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Valero Energy Corp. says its profit quadrupled in the third quarter as it cut raw material costs while the price of gasoline and other fuels increased. Valero also boosted production.

America’s largest oil refiner on Tuesday reported net income of $1.2 billion, or $2.11 per share, for the three-month period ended Sept. 30. That compares with $292 million, or 51 cents per share, for the same part of 2010.

Revenue increased 60.4 percent to $33.7 billion in the quarter business card.

Analysts expect Valero to earn $1.80 per share on revenue of $31.4 billion, according to FactSet.

The San Antonio company said that it focused on using light-sweet oil varieties that were cheaper than others. While its raw material costs fell, gasoline, diesel and jet fuel prices rose.

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The dollar has jumped against the yen after Japanese monetary authorities intervened in the currency market to weaken the yen, whose recent appreciation has hurt the country’s vital exporters.

Monday’s action, confirmed by Finance Minister Jun Azumi, came after the Japanese currency had surged to a post-World War II high of 75.32 yen against the dollar earlier Monday bad credit unsecured personal loans.

By 11:45 a.m., Tokyo time, the dollar has risen sharply to 79.19 yen.

The strong yen erodes overseas earnings for Japanese exporters.

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SAN FRANCISCO — A new biography portrays Steve Jobs as a skeptic all his life — giving up religion because he was troubled by starving children, calling executives who took over Apple “corrupt” and delaying cancer surgery in favour of cleansings and herbal medicine.

“Steve Jobs” by Walter Isaacson, to be published Monday, also says Jobs came up with the company’s name while he was on a diet of fruits and vegetables, and as a teenager perfected staring at people without blinking.

The Associated Press purchased a copy of the book Thursday.

The book delves into Jobs’ decision to delay surgery for nine months after learning in October 2003 that he had a neuroendocrine tumour — a relatively rare type of pancreatic cancer that normally grows more slowly and is therefore more treatable.

Instead, he tried a vegan diet, acupuncture, herbal remedies and other treatments he found online, and even consulted a psychic. He also was influenced by a doctor who ran a clinic that advised juice fasts, bowel cleansings and other unproven approaches, the book says, before finally having surgery in July 2004.

Isaacson, quoting Jobs, writes in the book: “‘I really didn’t want them to open up my body, so I tried to see if a few other things would work,’ he told me years later with a hint of regret.”

Jobs died Oct. 5, at age 56, after a battle with cancer.

The book also provides insight into the unravelling of Jobs’ relationship with Eric Schmidt, the former CEO of Google and an Apple board member from 2006 to 2009. Schmidt had quit Apple’s board as Google and Apple went head-to-head in smartphones, Apple with its iPhone and Google with its Android software.

Isaacson wrote that Jobs was livid in January 2010 when HTC introduced an Android phone that boasted many of the popular features of the iPhone. Apple sued, and Jobs told Isaacson in an expletive-laced rant that Google’s actions amounted to “grand theft.”

“I will spend my last dying breath if I need to, and I will spend every penny of Apple’s $40 billion in the bank, to right this wrong,” Jobs said. “I’m going to destroy Android, because it’s a stolen product. I’m willing to go thermonuclear war on this.”

Jobs used an expletive to describe Android and Google Docs, Google’s Internet-based word processing program. In a subsequent meeting with Schmidt at a Palo Alto, California, cafe, Jobs told Schmidt that he wasn’t interested in settling the lawsuit, the book says.

“I don’t want your money. If you offer me $5 billion, I won’t want it. I’ve got plenty of money. I want you to stop using our ideas in Android, that’s all I want.” The meeting, Isaacson wrote, resolved nothing.

The book is clearly designed to evoke the Apple style. Its cover features the title and author’s name starkly printed in black and grey type against a white background, along with a black-and-white photo of Jobs, thumb and forefinger to his chin.

The biography, for which Jobs granted more than three dozen interviews, is also a look into the thoughts of a man who was famously secret, guarding details of his life as he did Apple’s products, and generating plenty of psychoanalysis from a distance.

