At The Motley Fool, we know our readers like to be informed. We have scouted out today's most relevant news items and brought them to you all on one page. We hope you find this midday edition informative and useful.
Employment stagnated in August
After employers became wary of the success of the recovery, employment unexpectedly stagnated, holding the jobless rate at 9.1%. The employment data took a hit on the stock market during early morning trading with most indexes falling by 2%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 1.57% or 180.08 points, while the S&P 500 fell by 1.76% and the Nasdaq fell by 1.58%. President Barack Obama is scheduled to give a speech on Thursday where he will unveil his job recovery program. Read more at Bloombergand Reuters.
Government to sue major banks
Years after economic downturn, banks continue to struggle with liabilities from their faulty mortgages. Now the government agency overseeing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is preparing to sue banks for having misrepresented the mortgages they were selling. The Federal Housing Finance Agency suits will be aimed at Bank of America
Oracle's bad news
On Thursday, after a high-profile copyright trial against SAP AG
The trial began when Oracle sued SAP over allegedly developing a master plan to steal patents and for ducking a subpoena. Four weeks into the trial, SAP admitted one of its subsidiaries, TomorrowNow, illegally downloaded Oracle's software. The jury then came up with the $1.3 billion verdict based on how much SAP would have had to pay if it had bought the patents from Oracle. The judge considered the reasoning illogical and the amount too high for the evidence.
The judge's repeal is Oracle's second piece of bad news this week. As reported by The Wall Street Journal, the company is being looked into by U.S. authorities on anti-bribery suspicions in some of the deals it did overseas. Read more at The Wall Street Journal.
More than the lawsuit
Even if AT&T
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