ST. LOUIS, Missouri (AP) -- Belgian brewer InBev has announced it will buy its U.S. rival Anheuser-Busch for $52 billion to create the world's largest brewer.
The deal would create the world's largest brewer and put the U.S. beer-maker in the hands of Belgian-based InBev.
The acquisition means control over America's largest brewer, the No. 2 worldwide, moves overseas. Based in St. Louis, Missouri, Anheuser-Busch has more than 48 percent of American market share with brands that include Bud Light.
InBev confirmed the details of the purchase of Anheuser-Busch early Monday. It first bid for Anheuser-Busch on June 11.
InBev is the world's second largest beer maker, with brands that include Stella Artois and Becks.
The deal must be approved by shareholders and European and US antitrust regulators. The merger will produce the fourth-largest consumer product company worldwide.
Anheuser-Busch Cos. Inc. did not return messages seeking comment Sunday evening.
The Wall Street Journal said the deal was for $70 a share, a $5 increase over the offer Anheuser-Busch rejected in June.
It wasn't immediately clear how long approval might take from regulators and shareholders. Several Missouri politicians have expressed concerns about the merger -- especially how it would affect the approximate 6,000 people employed by Anheuser-Busch in St. Louis.
InBev has said it plans to use St. Louis as its North American headquarters, and that it will keep open all 12 of Anheuser-Busch's North American breweries.
InBev SA announced its intent to try and purchase Anheuser-Busch on June 11. The Anheuser-Busch board initially voted against the merger, calling the initial $65 per share offer too low.
That prompted much squabbling between the companies over the past few weeks. InBev filed a motion seeking the removal of all 13 Anheuser-Busch board members; Anheuser-Busch filed suit calling the InBev effort an "illegal scheme" that threatened to defraud Anheuser-Busch shareholders. Among other things, the suit noted that InBev failed to disclose it operates a brewery in Cuba.
So it was with some surprise when reports surfaced on Friday that the two companies were sitting down for merger talks, reportedly after InBev upped its offer by $5 to $70 per share.
The merger, if completed, will bring to an end to one of the most iconic names in U.S. business and a name synonymous with St. Louis. From college buildings to offices to the stadium where the Cardinals play, the Busch name is virtually everywhere in the Gateway City.
Eberhard Anheuser acquired the Bavarian brewery in 1860 and renamed it E. Anheuser & Co. His son-in-law, Adolphus Busch, joined the company in 1864 and it was eventually renamed Anheuser-Busch.
The company survived Prohibition by selling products ranging from ice cream to root beer.
In addition to opposition from politicians and civic leaders, at least two Web sites sprung up opposing the merger. SaveBudweiser.com claims to have more than 60,000 signatures from merger opponents. SaveAB.com hosted a recent anti-merger rally that drew hundreds to downtown St. Louis.
InBev has not said if layoffs will occur as a result of the merger. But some cutbacks seem likely.
Even without the merger, Anheuser-Busch said last month it planned to cut pension and health benefits for salaried employees as part of an effort to slash $1 billion in costs by the end of 2010. The plan called for offering early retirement to 1,300 salaried workers 55 and older.
The cost-cutting effort -- dubbed "Blue Ocean" by the company -- was part of a strategy to fend off the merger.
The beer industry has been consolidating in recent years amid rising costs for transportation fuel and key ingredients.
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The House majority whip and the top ranking African-American in Congress is expected to endorse Sen. Barack Obama in the Democratic presidential race on Tuesday, several sources told CNN.
Rep. James Clyburn has so far been neutral in the race between the front-running Obama and Sen. Hillary Clinton, the former first lady.
But sources close to the South Carolina congressman and high-level Democratic operatives said Clyburn will throw his support to Obama on Tuesday -- the day of the last Democratic primaries, in South Dakota and Montana.
Meanwhile, four of the 17 uncommitted Democratic senators gathered at the party's Senate campaign committee headquarters to discuss their course of action after those primaries. All are party superdelegates whose support will tip the balance of the Clinton-Obama race.
"It was just a dialogue about moving to peace -- how are we going to create unity in the Democratic Party," said Sen. Ken Salazar, D-Colorado, one of the participants.
Another participant, Maryland's Sen. Ben Cardin, said he expected to make a decision in the next few days.
