Thursday Evening Business Brief

Stocks finished mostly lower. The Dow lost 47 points, or 0.4 percent, to 12,897. The S&P fell 6 points to 1,368. And the Nasdaq was virtually unchanged at 2,976.

• There's some brighter news on the job market just ahead of tomorrow's monthly unemployment report from the government. New claims for unemployment benefits were down last week and a private report on payrolls was stronger than expected.
• Google is phasing out the iGoogle search page, which allows users to personalize their home pages with weather updates and stock quotes. The web-based version of iGoogle will be shut down in November 2013 while the mobile version will be discontinued at the end of this month.
• The price of oil edged lower today after having risen more recently. Benchmark U.S. crude lost 44 cents to settle at $87.22 a barrel in New York.
• A sour financial note being sounded by pop singer Rihanna. The singer, whose real name is Robyn Fenty, has sued her former accountants blaming them for tens of millions of dollars in losses and bad bookkeeping. She also charges they failed to recommend she cut expenses when a 2009 tour was losing money and are the reaspm for an ongoing audit by the Internal Revenue Service.  Since firing the firm nearly two years ago, Rihanna's financial footing has improved.