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CNOOC Drops Bid for California-based Unocal

Shareholders won't get the chance to decide if Unocal of El Segundo will be sold to Chevron or CNOOC, the oil company owned by the Chinese government. With Congress calling for additional review, the China National Overseas Oil Corporation has cancelled its $18.4 billion offer. Executives from Unocal had scheduled meetings with shareholders this week to persuade them that Chevron has offered a better deal for their stock than CNOOC, whose offer could have meant more money. Both Chevron and Unocal are headquartered in California. We hear about free trade, national security and political interference from David Baker, who reports on business for the San Francisco Chronicle, and political scientist Wenran Jiang at the University of Alberta in Canada. Making News: Dairy Cows Are San Joaquin's Top Polluters The staff of the Central Valley's air pollution control district has bad news for farmers. Cattle are polluting the air so much they need to be regulated. In a region that's now the smoggiest in the United States, pollution from cattle is greater than emissions from cars and trucks by an astonishing 30 percent. Sarah Ruby, environmental reporter for the Bakersfield Californian, has the story. Reporter's Notebook: LA Times' Media Critic David Shaw Dies He won a Pulitzer Prize in 1991 but he was most famous among students of the profession as the first media reporter in the US given the independence to write about his own paper. David Shaw, who worked for the Los Angeles Times 37 years, died last night of a brain tumor at the age of 62. Former colleague Bryce Nelson, now a journalism professor at USC's Annenberg School for Communication, has a remembrance.