The number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits unexpectedly declined last week to a three-month low, signaling durability in the labor market. (Bloomberg)

It’s scary out there. The rout in the stock market that began around Jan. 1 took a turn for the worse early this month. By Feb. 10 the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index was down 9 percent for the year. That’s its worst start since the recession year of 2008. Falling oil prices were blamed. (Bloomberg News)

Intermountain Healthcare, a nonprofit health system in Salt Lake City, is trying something virtually unheard-of: promising to sharply cut costs rather than pass them on. (The New York Times)

General Electric’s prestigious Experienced Commercial Leadership Programme expands to two intakes in 2016, to support strong growth in the firm’s industrial businesses (Business Because)

PwC said it plans to recruit 1,000 big data specialists to its $5 billion international deals business over the next two years — becoming the latest consultancy firm to display rampant demand for analytics expertise. (Business Because)

The share of Americans earning income from digital platforms such as Uber and Airbnb is growing rapidly, but those gigs typically supplement incomes rather than replace full-time work.(The Wall Street Journal)

Having current employees personally recruit job seekers for open positions can lead to more workplace diversity, new research shows.(Business News Daily)

The OECD cut its global growth forecasts, saying the economies of Brazil, Germany and the U.S. are slowing and warning that some emerging markets are at risk of exchange-rate volatility. (Bloomberg)

Saudi Arabian and Russian oil ministers agreed to freeze — but not cut — crude oil output at near-record January levels, a highly unusual pact between the world’s leading OPEC and non-OPEC petroleum producers. (The Washington Post)

Prime Minister David Cameron said on Thursday that hard work and goodwill should help him to clinch a deal at a European Union summit, described by leaders of the 28-nation bloc as the best chance of preventing Britain leaving. (Reuters)

Thousands of small investors who lost some or all of their savings when a large bank in Spain failed in 2012 may now get their money back. Bankia, which needed a $19 billion bailout just one year after its initial public offering, announced the surprise move Wednesday. (NPR)

Nationally, black males represent roughly two percent of all public school teachers. (Education Week)

If inequality starts anywhere, many scholars agree, it's with faulty education. Conversely, a strong education can act as the bejeweled key that opens gates through every other aspect of inequality, whether political, economic, racial, judicial, gender- or health-based. (U.S. News & World Report)

A new racial gap has emerged on college campuses: Too few African American students are enrolling in majors that lead to high-paying jobs. Instead of pursuing science, business, and engineering, the students are studying education and social work, according to a recent analysis of data collected by the U.S. Census Bureau. (Philly.com)

Banks and Silicon Valley are on a collision course, the future of finance may be at stake, and one side is brandishing its most dreaded weapon: the PowerPoint presentation. (Bloomberg News)

Over the last 10 years, a basic shift has occurred from an IT-deployment view of the world of big systems and even bigger projects toward a people-centric and user-oriented view of hardware, information, and human collaboration and networking. Consumers have adapted rather quickly to this shift: If it is not useful, delete the app, the data, and the humans we choose not to network with. (Harvard Business Review)

The WhereU app aims to build the largest directory of Black-owned businesses. (Atlanta Black Star)

A recent paper by Gustavo Manso at the University of California, Berkeley, finds that self-employment does pay off financially, but not in the way entrepreneurs might expect. The financial benefit doesn’t usually come from the entrepreneurship itself, but in the form of higher wages when the entrepreneur returns to the workforce.(Harvard Business Review)

Homeownership is down and leasing is up, the result of the realities of today’s economy. (NPR)

Out of nowhere, a three-day rally on Wall Street has brought the S&P 500 index back from the brink of collapse, trimming its losses from its record high to less than 10% and pulling it out of correction territory. (USA TODAY)

Hedge funds are reportedly dumping real estate investment trusts so fast that former high-flying stocks are crashing. (Barron's)

A 2014 Government Accountability Office study tested 19 randomly selected tax preparers and found that only two managed to calculate the correct refund. MONEY asked experts to identify some of the areas that cause the most trouble. Make sure you're not stumbling into any of these traps. (Yahoo Finance)

Women are smarter consumers than men in some ways, but they struggle more with the debt they do have. (The Washington Post)

We live in a digital world. Just look at where you’re reading this article right now—without that phone, tablet, or laptop in front of you, this content would never reach you. (The Muse)

These online radio episodes can be downloaded right to your smartphone (for free!). And with topics ranging from career-boosting advice and news to comedy and pop culture, they are guaranteed to make that ride fly by. (The Muse)

IBM said it would buy Truven Health Analytics, a provider of cloud-based health care data, for $2.6 billion, the company’s fourth major health-related acquisition since launching the Watson Health unit in April last year. (Fortune)

Executives have begun to understand that to build a great business, companies need a larger goal, one that transcends the traditional bottom line. (Harvard Business Review)

The White House on Thursday confirmed that President Barack Obama will visit Cuba next month, making a historic trip in the final year of his presidency that will mark a turning point in U.S. relations with a long-time Cold War foe. (CNBC)

Apple resistance to help the FBI obtain iPhone data associated with one of the San Bernardino, Calif., attackers pits Washington versus Silicon Valley in a high-stakes war over Tech Age privacy rights amid escalating, international terrorism. (USA TODAY)

A satirical website offering "token minorities" for hire - to sprinkle diversity into marketing material or a conference panel - has amused thousands of people online. BBC Trending caught up with the woman behind the idea. (BBC.com)

Alongside sneakers, gym shorts, and yoga pants, sportswear brands are adding one more must-have to their list of products: workout apps. (Bloomberg)