Jobs resigned as Apple’s CEO on Aug. 24, six weeks before he died.

Doctors said Thursday that it was not clear whether the delayed treatment made a difference in Jobs’ chances for survival.

“People live with these cancers for far longer than nine months before they’re even diagnosed,” so it’s not known how quickly one can prove fatal, said Dr. Len Lichtenfeld, deputy chief medical officer of the American Cancer Society.

Dr. Michael Pishvaian, a pancreatic cancer expert at Georgetown University’s Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center, said people often are in denial after a cancer diagnosis, and some take a long time to accept recommended treatments.

“We’ve had many patients who have had bad outcomes when they have delayed treatment. Nine months is certainly a significant period of time to delay,” he said.

Fortune magazine reported in 2008 that Jobs tried alternative treatments because he was suspicious of mainstream medicine.

The book says Jobs gave up Christianity at age 13 when he saw starving children on the cover of Life magazine paydayloans. He asked whether his Sunday school pastor knew what would happen to them.

Jobs never went back to church, though he did study Zen Buddhism later.

Jobs calls the crop of executives brought in to run Apple after his ouster in 1985 “corrupt people” with “corrupt values” who cared only about making money. Jobs himself is described as caring far more about product than profit.

He told Isaacson they cared only about making money “for themselves mainly, and also for Apple — rather than making great products.”

Jobs returned to the company in 1997. After that, he introduced the candy-coloured iMac computer, the iPod, the iPhone and the iPad, and turned Apple into the most valuable company in America by market value for a time.

The book says that, while some Apple board members were happy that Hewlett-Packard gave up trying to compete with Apple’s iPad, Jobs did not think it was cause for celebration.

“Hewlett and Packard built a great company, and they thought they had left it in good hands,” Jobs told Isaacson. “But now it’s being dismembered and destroyed.”

“I hope I’ve left a stronger legacy so that will never happen at Apple,” he added.

Advance sales of the book have topped bestseller lists. Much of the biography adds to what was already known, or speculated, about Jobs. While Isaacson is not the first to tell Jobs’ story, he had unprecedented access. Their last interview was weeks before Jobs died.

Jobs reveals in the book that he didn’t want to go to college, and the only school he applied to was Reed, a costly private college in Portland, Oregon. Once accepted, his parents tried to talk him out of attending Reed, but he told them he wouldn’t go to college if they didn’t let him go there. Jobs wound up attending but dropped out after less than a year and never went back.

Jobs told Isaacson that he tried various diets, including one of fruits and vegetables. On the naming of Apple, he said he was “on one of my fruitarian diets.” He said he had just come back from an apple farm, and thought the name sounded “fun, spirited and not intimidating.”

Jobs’ eye for simple, clean design was evident early. The case of the Apple II computer had originally included a Plexiglas cover, metal straps and a roll-top door. Jobs, though, wanted something elegant that would make Apple stand out.

He told Isaacson he was struck by Cuisinart food processors while browsing at a department store and decided he wanted a case made of moulded plastic.

He called Jonathan Ive, Apple’s design chief, his “spiritual partner” at Apple. He told Isaacson that Ive had “more operation power” at Apple than anyone besides Jobs himself — that there’s no one at the company who can tell Ive what to do. That, says Jobs, is “the way I set it up.”

Jobs was never a typical CEO. Apple’s first president, Mike Scott, was hired mainly to manage Jobs, then 22. One of his first projects, according to the book, was getting Jobs to bathe more often. It didn’t work.

Jobs’ dabbling in LSD and other aspects of 1960s counterculture has been well documented. In the book, Jobs says LSD “reinforced my sense of what was important — creating great things instead of making money, putting things back into the stream of history and of human consciousness as much as I could.”

He also revealed that the Beatles were one of his favourite bands, and one of his wishes was to get the band on iTunes, Apple’s revolutionary online music store, before he died. The Beatles’ music went on sale on iTunes in late 2010.

