WASHINGTON (AP) - The National Institutes of Health says the first test of a human AIDS vaccine in Africa has begun in Uganda. Several attempts at AIDS vaccines have been tested in various countries particularly the United States, where the most advanced study of another possible vaccine candidate is under way. But Monday's announcement by the NIH, which is paying for the study in Uganda, was pegged as an important step toward developing a vaccine for countries hardest hit by the epidemic. AIDS has devastated Africa. In Uganda alone, it has killed nearly a half-million people and left 1 million children orphaned. The vaccine, known as ALVAC, already has undergone safety testing in about 800 people in the U.S. and France.

*** First AIDS vaccine tested in Africa

WASHINGTON (AP) - The first test of a human AIDS vaccine in Africa has begun in Uganda, says the U.S. National Institutes of Health, which is funding the study. Monday's announcement was pegged as an important step toward developing a vaccine for countries hardest hit by the epidemic. AIDS has devastated Africa. In Uganda alone, it has killed nearly a half-million people and left 1 million children orphaned. The Uganda study tests a vaccine made by Pasteur Merieux Connaught that uses a canarypox virus to carry three HIV genes. The canarypox cannot cause human disease, and the HIV genes by themselves aren't infectious, the NIH said.

GENEVA (AP) - Thailand has given the go-ahead for the first large-scale AIDS vaccine trial in a developing country, the U.N. agency in charge of fighting AIDS announced Tuesday. Some 2,500 intravenous drug users in the Thai capital of Bangkok will take part in the four-year trial of the AIDSVAX vaccine, made by VaxGen Inc. of Brisbane, Ca. "This trial signifies an important early step toward the development of a safe and effective vaccine against HIV, an essential strategy for bringing the epidemic under control," said Peter Piot, executive director of the UNAIDS program.

WASHINGTON (AP) - The government used a blunt e-mail from Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates to challenge a witness who insisted Tuesday the company did "absolutely not" offer money to Intuit to distribute Microsoft's Internet browser software. William Poole, who negotiated some of Microsoft's Internet deals, testified it never offered executives at Intuit any money to distribute its browsers over one from rival Netscape Communications. Intuit, whose popular Quicken financial software is used by roughly 10 million people, agreed in June 1997 to give away Microsoft's browser, not Netscape's, with Quicken. In exchange, Microsoft gave Intuit prominent placement of its finance services within the Windows computer operating system.

NEW YORK (AP) - USA Networks Inc. is combining its cable-television Home Shopping Network and Ticketmaster service with Lycos Inc., the popular World Wide Web destination, in a deal that could create a powerful online seller of jewelry, clothing and other consumer goods. Executives in the deal put its stock-market value at $22 billion, portraying it as the latest high-powered Internet merger. But shares of Lycos and Ticketmaster lost more than a quarter of their value Tuesday as skeptical investors balked at the terms of the deal. The new company, USALycos Interactive Networks, will have combined revenues of $1.5 billion. Most of that comes from USA Network's flagship cable channel, Home Shopping Network, and Ticketmaster's sales of tickets to concerts and other events.

WASHINGTON (AP) - Corporate America has fallen far behind in disclosing its readiness for the Year 2000 and how much the preparations and computer upgrades have been costing, the chief accountant of the Securities and Exchange Commission said Tuesday. A check of financial reports that publicly traded companies must submit to the SEC shows "many companies are still not complying" with Year 2000 disclosure requirements, Lynn Turner said at a conference organized by the District of Columbia Bar association. He said more than half the companies in an unspecified sample failed to disclose how much it is costing them to get their computer systems ready for the millennial change.

*** France to try HIV-tainted blood case

PARIS (AP) - The debate over who is responsible for the use of HIV-tainted blood in transfusions in France has endured for years and has implicated former high-ranking government officials. Three former government ministers, including a former prime minister, will go on trial Tuesday for their alleged roles in France's worst health scandal. All are charged with employing a "strategy of favoritism" that delayed systematic testing for AIDS with an American-made test while a French test was being readied. Nearly 4,000 people in France contracted AIDS from blood transfusions from the early 1980s until 1986, and an experts' report in 1991 found 300 were "avoidable."

*** No Alzheimer's-fillings link found

LEXINGTON, Ky. (AP) - There appears to be no link between Alzheimer's disease and mercury used in dental fillings, say University of Kentucky researchers. Such a link has been speculated on in the past, as scientists took closer looks at the effects of heavy metals on the brain. But the University of Kentucky study said there appears to be no harm from mercury fillings. [Sure? Ed]"Although very small amounts of mercury are released from dental amalgam - generally when rubbed or abraded due to brushing or eating - it is not taken up by the brain," said Dr. Stanley Saxe, one of the authors of the study published in Monday's Journal of the American Dental Association.

BANGALORE, India (AP) - More than half of children below age 12 in seven major Indian cities suffer from serious lead poisoning, according to a new study. The findings were released at an international conference on lead poisoning prevention and treatment that began Monday in Bangalore, the capital of the southern Indian state of Karnataka. The study of 22,000 people - including children, pregnant women and industrial workers - was done by the George Foundation, a child advocacy group. The major sources of lead poisoning were automobile fuel, food can soldering, lead-based paint, leaded cooking utensils and drinking water systems. Lead poisoning can lead to permanent brain damage, particularly among young children.

