Features

Gateway cuts 140 jobs  

in manufacturing 

SAN DIEGO — Computer-maker Gateway Inc. will stop producing network servers at a plant in Orange County and eliminate 140 jobs, the company said Tuesday. 

Server production will be moved from Lake Forest to a Gateway manufacturing facility in North Sioux City, S.D., spokesman Tyson Heyn said. 

“We’re just trying to improve efficiency in manufacturing,” Heyn said. 

A server is a specialized computer that stores and manages shared information for a network of computers. Gateway ranks sixth in U.S. server sales and ninth worldwide. 

Gateway will continue to employ about 660 workers in sales and marketing, product development, and sales support in Lake Forest. But additional cuts are likely, he said. 

San Diego-based Gateway announced Jan. 11 that it would cut about 3,000 of its 24,000 employees worldwide in response to a slowdown in technology spending.  

J.C. Penney plans to close stores to help chain 

PLANO, Texas — J.C. Penney Co. Inc. plans to close about 50 department stores as new management tries to repair the troubled retailer, officials said Tuesday. 

The company also is shuttering an undisclosed number of Eckerd drugstores, a spokesman said. The Plano-based retailer will announce the closings and release a list of affected stores later this week. 

Penney has seen its market share slip for several years as it was outflanked by discounters and trendier retailers. Analysts say the company was slow to update its stores and suffered from poor marketing and stale merchandise. 

Sega may stop making Dreamcasts by March 

NEW YORK — Sega Corp. is reportedly planning to stop the production of its Dreamcast game console by the end of March, focusing its efforts on developing and supplying its home software games to such rival companies as Sony Computer Entertainment and Nintendo Co. 

Sega will no longer accept new orders for Dreamcast, instead only assembling units from parts in inventory, according to a story in Tokyo-based The Nihon Keizai Shimbun’s Wednesday edition. 

Sega of America issued a statement late Tuesday, saying the company does not comment on rumors. The Tokyo-based Sega, which trails behind Sony Corp. and Nintendo in U.S. market share for consoles, was expected to benefit from Sony’s well-publicized shortages of PlayStation 2, introduced in the U.S. last October, and Sega Dreamcast’s new online connection. 

Modified corn creator agrees to settlement 

DES MOINES, Iowa — The creator of a genetically modified corn that ended up in the food supply and prompted the recall of taco shells and other products has agreed to pay millions in compensation to farmers and grain elevators across the country. 

Miller said the four-year agreement between Aventis and 17 states, mainly in the Midwest, calls for the company to pay farmers up to 25 cents per bushel for tainted corn, and reimburse them for other losses. The total amount of grain has not been determined. 

— The Associated Press 

Holocaust survivors file suit against Yahoo! 

PARIS (AP) — Holocaust survivors and their families said Tuesday they have filed suit against the chief executive of online giant Yahoo! Inc., accusing the company of downplaying the Holocaust with its former online auctions of Nazi paraphernalia. 

The decision to sue chief executive Tim Koogle for a symbolic one French franc — about 15 cents — was a further step in French human rights groups’ high-profile, trans-Atlantic legal battle to hold the U.S. Internet portal responsible for racist material that has appeared on its Web pages. 

The suit was filed two months after a French court, in response to an earlier lawsuit, ordered Yahoo to block Web surfers in France from auctions where Nazi memorabilia are sold. 

GENEVA (AP) — The world will have to create half a billion new jobs over the next 10 years to reduce unemployment and accommodate new workers coming into the labor force, the International Labor Organization said Tuesday in its annual report. 

It said technological innovations would probably create many more jobs, but it was not clear whether they would be in the countries with the highest levels of unemployment. 

The ILO, a U.N. agency, estimates that 160 million people are unemployed, a rise of 20 million since the onset of the Asian economic crisis in 1997.