24/7 Wall St.

Blackstone (NYSE: BX) and Bain may bid for Yahoo! (NASDAQ: YHOO) along with Asian partners Alibaba and Yahoo! Japan. (Reuters)

China’s PMI contracts for the first time in three years. (Reuters)

The former CEO of Olympus tries to get his job back after the company was rocked by scandal. (Reuters)

A Reuters poll shows that U.S. and UK institutions have sharply cut EU debt. (Reuters)

A massive strike of UK teachers and public employees, based on resistance to government expense cuts, rocks the country. (Reuters)

Meg Whitman, the new CEO of Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ), will rely on increases in software revenue to revive the company. (Reuters)

AT&T (NYSE: T) and Deutsche Telekom may create a joint venture between AT&T Wireless and T-Mobile as a way to get around government objections to a buyout. (Reuters)

New insider trading charges may be brought against managers at Neuberger Berman, Diamond Back and Level. (WSJ)

Pilots at American Airlines hire Lazard to help them in negotiations. (WSJ)

S&P cuts its rating of HP by two notches. (WSJ)

Tepco says its Fukushima Daiichi nuclear complex was closer to a major disaster than previously thought. (WSJ)

Statistics agency Eurostat  says unemployment across the Euroblock rose to 16.3 million. (WSJ)

United Continental (NYSE: UAL) receives government approval to further integrate its operations. (WSJ)

Web entrepreneurs are concerned that a sales tax on Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN) will spread to their businesses. (WSJ)

Walt Disney (NYSE: DIS) sharply increases its dividend. (WSJ)

Intuit (NASDAQ: INTU) to offer free smartphone tax advice. (WSJ)

Yahoo!’s board continues to favor the sale of a minority interest. (NYT)

Time Warner (NYSE: TWX) picks the head of Digitas to run Time Inc., a sign of a move away from print. (NYT)

Zynga’s IPO to be valued at $10 billion. (NYT)

Spain and France will try to raise money in a high-interest sovereign paper environment. (Bloomberg)

Douglas A. McIntyre