UPDATE Ford Restructuring Plan

from WDIV Detroit TV 4

Ford Motor Co., which is closing plants and cutting jobs in an effort to improve results from its North American auto business, said Thursday that it will close plants in Norfolk, Va., and St. Paul, Minn., in 2008.

The plants employ about 4,300 hourly and salaried workers.

The nation's second-biggest automaker announced in January that it would close 14 plants by 2012, but only identified five of them. It said at the time that it would name two more plants later in the year.

Ford, in a news release announcing the closures, said the staff reductions in Virginia and Minnesota are part of the 25,000 to 30,000 job cuts announced in January.