Sep. 19--Here's some news you may have missed last week, based on staff and wire reports.

Monday

The workweek hadn't even begun, and already it was one of the weirdest In Hindsight could remember:

* After a frenzied weekend of negotiations on Wall Street, Lehman Brothers failed to find a buyer and declared bankruptcy.

* Merrill Lynch agreed to be absorbed by Bank of America.

* Insurance giant American International Group (AIG to its friends) warned it could collapse without tens of billions of dollars in loans.

* And investors couldn't help but wonder which would be the next financial services giant to fall under the weight of the nation's growing credit crisis. Washington Mutual (WaMu to its friends), perhaps?

Even one of those blows would be difficult for investors to absorb. By the day's end, the blue chip Dow Jones industrial average had dived 504.48 points, or 4.4 percent, to 10,917.51. The tech-heavy Nasdaq composite index (a favorite in our tech-heavy valley) plummeted 3.6 percent to 2,179.91.

The trauma on Wall Street so dominated our attention we barely noticed the grim news from Palo Alto computing giant Hewlett-Packard. The company said it would cut a stunning 24,600 jobs after absorbing technology services giant EDS. HP Chief Executive Mark Hurd said the job cuts would help HP cut costs and boost its profit margin. "I'm

a big believer that having the most effective cost structure is directly related to your ability to scale and grow," Hurd told analysts, according to a Merc report.

Tuesday

That would be plenty of financial news for any week, but did Tuesday give us a reprieve? Hardly:

* San Carlos electric-car maker Tesla revealed it would build a factory in and move its headquarters to San Jose. The decision was seen as a coup for Mayor Chuck Reed, who has been working to lure green jobs to the Garden City.

* Speaking of electric cars, Detroit auto giant General Motors showed off its new Chevrolet Volt. GM says the Volt will be on sale in late 2010.

* Back in Silicon Valley, San Jose software maker Adobe Systems said sales in its latest quarter jumped 4 percent from a year earlier, but profit fell nearly 7 percent.