"I think most people realize this process is coming to an end, and it's important to bring this matter to a conclusion," Cardin said. "As I've said all along, I've said my support would be for the person who had the most support, without any specific formula, in the primaries and caucuses and had the momentum going into the general election and has our best chance of winning in November. I think most of the information is known. Just two more states to go."
Most of the 17 will endorse Obama later this week, two sources familiar with the senators' discussions said. But Montana Sen. Jon Tester, who did not attend Monday's meeting, said he was willing to wait until Tuesday's results before making a decision.
"I want to wait until it all plays out in Montana," Tester said. "I think that what's happened over the last couple weeks in Montana and South Dakota has been nothing short of amazing, with Sen. Obama and Sen. Clinton crisscrossing both of those states and giving us the kind of exposure to national candidates like we've literally never had before."
Tester and Cardin were among the Democrats whose 2006 wins gave the party control of the Senate.
Clinton told reporters Sunday after winning the Democratic primary in Puerto Rico that she was taking the presidential race "a day at a time" and is reviewing the "options available" as she moves ahead with her campaign.
Her campaign got a boost from the Saturday ruling by the party's Rules and Bylaws Committee that gives the disputed delegations from Florida and Michigan half their votes.
"People have been trying to get me out of this race since Iowa and my political obituary has yet to be written and we're going forward," she said.
Obama is 46 delegates short of the 2,118 needed to clinch the Democratic nomination, while Clinton needs 202. There are 31 pledged delegates up for grabs in the Tuesday contests, and 202 superdelegates have yet to commit to either candidate.
Obama has the support of 331 superdelegates -- unpledged Democratic elected officials and party leaders. Clinton has 292.
WASHINGTON DC (CNN) -- A new poll suggests that President Bush is the most unpopular president in modern American history.
A CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll shows 71 percent disapprove of President Bush's job performance.
A CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey released Thursday indicates that 71 percent of the American public disapprove of how Bush is handling his job as president.
"No president has ever had a higher disapproval rating in any CNN or Gallup Poll; in fact, this is the first time that any president's disapproval rating has cracked the 70 percent mark," said Keating Holland, CNN's polling director.
"Bush's approval rating, which stands at 28 percent in our new poll, remains better than the all-time lows set by Harry Truman and Richard Nixon [22 percent and 24 percent, respectively], but even those two presidents never got a disapproval rating in the 70s," Holland said. "The previous all-time record in CNN or Gallup polling was set by Truman, 67 percent disapproval in January 1952."
While Gallup polling goes back to the 1930s, it wasn't until the Truman years that they began surveying monthly approval ratings.
CNN Senior Political Analyst Bill Schneider adds, "He is more unpopular than Richard Nixon was just before he resigned from the presidency in August 1974."
President Nixon's disapproval rating in August 1974 stood at 66 percent The poll also indicates that support for the war in Iraq has never been lower. Thirty percent of those questioned favored the war, while 68 percent opposed it.
"Americans are growing more pessimistic about the war," Holland said. "In January, nearly half believed that things were going well for the U.S. in Iraq; now that figure has dropped to 39 percent."
The numbers on the Iraq war come on the five-year anniversary of Bush's "Mission Accomplished" moment on board the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, when he proclaimed that "major combat operations in Iraq have ended."
The record-low support for the war in a CNN poll could be one reason behind the president's unpopularity, but it probably is not the only one.
"Support for the war, the assessment of the economy and approval of Mr. Bush are all about the same -- bad," Schneider said.
(CNN) -- "Larry King Live" has devoted lots of time to the views of all the presidential candidates and their backers. Last week, King spoke to Sen. Hillary Clinton, and there's a standing invitation to all three candidates to appear as guests on his show any night.
TV host Larry King interviews documentary filmmaker Michael Moore on Wednesday.
On Wednesday night, King spoke to Oscar-winning documentary filmmaker Michael Moore, who in April endorsed Sen. Barack Obama. Not surprisingly, Moore didn't hold anything back.
Larry King: When you were last here in February, you said you had opinions on the race, but were not endorsing anybody. What changed?
Michael Moore: Well, I think that the whole movement behind Obama is very impressive. And I think it's a good thing for the country. As far as Obama as a candidate, I think that this is a very decent individual. And I've been just impressed through the various debates as to how he's handled himself, how he has responded to the issues and responded to people.
