PRNewsFoto/HP(PALO ALTO, Calif.) -- Tech giant Hewlett-Packard Co. plans to cut 27,000 employees after revealing that third-quarter results will be lower than expected.

The company outlined plans after the close of the stock market for a “multi-year productivity initiative designed to simplify business processes, advance innovation and deliver better results for customers, employees and shareholders.”

The world’s largest computer maker, based in Palo Alto, Calif., had 349,600 employees as of Oct. 31, 2011.

The announcement was expected by the media and analysts after unconfirmed reports of layoffs last week. HP said it expects “approximately 27,000 employees to exit the company, or 8.0 percent of its workforce as of Oct. 31, 2011, by the end of fiscal year 2014.” The total number of employees affected will be lower because employees are being offered an early retirement plan. Since replacing former chief executive Leo Apothekar in September, HP CEO Meg Whitman has announced declining computer sales amid sharp competition from Apple Inc. and other electronics makers.

“These initiatives build upon our recent organizational realignment, and will further streamline our operations, improve our processes, and remove complexity from our business,” Whitman said in a statement. “While some of these actions are difficult because they involve the loss of jobs, they are necessary to improve execution and to fund the long term health of the company. We are setting HP on a path to extend our global leadership and deliver the greatest value to customers and shareholders.”

Hewlett-Packard stock has dropped 18 percent this year. Its shares fell 3.2 percent Wednesday to a closing price of $21.08.

The computer company reported sales fell three percent in its second quarter, which ended in April, to $30.7 billion.

Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio

Hemera/Thinkstock(NEW YORK) -- The markets staged a late-session comeback Wednesday, heading off what could have been one of the worst days in months.
 
After falling off by almost 200 points earlier in the day, the Dow saw a late-session rally to 12,500 by the closing bell. The index lost just seven points for the day. The Nasdaq and S&P both posted gains Wednesday, closing up 13 points and two points, respectively.
 
New worries about Europe's shaky financial situation had the markets in negative territory for most of the day.  Investors are skeptical of whether European leaders can prevent a messy exit from the euro by Greece.
 
Meanwhile, Hewlett-Packard's made it official -- its earnings were up, but its workforce is going down.  The company plans to cut 27,000 jobs by the end of fiscal year 2014.  The major cuts come as part of a restructuring initiative to simplify workflow and save money for the company.

Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio

SAUL LOEB/AFP/GettyImages(WASHINGTON) -- Mitt Romney on Wednesday double-downed on his promise to reduce the country’s unemployment rate if elected in November, again offering a specific 6 percent target that he says he’ll achieve during his first term in office.

“I can tell you that over a period of four years by virtue of the policies that we put in place we’ll get the unemployment rate down to 6 percent or perhaps a little lower, depends in part upon the rate of growth of the globe as well as what we’re seeing here in the United States,” Romney said in an interview with Time magazine’s Mark Halperin.

The current U.S. unemployment rate is 8.1 percent.

Earlier this month, Romney said that any unemployment rate “over 4 percent is not a cause of celebration.” The candidate first vowed to reduce unemployment 6 percent last fall during in a speech at a North Las Vegas trucking depot. Romney said he would lower the then-9.1 percent unemployment rate to 5.9 percent by the end of his first term as president.

The candidate also repeated his benchmark 5.9 percent goal repeatedly in a 161-page book that outlined his economic plan.

Romney could be overreaching: The Congressional Budget Office has already published its unemployment rate estimate for the end of 2016, and it’s 6.3 percent.

Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio

Zef Nikolla/Facebook(WASHINGTON) -- Facebook and its IPO underwriters are being sued and face pointed questions from lawmakers about whether they misled some investors before the largest initial public offering by a tech company in U.S. history.

Facebook investors have filed a class action lawsuit against the company and its underwriters, saying the registration statement and prospectus filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission ahead of the IPO were "false and misleading."

The class action lawsuit was filed on Wednesday in a New York District Court on behalf of Facebook stock purchasers against Facebook's board, including CEO Mark Zuckerberg and CFO David Ebersman, Morgan Stanley and the other underwriters.

