About 200 of the cuts were in North America, the remainder in Europe and Australia, reports stated. No information was provided on how many cuts took place in Massachusetts. Staples employs roughly 88,000 worldwide.

“In North America we continue to build momentum in categories beyond office supplies while trends in our international business remain soft,” said Ron Sargent, Staples’ chairman and chief executive officer, in a press release. “Our plans remain on track to grow both sales and earnings during 2012.”

Meg Whitman has even publicly hinted at them. Question is, how many employees will be axed?

One source at HP claims the job cuts are going to be massive.

While this is just one source, we know that tension inside the company is running high and so is the rumor mill.

Here’s what our source told us:

Layoffs are going to be significant. At least, they’ll be bigger than what Whitman has said so far. She’s said that layoffs would NOT be “broad-based” at least in China (whatever that means), but she didn’t say anything about the rest of the worldwide workforce.

Our source said HP wants to trim its workforce by 10%-15%. Given that HP has 320,000 employees, a 10% reduction would be 32,000 workers gone. However, that would include an early retirement program. We’d guess that this would include attrition, too, where new hires don’t come in when employees leave. That number sounds high and we don’t expect HP to promise it next week, because HP will also want to shift some jobs offshore. So, HP’s total workforce numbers won’t reflect all of the cuts.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/source-hp-layoffs-are-going-to-be-huge-2012-5

In Connecticut, the company has notified the state that it may lay off all 187 workers and close its five locations by July 6, including 57 employees at the 23 Thompson Road operation in East Windsor.

The filing, known as a WARN or Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notice, says operations also could end at operations in the Uncasville section of Montville, 36 employees; Norwich, two workers; Cheshire, 42 employees, and Bridgeport, 50 workers.

Hostess, the maker of Twinkies and Wonder Bread, filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy Court protection from creditors in January. It sent the WARN notices last week to all states where it has operations, employing 18,500 workers, company spokesman Erik Halvorson said.

The notices were “to alert employees that a sale or wind down of the company is possible,” he said.

A number of leading Wall Street firms also lowered their price targets on the company.

Penney shares closed down $6.57 at $26.75 on the New York Stock Exchange. The decline was the worst percentage decline since the company listed its shares on the exchange in 1929, according to Center for Research in Security Prices at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

The move pushed the stock well below the $30.11 closing price on June 13, the day before it named Apple Inc (AAPL) retail store head Ron Johnson as chief executive.

This is part of our ongoing series of investigations by the NBC Bay Area Investigative Unit into who got federal stimulus dollars, and why some projects did not break ground more than two years after receiving the grant.

The Investigative Unit looked closely at the federal government’s decision to spend nearly $1.5 million dollars of taxpayer money, money that came here to California. Grant number 1R01HD056950-01A2 was among the thousands of grants funded, receiving $1.2 million dollars. This grant studied how to improve the accuracy of how people responded to questions about their sexual history.

“If you honestly report on your sexual activity and number of partners?” Scott Amey with asked with a sigh. “That’s a good one.”

Amey is the general council for POGO, the Project on Government Oversight, a Washington D.C. nonpartisan non-profit government watchdog group. During our interview with an NBC crew he tried to explain why the government used that many tax dollars to improve self reports about high risk sexual behavior.

“I don’t think most tax payers would think that would be a justified spending of stimulus money to conduct a sex study over fixing bridges and roads that are crumbling every day,” Amey added.

Read more: http://www.nbcbayarea.com/investigations/Stimulus-Grants-Fund-Erectile-Dysfunction-And-Sexual-Habits-Studies-151195105.html

An interim government would take the country through to new elections on June 17, triggered by the collapse on Tuesday of talks to form a coalition between winners of the inconclusive May 6 election.

Greeks are withdrawing euros from banks, apparently afraid of the prospect of rapid devaluation if the country leaves the European single currency and returns to the drachma.

W.V.S.V. listed assets of $120 million against debt of $57.4 million in Chapter 11 documents filed today in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Phoenix.

Assets of the Tempe, Arizona-based company consist of three tracts of vacant land in Buckeye, Arizona, planned for “future development,” court papers show.

The case is In re W.V.S.V. Holdings LLC, 12-10598, U.S. Bankruptcy Court, District of Arizona (Phoenix).

A net loss of about 900 jobs will result. But even more jobs are likely affected by the changes, which include layoffs and shifts to outsource more work.

