Microsoft to cut 18,000 jobs, largest layoff in company history, in pivot away from hardware
LOS ANGELES — Microsoft announced the biggest layoffs in its 39-year history Thursday, outlining plans to cut 18,000 jobs in a move that marked the CEO’s sharpest pivot yet away from his predecessor’s drive for the company to make its own devices.
Although some cuts had been expected ever since Microsoft acquired Nokia’s mobile-device unit, the number amounted to 14 percent of the Microsoft workforce — about twice what analysts had estimated.
The cuts will include some 12,500 jobs associated with the Nokia unit — nearly half of the 28,000 employees Microsoft brought on board in April through the acquisition.
When the cuts are complete, the company will still have about 10,000 more employees than before the Nokia acquisition, with an overall headcount of 109,000.
In a public email to employees, CEO Satya Nadella said the changes were needed for the company to “become more agile and move faster.” The move also pushes Nokia to focus solely on the Windows Phone operating system.
California cities issue warnings about brown lawns as state encourages saving water
LOS ANGELES — Laura Whitney and her husband, Michael Korte, don’t know whether they’re being good citizens during a drought or scofflaws.
On the same day the state approved mandatory outdoor watering restrictions with the threat of $500 fines, the Southern California couple received a letter from their city threatening a $500 penalty for not watering their brown lawn.
It’s brown because of their conservation, which, besides a twice-a-week lawn watering regimen, includes shorter showers and larger loads of laundry.
They’re encouraged by the state’s new drought-busting, public service slogan: Brown is the new green.
The city of Glendora sees it differently.
Prosecutor: California bank robbers intended to take hostages
STOCKTON, Calif. — Misty Holt-Singh had just popped into the bank, leaving her 12-year-old daughter in the car, when the horror began. An hour later, the mother of two lay dead after a bank robbery and planned hostage-taking spun into a chaotic police chase and furious gunbattle during which two holdup men were killed, authorities said.
Holt-Singh was found dead at the end of a shootout in which one of the robbers who took her hostage used her as a human shield, according to police.
“In my over two decades of law enforcement, I have never seen or experienced this type of total disregard for human life nor the intensity of the situation that our officers were faced with,” Stockton Police Chief Eric Jones said.
“It is very rare for bank robbers to take hostages. It is very rare for them to so heavily arm themselves and prepare to kill and then to actively and continually to try to kill our police officers.”
Whose bullets killed Holt-Singh remained unclear Thursday, a day after the burst of violence in this Northern California city, but police said the responsibility rests with the three bank robbers.
By wire sources