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Amazon CEO Andy Jassy announced Monday that the company will be laying off another 9,000 employees, marking the second round of significant layoffs this year. These cuts are in addition to the 18,000 layoffs Jassy announced in January, which had started in November. Jassy said in a memo to employees on Monday that most of the cuts will affect Amazon Web Services, Amazon’s People Experience and Technology Solutions, advertising, and Twitch, which is a video live-streaming service. “For several years leading up to this one, most of our businesses added a significant amount of headcount,” Jassy wrote in a memo...

In a pair of affluent coastal California counties, the canary in the mineshaft has gotten splayed, spatchcocked and plated over a bed of unintended consequences, garnished with sprigs of locally sourced economic distortion and non-GMO, “What the heck were they thinking?” The result of one early experiment in a citywide $15 minimum wage is an ominous sign for the state’s poorer inland counties as the statewide wage floor creeps toward the mark. Consider San Francisco, an early adopter of the $15 wage. It’s now experiencing a restaurant die-off, minting jobless hash-slingers, cashiers, busboys, scullery engineers and line cooks as they...

On June 29, 1972, on the occasion of the ninth anniversary of his coronation, Pope Paul VI declared to the world, “From some fissure the smoke of Satan entered into the temple of God.” The pope was referencing the diabolical forces that had infiltrated the Church through the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965). Now a key objective of Vatican II was the empowerment of the laity, in keeping with its theme of “active participation of the faithful.” With the Council came the new definition of priesthood as The people of God. It saw the whole Church as one hierarchy or priesthood,...

Remember Enron? Remember Kenneth Lay? How about the tens of billions that were lost in that scandal? It was a series of events that will be talked about for decades to come, yet history seems to be repeating itself in 2013. Not in the private sector, but in the Federal government. For those who may not know or need a refresher in history, Enron was once one of the largest companies in the world. Its business was primarily in the energy sector. Unfortunately, accounting fraud and corruption led to its ultimate downfall, one of the largest bankruptcies in history, and...

SAN DIEGO -- Imagine joining the Navy ten years ago with a career in mind. Now, sailors with that career plan are getting pink slips as the military looks for places to save money. Since June, 16,000 mid-career sailors have been waiting to find out if they will be forced out early. Last week, the Navy began its layoffs when the first of two rounds of personnel cuts were announced. Read the original story at nbcsandiego.com "Nobody ever wants to pass this sort of bad news to somebody," said Captain Winton Smith, Naval Station San Diego's commanding officer. "It's a...

In March 2010, Nancy Pelosi warned us that we had to pass ObamaCare to “find out what’s in it.” What is in it is jobs for China. What’s not in it is jobs for Americans, as the Boston Globe reports today (via NewsAlert): Boston Scientific Corp. said yesterday that it plans to eliminate 1,200 to 1,400 jobs worldwide during the next 2 1/2 years to free money for new investments, the Natick medical device maker’s second major round of cuts since last year. The company would not say how many jobs will be lost in Massachusetts, where fewer than 2,000...

NORFOLK -- They wake each morning to pray the Liturgy of the Hours and chant it again before they go to sleep. They pray the rosary, spend time in contemplative prayer and gather each Sunday to discuss the Gospel. In almost every way they are like the members of other chapters of the Lay Fraternities of St. Dominic, except they are incarcerated. The chapter, located at Norfolk State Prison, has about 35 members, 17 of whom have made their final profession in the Dominican order. It is the only Dominican chapter in a prison. Ruth Raichle, the Catholic chaplain...

Al Gore’s campaign against global warming is shifting into high gear. Reporters and commentators follow his every move and bombard the public with notice of his activities and opinions. But while the mainstream media promote his ideas about the state of planet Earth, they are mostly silent about the dramatic impact his economic proposals would have on America. And journalists routinely ignore evidence that he may personally benefit from his programs. Would the romance fizzle if Gore’s followers realized how much their man stands to gain? Earlier this year Gore experienced a notable public relations debacle. The Tennessee Center for...

Former Enron CEO Jeff Skilling was sentenced today to 24 years in prison for his role in the energy company's 2001 collapse in what become one of the nation's biggest corporate scandals. U.S. District Judge Sim Lake ordered Skilling to home confinement with an ankle bracelet to monitor his movements. He told the U.S. Bureau of Prisons to recommend when Skilling should report to prison and suggested he be sent to the federal facility in Butler, N.C. "This is not an easy decision,'' Lake said. "Sentencing is the most difficult and least pleasant part of my job Mr. Skilling has...

Enron Corp. founder Kenneth Lay had three severely clogged arteries and had experienced at least two heart attacks before he died, according to autopsy results released Wednesday. The report blames severe coronary artery disease for Lay's death. It also said the autopsy showed Lay had suffered at least two previous heart attacks and had two stents implanted.The Lays were vacationing near Aspen, Colo., when he died. The report, prepared by the coroner in Mesa County, Colo., said Lay was last seen alive by his wife on July 5 at 1 a.m., when he woke up and went into a bathroom.Minutes...