The suit alleges that Facebook failed to disclose that the company told the lead underwriters to reduce their 2012 performance estimates because more users are using its mobile apps, which don't generate advertising revenue.

Facebook stock moved higher on Wednesday after two days of declines. Shares of the tech company are up about 2.5 percent to $31.76 in mid-day trading.

But while the company's stock sees a slight jump, regulators have directed pointed questions at the tech company after its muted IPO on Friday.

On Tuesday, there was a report that Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs -- investment bank underwriters supporting the IPO -- told clients earlier this month that they were reducing their earnings forecasts for Facebook.

The Senate Banking Committee is conducting staff briefings with Facebook, regulators and other stakeholders to learn more about issues raised in the news regarding Facebook's IPO, a committee aide told ABC News on Wednesday.

Facebook did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Meanwhile, Massachusetts Secretary of State William Galvin has subpoenaed the tech company, investigating whether Morgan Stanley, the main IPO underwriter, told preferred investors that an analyst cut his revenue estimate based on the company's S-1 filing before the IPO.

"If it turns out you have a pattern of conduct where preferred investors are getting special treatment that's devastating to rebuilding confidence in the market," Galvin told ABC News.

His office issued a subpoena to Morgan Stanley that seeks information about discussions the bank had with certain clients about Facebook's IPO.

"It is so important that we not allow this situation to go uninvestigated," Galvin said. "Given the breadth and size of the issue and the losses that are out there it's important that we move rapidly."

Facebook stock lost nearly 20 percent of its value in its first three days of trading on the NASDAQ.

"So many investors have lost so rapidly so much," said Galvin. "We intend to move quickly. We need to get answers for average American investors."

A spokesman for Morgan Stanley provided a statement regarding some of the allegations put forward against the investment bank, saying it "followed the same procedures for the Facebook offering that it follows for all IPOs."

"After Facebook released a revised S-1 filing on May 9th providing additional guidance with respect to business trends, a copy of the amendment was forwarded to all of MS's institutional and retail investors and the amendment was widely publicized in the press at the time."

In response to the information about business trends, a significant number of research analysts in the syndicate who were participating in investor education reduced their earnings views to reflect their estimate of the impact of the new information. These revised views were taken into account in the pricing of the IPO. "

A spokeswoman for JP Morgan Chase declined to comment about the lawsuits.

Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio

REBECCA NADEN/AFP/Getty Images(LONDON) -- Jony Ive, the man who designed the iPod and the iPhone, might already be considered technology royalty amongst geeks.  Now he’s an actual British knight. Apple’s lead designer was knighted Wednesday in London and given the title of Knight Commander of the British Empire. He is now officially Sir Jony Ive.

According to the BBC, Ive was knighted at Buckingham Palace by Princess Anne. Following the ceremony, the princess talked to Ive about her iPad. During the knighting ceremony, Ive was tapped with a sword on each of his shoulders.

Ive was born in Chingford, London and studied industrial design at Northumbria University. In 1992, he joined Apple’s design team in Cupertino, Calif. In 1997, he became the Senior Vice President of Industrial Design. He has been the lead designer of iconic products such as the iPod, iPhone, iPad, iMac, and the MacBook Air.

However, after the ceremony, Ive told the Daily Telegraph that he believes he is doing his most important work right now. “A lot does seem to come back to the fact that what we’re working on now feels like the most important and the best work we’ve done, and so it would be what we’re working on right now, which of course I can’t tell you about.”

Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio

ABC News(WASHINGTON) -- Allowing Bush-era tax cuts to expire coupled with a scheduled round of automatic spending cuts would probably throw the U.S. economy into a tailspin. That’s the dire warning from a new Congressional Budget Office report that says the economy would contract by 1.3 percent in the first half 2013, pushing off a "fiscal cliff” on Jan. 1.

That’s when a higher tax rate would kick in if the Bush-era tax cuts aren’t extended and more than $100 billion in automatic cuts in domestic spending for agencies such as the Pentagon are kept in place.