*** Cosmonauts complete re-docking move

MOSCOW (AP) - The crew of Russia's Mir space station successfully completed a re-docking procedure Monday to prepare for the arrival of a new crew, officials said. Cosmonauts Gennady Padalka and Sergei Avdeyev piloted their Soyuz space capsule from one of Mir's docking modules to another to make way for the new crew's arrival later this month, Russia's Mission Control said. The procedure lasted about 30 minutes. The next crew, consisting of a Russian, a Frenchman and a Slovak, is scheduled to blast off from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakstan on Feb. 20.

*** Microsoft plans realignment

SEATTLE (Reuters) - In one of his first major moves to put a stamp on the software giant, Microsoft Corp. President Steve Ballmer is planning to reorganize the company to focus more closely on customers, a spokeswoman said Sunday. "As usual, the company is looking at the organization to ensure that it is mapping to the most important customer opportunities," said the spokeswoman, Marianne Allison. According to a report in The Seattle Times, Microsoft would be reorganized broadly into four new divisions: consumer, enterprise, developers and knowledge workers.

*** Cisco, Motorola enter $1 bln wireless Internet pact

NEW ORLEANS, La. (Reuters) - Cisco Systems Inc., the world's No. 1 computer-networking company, and U.S. wireless giant Motorola Inc. agreed to work together to provide Internet-based services over wireless phones and other wireless devices. Cisco and Motorola plan to jointly invest as much as $1 billion over four to five years to deliver a wireless Internet, the companies said on Sunday. Cisco and Motorola plan to jump-start a new category of advanced products and services by broadcasting IP (Internet Protocol) signals over the air anytime and anywhere.

*** Pirate-free online music studied

NEW YORK (AP) - IBM and the record industry's top companies plan to test new technology that would let people take music off the Internet while protecting the music industry from bootleggers. IBM scheduled a news conference Monday with BMG Entertainment, EMI Recorded Music, Sony Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group to demonstrate a secure digital music system that would be delivered through cable modems. The Wall Street Journal reported Monday that the IBM technology would allow people to order entire albums over the Internet and copy them onto compact discs.

WASHINGTON (AP) - A Microsoft executive testified Monday about lucrative incentives the company dangled before clients to force them to promote Microsoft's Internet browser and abandon the one made by rival Netscape. Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates used such incentives himself to cinch deals. He described them in a 1996 e-mail to executives that described his negotiations with Scott Cook, founder of Intuit, which makes the popular financial software Quicken. "I was quite frank with him that if he had a favor we could do for him that would cost us something like $1 million to do that in return for switching browsers in the next few months I would be open to doing that," Gates said in the July 1996 memo.

*** Can stopping AIDS treatment work?

CHICAGO (AP) - Tentative results of a small human experiment offer a possibility the body's defense system can be trained to hold down the AIDS virus. The risky approach attempts to mimic the success of the much-talked-about "Berlin patient," a newly infected German man who stopped and started AIDS therapy and eventually quit it entirely, only to discover his virus had inexplicably disappeared. He has remained free of HIV for two years. Dr. Franco Lori, head of the Research Institute for Genetic and Human Therapy calls the approach stop and go. The idea: Treat people with AIDS drugs until all signs of HIV vanish from the bloodstream. Withhold medicines until the virus returns. Then give the drugs again. Keep repeating the cycle until eventually the virus never comes back.

*** TB outbreak hits Calif. prison

ATLANTA (AP) - Tuberculosis can spread rapidly among HIV-infected inmates and be transmitted to their visitors and prison employees and result in secondary transmissions, health officials said Tuesday. The findings were published in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's weekly report based on TB outbreaks in two California prisons in which 32 people were infected. Of those sickened, nine were former inmates on parole and another was the HIV-positive wife of one of the inmates who was infected after visiting her husband. In addition, 12 prison employees had positive TB skin tests but did not come down with the disease. It was the fastest and largest documented spread of the disease in the prison system's history.

*** HMOs said to influence non-HMOs

NEW YORK (AP) - Consumers who thought they could escape the impact of managed health care by staying with traditional insurance might be in for a surprise. A new study suggests doctors in regions with fast-growing HMOs order fewer tests and cut other costs even for their patients who aren't in HMOs. Stanford University researcher Laurence Baker, the study's author, said the findings suggest doctors used to treating HMO patients alter their practice habits in treating all patients either out of convenience or because they agree with the more conservative HMO treatment style.

*** Injecting new drug reverses strokes

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) - For the first time, doctors have shown they can reverse massive strokes up to six hours after the start of symptoms by squirting a new clot-dissolving medicine directly into the brain. The new approach offers potentially better treatment for the worst strokes and a doubling of the three-hour window that now is the deadline for stroke victims to get help before they suffer permanent brain damage. Doctors tested the medicine, called prourokinase, on people who suffered a particularly serious form of the disease that accounts for about a third of the approximately 600,000 strokes treated in the U.S. annually.

*** Microsoft plays new video at trial

WASHINGTON (AP) - Seeking to recoup its credibility in the courtroom over a disputed computer demonstration, Microsoft Corp. played a new videotape at its trial Thursday but failed to include an important assertion from the original video that the government had challenged. Microsoft said the overall results vindicated its arguments that government efforts to disable Internet functions within its Windows software cause serious problems. The company recorded the new demonstration overnight, under scrutiny of government lawyers and computer experts. Thursday's video showed an IBM laptop behaving oddly, causing strange crashes and unusual flashing screens in parts of Windows after the government modified it.

*** Cutting edge TV not quite ready

SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) - Analysts who watch the television industry say high-tech skinny sets will take years longer than originally expected to end up in most American homes. Analysts at Display Works '99 - a conference on electronic screen technology – acknowledged Wednesday that they've been overzealous in their predictions and that prices aren't nearly low enough for the average consumer. Instead, the bulky glass "cathode ray" tubes invented 100 years ago will continue to dominate the market at least through the year 2004.

*** Rykodisc offering recordings on Web

NEW YORK (AP) - Bucking recording industry titans, the prominent independent label Rykodisc said Thursday it will sell a small part of its music catalog over the Internet using a controversial technology that contains no protection against bootlegging copies. Rykodisc will make roughly 175 recordings available using the technology called MP3, through www.GoodNoise.com, a Web site for downloading music files. CD-quality tracks from artists such as Louis Armstrong, Bad Finger and Frank Zappa will be available for 99 cents each. The MP3 format allows for easy transfer of songs off the Internet and is proving popular with artists frustrated with the major record labels' distribution practices.

*** Pregnancies hampered by cocaine, smoke

(AP) - Pregnant women who smoke cigarettes or use cocaine have a higher risk of miscarriage, the most common problem of pregnancy, a study has found. While other studies have suggested a link, this was the first to use hair and urine testing to determine women's drug use and smoking, instead of relying on their own reports. Smokers are almost twice as likely to miscarry as nonsmokers, and cocaine users are nearly one-and-a-half times as likely to miscarry as nonusers, according to the study. About 15% of pregnancies end in spontaneous abortions treated by doctors, but many women do not seek medical care for early miscarriage. The study found no link between drinking or marijuana use and spontaneous abortion.

*** Wrongful death suit filed over meat

ZEELAND, Mich. (AP) - A lawyer has raised allegations about unclean conditions at Bil Mar Food's plant in a wrongful death lawsuit filed on behalf of a Tennessee woman's husband. Tainted meat from the Bil Mar plant has killed 12 people in 16 states and sickened 79 others, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Bil Mar, a division of Chicago-based Sara Lee Corp., recalled 15 million pounds of hot dogs and other packaged meat products Dec. 22 sold under a variety of names. It said they could be tainted with listeria bacteria. Chicago lawyer Kenneth Moll filed the suit – his second - saying Tuesday he interviewed former Bil Mar employees who talked about unsanitary conditions at the plant and faulty cooking processes.

*** Update: Judge troubled by Microsoft video

WASHINGTON (AP) - In a second day of testimony, the government pointed out new problems Wednesday with a video demonstration prepared by Microsoft in its attempts to back up a key point in its antitrust case. By day's end, Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson, who will decide the antitrust case against the software giant, shook his head to admonish a key Microsoft witness: "I can't rely on it (the video). It's very troubling." Over a four-minute segment, a government lawyer pointed to software icons that appeared - then disappeared and reappeared - on the screen of the computer purported to have been tested. Under questioning by Justice Department lawyer David Boies, Microsoft senior vice president James Allchin acknowledged Microsoft had tested several computers, but edited together video segments so it appeared a single computer was being tested during the video demonstration.

*** IBM reaches out to blind with talking Web browser

SOMERS, N.Y. (Reuters) - IBM Corp. on Wednesday unveiled a talking web browser, opening the windows of the World Wide Web for blind and visually impaired computer users. The world's largest computer maker said the new software, Home Page Reader for Windows, provides Internet access by speaking aloud the information found on a Web site.

*** China far from solving Y2K bug

BEIJING (AP) - More than half of China's most crucial enterprises haven't identified the millennium computer glitch known as the Y2K bug in their systems, the official Beijing Morning Post reported Wednesday. A survey of 512 firms by the government found 53% did not know how to detect the problem, the newspaper said. The problem arises because early programmers trying to save memory space used only two digits to identify the year - meaning that 2000 looks the same as 1900, throwing off calculations involving dates.

Also: Russia needs $3 bln to fight Y2K bug,

*** AOL lobbies for high-speed cable

WASHINGTON (AP) - America Online is part of a lobbying coalition formed Wednesday with the aim of getting access to high-speed Internet and data lines controlled by cable TV companies. The announcement of the OpenNet coalition comes almost a week after the Federal Communications Commission decided not to open a proceeding that would force cable companies to share high-speed lines with their competitors. Still, the FCC said it would keep an eye on the matter to ensure consumers' options for Internet service are not restricted. Access to the technology has pitted the cable industry against AOL and consumer and interest groups and has produced an intense lobbying battle over what the FCC and Congress should do.

CHICAGO (AP) - People who have taken two kinds of common antibiotics are less likely to suffer heart attacks, according to a study that bolsters the tantalizing theory infections may be an important cause of heart disease. Researchers were quick to emphasize people should not start taking antibiotics to prevent heart attacks. "This study is just another piece of evidence in the puzzle," said Dr. Hershel Jick, a Boston University professor and author of the study, published in Wednesday's Journal of the American Medical Association. The known contributors to heart attacks - such as high blood pressure, high blood cholesterol and smoking - fail to account for many cases, so doctors believe other causes are probably lurking.

*** Study backs racial divide in AIDS

CHICAGO (AP) - Researchers reported Tuesday that blacks donating blood for the first time are 25 times more likely than whites to have recently acquired HIV infections. The study is the latest to document the growing racial divide in AIDS, which is evolving from being largely an illness of white homosexuals to one of poor blacks who catch it through drug abuse and heterosexual encounters. Nationally, more than half of all HIV infections are among blacks. The research examined blood donors, who are among the least likely of all people to be infected. Those who do risky things, such as inject drugs, are discouraged from giving. And since most donors do so repeatedly, they have already passed earlier screening tests.

WASHINGTON (AP) - A large study of Canadian women says very few cases of mild cervical abnormalities detected by Pap smears progress to cervical cancer, a finding that may affect how women with the condition are treated. Some 50 million women in the U.S. get a Pap smear every year, a simple test that can detect precancerous cell changes before they turn into cervical cancer. Paps detect mild abnormalities, called "mild dysplasia," as well as severe lesions that are poised to become cancerous. Regardless of the degree of dysplasia, women often are referred for more in-depth testing called colposcopy, or even a biopsy. But doctors have questioned how necessary the extra care is for women whose dysplasia is mild.

*** NASA planning plane bound for Mars

WASHINGTON (AP) - To mark the 100th anniversary of the Wright Brothers first airplane flight NASA wants to duplicate the event - sort of - on Mars. The NASA budget for 2000 contains $50 million to begin development of a Mars airplane. An animated video played at the budget briefing showed a small, pilotless plane parachuting toward the sandy surface, unfolding its wings and propeller, and puttering off. In actuality, a lot about the plane remains to be determined, including actual design and means of propulsion and delivery to Mars, NASA Administrator Daniel S. Goldin said. Flying in Mars' atmosphere is like flying at 100,000 to 130,000 feet altitude above Earth, he said, so much research needs to be done. A long-range jetliner flies at about 30,000 feet altitude. There is also an eight-minute time lag for radio messages between Earth and Mars, complicating the control of the plane, which would be unmanned. The goal, is all goes well, is to make the flight in 2003, the 100th anniversary of the Wright Brothers flight, though NASA's briefing papers admitted it could slip to 2005.

*** Update: Microsoft accused of altering video

WASHINGTON (AP) - In a dramatic courtroom confrontation, the government accused Microsoft Corp. Tuesday of falsifying a video demonstration aimed at showing severe performance problems after government attempts to modify its popular Windows 98 software. Justice Department lawyer David Boies stopped the video demonstration in midframe to show a subtle inconsistency: a software title bar that suddenly changes in the middle of the test. The video had been played in court Monday. Boies charged - and James Allchin, a senior vice president and top computer scientist at Microsoft acknowledged - the change indicated the test actually was completed using a version of Windows unaffected by the government's modifications. Microsoft's lawyers looked crestfallen.

*** Bell Atlantic, IBM to equip fully networked homes

NEW YORK (Reuters) - IBM Corp. and Bell Atlantic Corp. Tuesday said they will team up to equip homes for full networking, leading consumers closer to having "smart homes" that can link all digital devices. This year the companies will wire as many as 15,000 new houses in Bell Atlantic's Maine-to-Virginia service region with the ability to link computers with each other and with peripheral devices such as VCRs, and to share Internet connections across multiple phone lines. IBM will supply the research and technology to Bell Atlantic's construction unit including a hub that will join various wiring types.

*** Millennium bug may not have a nasty bite

DAVOS, Switzerand (Reuters) - Industry leaders, including Microsoft chairman Bill Gates, told the World Economic Forum's annual meeting they believe the millennium bug, aside from some possible glitches in delivery and supply, may pose only modest problems. "We may see 12 months where people are distracted getting their things ready," Gates told a panel discussion. "But I agree with the general sentiment, that of the range that people have thought about in terms of the problems that will occur, it will be below the middle of the panic that some people have suggested," Gates added.

*** Self-help legal software faces ban

DALLAS (AP) - Do-it-yourself lawyering is under attack in Texas, where a federal judge says he will ban the sale of some self-help legal software. Judge Barefoot Sanders says the software amounts to the unauthorized practice of law. The Texas court battle has national implications for law practice and software authorship, and the issue could wind up before state legislatures and the U.S. Supreme Court, lawyers said Tuesday. While Texas has become the first state in the nation to move toward outlawing such "cyberlawyer" software, others have considered action against publishers of self-help legal manuals that provide assistance with wills, prenuptial agreements and other documents.

*** Experts to examine Dead Sea Scrolls

JERUSALEM (AP) - After a half-century of piecing together bits of the Dead Sea Scrolls found in desert caves, scholars may be reaching a point where they have learned just about all they can from handwriting and textual analysis. So, in an attempt to open new horizons, scientists are being brought into the field of scroll research to apply their techniques to the 2,000-year-old scriptures. Lab technicians met with traditional text scholars and historians at a conference Sunday at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, sponsored by the Orion Center for the Study of the Dead Sea Scrolls. This cooperation of scientific expertise could help resolve some of the mysteries still swirling around the scrolls, which had been guarded by a small group of scholars until the early 1990s.

*** Weakened AIDS virus may be harmful

NEW YORK (AP) - Using a weakened AIDS virus as a vaccine might actually cause the disease, a study in monkeys suggests. Some scientists have proposed using weakened HIV as a vaccine, and some animal studies have been encouraging. But in the new work, researchers found AIDS in some macaques that had been inoculated with a genetically crippled version of a virus called SIV, a cousin of HIV. One of 16 macaques vaccinated as adults developed AIDS, as did six of eight animals vaccinated as infants, researchers reported. Some other animals developed immune-system abnormalities.

*** Archaeologists dig at Miami site

MIAMI (AP) - A developer agreed to give archaeologists another month to complete their excavation of a downtown site they believe contains prehistoric ruins. In an agreement reached Sunday, Michael Baumann promised to allow archaeologists to continue their excavation without interference through Feb. 26. With the reprieve, Baumann averted the possibility of a legal fight that could have delayed construction of a $100 million residential-commercial complex. During a routine survey of the 2.2-acre site last summer, archaeologists discovered a circle made up of dozens of holes carved into stone. The spot is believed to have been a settlement of the Tequesta Indians, a group that disappeared hundreds of years ago.

*** Lycos to offer online music search

PALO ALTO, Calif. (Reuters) - Lycos Inc., the second most visited hub on the Internet, will launch a new service Monday providing links to more than half a million online songs. The company says it expects the new service, using the so-called MP3 recording technology, to attract more visitors to its site since none of the other major Internet directories offer such links. Also, smaller Web sites devoted strictly to online music do not have such extensive collections. Lycos will provide the music links through a joint venture with Fast Search & Transfer, a Norwegian company specializing in image and video compression technologies for the Internet.

*** Sun chief wants no 'Baby Bells'

DAVOS, Switzerland (Wired News) - Scott McNealy was throwing sticks and stones at Microsoft again Monday, comparing it to that antithesis of capitalism, the "planned economy." But the Sun Microsystems chief warned against breaking up the world's largest software maker into smaller companies. McNealy said, "Microsoft is a planned economy. Left unfettered, unscrutinized, [and] unchecked, monopoly power can be leveraged into other businesses." McNealy warned against breaking Microsoft into pieces, the way the old U.S. telephone monopoly was deconstructed to form the Baby Bells. "The structural remedies that people are talking about - separating applications from operating systems - is like one of those horror movies where you cut the monster in half, and now you have two monsters," he said.

*** Microsoft battles over words

WASHINGTON (AP) - Through weeks of trial, Microsoft has denied charges it illegally bundled its Internet browser into newer versions of Windows to smother a software rival. In its courtroom defense, Microsoft maintains it can't be guilty of "tying" the products because its browser is a component of Windows, not a separate program. This week Microsoft must square that defense with words of some of its own lawyers, who considered it obvious its Internet Explorer browser and its Windows operating system are distinct products. In paperwork for a U.S. patent - months after the government launched its antitrust case - Microsoft lawyers wrote, "It should be understood by those skilled in the art that a Web browser, such as Netscape Navigator or Internet Explorer ... is separate from the operating system."

*** Report: Astronomers make vast map

LONDON (AP) - A team of astronomers has created a map of the cosmos that covers the largest area of the universe ever charted, news reports said Saturday. The three dimensional map charting 15,500 galaxies, covers an area so large it would take 500 million years for a light shone on one side to reach the other, The Guardian newspaper said. Superclusters - gigantic structures made of clusters of galaxies - are charted, and the spaces between them, called voids, offer important information about the expansion of the universe, the report said. According to the Big Bang theory, gravity has kept the universe expanding since its creation.

*** Court rules Microsoft trial videos to be public

WASHINGTON (AP) - A federal appeals court reluctantly agreed Friday that an obscure 1913 law allows the public to see the entire videotape of Microsoft's billionaire chairman, Bill Gates, struggling through three days of interviews by government lawyers. The decision also opens roughly 100 other depositions already taken in the government's high-profile antitrust case against Microsoft, including interviews with some of the high-tech industry's most powerful players, such as top executives of Intel, IBM, Apple Computer and Netscape Communications. The ruling effectively ensures the public can attend any future interviews with executives related to the trial.

*** Computer opens library treasures

WASHINGTON (AP) - Shakespeare lovers now can use computers to view centuries-old pages from the first published edition of the playwright's works, once restricted to authorized scholars. The Folger Shakespeare Library, one of the world's most important collections, has 79 complete copies of the First Folio, the first complete edition of his plays. But they are more than 375 years old and even scholars need a good reason to touch them or turn the pages. Since Thursday, a new multimedia exhibit called "The Shakespeare Gallery" has enabled tourists to turn at least 13 pages. The exhibit has 240 digitized color images of the Folger's treasures relating to Shakespeare and his times.

*** Japan issues flu warning

TOKYO (AP) - Japan's Ministry of Health and Welfare is urging nursing homes to give residents flu vaccinations immediately in an effort to halt a flu outbreak that has claimed a reported 25 lives. The ministry said 17 people died this month after coming down with influenza, but officials were unavailable later Thursday to confirm a Kyodo News agency report that the death toll had hit 25. Most of the deaths have occurred among the elderly, although thousands of Japanese schoolchildren have also fallen ill. Hundreds of schools have closed or canceled classes due to the outbreak, which has hit Tokyo especially hard. Some 62,500 schoolchildren have contracted the flu.

*** Yahoo! to buy GeoCities

NEW YORK (AP) - Yahoo! Inc. is buying GeoCities Inc. for $4.58 billion in stock, securing Yahoo!'s position among the dominant Internet search and directory services. Thursday's deal combines Yahoo!, the third-largest Internet destination, with No. 5 GeoCities and could unseat America Online Inc. as the most popular starting point for information and services on the World Wide Web. Yahoo! plans to place ads on GeoCities' site to try to lure its visitors to Yahoo!'s already popular Web destination.

DULLES, Va. (AP) - Second quarter earnings for America Online Inc. nearly quadrupled as the nation's largest online service easily surpassed Wall Street expectations. AOL said late Wednesday that it earned $121 million, or 22 cents per share, compared with $33 million, or 6 cents per share, for the same quarter in 1997. Revenue was up 62% to $960 million, compared with $592 million last year. The net earnings figures include an accounting adjustment that allowed the company to deduct past losses from its tax bill, which raised net income. Not including the adjustment, AOL earned $88 million, or 17 cents per share. Analysts surveyed by First Call Corp. had predicted that AOL would earn 14 cents a share.

** Intel splits stock 2-for-1

SANTA CLARA, Calif. (AP) - Intel Corp. announced a 2-for-1 stock split Thursday, becoming the latest big-name company to divide its shares to make them more affordable to investors. Intel, the world's largest computer chipmaker with $26.2 billion in sales last year, said the split will take effect April 11. Investors greeted the news by bidding Intel up $4.44 a share to $137.19 in early Nasdaq Stock Market trading. The split would be the 12th since Intel went public 26 years ago. The last split, also 2-for-1, was in June 1997. The company has 1.67 billion shares of stock outstanding.

*** Report: Sony to sell music on Web

TOKYO (AP) - Japan's Sony Music Entertainment plans to start allowing Internet users to download music for a fee and record it onto minidiscs, according to a published report Friday. Customers would be able to choose from music produced by Sony, and would be charged according to the number of songs downloaded or the playing time of the music, the Asahi newspaper reported. The newspaper did not say when the new program would be implemented. Sony Music Entertainment's parent company, Sony Corp., has been aggressively pursuing new recording technologies including the minidisc. Earnings at Sony's music division increased 22% in the three months ended Dec. 31 even as the Sony group's overall profits declined by 20%.

*** Judge demands a Microsoft e-mail

WASHINGTON (AP) - The judge who will decide the Microsoft antitrust trial ordered the company Thursday to surrender a contested e-mail that threatens to undermine one of its legal arguments. The internal e-mail from a software engineer in Oct. 1998 explains in unprecedented detail some of the ways Microsoft combined its Internet browser software into its dominant Windows operating system. The government charges the combination amounts to illegal "tying" under federal antitrust law. Microsoft's unease about the e-mail was evident in efforts to avoid turning it over. In part, the company claimed the note was covered under attorney privilege because one of its lawyers was included in the e-mail's "cc" field.

*** Greenspan: Internet can be risky

WASHINGTON (AP) - No less an authority than Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan compared buying the latest hot Internet stock to hitting a one-in-a-million jackpot in the lottery. During an appearance Thursday before the Senate Budget Committee, Greenspan was asked to explain surging stock values for fledgling Internet companies. Greenspan, who once sent stock prices plunging by worrying about investors' "irrational exuberance," said in this case the market was behaving in a time-honored fashion. He said the potential payoff for companies that succeed in the new world of supplying goods and services on the Internet is so huge something he called the "lottery principle" was at work.

NEW YORK (AP) - Johnson & Johnson will market the product touted as a cholesterol-lowering margarine as a food, not a dietary supplement, and hopes to get the spread onto store shelves by late spring. Johnson & Johnson has battled the Food and Drug Administration for four months over just what classification to give its new spread, called Benecol. J&J initially wanted to sell it as a dietary supplement so it would not need government approval before going on the market. The FDA wanted to treat it as a food additive, subject to a lengthy safety review. That would undoubtedly slow Benecol's path to consumers.

*** Nations fail to improve health

WASHINGTON (AP) - Countries that agreed to spend $5.7 billion a year by 2000 to help improve reproductive health and slow population growth are falling short of that goal - and the United States and Japan account for more than half the shortfall, according to a global survey. Total aid for population and health programs by donor countries reached just $1.4 billion in 1996, the latest year for which full data are available, according to Population Action International. The goal was set by 180 nations at the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo. Pledges at the conference were set for each country according to the size of its economy.

*** Low-tech treatment best for heart

(AP) - Researchers say heart attack patients fare best in the nation's top-rated hospitals because of a surprisingly low-tech treatment - aspirin and beta blockers - that could be duplicated in small, rural hospitals. Several studies have shown the benefits of beta blockers, which reduce the heart's work load, and aspirin, which thins blood. Although medical groups encourage the use of the drugs, many hospitals and doctors still aren't routinely giving them to patients. "We could save a lot of lives if that knowledge was fully translated to the bedside," said Dr. Harlan Krumholz, director of the Yale-New Haven Hospital Center for Outcomes Research and Evaluation.

*** Microsoft accuses Feds of tinkering

WASHINGTON (AP) - Microsoft's next witness at its antitrust trial told the judge in written testimony that government efforts to modify its popular Windows software slowed some functions sevenfold and prevented other programs from running at all. James Allchin, a senior vice president expected to take the stand Monday, derided government efforts as a "Rube Goldberg mechanism" that made Windows "effectively useless in a commercial sense." Microsoft released Allchin's 139 pages of written testimony Wednesday, even as the government ended its initial questioning of Paul Maritz, the senior executive responsible for Microsoft's most important consumer products.

*** Yahoo! expands presence in Asia

SANTA CLARA, Calif. (Reuters) - Internet search engine Yahoo! Inc. Wednesday expanded its presence in Asia with the launch of three new Internet properties, in Singapore, Taiwan and Hong Kong. The addition of Yahoo! Singapore, Yahoo! Taiwan and Yahoo! Hong Kong brings the total number of Yahoo! properties in the Asia Pacific region to eight and boosts Yahoo!'s total number of properties worldwide to 18.

*** FDA to restrict animal antibiotics

WASHINGTON (AP) - The government wants to impose new restrictions on antibiotics for animals to combat concerns that on-the-farm medication is creating drug-resistant germs that could wind up in the meat people eat. Advisers to the Food and Drug Administration ruled Tuesday the proposed rules need fine-tuning, but most should go into effect despite protests from makers of animal drugs that the agency is drastically overreacting. Among other things, the rules would set pre-established terms for when an animal antibiotic has shown signs of enough drug resistance that its use should be curbed - or banned altogether.

*** FDA urges caution with clot-buster

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Food and Drug Administration urged doctors to consider prescribing alternative drugs to Abbott Laboratories' clot-buster Abbokinase, saying it poses a potential risk of spreading infectious disease. In a letter to doctors Monday, the FDA warned that Abbokinase, known chemically as urokinase, should "be reserved only for those situations where a physician has considered the alternatives and has determined that the use of Abbokinase is critical." Abbokinase is one of many drugs used to dissolve blood clots. It is made from kidney cells taken from newborns who have died.

*** Study: Parkinson's not inherited

CHICAGO (AP) - Most cases of Parkinson's disease are not due to a genetic defect but are caused by other factors that are probably environmental, according to a landmark study of more than 17,000 twins. "For the first time, today we can say that for people with Parkinson's disease diagnosed after age 50, it's most commonly caused by environmental factors," said Dr. Caroline M. Tanner of the Parkinson's Institute in Sunnyvale, Calif., who led the study. The environmental factors are unknown but may include chemical exposures, diet and smoking - the last of which seems to lessen the risk of developing Parkinson's.

*** U.S. responds to Russia's Y2K concerns

(CNET News) - Russia's Defense Ministry admitted Monday that it considered the millennium computer bug a problem and a Pentagon official said a U.S. delegation planned to go to Moscow next month to discuss the issue. "There is a problem and we are working on it," a ministry spokesman said, referring to a fault in which computer software first developed in the 1960s and 70s fails to recognize the year 2000 and thinks it is back in 1900. It was not clear where exactly the problem was or whether there was any snag in the strategic missile command system, where, as some American officials and experts fear, a computer glitch might provoke an accidental nuclear alert.

*** Eli Lilly reaches Prozac deal

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) - Eli Lilly and Co. and three generic drug companies reached a partial settlement of their patent dispute involving the antidepressant Prozac, and sent their broader disagreement to a federal appeals court in hopes of resolving the issue early next year. The agreement announced Monday came in the suit involving Lilly and Barr Laboratories, Geneva Pharmaceuticals and Apotex Inc., which have sought to make a generic form of the widely-prescribed drug. News of the deal came shortly before Lilly was to begin arguing its case against the generic drug companies in U.S. District Court in Indianapolis. Lilly agreed to drop claims of willful patent infringement against the three companies, which will share a $4 million payment from Lilly for reimbursement of legal expenses and costs related to the litigation.

*** Brain blood flow, Alzheimer linked

NEW YORK (AP) - Rogue bits of a natural protein may promote Alzheimer's disease by disrupting the flow of blood in tiny vessels of the brain, a study suggests. The study provides more evidence vitamin E and other antioxidants may fight the disease, and suggests finding treatments to restore normal blood flow may pay off. Scientists do not know what causes most cases of Alzheimer's. Many point to overproduction of natural protein fragments that form clumps in the brain. Studies show the fragments can kill brain cells. The new work suggests amyloid-beta, or related fragments, can promote Alzheimer's in a second way: by boosting production of harmful substances called oxygen radicals, which in turn keep tiny blood vessels from delivering the right amounts of blood to brain cells.

*** Microsoft announces 2-for-1 stock split

REDMOND, Wash. (AP) - Microsoft Corp. announced a 2-for-1 stock split Monday, prompting a sharp rise in its share price. The split would take effect March 12 if shareholders approve an increase in the company's authorized common stock. Microsoft, the world's largest computer software company, had 2.5 billion shares outstanding as of Dec. 31. The split would be the eighth since Microsoft went public on March 13, 1986. The last split, also 2-for-1, was Feb. 23, 1998. Gregory Maffei, chief financial officer, said the split would make Microsoft stock more affordable to investors.

*** Microsoft exec denies making remark

WASHINGTON (AP) - The government challenged a senior Microsoft executive Monday over his denial that he ever uttered an often-quoted phrase about his company's aggression toward a rival, that he once promised to "cut off Netscape's air supply." The sensational phrase, which underscores the government's antitrust case against Microsoft, was attributed by one witness to Paul Maritz during a Nov. 1995 meeting with Intel Corp. As part of its lawsuit, the government alleges Microsoft included Internet browser software free within its dominant Windows operating system to try to "crush" Netscape, whose browser was much more popular during the mid-1990s and earned tens of millions of dollars.

*** Netscape's co-founder to take job at AOL

(WSJ) - Marc Andreessen, co-founder of Netscape Communications Corp., has agreed to become chief technology officer of America Online Inc. following its acquisition of his company, people familiar with the situation said. Andreessen, who had led Netscape's software development, will report directly to AOL Chairman and Chief Executive Steve Case, sources said. He is expected to play a major role in keeping talent and bolstering morale at Netscape, which is slated to continue developing Internet software as an AOL division.

*** Update: Intel agrees to change its chips

WASHINGTON (AP) - Just hours after privacy groups began a boycott, Intel Corp. reversed itself Monday and said it would disable a new technology that helps identify computer users as they move across the Internet. Intel, the world's largest computer chipmaker with $26.2 billion in sales last year, said it will include software that turns off the feature by default in future copies of its Pentium III processors, not yet distributed to the world's computer makers. The company also promised to offer the software to owners of existing Pentium III chips already in production, making it easy to permanently turn off the technology.

*** Sun unveils Jini technology

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - Technology that could enable people to turn on the heat in their homes while on the road or log into a computer network through their television was unveiled Monday by Sun Microsystems Inc. Jini, officially introduced by Sun CEO Scott McNealy and chief scientist Bill Joy at Sun's Worldwide Analyst Conference in San Francisco, would let users connect by phone or laptop to any device as easily as they might make a phone call. The universal Jini software code lets devices "talk" to one another, regardless of their operating systems. Someone using a device loaded with Jini would connect to a main network, which would then issue commands for other devices.

