Billionaire investor Ron Burkle is working with a union representing workers at Dow Jones & Co to explore alternatives to Rupert Murdoch's $5bn (€3.69bn) bid for the company, which publishes The Wall Street Journal.

A combination of moderate inflation and falling oil prices energised Wall Street today, sending stocks higher as investors grew optimistic about an end to the Federal Reserve’s interest rate hikes.

Daniel Pearl, the Wall Street Journal reporter who was taken hostage by Islamic extremists in Pakistan, is now believed to be dead, the newspaper said in New York tonight.