.41 billion.

The warning was a surprise for the conglomerate, whose diverse products include trams, turbines and telecommunications equipment, given that it had said in January that sales were expected to double the

NEW YORK (AP) -- Oil futures shot above $140 Thursday after OPEC's president said crude prices could rise well above $150 a barrel this year and Libya said it may cut oil production. The advance raised the likelihood that gasoline prices would also extend their march higher, and that prices of goods and services throughout the economy would also keep rising.

Light, sweet crude crossed the $140 level minutes before the New York Mercantile Exchange closed Thursday, then retreated slightly to settle up $5.09 at a record $139.64. In after-hours electronic trading, prices rose as high as a record $140.39.

Oil's latest milestone came as Chakib Khelil, president of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, said he believes oil prices could rise to between $150 and $170 a barrel this summer. Khelil also said prices will decline later in the year, and aren't likely to reach $200 a barrel.

Khelil joined a long list of forecasters who have made bold oil price predictions this year. Each new forecast -- such as Goldman Sachs' recent prediction that prices could rise as high as $200 -- causes a jump in prices as speculative buyers are drawn into the market.

Meanwhile, the head of Libya's national oil company said the country may cut crude production because the oil market is well supplied, according to news reports.

"Shokri Ghanem, the nation's top oil official, declined to say when a decision would be made on whether to

ST. LOUIS (AP) -- Anheuser-Busch Cos. rejected an unsolicited $46 billion purchase offer from InBev Thursday, just hours after the Belgian brewer appeared to set the stage for a hostile takeover bid.

Anheuser-Busch Chief Executive August Busch IV sent a letter to InBev Chief Executive Carlos Brito saying the offer greatly undervalued the largest U.S. brewer, calling the $65-a-share price "financially inadequate" and not in the best interests of its shareholders.

"From your standpoint, we see that now could be opportunistic timing for you to make this acquisition, given the weak U.S. dollar and sluggish U.S. stock market," Busch said in the letter. "From the standpoint of the Anheuser-Busch shareholder, however, a transaction with InBev at this time would mean forgoing the greater value obtainable from Anheuser-Busch's strategic growth plan."

Earlier in the day, InBev filed a suit in Delaware court, where Anheuser-Busch is incorporated, seeking to officially declare that shareholders can remove all 13 members of Anheuser-Busch's board. Such a declaration could be the first step to rally Anheuser-Busch shareholders to accept InBev's offer, even if management is opposed to it.

"This is an extremely aggressive step," said Douglas Cogen, a mergers and acquisitions attorney with the Fenwick & West law firm in San Francisco.

In most acquisitions, a rejection from the target company's board of directors might draw out a sweeter

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- Yahoo Inc. is setting up a new chain of command amid the turmoil triggered by the embattled Internet icon's snub of Microsoft Corp.'s $47.5 billion takeover bid.

Under the new pecking order announced Thursday, Yahoo executive vice presidents Hilary Schneider and Ash Patel are being given expanded responsibilities over the Sunnyvale-based company's products and sales teams.

Schneider, a former newspaper executive, has been moving up the ranks since she joined Yahoo in September 2006. Patel has played a key role in developing many of Yahoo's most popular products, including its finance section and instant messaging service, since joining the company 12 years ago.

Yahoo also is reorganizing its technology division in an effort to use its computing power more effectively and improve the coordination between its product developers and engineers.

This is the third time in 19 months that Yahoo has redrawn its management chart as it tries to snap out of a financial malaise that has ravaged its stock price, jeopardized its independence and demoralized employees.

In the other two shake-ups since November 2006, chief operating officer Dan Rosensweig and Chief Executive Terry Semel resigned.

This time, both of Yahoo's top executives -- co-founder and CEO Jerry Yang and President Susan Decker -