The book was originally called “iSteve” and scheduled to come out in March. The release date was moved up to November, then, after Jobs’ death, to Monday. It is published by Simon & Schuster and will sell for $35.

Isaacson will appear Sunday on “60 Minutes.” CBS News, which airs the program, released excerpts of the book Thursday.

Ortutay reported from New York. AP Technology Writer Peter Svensson in New York and AP Chief Medical Writer Marilynn Marchione in Milwaukee also contributed to this report.

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The speaker of Britain’s House of Commons says a pie attack on media mogul Rupert Murdoch at a parliamentary committee hearing could lead to permanent security changes.

An activist launched a shaving foam pie at Murdoch, 80, inside the Houses of Parliament in July as Murdoch testified about Britain’s tabloid phone hacking scandal.

Speaker John Bercow said Monday the incident had exposed inadequate security arrangements.

Visitors in the future may face new restrictions during high profile events, including restrictions on the type of items they can bring into Parliament my credit score. Bercow said officials will also consider creating a new post of director of security.

Jonathan May-Bowles pleaded guilty to assaulting Murdoch and was sentenced to six weeks in jail.

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Federal Reserve policymakers considered a third round of bond purchases at their last meeting, and at least two members said the weakening economy might require it.

In the end, the Fed stopped short of expanding its portfolio of investments. Instead, it opted to shift $400 billion of its investments to try to lower long-term interest rates.

Minutes of the Sept. 20-21 meeting show the two officials, who were not named, were willing to go along with the Fed’s policy action because policymakers did not rule out taking further steps.

In its statement, the central bank also a bleak economic outlook, saying its sees “significant downside risks,” including volatility in overseas markets.

Three members of the committee, all regional bank presidents, dissented from the Fed’s statement for the second straight meeting. That marked the highest level of dissent at the Fed in nearly 20 years.

Chairman Ben Bernanke has acknowledged that the effort would not be a “game-changer.” He said the move could lower long-term interest rates by about one-fifth of a percentage point, during testimony before Congress last week.

But Bernanke also said last week that the economic recovery “is close to faltering.” He said the Fed is prepared to take further steps to support it.

The U.S. economy is barely growing and not producing enough jobs to lower the unemployment rate, which has been stuck at about 9 percent for two years.

In September, employers added 103,000 net jobs. While that was enough to ease recession fears, it takes about 125,000 jobs a month just to keep up with population growth.

Without more jobs and higher pay increases, consumers are likely to keep spending cautiously. Many have already cut back on spending in the face of steeper food and gas prices. Consumer spending accounts for 70 percent of economic activity.

Lower rates could help in a number of ways. Homeowners could refinance their mortgages at lower rates, leaving them more money to spend or pay down debt. Businesses could expand or invest at lower costs, allowing some to hire more workers.

But economists doubt the Fed’s latest move will do much because interest rates are already at historic lows. Last week, Freddie Mac said the average rate on the 30-year mortgage fell below 4 percent for the first time ever, to 3.94 percent.

In addition to shuffling its portfolio, the Fed has said it plans to keep short-term rates at record lows until at least mid-2013, assuming the economy remains weak.

The three regional bank presidents also opposed that decision. The dissenters argued that the actions the Fed has taken are raising the risks that inflation, currently at low levels, could become a problem once the economy begins to grow at stronger speeds.

Other Fed officials, however, are pushing for the central bank to do more. Some support a third round of bond buying that would expand the size of the Fed’s already record holdings of Treasury securities. One Fed official, Charles Evans, president of the Chicago Federal Reserve Bank, has argued for a change in the Fed’s guidance that would link any pledge to keep rates at low levels until unemployment, currently 9.1 percent, falls below 7.5 percent.

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German Chancellor Angela Merkel says that “if the euro fails, Europe fails.”

But as the debt crisis intensifies, the leader of Europe’s biggest economy is sticking to a course of gradual action that markets are losing faith in and refuses to take the radical measures some say are needed to keep the currency afloat.

