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A woman in her 40s was confirmed dead after she was struck by a car in the city’s northwest end Friday night.

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Tech giant Oracle announced Monday that it would pay three quarters’ worth of dividends originally scheduled for 2013 later this month, becoming the latest company to move up dividend payments ahead of potential tax increases next year.

The tax rate for dividend payments could more than double for high-income earners as a result of automatic tax hikes scheduled to take effect on Jan. 1 as part of the so-called fiscal cliff. Dividends are currently taxed at 15%.

, Fortune 500) accelerated dividend totals 18 cents per share, a payment that will come in lieu of quarterly dividends that would have been paid in 2013, the firm said in a statement.

Oracle’s largest shareholder is its CEO, Larry Ellison, though the company said Ellison was not involved in the decision to move the dividends forward.

Ellison owns roughly 1.1 billion Oracle shares, and stands to receive $198.9 million from this month’s dividend payments.

, Fortune 500) announced last month that it would pay its fourth-quarter dividend in late 2012, rather than early 2013, in a preemptive strike against the potentially higher taxes. Other firms including , Fortune 500), apparel company ) and department store operator , Fortune 500) have made similar moves, bringing dividend payments forward into 2012 or scheduling special dividends.

An earlier version of this article incorrectly reported that CEO Larry Ellison owns roughly 1.1 million Oracle shares. In fact, Ellison owns 1.1 billion shares.

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New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Wednesday that Democrats in Congress should use strong-arm tactics on Republicans to balance federal deficits and pull the nation from its economic malaise.

Bloomberg, an independent who has belonged to both parties, blamed “both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue” for undermining a full economic recovery. His comments were made in an appearance at the Economic Club of Washington.

Bloomberg had pointed advice for Democrats, who “hold all the cards” when it comes to shrinking the massive federal debt. He said Democrats should move to let Bush-era tax cuts expire on all income levels at the end of the year, which would force Republicans to come to the table.

“They should say ‘All the Bush-era tax cuts are on income groups you care about, and they’re expiring Dec. 31st. You need us to help stop it,’” Bloomberg said. “You want to talk about spending cuts and adopting comprehensive tax reform with a lower corporate tax rate? Then talk to us.”

He added that if Republicans are serious about economic growth, “they’ll take the offer.”

Bloomberg didn’t talk about the so-called “fiscal cliff,” a catch-all term that those in Washington use to describe the expiring tax cuts as well as dramatic, across-the-board spending cuts to federal programs also set to to kick in. It was unclear if Bloomberg is advocating going over the fiscal cliff on both tax cuts and spending cuts.

Many economists, as well as the Congressional Budget Office, have suggested if Congress does nothing, the United States will sink into a recession, with more than $500 billion removed from the economy in 2013.

Bloomberg said any deal should resemble the Bowles-Simpson plan, a bipartisan proposal commissioned and then ignored by President Obama to shrink long-term budget deficits.

Bloomberg also said the president has failed to be hands-on enough to break through the gridlock in Congress, especially last summer during the debate over raising the debt ceiling.

“When the president turns over to Congress the ability to write laws, it’s over,” he said.

He said Obama needs to draft a bill himself, and then do whatever he needs to do to get the bill passed, including: “cajoling, bribing, threatening, kissing, and whatever it takes, modifying at the edges, to get that piece of legislation to pass.”

Bloomberg would not say whether he’s considering another political run for some other position when his third term as mayor ends in 2014. But he did offer advice for anyone who wants to run for office: “First become a billionaire, then do it.”

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General Motors CEO Dan Akerson bought just over $500,000 in GM stock with his own money this week.

The purchase, detailed in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, is unusual in that most stock purchases by CEOs are done as part of their compensation packages, not as their own investment.

Akerson bought 25,000 shares of GM at a price of $20.35 each. It brought his holdings up to 272,828 shares. He bought just less than a third of those shares on the open market with his own funds.

He bought 10,000 shares for $25.05 each in August 2011, and 30,000 shares for $31.33 each in March of that year. On Nov. 18, 2010, the day of the GM IPO, he also bought 15,000 shares in the open market for an average of $33.54, just above the $33 IPO price.

But despite posting record profits last year and recapturing the global lead in auto sales, GM shares have declined fairly steadily since that debut, losing nearly 40% of their initial value.

Shares were up 1.3% in trading Thursday. 

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Italy successfully sold €5.25 billion of short- and long-term bonds Friday, despite being downgraded by Moody’s a day earlier.

