In today's market, one of the most precious commodities you can add to your portfolio,

is certainty, the kind you get with a multi-year guarantee annuity from American National Insurance Company.

Your money grows at a steady rate, guaranteed, no hidden fees, no market risk, no surprises,

just a bedrock of certainty you can depend on to be there when you need it most.

You can get more details and fund an annuity online at annuities.americanational.com.

You got this.

Here's your midday brief for Thursday, September 25th. I'm Zoe Colkin for the Wall Street Journal.

Starbucks is laying off 900 corporate workers and closing some North American stores to cut costs and

improve its stores. The layoffs are the second round that the coffee giant has undertaken since

Chief Executive Brian Nickel took the helm roughly a year ago.

Starbucks announcement is the latest sign of a cooling U.S. labor market as a number of

companies planned a slow hiring in the second half of the year to deal with economic uncertainty

and rising costs. Sales of existing homes declined in August after high prices kept sales in check despite easing mortgage rates.

According to the National Association of Realtors, home sales were down 0.2% from the month prior to a seasonally adjusted rate of 4 million,

slightly less than the 1.2% decline economists had forecast.

The housing market is stuck in its third straight year of dismal

sales as elevated mortgage rates and prices have priced out many would-be buyers. And a French court

has sentenced former president Nicholas Sarkozy to five years in prison for conspiring to seek

campaign funds from the regime of Libyan strongman Moe-Mar

Gaddafi. Sarkozy is set to begin serving his prison sentence within a month, unless his

lawyers can convince judges to delay it while any appeal is being reviewed. Heads up,

an artificial intelligence tool helped us make this episode by creating summaries that were based

...