Top officials, even in the European Central Bank, have called for a “quantum leap” in tackling the crisis. One option often mentioned by economists is issuing eurobonds, debt backed jointly by all eurozone nations.

But Merkel faces intense pressure at home to not expose her nation any more to the shaky finances of countries like Greece, leaving Germany _ and Europe _ in an uncertain position.

Merkel has so far justified the high cost of bailouts by noting that Germany’s interests as a leading exporter are bound to the wider eurozone. Its banks also are exposed to the fates of the countries.

The strategy she has led Europe to take has been to provide struggling nations with loans, in exchange for tough austerity measures. The powers of the eurozone bailout fund will also be increased to help stabilize debt markets.

But after multiple bailouts _ Greece, Ireland, Portugal and then Greece a second time _ taxpayers in Germany and other Northern European countries are losing confidence in the current crisis management.

And so are markets. Prices in Greek debt markets show investors are all but resigned to the fact the country will default on its debts.

But Merkel has rejected suggestions that more drastic measures might solve the situation. She has brushed away the notion of abandoning Greece to default or creating a full-scale fiscal union, in which German funds would directly plug funding gaps in other countries.

Many people feel the need to believe it “could evaporate with one buzzword _ be it eurobonds or insolvency or other words,” Merkel says. But “that won’t happen.”

She says resolving the crisis will be “a slow, hard road,” involving deficit cuts and economic reform to make stragglers more competitive.

That has dampened investors’ expectations that a change of strategy might be presented at a meeting of eurozone finance ministers in Wroclaw, Poland, on Friday and Saturday.

Merkel pointed out that even if she were for the introduction of eurobonds, they could be unconstitutional in Germany and require years of renegotiations to European treaties.

Merkel “is between a rock and a hard place,” said Louise Cooper, an analyst at BGC Markets. “Clearly Merkel does not want to be the … chancellor in Germany who was in power when the euro project blew up. But quite what she can do to prevent it, I am not at all sure.”

Prominent authorities, however, have warned Germany and Europe need to make up their mind on what they want the eurozone to be.

Jens Weidmann, the head of Germany’s hawkish central bank and once Merkel’s economic adviser, said there was a choice. On the one hand Europe could have a system under which countries are largely barred from taking responsibility for others’ debts and the markets discipline governments that spend too much. On the other, the region could take “a major leap” toward deeper integration.

“The decision for one of the two paths needs to be taken soon,” Weidmann argued. The current situation, in which government finances are separate but get rescued in times of need, risks failing, he said.

The European Central Bank president, Jean-Claude Trichet, said the eurozone should eventually create a common finance ministry to bind together the nations’ budgets.

Germany, whose political class views itself as a driver of European unity, could hardly countenance the idea of the European project failing _ quite apart from the steep financial costs.

Michael Meister, a leading lawmaker in Merkel’s party, argued against speculating about even a partial eurozone break-up. “It would be an absolute fiasco for an export nation like Germany,” he argued. “We have to consider that we’re discussing not just Greece, but our own economic prospects.”

But Merkel’s conservatives oppose eurobonds, and their junior coalition partner, the Free Democratic Party, is vehemently against them. They argue eurobonds would merely push up financially solid Germany’s lending costs and encourage others to run up more debts, as well as facing legal barriers.

Germany’s main opposition parties _ who currently have a majority in polls _ have advocated at least their limited introduction, arguing that other avenues could be more costly.

But that would likely cause trouble with Germany’s Federal Constitutional Court.

One implication of its recent ruling upholding Berlin’s participation in the bailouts so far was that “participation in an automatic and unmanageable guarantee mechanism, which might include the issuance of eurobonds, is not allowed,” UniCredit analyst Alexander Koch said.

While eurobonds remain off the menu of options to alleviate the crisis, Merkel can expect the main opposition parties’ support, at least for now, in pushing through the steps eurozone leaders have so far agreed on.

Markets will take some comfort in the notion that Germany, while unable to propose a lasting solution, is willing to keep supporting the eurozone’s system of bailouts.

