News In Brief

Dell Computer the world's No. 1 PC maker, will cut another 3,000 to 4,000 jobs and force other employees to take unpaid time off, the company said. The layoffs come on top of 1,700 cuts announced in February. Dell said the latest reductions will occur over six months in sales, marketing, and engineering, and will affect management and support services mostly near its headquarters in Round Rock, Texas.

Carter-Wallace, a leading maker of cosmetics and pharmaceuticals, will be broken into halves and sold for a combined $1.15 billion, the company announced. Its personal-care products division - featuring such brands as Arrid deodorant, Nair, and First Response pregnancy tests - will go to a partnership led by Princeton, N.J.-basedChurch & Dwight Co., the maker of Arm & Hammer baking soda. Its healthcare business will go to the Carlyle Group of Washington, DC, and two other buyers. Carter-Wallace is based in New York.

In other layoff news:

* NTT East and NTT West, the operating divisions of Japan's giant Nippon Telegraph & Telephone Corp., were refusing to confirm published reports that they will eliminate 60,000 jobs. But a company spokesman acknowledged that the two would "cut the number of our staff over the next three years" and impose salary reductions of up to 30 percent for remaining employees.

* Terra Lycos SA, the Internet service provider formed from the takeover of Lycos by Spain's Terra Networks last October, said it will cut 15 percent of its work force, or slightly more than 500 employees. The company controls a network of more than 140 Web sites in 20 languages.

(c) Copyright 2001. The Christian Science Monitor