(Reuters) - U.S. employment growth ground to a halt in August as sagging confidence discouraged already skittish businesses from hiring, piling pressure on the Federal Reserve to provide more stimulus to aid the economy. Nonfarm payrolls were unchanged last month, the Labor Department said on Friday, and employers created a combined 58,000 fewer jobs than had been thought in June and July.

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(Reuters) - A U.S. regulator is filing lawsuits against major banks, accusing them of bundling subprime home loans into bonds that never should have been sold to investors, and causing mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to lose billions, a source said. The Federal Housing Finance Agency, which oversees Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, is suing major banks soon, in a move that will deepen the mortgage litigation morass for banks.

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(Reuters) - News Corp nominated Silicon Valley venture capitalist Jim Breyer to its board, while two directors will leave, moves that come after corporate governance experts slammed the media company board's independence in the wake of a UK phone hacking scandal. Kenneth Crowley, who is stepping down, has been an associate of News Corp Chief Executive Rupert Murdoch for nearly 50 years and has been on the board since 1979.

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(Reuters) - The great August stock selloff has been far from uniform. Some sectors are now pricing in a far bigger risk of recession than others, leaving islands of potential value for the brave. Current and implied earnings metrics show some cyclical sectors, including chemicals, faring better than defensives such as telecoms, while other cyclicals such as paper have already been sold down to below their post-financial crisis trough.

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(Reuters) - Campbell Soup Co (CPB.N) reported higher-than-expected quarterly results on Friday as it spent less to promote its long-struggling U.S. soup business. To turn around the unit's performance, Chief Executive Officer Denise Morrison put more money into advertising instead of promotional discounts. The strategy boosted earnings, but led to a 9 percent decline in U.S. soup sales as some customers apparently switched to cheaper brands.

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(Reuters) - The Federal Reserve has asked Bank of America Corp to show what measures it could take if business conditions worsen, the Wall Street Journal said, citing people familiar with the situation. BofA executives recently responded to the unusual request from the Federal Reserve with a list of options that includes the issuance of a separate class of shares tied to the performance of its Merrill Lynch securities unit, the people told the paper.

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(Reuters) - BP said on Friday that a lawsuit that led to Russian bailiffs raiding its Moscow office this week was "absurd" and that it expected to be able to resume normal work at the office on Monday. On Wednesday bailiffs searched the Moscow office in pursuit of a legal action brought against the British oil major by minority shareholders in its Russian joint venture TNK-BP.

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(Reuters) - Stocks cut gains and the S&P 500 briefly turned negative on Thursday in what looked set to be another low-volume, volatile session as investors sought direction after a five-day snap-back rally for equities. The Dow Jones industrial average .DJI gained 27.55 points, or 0.24 percent, to 11,641.08. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index .SPX gained 0.76 points, or 0.06 percent, to 1,219.65. The Nasdaq Composite Index .IXIC gained 5.00 points, or 0.19 percent, to 2,584.46.

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(Reuters) - The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits fell last week, showing little sign of a pick-up in layoffs in the wake of a slump in business and consumer confidence. Initial claims for state unemployment benefits dropped 12,000 to a seasonally adjusted 409,000, the Labor Department said on Thursday. While the figure still points to a jobs market struggling to find strength, it remains well short of a recession signal.

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(Reuters) - The pace of growth in the U.S. manufacturing sector ticked down to a crawl in August but fared better than economists had forecast, an industry report showed on Thursday. The Institute for Supply Management said its index of national factory activity edged down to 50.6 from 50.9 the month before. The reading topped expectations of 48.5, which would have signaled a contraction, according to a Reuters poll of economists.

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