The Italian government sold €3.5 billion of 3-year bonds at an average yield of 4.65%, down from 5.30% at the last auction in June.

But investors demanded higher rates on the smaller offerings of long-term bonds. Italy sold €766 million of 7-year bonds at 5.58%; €600 million of 10-year bonds at 5.82% and €384 million of 11-year bonds.

In the secondary market, where investors trade bonds, yields on 10-year Italian bonds rose to 6%. That’s down from highs above 7% earlier this year, but still near levels that Italy could struggle to pay over the long term.

The auctions came one day after Moody’s downgraded Italy’s credit rating two notches to Baa2 from A3, pushing it closer to speculative, or junk, grade.

Related: Europe must act fast to avoid bank runs

Moody’s cited an increased risk of Italy’s borrowing costs rising as contagion in the bond market spreads from Spain. In addition, Moody’s said the Italian economy has deteriorated, which will make it harder for the government to raise revenue and meet its deficit reduction targets.

Moody’s outlook for Italy is negative, which means the country could face further downgrades.

While Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti has taken steps to make the economy more competitive, Moody’s warned that political headwinds could slow the nation’s progress on deeper structural reforms.

"The political climate, particularly as the spring 2013 elections draw near, is also a source of implementation risk," said Moody’s analysts fast cash advance loan.

Monti confirmed earlier this week that he will step down when his mandate ends next year. A well-respected economist, Monti was appointed by European Union officials last year after his predecessor, Silvio Berlusconi, resigned under pressure. Also this week, Berlusconi announced that he plans to seek reelection.

"The news that former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi will again run for the premiership will not be received well by the markets," wrote Nicholas Spiro, director of London-based consultancy Spiro Sovereign Strategy, in a note to clients. "The risk is that investors start to fret about a more unstable and populist ‘post-Monti’ political landscape in Italy."

Related: Economists see multiple eurozone exits

Traders said Italian banks continue to be the main buyers of domestic government bonds, as foreign investors have largely fled the market.

Since the European Central Bank started flooding the banking system with liquidity late last year, "Italian banks have been hoovering up Italian bonds," said Nick Stamenkovic, market strategist at RIA Capital Markets in Edinburgh.

While domestic buyers could continue to pick up the slack in the short term, Stamenkovic said Italy is struggling to sell bonds with maturities in excess of 10 years.

Investors are worried about the poor performance of the Italian economy and the danger that structural reforms will be watered down, he added. "The situation in Italy is still very fragile." 

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Ireland has this banking advice for Spain: imagine the worst and double it.

Like Ireland, Spain sought a bank bailout after being felled by a real-estate crash. Now, just as the Irish did, the Spanish are awaiting the results of outside stress tests gauging the size of the hole in the banking system.

A court in Germany ruled Wednesday that Microsoft infringed two patents held by Motorola, in a case that could affect sales of its popular Xbox 360 console and the Windows 7 operating system.

The patent spat between the two companies centers on technology used for video compression that is owned by Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc., which Google is in the process of buying for $12.5 billion.

Following earlier complaints from Microsoft and Apple Corp., the European Union’s competition watchdog has opened two separate probes into whether Motorola unfairly limited rivals from using its patents by demanding exorbitant fees.

In Wednesday’s ruling, the state court in the southern city of Mannheim upheld Motorola’s complaint on the patent breaches and declared Microsoft Corp. liable for unspecified damages.

The court also ordered Microsoft to remove all products that infringe the patents from the German market, including its Xbox 360 console and the Windows 7 operating system.

But both parties have seven days to appeal before the verdict comes into force, and Microsoft spokesman Thomas Baumgaertner said the company plans to do so. Should Motorola want the verdict enforced before a final appeals ruling is issued, it would have to deposit several tens of millions of euros (dollars) as a legal security, the court said.

A U.S. court meanwhile has warned Motorola not to enforce the German verdict until it too has considered the patent issue.

“At the moment, there is no risk that we will be ordered to halt sales,” Baumgaertner said.

He said Microsoft hoped the German court’s ruling could open the way for a fairer licensing deal with Motorola.

Motorola issued a statement welcoming the verdict.

“We remain open to resolving this matter,” said the company. “Fair compensation is all that we have been seeking for our intellectual property.”

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Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said while he

French business confidence increased for the second time in nine months, suggesting growth is recovering as European Central Bank liquidity calms the region