Though lawmakers are expected to head off a shift in the government’s financial situation later this year or in early 2013, the CBO says if nothing is done it would likely push the US economy into recession and wring hundreds of billions of dollars from the budget deficit. That would “represent an additional drag on the weak economic expansion,” the CBO says.

The CBO is a nonpartisan agency of Congress that produces economic analysis and estimates of the cost of legislation.

Last summer’s debt and budget agreement imposed almost $1 trillion in cuts to agency budgets over the coming decade and required automatic cuts of another $1 trillion or so.

The CBO study comes as Congress is gridlocked over spending and taxes in advance of the fall elections. The White House and top Democrats are refusing to act on the expiring tax cuts and automatic spending cuts unless Republicans show greater flexibility on raising taxes.

If no deal is reached, the CBO projects that the economy would shrink by 1.3 percent in the first half of 2013, which would meet the definition of a recession, which is when the economy shrinks for two consecutive quarters.

“Such a contraction in output in the first half of 2013 would probably be judged to be a recession,” CBO said.

Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio

Doug Menuez/Thinkstock(BOSTON) -- The days of tirelessly smacking the ketchup bottle, only to have it explode on your plate, are finally over. Dave Smith, a Ph.D. candidate at MIT, has spent the last two months at the Varanasi Research Group developing a slippery non-toxic coating that will end all of your ketchup frustrations.

The coating, named LiquiGlide, keeps condiments like mayo or mustard from sticking to the inside of the container, so that they smoothly slide onto your plate.

LiquiGlide is a “kind of a structured liquid — it’s rigid like a solid, but it’s lubricated like a liquid,” Smith told Fast Company.

“It’s funny: Everyone is always like, ‘Why bottles? What’s the big deal?’ But then you tell them the market for bottles — just the sauces alone is a $17 billion market,” he said, “And if all those bottles had our coating, we estimate that we could save about one million tons of food from being thrown out every year.”

The LiquiGlide group came in second at MIT’s $100k Entrepreneurship Competition.

Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio

Google(NEW YORK) -- In celebration of Robert Moog, the musical innovator who would have turned 78 on Wednesday, Google has dedicated its Doodle to the inventor of the electronic Moog Synthesizer.

“The new Doodle really came out of the love for what Bob Moog did by creating the Moog synthesizer,” Ryan Germick, Google’s chief doodler (his real title!), told ABC News.

And the tribute comes in the form of a cool Internet musical instrument on Google’s homepage Wednesday. You’ll want to have the volume on your computer turned up. When you click the mini-synthesizer’s keys you’ll hear the sweet sounds of electronic tones. Even sweeter, you can tweak the oscillators and modulation.

“This is our most technically ambitious Doodle yet,” Germick said. The chief software engineer of the Moog Doodle, Joey Hurst, even designed it so you can use your keyboard and the number row to play the keys. You can record, play back, and share songs with a link or on Google+.

The Moog Doodle or the Sonic Doodler should be live all day on Google’s homepage (www.google.com).

Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio

BananaStock/Thinkstock(SANTA CLARA, Calif.) -- A Silicon Valley executive has been charged with four felony counts of second degree burglary after allegedly creating his own barcodes and placing them on Lego toys at Target stores to get major discounts.

Thomas Langenbach, 47, was arraigned Tuesday in Santa Clara County Court, but did not enter a plea.

The vice president of SAP Labs Integration and Certification Center allegedly stole from Target stores around his San Carlos home and then sold the items on eBay.  Each of the four counts represents the number of confirmed visits to Target stores where theft allegedly occurred.

When authorities searched his home they found hundreds of boxes of unopened Legos.  The volume and the types suggest it was not for personal use, according to Supervising Deputy District Attorney Cindy Hendrickson.

Hendrickson is not sure why Langenbach would go to such great lengths.

“It’s a bit of a head scratcher, the complexity of the crime and the amount of resources needed to commit the crime leave you scratching your head,” she said.  ”Mr. Langenbach is a VP of a successful company, living in a nice home and making money gainfully and in his free time creating false barcodes and going into Target stores and stealing Legos.”