King: What about how he's handled the Rev. [Jeremiah] Wright thing?
Moore: Jeez, you know, I mean I go to Mass still. I'm a practicing Catholic. I've been that way all my life. But if I had -- if I had gotten up every time I heard a priest from the pulpit in my travels around the country say things like I've heard them say, that birth control is a sin, that women should not be priests, that women should have a different role in church ...
King: You'd be walking out all the time?
Moore: I would have been walking out so much -- that would have been so much aerobic activity for me ... I wouldn't look like this.
King: OK. You announced your endorsement of Obama on April 21 in a letter on your Web site. You also slammed Hillary Clinton. ... Why so rough?
Moore: Well, I supported her run for Senate. My wife and I contributed to her campaign. But the huge disappointment was when she was presented with an opportunity for a moment -- a profile in courage moment in October of 2002 -- to not give Bush the authorization to go to war, she voted for war. And she continued to vote for war for the years after that ... and I'm disappointed in that. But when I said [i] 'disgusted,' that came with the ABC debate. When she threw out [Nation of Islam leader Louis] Farrakhan, when she said the word Farrakhan and Hamas -- to somehow attach that to Sen. Obama -- I just thought that was beneath everything that she used to stand for. And I think at some point, she's going to be disappointed in herself for having done that. King: Are you so disappointed that you would consider, if she got the nomination, [voting] for [Sen. John] McCain?
Moore: Absolutely not. No, no, no ... most people I know are just going to stagger into the voting booth in November and look for the big "D" on the ballot. And it really isn't going to matter what the name is on there, whether it's ...
King: You think a Democrat's going to win?
Moore: Yes. ... We've been through eight years of misery. And it's not just the war, although that should be enough right there. But it's everything from what people are paying for gas now to our health care mess and everything else in this country that has just -- we've lost so much time.
King: Don't you think, Michael, that the Democrats [are] the one party that can figure out a way to lose this?
Moore: It's not about the Democratic Party. This has gone beyond that. That's what's so great about Obama is that he's not a partisan person in that way.
King: Do you think the Rev. Wright thing is over?
Moore: It's over when cable news decides it's over ... and when these networks come up with something new. I mean, I was kind of enjoying the flag lapel controversy. By the way, Larry King, where is your flag lapel pin? I don't see it on you.
King: Where's yours?
Moore: Well, I'm wearing mine. That's right. It's the world's smallest flag lapel pin. ... You just can't see it.
King: Microscopic.
Moore: That's why you don't wear a coat, so you don't have to wear the flag lapel pin.
King: So you found me out.
Moore: Yes, that's right.
King: How are [Americans] going to turn out and vote -- what percentage?
Moore: I think we're going to have a huge turnout this year. People are crying uncle right now with what they've had to go through, and they're not going to want four more years of this. In spite of whatever concerns they may have about Sen. Obama, or if it turns out to be Sen. Clinton [who is the nominee] ... they'll put those aside when they think about four more years of what we have had for the last eight years. That's not going to go down with the American people.
King: Are your security guards ready to escort you out?
Moore: I actually have no security here ... the power of prayer protects me.
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Six men being held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, will go before military commissions and could face the death penalty if it is judged they were involved in the September 11, 2001, attacks, a general said Monday.
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is one of six Guantanamo detainees to be charged, a general says.
The men will be treated like members of the U.S. military during their judicial proceedings, he said.
The proceedings will be dictated by the Military Commissions Act, which Congress passed to handle arrestees in the war on terror. The act requires that the detainees have access to lawyers as well as to any evidence presented against them.
They also will have the right to appeal a guilty verdict, potentially through a civilian appeals court and perhaps the U.S. Supreme Court, according to the act. The government plans to make the proceedings as public as possible, said Brig Gen. Thomas Hartmann. Watch Hartmann outline the charges »
What is murkier, however, is whether a military prosecutor will be able to use any information or confessions gleaned through controversial tactics like waterboarding, an interrogation technique designed to simulate drowning. That will be up to a judge to decide, Hartmann said.
"It's our obligation to move the process forward to give these people their rights," he said. "We are going to give them rights that are virtually identical to the rights we provide to our military members."