GARY MULGREW, David Bermingham, Giles Darby, Ken Lay, Eliot Spitzer, Hank Greenberg — the list goes on. The first three, now known as “the NatWest Three”, are awaiting extradition to the United States to face charges in connection with the collapse of Enron. Lay, of course, is — was — the founder of Enron, and a former client and friend. Found guilty of a variety of crimes, his death in Aspen last week ends the probability that he would be sentenced to spend the rest of his life in jail. Spitzer and Greenberg, the New York attorney general and the...

Lawyers likely to argue that entire case has effectively been voided BARRIE MCKENNA WASHINGTON -- Kenneth Lay's sudden death could prove to be an unexpected legal bequest to Jeffrey Skilling, his co-defendant in the landmark Enron Corp. fraud case. Mr. Skilling's legal team will almost certainly invoke Mr. Lay's demise to try to reverse his own fraud and conspiracy conviction or demand a retrial, legal experts said yesterday. That's because Mr. Lay's death Wednesday of an apparent heart attack effectively voids the entire case against the Enron founder, including the guilty verdict. Mr. Skilling, the former Enron chief executive officer...

The purveyors of revisionist political history are back at work this week, inspired by the death of Enron Corp. founder -- and convicted felon -- Kenneth Lay to revive the myth that were it not for Enron and Lay, California wouldn't have experienced its 2001 energy crisis. ... --snip-- Attorney General Bill Lockyer had the good manners to remain silent about Lay's death from heart disease three months before he was to be sentenced for lying to mask the failing company's condition. It was Lockyer who in 2001 told an interviewer that "I would love to personally escort Lay to...

Today news of Ken Lay’s heart attack and unexpected death has reached me. I did not know this Mr. KennyBoy Lay person but he seemed to be a good man and like me he knew how to treat people and make money from oil and energy markets. Damn I miss manipulating the price of crude. I have been thinking that many times well known people who are connected by celebrity and a random fact seem to die in groups of three... This is not GoodSTRENGTH IS POWER

It's not nice to speak ill of the dead, but Kenneth Lay's passing elicited little sympathy from average Americans on Wednesday. I spent much of the day trolling Internet message boards and blogs, polling Chronicle readers and talking to legal and other sources, trying to get a sense of how the public feels about Lay's death and how it will affect the legal proceedings against him. Lay was the former chairman and CEO of Enron, a name that became synonymous with corporate greed and wrongdoing, sparking a major reform movement in Congress. Enron also played a lead role ripping off...

The government's forfeiture effort ahead of the planned sentencing of Mr. Lay and Mr. Skilling this fall, however, has been thrown into doubt, at least in relation to Mr. Lay's assets since the death of a criminal defendant before his sentencing and the appeal process may void the criminal case against him. "Technically, he was found guilty, but that's extinguished as of today," said Joel M. Androphy, a prominent defense lawyer in Houston. ..... At issue, too, are Mr. Skilling's obligations to his lawyers. Mr. Petrocelli's law firm, O'Melveny & Myers, is awaiting more than $20 million of payments from...

I am no fan of corrupt businessmen and politicians, but I think we should cut Lay some slack. Why? He served our country. If serving the country shields Kerry and Murtha from attacks, the same should apply with Lay.

ENRON'S Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling are about to trade their corporate suites for prison cells. Sometimes the system works. As prosecutors argued and jurors apparently agreed, Enron collapsed -- not because of bad press or market forces beyond executives' control -- but because of criminal choices and "outright lies." In retrospect, it boggles the mind that Lay and Skilling thought their lawyers could talk their way out of a conviction. It was smooth talk, after all, that sealed their fate. Jurors were especially incensed that Lay assured Enron employees that the company's stock was a great buy in 2001,...

HOUSTON - Former Enron Corp. chiefs Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling were convicted Thursday of conspiracy to commit securities and wire fraud in a case born from one of the biggest business scandals in U.S. history. The verdict put the blame for the demise of what was once the nation's seventh-largest company squarely on its top two executives. It came in the sixth day of deliberations following a trial that lasted nearly four months. Lay was also convicted of bank fraud and making false statements to banks in a separate trial related to his personal banking. The former corporate titans...

 Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling were known as visionaries, hands-on executives, corporate titans directing the high-flying ship at Wall Street darling Enron Corp. Add another title: convicted felons. "Certainly we're surprised," a shaken Lay said Thursday after a jury capped a four-month-long fraud and conspiracy trial and in its sixth day of deliberations returned guilty verdicts against him and Skilling. "I think it's more appropriate to say we're shocked. This is not the outcome we expected." Besides all six counts in the main trial, Lay, Enron's founder, also was convicted of four charges of bank fraud and making false statements...