“Germany is the lead actor in this film,” said Cem Ozdemir, a leader of the opposition Greens. “If the lead actor in a film stops playing, then the film’s over.”

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Stocks fell Monday on worries that Greece could be edging closer to defaulting on its debt. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note reached another record low as investors piled into U.S. government debt.

The Dow Jones industrial average fell 70 points, or 0.6 percent, to 10,921 at 10:30 a.m. It had been down as many as 135 points shortly after the opening bell.

The Standard & Poor’s 500 index fell 6, or 0.5 percent, to 1,148.

Technology stocks fared better than the overall market following news of a semiconductor deal. The Nasdaq fell less than point to 2,467.

Worries over Europe’s debt crisis drove traders into Treasurys, pushing the yield on the 10-year Treasury note to 1.87 percent, the lowest since the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis began keeping daily records in 1962. During the financial crisis in late 2008, the 10-year yield hit a low of 2.05 percent.

European bank shares fell sharply over worries about their exposure to Greek government debt. Traders fear that Greece could default on its debts, and European policymakers are divided over how to handle the crisis. Investors are also worried that ratings agencies may downgrade the credit ratings of French banks, which could bring more instability to Europe’s beleaguered financial system.

The resignation of a key European Central Bank official Friday combined with worries over a new recession in the United States led to a large stock market sell-off faxless pay day loans. The Dow Jones industrial average and Standard & Poor’s 500 index have fallen for six of the past seven weeks.

A default by Greece or one of the continent’s other heavily indebted governments could ripple through the global markets and make it more difficult for other European countries to borrow money. Economists worry that Europe’s financial crisis could tip a weakening U.S. economy into another recession.

McGraw-Hill Cos. rose 2.6 percent. The company said it will split into two public companies, with one unit focused on education services and the other centered on markets, including the rating agency Standard & Poor’s and J.D. Power and Associates.

NetLogic Microsystems Inc. jumped 50 percent after Broadcom Corp. said it has agreed to acquire the maker of semiconductors for $3.7 billion. Bank of America Corp. rose 1 percent after its CEO, Brian Moynihan, announced new cost-cutting goals.

Wynn Resorts rose 2 percent after a unit of the casino operator said it had a signed a deal to build a resort in Macau. Casinos have been expanding their operations in the former Portuguese colony, considered the world’s most lucrative gambling market.

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The eurozone needs a “quantum” leap toward economic integration, the incoming chief of the European Central Bank said Monday, as the bond yields of countries with shaky finances, like Greece and Italy, jumped amid increased investor tensions.

Mario Draghi told a conference in Paris that among the common currency’s problems is a lack of coordinated fiscal policies and that the solution was more integration.

He dismissed the idea of eurobonds _ debt issued jointly by the eurozone countries. Some have argued this would help weaker countries borrow more easily because they wouldn’t have to pay such high interest rates, which in turn make their debts bigger. But stable countries like Germany would likely see their rates rise.

Instead, Draghi suggested the eurozone should adopt rules that would require more budget discipline. There is already a proposal that would require all eurozone countries to balance their budgets. Profligate spending during boom times funded by cheap debt is one of the root causes of the current crisis.

Market tensions increased on Monday in Europe, both due to worries about some countries debt problems and a global financial sell-off triggered by concerns that the U.S. economy may slip back into recession.

The difference in interest rates between the Greek and benchmark German 10-year bonds, known as the spread, spiraled to new records on Monday, topping 17.3 percentage points. Yields on the Greek bonds were above 18 percent.

High yields means borrowing is more expensive for Greece, making it even harder to reduce its debt load.

In fact, its yields are so high that Greece has been relying since last year on funds from a euro110 billion ($157 billion) package of bailout loans from other European Union countries and the International Monetary Fund. On July 21, European leaders agreed on a second bailout, worth an additional euro109 billion.

Italy’s own 10-year bond yields jumped to 5.45 percent amid signs that the government in Rome is wavering in its commitment to enforce its austerity program.