These layoffs are a major blow to the largest remaining wireless company in the Seattle area after a series of mergers over the last two decades.

The industry took off after McCaw Cellular established the first national cell network in the 1980s. It was sold to AT&T in 1994, and the cluster spawned other carriers that became T-Mobile.

Sony has said the distribution center will close by September. The distribution work done in Fishers for the big three CD makers — EMI Music, Universal Music and Sony — will be moved to Anderson Merchandisers, which operates a distribution plant in Franklin.

In the required notification to the state Department of Workforce Development, dated May 11, Sony officials said the layoffs would begin around July 15.

He is a wealthy man, with assets of as much as $10 million.

He has a hefty stake in JP Morgan Chase, the megabank that just made a bad $2 billion bet. Obama has an account worth between $500,000 and $1 million.

Despite the nation’s $15.6 trillion debt, he is a believer in government paper. More than half his assets are in Treasury bills and notes.

Read more: http://content.usatoday.com/communities/theoval/post/2012/05/obama-worth-as-much-as-10-million/1#.T7LkP7X3uM8

The S&P 500 closed at 3-month lows, while the Dow logged its ninth loss in the last 10 sessions. Major averages are on pace for their biggest monthly losses since last September.

According to a transcript, Greek depositors recently withdrew 700 million euros from the nation’s local banks, said President Karolos Papoulias, though the exact timing of the transfer was unclear.

Read more: http://www.cnbc.com/id/47428134

“This is just me now, I’m not speaking for the White House—I think you could tax me at 100 percent and you wouldn’t balance the budget,” Clinton said, according to Politico’s account. “We are all going to have to contribute to this, and if middle class people’s wages were going up again, and we had some growth to the economy, I don’t think they would object to going back to tax rates when I was president.”

Clinton’s comments are sure to provoke a response from Republicans who argue that President Obama may increase taxes for all or even propose a value-added tax in a more flexible second term.

President Obama has said he wants to raise taxes only on the incomes, capital gains, and dividends of the wealthy. However, observers such as Americans for Tax Reform president Grover Norquist have pointed out that similar promises by Democrats to limit tax increases have not been kept.

Read more: http://freebeacon.com/bubbas-hot-mic-moment/

The study, from the pro-market think tank Public Notice and Race Fans 4 Freedom, finds that the economic downturn of the last several years has directly affected how NASCAR fans watch and enjoy their sport. Since 2009, race attendance per year has fallen below 4 million people, and the number has been declining severely as the unemployment rate has skyrocketed. The cost of attending—with higher gas prices, less disposable income, and diminished financial security—has increased.

According to the study, the value of the sport, too, is threatened by the poor economy, with the stock prices of racing team companies plummeting in the last five years and sponsors pulling back on funding cars. “The days of $25 million sponsorship deals appears to be over for the time being, sending teams scrambling for support,” the study reads. The result is a less competitive field with fewer racers.

“At the end of the day, these numbers really hit NASCAR fans’ quality of life,” says Liz Dyar, the founder of Race Fans 4 Freedom. Dyar adds that with nearly 75 million fans across the country, the NASCAR nation is a “great snapshot” of the country as a whole—and that with plenty of those fans in swing states like Virginia, North Carolina, and Florida, their views on the economy could impact the election.

Read more: http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/obamas-economy-wrecking-nascar_644485.html

The Rollins College international business student interviewed for a sales position last fall in front of the indifferent eye of his computer’s Web camera. The second part of the interview process, a two-minute video he had to upload to YouTube, also left him feeling “uncomfortable.”

“It’s definitely not for me,” said Walgreen, 23, who did not get the job. “Not only did it seem a bit theatrical, which is not my forte, but I couldn’t see the interviewer’s reaction. I didn’t like that.”

More employers are turning to video résumés and interviews on Skype, YouTube and similar videoconferencing services to gauge a candidate. They say the high-tech approach can save them money and help sort through scores of candidates more quickly.

Read more: http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2012-05-14/business/os-skype-youtube-interviews-20120514_1_interviews-employers-candidates

Colgan, a unit of Memphis-based Pinnacle Airlines Corp., employs about 50 people at the Albany International Airport.

Pinnacle filed for Chapter 11 reorganization April 1 and plans to return its Q400 turboprops that are maintained in Albany to creditors after it concludes flying them by Dec. 1.