Also present in the house were packaging materials consistent with the information provided by eBay that Langenbach sold 2,100 items and made $30,000, Hendrickson said.  Legos boxes, depending on the size, range in price from $15 to $279.

Target stores often count popular items before and after closing in an effort to prevent theft.  In April, Loss Prevention noticed the price of Legos in stock didn’t match store receipt records and began an inventory check.

After investigators sifted through sales records and footage they found Langenbach purchasing the toys at a much lower price, according to Hendrickson.  Investigators also realized he used a credit or debit card once and were able to get his name.

The investigation led to a search on Ebay and that is when they came across Langenbach’s year old account where he was selling Legos, police said.

A flyer with Langenbach’s picture was then circulated at Target stores to Loss Prevention teams.  When Langenbach walked into a Target store in Mountain View, Calif., on May 8, the loss prevention team immediately placed him under surveillance.   That is when they noticed him placing bar codes on several items, but only buying one at a discounted price, authorities said.  Once outside, Langenbach was arrested by Mountain View police.

Hendrickson said the investigation is still ongoing and Langenbach may be charged with another count of burglary at a Target store in the neighboring San Mateo County.  She added that Langenbach had three more preprinted barcodes in his pocket when he was arrested and another 32 in his car.

If convicted, he could face up to five years in prison.

Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio

EMMANUEL DUNAND/AFP/GettyImages(NEW YORK) -- Since its debut on NASDAQ last Friday, Facebook's stock has been sliding, dropping from an initial public offering price of $38 to just under $32 by Tuesday's close.

Co-founder Mark Zuckerberg has already lost several billion dollars, considering he owns more than 500 million shares in the company.

Most felt that Facebook was widely overvalued at $38 share.  And now, a potential scandal is brewing as the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority might investigate reports that as bankers were building up the IPO to the public, they were privately lowering revenue forecasts and perhaps sharing their predictions with integral investors.

Massachusetts' Secretary of State William Galvin's office has issued a subpoena to Morgan Stanley that seeks information about discussions the bank had with certain clients about Facebook’s IPO.  Galvin wants to know if the bank secretly revealed to clients that its analysts had cut its revenue estimate for Facebook

"It is so important that we not allow this situation to go uninvestigated," Galvin told ABC News.  "Given the breadth and size of the issue and the losses that are out there it’s important that we move rapidly."

"So many investors have lost so rapidly so much," he added.  "We intend to move quickly.  We need to get answers for average American investors."

Meanwhile, one investor is considering a class action lawsuit against the NASDAQ for computer glitches last Friday that prevented many from purchasing Facebook stock.

Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio

Hemera/Thinkstock(NEW YORK) -- Prepaid cards may face new federal regulations.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has taken the first step Wednesday morning, asking for comments on how to make sure prepaid cards are safe and come with transparent terms.

Bureau Director Richard Cordray says the cards have fewer protections than bank accounts and debit cards.

Banks have been criticized for the expensive fees that come with prepaid cards.

Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio

Robert Ginn/Getty Images(NEW YORK) -- Got a tattoo?  Thinking about getting rid of it?  You're not alone.

According to a survey conducted by The Patient’s Guide, an online skincare reference center, laser tattoo removal procedures have soared by 32 percent this year compared to 2011.

One of the major factors behind this sudden flurry of Americans seeking to remove their ink is the search for work.

Dr. Eric Bernstein, a renowned laser expert from the University of Pennsylvania, says that patients have been telling him “their tattoos are affecting their professional lives.  Many feel that their body could be holding them back and this has resulted in more folks seeking tattoo removal.”

Collecting information from 700 participants in the survey, The Patient’s Guide reveals that employment reasons accounted for 40 percent of those who had tattoos zapped -- up 25 percent from last year.

Other categories included "Name of Ex-Partner/Spouse" (18 percent), "Change of Beliefs" (16 percent) and "Unhappy/Don't Like it' (11 percent).

Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio

William A. Pittas(NEW YORK) -- John Pittas, 47, is fighting a Pennsylvania court's order to pay his mother's $93,000 nursing home stay under a "filial support law" that is in effect in 29 states.

