Wall Street Journal Top Online Stories: Thu 11/11/10

The Wall Street Journal lead headline online early Thursday morning says "G-20 Nears Pact but Tensions Still Fester." The paper says G-20 leaders neared an agreement that appears to paper over many differences, but one that's unlikely to end tension over currency and trade policies.

The paper says in an increasingly public campaign, Zahi Hawass, Egypt's larger-than-life antiquities chief, is hunting for treasures from some of the richest known troves—the world's prominent museums.

It says a student protest against tuition increases and budget cuts turned violent, as a small group of activists attacked a building housing the headquarters of the Conservative Party.

The paper says in the most read story that leaders of a White House commission laid out a sweeping plan to cut the federal budget deficit by hundreds of billions a year by targeting sacrosanct areas of U.S. tax and spending policy, such as Social Security benefits, middle-class tax breaks and defense spending.

It says the Fed's latest "quantitative easing" program is designed to bring down interest rates, but some are moving up instead. Rates have risen lately as investors avoid U.S. government debt.

And it says the FCC is investigating whether Google broke federal laws when its street-mapping service collected consumers' personal information.