American Telephone Telegraph Co

A federal judge ruled Tuesday that American Telephone & Telegraph Co.'s proposed $12.6-billion acquisition of McCaw Cellular Communications Inc. violates the landmark consent decree that broke up the phone monopoly 10 years ago. The decision, which could scuttle perhaps the most important such deal in years, was handed down by U.S. District Judge Harold H. Greene, who issued the consent decree in the first place and whose rulings have helped shape telecommunications ever since.

El Proyecto del Barrio, a human-services group hard hit by the Jan. 17 earthquake, was among several social services agencies to receive grants from telecommunications giant AT&T on Monday. The medical clinic and social services agency, which received $6,000, has been operating out of a borrowed mobile home parked in front of its yellow-tagged rental building since the temblor. Though the money won't allow the agency to reopen its building, it can help boost services.

American Telephone & Telegraph Co. said Thursday that it will cut 14,000 to 15,000 jobs in its telephone services unit over the next two years, a move the company says will save $900 million annually and enable it to stay competitive in the cutthroat long-distance business. The job reductions are the latest in a seemingly endless series of layoffs by blue-chip corporations, whose executives say they must reduce bureaucracy and cut costs to compete in the 1990s.