ECB chief Jean-Claude Trichet in recent days has called on Silvio Berlusconi’s government to push through with the deficit-cutting measures promised in August.

Italy’s stability is of particular concern because it would be too expensive to rescue for the eurozone. In an effort to steady the yields, the ECB has been buying Italian and Spanish bonds in recent weeks, driving down the interest rates.

Draghi indicated that such makeshift measures would continue, including making sure the European Financial Stability Facility _ the eurozone’s bailout fund _ takes over the bond purchases and has enough cash in it.

But, he added, that’s not a permanent solution.

“The crisis starts from the incompleteness of the European construction,” he said, and important reforms need to be made to solve it. “Overall, the aim of this effort should be a quantum step up in European economic integration.”

Draghi’s remarks echoed those made by his predecessor, the current ECB chief, who spoke at the same conference.

Trichet said that the debt crisis had revealed the weaknesses of the eurozone and that one solution would be to eventually create a central finance ministry for the continent.

He noted that one of the hallmarks of the crisis has been that while the eurozone economies are linked by their common currency, each country creates its own budget. That will need to change, he said.

“In the future, we can imagine a confederation … with a minister of finance with responsibilities including the regulation of the solvency of the eurozone,” he said.

In the heyday of the boom, several European countries allowed their budgets to run larger deficits than the rules allowed. Countries like Greece and Portugal eventually came close to bankruptcy and were saved only by international rescue packages.

New legislation that would give budget rules more teeth has been floundering for months as the European Parliament and EU member states have failed to agree on more automatic sanctions.

Trichet called Monday for those rules to be strengthened further. He has said in the past that even the new legislation is not strong enough for the 17 euro countries, since states could still override penalties for overspenders.

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Stocks rallied Friday after Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke proposed no new measures to stimulate the weak U.S. economy, saying he

Oil prices around the world should start falling if Libyan rebels succeed in toppling Moammar Gadhafi’s regime, though the full effect won’t be felt for months.

On Sunday night, rebel forces pushed into Tripoli without meeting much resistance, hours after they overran a major military base that defended the capital. The opposition’s leaders said Gadhafi’s son and one-time heir apparent, Seif al-Islam, has been arrested.

Independent analyst Andrew Lipow said oil markets will likely respond Monday by sending prices lower in “a sign of relief that conflict has come to the end.”

But Lipow said it will take time for the market to erase the hefty price increase that resulted from the suspension of Libyan oil exports since the rebellion began in February.

Libya used to export about 1.5 million barrels of oil per day, almost all of which have been cut off. Although Libyan oil amounted to less than 2 percent of world demand, its loss affected prices because of its high quality and suitability for European refineries.

Analysts estimate that the situation in Libya has increased oil prices by $10 to $20 a barrel.

The European refineries have struggled to make up for the production loss despite an increase from Saudi Arabia. As a result, European markets should see the first and most significant drops in oil prices, Lipow said.

He added that any developments in the ongoing European financial crisis could also move stock markets around the world this week and oil prices along with them.

Independent analyst Jim Ritterbusch said that even if rebels manage to push Gadhafi out soon, the near-term effects on oil prices will be limited.

“Psychologically anyway, it’s going to force some additional selling,” Ritterbusch said. “But selling may not be pronounced because there’s still a lot of question marks remaining” on how long it would take for production to resume.

Michael Lynch, president of Strategic Energy & Economic Research, said that once Gadhafi is pushed out, Libya’s new government could take the path of the Iraqis after the fall of Saddam Hussein and spend years fighting over every detail. Or it could follow Kuwait’s example and quickly decide to bring in an outside company to get production restarted right away

He added that there’s always a chance that the process could come to a halt if one of the rebel generals tries to seize power, or if different factions get caught up debating the country’s new constitution and put off making decisions about oil production.

“They do have a good cadre of educated people, but they don’t have a long record of competent self-government,” Lynch said. “It would not be a bad bet to think there might be a chaotic period for a few months till they get organized.”

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