Solaria Sun

Yahoo announced they were cutting 2,000 jobs in an effort to become smaller, nimbler, and more profitable. The cuts amount to roughly 10% of Yahoo’s total U.S. workforce.

Yahoo says the job cuts will eventually save it $375 million per year, but first they will have to pay out severance of roughly $125 million to those getting the axe.

It’s the sixth round of job cuts at Yahoo in the last four years as the formerly dominant Internet search giant and content aggregator continues to lose advertising dollars to rivals Google and Facebook.

Yahoo’s total revenue fell to $5 billion in 2011, down sharply from $6.3 billion in 2010. The company has been in decline since rejecting a merger deal with Microsoft that investors favored, but company founder Jerry Yang was vehemently against. Yang has since left the company.

Yahoo’s current chief executive, Scott Thompson, who joined from PayPal three months ago, says the company is moving “aggressively” towards its goal of putting users and advertisers first.

“We are intensifying our efforts on our core businesses and redeploying resources to our most urgent priorities,” said Yahoo’s CEO.

“Today’s actions are an important next step toward a bold, new Yahoo,” Thompson added.

“Unfortunately, reaching that goal requires the tough decision to eliminate positions. We deeply value our people and all they’ve contributed to Yahoo.”

Yahoo’s stock price is down 50% since the Microsoft deal collapsed.

Facebook has returned the favor, counter-suing Yahoo over patent infringement as the two Internet giants traded legal salvos in their escalating fight over online advertising dollars.

Facebook’s counterclaim, filed in a federal court case in San Francisco, comes after Yahoo  sued Facebook over alleged patent infringement in March, 2012.

Yahoo launched their suit against Facebook at a critical time for the social network giant as their IPO preparations were well underway.

Analysts said that companies in the IPO stage can be forced to settle such litigation to avoid disrupting their attempt to go public with their stock offering.

However, by filing a counterclaim Facebook is attacking Yahoo’s weaknesses – specifically a new CEO and a contentious fight with an activist hedge fund seeking greater influence on the company’s board of directors.

According to their counterclaim, five of the patents asserted by Facebook targets features related to Yahoo’s online advertising business, which Facebook says is 80 percent of Yahoo’s total revenue for 2011.

Yahoo spokesman Eric Berman told reporters that Facebook’s counterclaim is “nothing more than a cynical attempt to distract from the weakness of its defense.”

Facebook’s filing claims that Yahoo’s Flickr photo sharing service infringes various Facebook patents involving the ability to connect with other users on the online service, to identify people in a photo, and to generate personalized news feeds.

Facebook General Counsel Ted Ullyot said, “While we are asserting patent claims of our own, we do so in response to Yahoo’s short-sighted decision to attack one of its partners and prioritize litigation over innovation.”

A British tourist bought five paintings for $5 at a Las Vegas garage sale and an early Andy Warhol sketch worth an estimated $2 million dollars was hidden inside one picture frame.

The signed Andy Warhol drawing on tattered paper is believed to be of Rudy Vallee, a well-known singer in the 1930s. Warhol would have been about 10 years old at the time he drew the sketch, which experts say reflects the beginning of Warhol’s pop art style.

Businessman Andy Fields told BBC News: “My friends and I go to garage sales. It’s like car boot sales but in a garage and we were just traveling around Las Vegas. It’s always a fun thing to do, you find some very good bargains.”

“This guy sold me some paintings for $5. I was reframing one of the pictures and took the backing off and saw a picture looking back at me and recognized the bright red lips of an Andy Warhol.”

“I want to keep hold of it – I collect art – but I don’t want to sell it for a few years.”

Fields bought the five paintings in 2010 for $5 from a man whose aunt had cared for Warhol in his youth. The drawing could fetch more than the $2 million estimate because Warhol’s work has sold for stratospheric prices recently.

In 2009, Warhol’s “200 One Dollar Bills” sold for $43.7 million and a self-portrait of Warhol sold for for $38.4 million in 2011.