Thursday morning headlines

Stocks sharply higher: Why exactly is something else again. Traders might just be figuring it's time to get back into the water. Dow is up about 190 points in early trading. (NYT)

Growth revised downward: The economy grew at a 3 percent annual rate from January to March, slightly lower than the initial estimate of 3.2 percent. It turns out that consumers spent less than first estimated. (AP)

Top Kill looking good: The flow of oil and gas has stopped, says U.S. Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, although they still need to cement and seal the wellhead. BP still isn't saying much. (LAT)

Tiffany profit more than doubles: Another sign that the affluent are spending again. (MarketWatch)

Apple tops Microsoft: The maker of iPods, iPhones and iPads has surpassed the computer software giant in market capitalization. Only Exxon Mobil is higher. From the NYT:

This changing of the guard caps one of the most stunning turnarounds in business history for Apple, which had been given up for dead only a decade earlier, and its co-founder and visionary chief executive, Steven P. Jobs. The rapidly rising value attached to Apple by investors also heralds an important cultural shift: Consumer tastes have overtaken the needs of business as the leading force shaping technology.

Widespread fraud reported: L.A. County auditors found 101 cases in which taxpayers were cheated during the last six months of 2009 - and hundreds of other cases remain open. (LAT)

Small business owners getting smacked: Health insurance costs are rising so much - 12 percent to 23 percent, according to the LAT - that companies have held off on hiring and expansion.

In California, some small businesses say they are stunned by their latest insurance bills. Longtime customers of Blue Shield of California, for instance, are facing rate hikes as high as 76% after the insurer lost money on a handful of plans. "We don't have that money," said Ann Terranova, a San Francisco financial planner who is dropping Blue Shield for herself and two employees after learning that their annual premium would jump to more than $19,000 a year from $11,000.

Soap opera channel to go dark: Disney is pulling the plug on SOAPnet to make way for Disney Junior, a 24/7 channel for preschoolers. From Entertainment Weekly:

Ironically, SOAPnet - which is available in 75 million homes - has only positive news to report when it comes to viewership levels these days. For the fifteenth consecutive month, SOAPnet says its the No. 1 basic cable net in loyalty among women 18-49, and season-to-date, is up 4 percent from a year ago in the key demo. It has become a haven for soap fans who didn't catch original episodes of CBS' The Young and the Restless, NBC's Days of Our Lives, and ABC's All My Children, General Hospital and One Life to Live during the day. It also airs repeats of old sudsers like Beverly Hills, 9010 and The O.C., as well.

Will THR survive? The LAT's Patrick Goldstein says the hiring of Janice Min as editorial director gives the Reporter an edge over Variety:

Everyone in Hollywood seems obsessed by the fact that she is -- gasp! -- an editor without any real business background who, following in Bonnie Fuller's lead, kept Us drinking at the trough of tacky celebrity sightings and scandals. But if the Reporter is going to survive, it's going to have to reinvent its brand and separate itself out from the wolf pack of blogs that obsess over every "Transformers 3" casting decision and every new wrinkle in the now tedious saga of which suitor will get to buy Disney's defunct Miramax subsidiary.