Palo Alto, CA - Hewlett-Packard says it's laying off 27,000 workers, 8 percent of its work force, as it restructures the business. The Palo Alto, Calif., company says it'll save $3 billion to $3.5 billion annually from cost cuts, including the layoffs. Hewlett-Packard Co. expects to complete the job cuts by the end of fiscal 2014. Shares are up $1.40, or 6.6 percent, to $22.48 in...

Los Angeles, CA - The Los Angeles City Council has moved toward banning plastic bags at grocery stores in the nation's second-largest city. The council voted 13-1 Wednesday to approve a policy that would ban single-use plastic bags. The ban would take effect later this year after an environmental impact report that is expected to take four months and the council adopts an ordinance. The...

New York - An Orthodox parent whose child tells him he’s been sexually abused may not take that child’s claim to the police without first getting religious sanction from a specially trained rabbi, the head of America’s leading ultra-Orthodox umbrella group has told the Forward. But one year after acknowledging that no such registry of trained rabbis exists, Rabbi David Zwiebel said that...

Sao Paulo, Brazil - Subway workers went on strike in Brazil's biggest city on Wednesday, halting a system used daily by more than 4 million people and snarling the city's already difficult traffic. Ciro Morais, a spokesman for the subway workers union, said 8,000 of the city's nearly 9,000 subway workers walked off their jobs to demand a 20 percent pay hike. The public company in charge of the...

Brooklyn, NY - At a private event for Shuvu held in Flatbush last night, noted speaker Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Jacobson, spiritual leader of Congregation Beis Shmuel Chabad in Crown Heights and dean of TheYeshiva.net, spoke passionately about the importance of valuing each and every Jew, no matter what their affiliation or their current state of religiosity. Stressing the importance of reaching...

Chicago, IL - Patrick Fitzgerald is stepping down as the U.S. attorney in Chicago. Fitzgerald has overseen thousands of criminal prosecutions and was the architect of cases against Illinois governors Rod Blagojevich and George Ryan, former Vice President Dick Cheney's top aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby and media mogul Conrad Black. Fitzgerald has held the post for the Northern District of...

Harlem, NY - An elementary school in Harlem is the first in New York City to offer regular Arabic-language instruction. City officials are joining founders of the program at Public School 368 for an official announcement Wednesday. The program is sponsored by the educational nonprofit Global Language Project and by the Qatar Foundation International. Second-graders at P.S. 368 have been...

New York - Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney is proposing a voucher-style system that could fundamentally change public education in the United States. The former Massachusetts governor was expected to outline the plan during a speech Wednesday to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Washington. A Romney aide said the candidate wants to let low-income and disabled students use...

Brooklyn, NY - NYPD brass has transferred a precinct commander who had been at odds with many cops in his Brooklyn stationhouse over allegations of quota-based policing. Deputy Inspector Peter Bartoszek was moved on Friday from the 79th Precinct in Bedford-Stuyvesant to the Special Victims Division, where he will be executive officer, or second in command, the Daily News has learned. Deputy...

Brooklyn – Councilman David G. Greenfield is working with the New York Board of Rabbis to convince the city to require a higher level of kosher certification standard when seeking a new vendor to provide kosher food in detention facilities run by the New York City Department of Corrections (DOC). After hearing shocking stories from constituents about Orthodox Jewish inmates not being...

Borough Park, NY - Cops in the predominantly Hasidic neighborhood are cracking down on the unlicensed hawkers after legit florists complained they are costing them between $5,000 and $10,000 a week in sales. The squeeze comes on the eve of the Jewish holiday of Shavuot, when tradition calls for thousands of flowers to adorn the inside of homes and synagogues. “We’re going to be...

New York - Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg changed his status to “married” Saturday and received over one million “likes” from his followers. But the site he founded isn’t always so marriage-friendly. In fact, lawyers say the social network contributes to an increasing number of marriage breakups. More than a third of divorce filings last year contained the word Facebook, according to...

Wesley Hills, NY - A suburban New York official has pleaded not guilty to felony corruption charges. John Layne is accused of violating ethics rules and using his position to steer customers to his electrical contracting companies. At the time, he was building inspector in the Rockland County village of Sloatsburg. He's also accused of covering up his actions in village files. Layne is...

Jerusalem - The Israel Antiquities Authority says archeologists digging at a Jerusalem site have found the oldest artifact that bears the inscription of Bethlehem - a 2,700 years old seal. Eli Shukron, the authority’s director of excavations, says this is the first time the city’s name has appeared on an artifact from this period. The clay seal, or bulla, was found in a Jerusalem...

Tel Aviv - Police say they have arrested 10 Israelis over the past few weeks on suspicion they trafficked in organs. Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld says one of the suspects is a doctor affiliated with a Tel Aviv-area hospital. He says the alleged organ-trafficking operation was international, but didn’t immediately have details about the countries involved. He says the names of the...