Cisco Systems Inc., the world's largest maker of computer-networking gear, is reducing its work force by about 9 percent to reduce costs and raise profits as the company tries to become more competitive.

Monday's announcement to cut 6,500 of its roughly 73,000 worldwide employees follows up on a plan disclosed in May to eliminate thousands of jobs. Two-thirds will come through layoffs, and the rest through an early-retirement plan. The company said 15 percent of employees at or above the level of vice president are being eliminated.

A prosecutor in Australia filed charges Tuesday against one of four men accused of breaking into a Sydney man's home late at night, holding him down on his bed and whipping him 40 times with a cable as a religious punishment.

Tolga Cifci, 20, appeared in court Tuesday charged with aggravated breaking and entering and committing an indictable offense. He did not enter a plea.

Chinese search engine Baidu.com says it is launching a music download service with three global music labels in China in a deal that ends legal disputes with them.

Baidu said Tuesday it will distribute music online with Universal Music, Warner Music, and Sony Music and pay them for the content. The downloads are available only in China and will compete with a similar service run by rival Google Inc.

Austrian police say thieves have made off with an unusual heist — 21 tons of mustard and ketchup.

The loot was in a semitrailer parked in a lot over the weekend northwest of Vienna. Police say the truck driver showed up Monday to deliver his cargo only to see the trailer missing.

At the end of a long day, many gamers zone out by competing in online death matches, or they check out by escaping to virtual realms. Spiritual leader Deepak Chopra is hoping gamers will instead choose to chill out with "Leela," his ambitious new effort to combine gaming and meditation.

"I personally believe that you can accelerate neural development and biological evolution through video games," said Chopra. "Unfortunately, that's not what we're doing right now. What we're doing is creating addictions to violence, adrenaline and mindlessness, rather than mindfulness. That was my personal motivation to get involved in this medium."

An assistant museum curator who questioned the authenticity of a Leonardo da Vinci has been murdered — but before he died he left a code in his appointment calendar and a cryptic trail of clues connected to secrets in works of art that point to the killer.

Now, would-be gumshoes must figure out what drove one of four suspects to kill him. Was it greed? Fame? Lust? Or revenge?

Egypt's antiquities minister, whose trademark Indiana Jones hat made him one of the country's best known figures around the world, was fired Sunday after months of pressure from critics who attacked his credibility and accused him of having been too close to the regime of ousted President Hosni Mubarak.

Zahi Hawass, long chided as publicity loving and short on scientific knowledge, lost his job along with about a dozen other ministers in a Cabinet reshuffle meant to ease pressure from protesters seeking to purge remnants of Mubarak's regime.

World Bank President Robert Zoellick has criticized the United States for its lack of leadership in pushing for a new global trade agreement.

Zoellick says U.S. administration complaints that the so-called Doha round of trade talks are structurally flawed are an excuse for failed leadership.

Rain turned to sunshine on the last afternoon of the Gurten Festival Sunday, as Liam Gallagher, Beady Eye's hard-rocking front man, charged through songs from their new album.

Former Oasis frontman Gallagher and his band took advantage of the timely change in weather, lifting the packed crowd with "Four Letter Word," ''Beatles and Stones" then rattled off "Millionaire" and "The Roller" — their updates on classic British rock.

The Washington building known as the "temple of invention" when it was built in 1836 to hold the nation's patents is revisiting its roots, hosting a new "Great Hall of American Wonders" to explore 19th-century innovations through art.

The idea for this major exhibit that opened Friday at the Smithsonian American Art Museum was sparked in part by talk among experts that the United States is losing its edge in innovation as other countries spend more on research and export more technology and foreign companies gain more U.S. patents. Curators pulled together artworks, inventions and scientific discoveries from the 1800s in an unusual project for the museum to show how Americans came to believe they have a "special genius" for invention.