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The government reported that gross domestic product shrank at a 6.1 percent annual rate, worse than economists expected, dampening hopes that the slowdown was easing.

A Mexican toddler who came to the U.S. with his family on a visit has died in Texas of the swine flu, Texas officials said.

In this week’s issue:
Alliance 3PL signs for 415,800 square feet at the CenterPoint Intermodal Center
Genco takes 354,400 square feet in Cincinnati
Sanyo Logistics signs for 215,000 square feet in Chicago
Kirkland & Ellis leases 90,000 square feet…

Morgan Stanley, the battered financial services firm, is sending a prominent Rockville, MD, office building back to its former owner for nearly $12 million less than what it paid for the property three years ago.

The buyer, JBG Cos., is paying $43…

Ahead of Bank of America‘s annual meeting on Wednesday, the activist filmmaker Robert Greenwald is helping lead the charge to fire Kenneth D. Lewis, the bank’s embattled chief executive, with a critical video on YouTube.

A Florida hedge fund manager, Arthur G. Nadel, was indicted Tuesday on 15 counts of securities, mail and wire fraud, accusing him of running a 10-year scheme to defraud investors of tens of millions of dollars.

Commanders are planning to cut off the Taliban’s main source of money, the country’s multimillion-dollar opium crop, by doubling the number of troops in three provinces.

The decision by Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania to switch parties potentially presents Democrats with a 60th vote and the power to break Senate filibusters.

Some financial recruiters say bankers are entering a new era when it comes to compensation — one that might resemble the relatively lean ’70s.

Calpers, the nation’s largest pension fund, announced Tuesday that it would vote against the re-election of all 18 directors of Bank of America, including its chairman and chief executive, Kenneth D. Lewis, at the bank’s annual meeting on Wednesday.

The decision by Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania to switch parties potentially presents Democrats with a 60th vote and the power to break Senate filibusters.

Chrysler’s secured creditors have reached a preliminary deal with the Treasury Department, two people briefed on the matter said on Tuesday.

I have added widgets for swine flu coverage on both Twitter and FriendFeed on my blog at http://robwire.com I have been posting a lot of news stories and information on the swine flu epidemic on both and you can read the latest from the widgets if you are not currently subscribed to me on Twitter [...]

In this week’s edition, HB Equities lines up $1.2 billion in financing for the Main Street development in Glendale, AZ; construction firms receive a $1.3 billion contract to build a 20-mile extension of Houston’s light-rail system; after five years,…

From Randy Cohen, a colleague at the Moral of the Story blog:
These are dark days for Bernard and Ruth Madoff. His Mets tickets were sold on eBay; she was banned from the Pierre Michel Salon.
Through it all, this question persists: did she know about his $65 billion Ponzi scheme? Regardless of the answer, should [...]

Chrysler’s unsecured creditors have reached a preliminary agreement with the Treasury Department that may keep the company out of bankruptcy court, The New York Times reported, citing two people briefed on the matter.
Chrysler has about $6.9 billion in unsecured debt owned by big banks such as Citigroup and JPMorgan Chase and a group of hedge [...]

Chrysler’s unsecured creditors have reached a preliminary deal with the Treasury Department, two people briefed on the matter said on Tuesday.

The number of deaths believed attributable to swine flu climbed to as many as 152 on Tuesday — all of them in Mexico — as some countries imposed new border controls.

Regulators charged California money manager Danny Pang with fraud for lying to investors about hundreds of millions of dollars of their money he was using to buy life insurance policies and real estate timeshares. The assets of Mr. Pang’s, Private Equity Management Group, were temporarily frozen by a federal judge.

Daimler of Germany said Monday that it had agreed to divest its remaining 19.9 percent stake in Chrysler, ending an ordeal that began with a stunning 1998 merger that later went sour.

The Obama administration dispatched high-level officials from several agencies to demonstrate that it was fully prepared to confront the outbreak.

The percentage of blacks who say that race relations are generally good has doubled since last July, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll.

A New York judge will hear arguments on Monday that could disqualify Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, the iconic Silicon Valley law firm, from defending a client because of alleged conflicts of interest.
The alleged conflict involves Yehoshua Segal, a former senior executive at Varonis Systems, a New York-based technology start-up. Mr. Segal is suing the [...]

From Vikas Bajaj, a New York Times colleague based in Mumbai:
Henry Kravis, the famous private equity investor, said Monday that his firm was committed to investing in India, but would do so at a slow and steady pace.
Mr. Kravis, one of the three founders of the firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, also told reporters here that [...]

General Motors, which said it needed $11.4 billion more in government loans, offered bondholders 225 shares for every $1,000 they hold.

During five years as head of the New York Fed, Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner built unusually close relationships with Wall Street executives.

Update | 9:38 p.m. Union leaders said Sunday that they had reached an agreement with Chrysler that meets the federal government’s requirements for the automaker to receive more financing, The New York Times’s Nick Bunkley and Bill Vlasic reported.
The deal also includes Fiat, the Italian automaker with which Chrysler was ordered by the government to [...]