Newsday (Suffolk Edition) from Melville, New York • 45

APA45 BUSINESS Micosoft Settlement ent Opponents Get Boost THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Washington The Justice Department has decided not to participate in the continuing legal fight involving two states that refused to settle antitrust claims against Microsoft possibly strengthening the appeals case by the holdout states. The Justice Department notified the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Washington on May 21 that it will not file; a brief in the case. The government earlier had indicated it might actively defend the landmark settlement it reached with Microsoft and 17 other states. The decision means Massachusetts and West Vir- ginia, which are seeking tougher sanctions against Microsoft, won't have to directly fight the U.S.

government while they're battling the software giant in the courtroom. Last week, the prospective head of the antitrust division promised the Senate that the Justice Department will watch Microsoft carefully for any violations of the settlement. "We understand the need to be vigilant in making sure that the settlement is carried out," said R. Hewitt Pate, President Bush's nominee to be assistant U.S. attorney general.

He also pledged to meet regularly with industry executives who might have concerns about Microsoft's conduct. 8 a sot 8 a 11 BAN A 8 7 30 10. 10 10 TO 3 AP Photo Hot Off the Presses A Bangladeshi vendor displays fresh currency notes on the streets of Dhaka, Bangladesh, yesterday. For a commission fee, people can exchange worn out and dirty notes for new ones from the vendors. Suspension Puzzles Times Reporter the tension." Bragg, who joined the Times in January 1994, said he won't let that atmosphere create a "prison" that forces him to "stick around just because it will look good." He described the atmosphere for him as "poisonous" and "very sad" but added he does not blame management for the tension, as some have.

"The place went through an incredible trauma, and of course that's going to leave incredible tension, and it's tense enough as it is," Bragg said. Blair resigned as a Times reporter May 1 amid accusations of plagiarism. The paper then cited 36 stories of his in which he made up information, stole from other articles or got facts wrong. The scandal led the Times to question articles by some other reporters. In explaining its suspension of Bragg and its decision to publish an editor's note about it, Times spokeswoman Catherine Mathis cited the dateline policy, saying, "Especially in a story so vivid in reconstructing sights and sounds, readers logically infer that the bylined correspondent has heard the voices and experienced the scenes." She added that nonstaff journalists should supplement rather than substitute for a reporter's core reporting.

Jay Rosen, a journalism professor at New York University, said that at the Times, "nobody had a very good explanation why those who helped Bragg report aren't bylined in the story. It's sort of institutional confusion." Rosen said that more broadly, the traditional acceptance of authority in newspapers is coming under greater question in the Internet age. "Bragg is probably kind of an arbitrary victim of that," he said. "For a long time journalists haven't had to explain very much how they do things," Rosen said. "The Internet has created the expectation that news organizations can be interacted with, can be questioned." A committee has been named by the Times in the wake of the Blair scandal to examine various policies, including the use of freelancers as well as byline and dateline practices.

Meanwhile yesterday, Bloomberg News said it is dropping the whole use of datelines at the beginning of articles to identify the location of a reporter. It said that some of its stories that carried a Baghdad dateline during the Iraq war reflected where the action was taking place, not the reporter's location. Disney to Offer TV Viewers Movies LOS ANGELES TIMES For nearly 50 years, Walt Disney Co. has been entertaining the public for free on television. Now, in a new twist on old technology, the company plans to use local TV airwaves to entertain the public for a fee.

Disney is poised to offer movies "on demand" in three cities this fall, with a na- "If I am confirmed, we will continue to welcome input from those who think there are matters that need to be addressed," Pate said. "And I can assure you if we find anticompetitive conduct, we will take appropriate action to stop it." Massachusetts and West Virginia want the appeals court to instruct the trial judge, Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, to impose tougher penalties against Microsoft than those included in the settlement. Those two states said the agreement "does not fulfill even the most basic mission of stopping all of the practices" committed by the software company. Courtroom arguments before the appeals court are scheduled to begin in November. Bank Close To Deal For $1B Tower In Midtown NYTIMES from A6 THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Bank of America is closing in on a deal with developer Douglas Durst to build a skyscraper at 42nd Street and Avenue of the Americas that is intended to become the bank's headquarters.

The proposed tower, in whose construction Bank of America would be a partner, would cost $1 billion and the bank would occupy half the 2 million square feet inside. The building would stand next to the Conde Nast Tower, with 1.6 million square feet on 48 floors, that Durst built in 1999. "It's proof that New York, despite the recession, has intrinsic strengths that no major bank can ignore," New York University Urban Research Center director Mitchell Moss told The New York Times yesterday. "You can't be a major banker and not be in New York." The news comes at a time when office construction in the city is scant because of the recession. Millions of square feet of office space are sitting empty and tax increases and budget cuts are giving little incentive for new development.

The Durst family controls 90 percent of the block and Bank of America has won the support of city and state officials, The Times reported. But there are no guarantees on the midtown block, where the Dursts' have come close to deals with several companies, including Morgan Stanleyand Nasdaq. At the same time, Bank of America has been in talks with the state and city for an incentive package, although the Bloomberg administration has been reluctant to hand out tax breaks. Ross Moskowitz, a real estate lawyer at Stroock Strook Lavan, said the development would be "music to the ears of the real estate community." NEWSDAY, 'On-Demand' a box about will dedicated 100 enable set-top DVD-quality users to boxthat view movies. as stores many The 'AVOSENGEM of the movies as they wish, and Disney will bill customers only for the ones MAY they watch.

According to Disney, MovieBeam's first public tryout this fall is in Salt 2003 Lake City and two other, undisclosed cities. tional roll-out slated to start next year. For a few dollars per flick, customers with special set-top boxes attached to their TVs will be able to start, pause, rewind and replay movies as if they were on tape or DVD. Though Disney's competitors have lined up behind the services on cable TV or the Web, Disney is spending an undisclosed amount of money to develop its own service, called MovieBeam. It's a risky strategy, and analysts are pessimistic about the prospects.

Not only does Disney face stiff competition from cable operators, it has to persuade consumers to add yet another set-top box to their TV sets. The MovieBeam service will rely on.