Despite Hartmann's guarantees, Charles Swift, a former U.S. Navy attorney, said the process will not afford detainees an adequate defense. He also raised concerns that trying and executing the men unfairly could make them martyrs in the eyes of extremists.
"The losers will be the American public unless some fundamental changes are made very quickly," he said.
Hartmann, the legal adviser to the military commission trying the men, announced Monday that the government will seek the death penalty against the six detainees, including alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. Prosecutors hope to try the men together.
Among the charges leveled against the men are murder and conspiracy "in violation of the law of war," attacking civilians and terrorism. Four of the suspects will also be charged with hijacking, Hartmann said.
The 169 charges allege a "long-term, highly sophisticated plan by al Qaeda to attack the United States of America," he said.
Though the proceedings will not be televised, Hartmann said the government intends to keep the proceedings as open as possible except when classified information is presented that could compromise national security.
"I've been advised by the prosecutors that relatively little amounts of evidence will be classified, but it's still a possibility, and we have rules and procedures and rules of evidence in place to deal with that," Hartmann said. "There will be no secret trials."
The suspects are accused of helping plan the September 11 attacks in which hijackers flew two jets into the World Trade Center in New York and another jet into the Pentagon in Washington. Another hijacked plane crashed near Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
According to the 9/11 Commission Report, 2,974 people were killed in the attacks, not including the 19 hijackers.
Charged along with Mohammed are:
Mohammed al-Qahtani, the so-called 20th hijacker in the 9/11 attacks;
Ramzi bin al-Shibh, accused of being an intermediary between the hijackers and al Qaeda leaders and finding flight schools for the hijackers;
Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali, alleged to have sent approximately $127,000 to hijackers and arranging travel for nine of them;
Mustafa Ahmed al-Hawsawi, accused of providing the hijackers with money, clothes and credit cards;
Walid bin Attash, who is accused of training two of the 9/11 hijackers and assisting in the hijacking plan.
Mohammed, bin Attash, al-Shibh and Ali will also be charged with hijacking or hazarding an aircraft, Hartmann said.
Judge Susan Crawford will decide whether to approve the charges and prosecutors' request to seek the death penalty, Hartmann said. The detainees would then enter pleas within 30 days.
A military commission would be assembled within 120 days at the U.S. Naval Base Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. If Crawford approves the charges, it will mark the first time that Guantanamo detainees have been charged in the September 11 attacks.
About 380 foreign nationals are being held at Guantanamo. The detainees' lawyers have repeatedly complained that their clients are being denied due process.
The U.S. Supreme Court has twice expressed reservations about how the government handles detainees at the U.S. naval base.
In 2006, the high court ruled the Bush administration's use of military tribunals was unconstitutional because the system did not allow terror suspects to challenge their detention.
Congress last year passed the Military Commissions Act, which provided terror suspects with a limited right to appeal convictions and reduced the jurisdiction of federal courts.
According to the act, the detainees will be allowed to see all evidence against them, call defense witnesses and cross-examine prosecution witnesses.
If Crawford approves seeking the death penalty in the cases, the 12-member military commission must unanimously find the detainees guilty. The detainees will be allowed to appeal guilty verdicts in the Court of Military Commission Review, then the District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals and then the U.S. Supreme Court.
Several legal and political challenges will be presented during the proceedings, and CNN senior legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin said it could be five years before the trials are complete. Watch why the trials could prove to be difficult »
"One thing's clear about Guantanamo is that the next president is going to have to resolve this," Toobin said.
One hurdle lies in seeking the death penalty. Key U.S. allies like Australia and Britain have blasted the U.S. for seeking the death penalty and have vowed to fight efforts to execute any of their national held at Guantanamo. Most countries join Australia and Britain in their opposition to capital punishment.
Another issue expected to stall the process is whether prosecutors will be able to use information gathered using controversial interrogation techniques.
On February 5, CIA Director Michael Hayden for the first time publicly confirmed Mohammed and two other terror suspects were subjected to waterboarding.
The technique was used on top al Qaeda detainees in the aftermath of the attacks to "help us prevent catastrophic loss of life of Americans or their allies," Hayden said.
After Monday's announcement, Hayden, in a memo obtained by CNN, wrote CIA employees to laud the decision to try the detainees and called it "a crucial milestone on the road to justice for the victims of 9/11."
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