Pennsylvania's statute makes certain family members liable to "care for and maintain or financially assist" certain "indigent" members of the family, a law that some legal experts call "disturbing."

Pittas' mother, Maryann, now 66, was admitted for six months to Liberty Nursing Rehabilitation Center in Allentown, Pa., in September 2007 after breaking both legs in a car accident.  In March 2008, Pittas' mother, who was born in the U.S., relocated to Greece, where her two other children live.

As the only remaining family member left in the U.S., Pittas was left to foot the $92,943.41 bill after his mother's Medicaid application was not approved in time.  The Health Care & Retirement Corp. of America, which owns Liberty Nursing & Rehabilitation Center, sued Pittas in May 2008 for the money and a trial court sided with the nursing home in 2011.

Pittas appealed but the Superior Court of Pennsylvania issued a verdict earlier this month in favor of the nursing home again.

The restaurant owner said he was "in shock" and "devastated" at the ruling and filed to re-argue his case with the Superior Court on Monday.

"I have a business and family.  My wife was pregnant with the second child at the time," Pittas said.  "The economy is not what it used to be.  I'm very worried about this and stressed."

Pittas said he is keeping his elderly mother, who is recovering from a stroke, and father, 78, both in Greece, out of the legal dispute.  His mother had a monthly income of $1,000 from Social Security and her husband's Veteran's Administration benefit.  The nursing home argued in court that her income was not enough to provide for the bill and the court established her "indigent" status.

Liberty Nursing and Rehab Center said in a statement: "We do expect to receive payment for services provided.  We work with patients and families to help them understand their options and responsibilities.  We work with the patient and family on payment options including filing for Medicaid if necessary."

Liberty spokeswoman Julie Beckert said she could not comment about the appeal filed on Monday because it is pending litigation.

In the appeal, Pittas is arguing that the court mistakenly established that he had the "financial ability to support his mother" based on his annual income of $85,000, without taking into account his expenses.

Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio

Hemera/Thinkstock(NEW YORK) -- The latest housing report didn't do much Tuesday to help the markets.
 
The Dow closed down 1.6 points to 12,502.8, the Nasdaq lost 8 to 2,839, and the S&P dropped a fraction of a point to 1,316.6.
 
Facebook is still waiting on investors to "like" shares of the social networking company.  The price of Facebook shares is still sliding below Friday's IPO price.  The price was about $31 at Tuesday's closing bell.

Rising rents and falling home prices may have, at one time, enticed more people to buy homes. But the increase in home sales may be pushing prices higher. The National Association of Realtors says existing home prices rose more than three percent last month. Median home prices were up 10 percent.  Those numbers are still well below what we'd see in a healthy market.

Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio

Stockbyte/Thinkstock(WASHINGTON) -- The long-suffering housing market is showing new signs of life, with Americans buying more previously owned homes in April.  The report is another hopeful sign the housing market is at long last improving.

“Prices rose strongly. The improvement in sales and prices is broad-based across all regions,” said Walter Maloney of the National Association of Realtors.  The realtors survey found that home sales rose 3.4 percent last month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.62 million.

“Consumer confidence is up with more job creation — it’s less than we’d like but nonetheless, steady job creation is creating demand, rents are rising, that’s giving some incentive to buyers who’ve been on the sidelines of the rental market,” Maloney told ABC News.

Total sales are well below the nearly 6 million per year sales considered normal for a healthy housing market.

“The thing that is working against the market is the abnormally tight credit conditions: that is a headwind,” says Maloney.  In other words, it’s tougher for people to qualify for loans to take advantage of the record-low interest rates.

Distressed homes accounted for a smaller percentage of overall sales in April.

Another plus: “First-time homebuyers are slowly making their way back,” said Jennifer Lee, an economist at BMO Capital Markets.

“That is still below the 40 percent-to-45 percent range during healthy times, but the highest in almost half a year.”

Builders have grown more confident since last fall, in part because more people have expressed an interest in buying a home.

Shares in PulteGroup, KB Home and other big homebuilding firms rallied today on the stock market.

Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio