Los Angeles lost 30,600 jobs in the month and saw the jobless rate increase from 12 percent to 12.4 percent.

There are jobs in the medical industry, people told her. So she went back to school and became a certified medical assistant. Weeks blurred into months. And still Smith cannot find a job.

The planned cutbacks represent about 5 percent of Yahoo’s work force of 14,100 employees. It will mark Yahoo’s fourth mass layoff in the past three years.

LOS ANGELES _ An official with the Los Angeles City Attorney’s Office says Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa does not have the authority to order the layoffs of 1,000 city employees. In a memo circulated Friday, Chief Deputy City Attorney Bill Carter says the mayor can remove the heads of departments and people in appointed offices but [...]