*** Prozac patent fight goes to trial

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) - Lawyers from 11 firms are due in court Monday as two competitors challenge Eli Lilly and Co.'s patents on the drug Prozac. At stake are U.S. sales for the world's favorite antidepressant, a market estimated to reach $2.5 billion this year. Barr Laboratories and Geneva Pharmaceuticals are bucking long odds in trying to convince Judge Sarah Evans Barker to throw out two Lilly patents on Prozac so they can introduce their own cheaper, generic versions. Pretrial rulings this month have favored Indianapolis-based Lilly, and some industry observers said it had a clear advantage heading into the trial, expected to last about two weeks.

*** Flu victims pack NYC hospitals

NEW YORK (AP) - With a bone-rattling cough and a deep sniff, the flu virus made its presence known in the metropolitan area this week as hundreds of people flooded hospital emergency rooms. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta confirmed the nation was having a mild flu season, except in the New York City area, where there was a widespread influenza outbreak. Hospitals in the city were reporting cases of the flu or respiratory viruses with flu-like symptoms, which ranged from headaches to muscle aches and head colds to high fevers. The elderly, the very young and those with other illnesses, such as diabetes and heart problems, were particularly at risk and accounted for the majority of people going to hospitals.

*** New microbes posing health risks

ANAHEIM, Calif. (AP) - Previously unknown bacteria and viruses blooming in the Earth's warming oceans are killing some marine life and threatening human health, researchers say. There are increasing reports of dying coral, diseased shellfish and waters infected with human virus as the seas rise in temperature and pollution from the land intensifies, researchers said Friday in studies presented at the national meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. About 10% of the coral worldwide has died, said James W. Porter, an ocean studies specialist at the University of Georgia. He said if present trends and conditions continue, another 20% to 30% of the coral could be lost.

*** Promise of 'master cell' research questioned

WASHINGTON (AP) - Should the tax dollars of people who oppose abortion be used for medical research based on cells taken from aborted fetuses or discarded embryos? Anyone against abortion might answer no. But if research creates a cure for, say, Parkinson's disease and an abortion opponent who opposed the research gets Parkinson's, should treatment be withheld? Ethics experts are grappling with these kinds of questions as medical science moves toward a new frontier: research using master cells that are the root of human life. They are called embryonic stem cells, microscopic dots that grow inside weeks-old embryos before morphing into 210 types of cells that make up a human body.

*** Australia has high skin cancer rate

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) - Australia has the highest incidence of skin cancer in the world and rates of melanoma are continuing to rise, a new study revealed Friday. The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare study found the rates of skin cancer are rising in Australia despite campaigns to get people to stay out of the sun or use proper protection when they are outside. Queensland reported the highest incidence rate for all cancers, including melanomas. "The incidence figures were worrying enough, (but) the fact that melanoma rates were continuing to rise was potentially of greater concern," said Paul Jelfs, head of the health institute's disease registers unit.

*** Y2K forces close of online service

WASHINGTON (AP) - Citing the Year 2000 computer problem, Prodigy Communications Corp. is telling its 208,000 subscribers it will shut down its pioneer "Prodigy Classic" online service. Prodigy notified customers nationwide by e-mail late Friday it could not avoid the effects of the so-called "Y2K" problem and by October must shut down one of the most well-established neighborhoods in cyberspace. The company said the Year 2000 problem was not expected to affect the 433,000 subscribers of its newer "Prodigy Internet" service, launched in late 1996, and it encouraged its Classic subscribers to enroll there.

*** Congressman chides Intel over new chip

WASHINGTON (AP) - A congressman urged Intel Corp. Friday to reconsider plans to give its upcoming Pentium III computer processor the ability to transmit across the Internet unique numbers to help identify consumers. Rep. Edward J. Markey, D-Mass., said he understood the technology's implications for online commerce, where the anonymity of the Internet can encourage fraud. But he worried it would help online marketers track consumers on the Web surreptitiously. "Intel's new product improves technology for online commerce in a way that compromises personal privacy," Markey wrote in a letter to Intel CEO Craig Barrett.

*** Entrepreneurs profit from Y2K bug

LUBBOCK, Texas (AP) - If the millennium computer bug leaves supermarket shelves barren, cities powerless and communities in chaos, Roy Leonard's $2,000 Magna-Chair might come in handy. He says it uses magnets to increase blood circulation - useful for those too afraid to venture out into the darkness for exercise. And he says he cannot keep them in stock. The Lubbock furniture salesman was one of dozens of entrepreneurs pushing preparedness Friday at one of the nation's first Y2K conventions. The three-day show drew hundreds of buyers and sellers convinced a computer glitch could cause havoc at the turn of the century. Some computers can be reprogrammed, but many devices have embedded microchips that must be physically replaced.

*** Gore proposes $366 mln on technology

WASHINGTON (AP) - Vice President Al Gore will propose spending $366 million more on high-tech projects next year and extending a $2.4 billion research tax credit aimed at helping scientists, for example, develop super-fast computers that can speak and understand language. The administration plans to increase federal research spending to a total $1.8 billion during fiscal 2000, which starts Oct. 1. Most of the money, about 60%, would go to research universities. Gore was expected to announce the White House proposals at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Anaheim, Calif. The spending increases are part of the administration's $1.8 trillion budget it plans to unveil Feb. 1.