Competition

A federal judge on Tuesday declined to force Gannett Co. to keep open the Tucson Citizen, meaning the edition of the afternoon newspaper published Saturday was its last. U.S. District Judge Raner Collins denied a request for a temporary restraining order filed by Arizona Atty. Gen. Terry Goddard, who contended that closing the 138-year-old paper violated antitrust laws.

Cable TV providers cannot have exclusive rights to provide service in apartment buildings that they wire, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday. The decision by the Court of Appeals in Washington upholds a Federal Communications Commission ruling that banned the exclusive agreements as anti-competitive. The National Cable & Telecommunications Assn. and a pair of affiliated real estate groups sued, saying the FCC did not justify the change in policy or have the authority to regulate the deals.

Google Inc.'s plan to launch its own computer operating system is a direct assault at the heart of Microsoft Corp., and its bold move could fundamentally change the way personal computers are used. Under Google's new operating system, dubbed Chrome OS, people would play games, store photos and work on spreadsheets free of charge via the Internet, reducing the need for powerful software and massive hard drives on their personal computers.

At first glance, Google's latest plan for global domination sounds very cool. Everyone's favorite pedal-to-the-metal, innovate-or-die tech company is throwing its Mensa-level brainpower behind the development of a computer operating system to rival Microsoft's Windows. But that's why you want to be worried.

Shaquille O'Neal's legendary NBA career is flawed by one statistic: free throws. He has a .528 average, meaning he misses a lot of them. "There are two classes of male," O'Neal said the other day. "The great athlete and the guy who sits on the couch and thinks it's easy and saying, for example, when I miss a free throw, 'I know I could do that.' " From that thought was born ABC's "Shaq Vs.," the latest in a string of sports-star reality shows. Tonight's premiere has the Cleveland Cavaliers center turning to football.

A price war between Southern California's big supermarket chains is heating up. The region's big grocers, already having trimmed prices for much of the year, are gearing up for a new round as they seek to win back budget-minded customers who have migrated to discounters such as Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Target Corp. Vons will announce Wednesday that it is lowering the prices of about 5,000 items -- about 15% of the store -- at its 274 stores in the region. Ralphs is also launching what it calls a "significant" reduction in produce prices and other often-purchased goods.

Google Inc. has endured the ire of the Chinese censorship machine. In its nine years in China, it has been slowed down, shut down and accused of peddling smut. The Mountain View, Calif., search engine also has been humbled by its main Chinese rival, the home-grown Baidu Inc., which enjoys double the market share and has long been suspected of receiving preferential treatment from the government. Now, with the resignation of its popular chief of China operations, Kai-Fu Lee, Google appears to have taken another punch to the chin in its quest to win over the world's largest and fastest-growing Internet market.

The race to win one of the largest military deals ever awarded kicked off Friday, when Defense Department officials unveiled the arcane criteria they will use to purchase a fleet of aerial refueling tankers from Northrop Grumman Corp. or Boeing Co. But what was once a sprint has become a marathon as the Pentagon attempts for a fourth time to replace its fleet of 415 Eisenhower-era tankers through contracts expected to total more than $100 billion. The Air Force said it would be "crystal clear" in its requirements for new tankers to avoid errors from previous selection processes.

As Google and Microsoft battle for dominance in technology, a skirmish in Los Angeles City Hall is offering a rare public glimpse into a rivalry that could help determine the fortunes of both companies -- and, quite possibly, how workers in the future will communicate. The two tech giants are clashing over a $7.25-million contract to replace L.A.'s outdated e-mail system. The stakes are high enough that both companies have fielded teams of lobbyists and executives to press their case in City Hall.

When the U.S. Air Force recently launched its third attempt to award a $35-billion contract for aerial refueling tankers, Pentagon officials said the competition would be fair and transparent. But it was only a matter of days before the process was under attack. Interest groups, politicians and the contenders -- Boeing Co. and Northrop Grumman Corp. -- began blasting the way the bids were evaluated, prompting some defense industry analysts to question whether the Air Force would ever get its much-needed tankers.