Top 10: Bartz in at Yahoo, Apple's Jobs out until June

Yahoo tapped Carol Bartz as its new CEO and in her first press conference she let it be known that the outside world is not calling the shots at her company. While she settled in to her new gig, Apple CEO Steve Jobs started a six-month medical leave, announcing that the health issues he publicly disclosed last week are more complicated than he thought they would be. Otherwise, the drumbeat of bad news related to the economy continued, with Nortel Networks going bankrupt, Google cutting services and jobs, and reports that Microsoft will announce big layoffs next week.

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1. Bartz won't rush into Microsoft deal: Former Autodesk CEO Carol Bartz was named Yahoo CEO Tuesday and in her first press conference in the new job she said that Yahoo needs to be allowed to set its own course. "More than anything, let's give this company some friggin' breathing room," she told reporters in a conference call. "It's been too crazy, everybody on the outside deciding what Yahoo should do, shouldn't do, what's best for them. That's gonna stop."

2. Jobs to take leave of absence until June: Apple CEO Steve Jobs is taking a medical leave of absence until June, saying that "during the past week I have learned that my health-related issues are more complex than I originally thought." Jobs issued a rare public letter last week saying that the weight he lost over last year owed to a hormonal imbalance. His thin appearance has led to ongoing speculation about his health given that he had treatment for pancreatic cancer several years ago. Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook will take over day-to-day operations during Jobs' leave.

3. Microsoft-Nortel relationship again under the microscope: Financially ailing vendor Nortel Networks filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, leading to questions about the viability of the company long term and whether customers will stick by North America's largest telecommunications equipment vendor, which is based in Toronto. The filing also calls into question the stability of Nortel's four-year deal with Microsoft, which the companies signed in 2006.

4. Google prunes popular services from its portfolio and Google will lay off 100 recruiters, shift to fewer sites: Google is eliminating or ending support for a number of its less popular free Web-based services as it aims to redistribute engineering resources. The company is also laying off 100 recruiters and shutting engineering offices in Texas, Norway and Sweden to cope with the lousy economy.