Qwest Communications International Inc

A legal fight involving two Southern California companies and AT&T Inc. is exposing an ominous reality: Phone companies say they can decide whom their customers can't call. The Kidney Cancer Assn., a small charity watching its nickels and dimes, found that out the hard way. The nonprofit had been using a free, Web-based conference-calling service from a Long Beach company to connect patients with medical experts.

Since Philip Anschutz became one of the nation's youngest billionaires at 42, he has enjoyed a low profile. The publicity-shy tycoon routinely refuses to talk to reporters, even though he owns daily newspapers in San Francisco, Washington and Baltimore. The last time he sat down for an on-the-record interview was in 1974. Anschutz also prefers to stay out of courthouses, despite spending a small fortune on litigation and attorney fees.

Qwest Communications International Inc. founder Philip Anschutz agreed to sell 20.6 million shares of the company, completing plans to unload nearly all of his stake. He now directly owns four shares. Anschutz, 67, will keep control of the 20.6 million shares until 2010 under a forward-sale contract. That lets him receive an upfront payment while retaining voting rights at Denver-based Qwest, the fourth-largest U.S. telephone company. The sale will generate an initial payment of $150.

California's giant teacher pension fund has reached a nearly $47-million settlement with Qwest Communications International Inc. over a lawsuit claiming that the Denver-based telephone company defrauded the fund out of $150 million. The settlement, made public Wednesday, calls for Qwest, its accountants and banks to pay the pension fund $45 million. Former Chief Executive Joseph Nacchio must pay $1.5 million.

Qwest Communications International Inc. signed a three-year contract to provide Internet service to the Los Angeles city government. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed, the Denver-based company said. Under the contract, the city will pay up to $500,000 for a super high-speed Internet connection that supplements a similar contract with the city's main provider, AT&T Inc., said Kamton M. Joe, assistant general manager in the city's Information Technology Agency.

Qwest Communications International Inc. founder Philip Anschutz agreed to sell 43 million shares last week, part of a plan to liquidate more than 90% of his stake in the fourth-largest telephone company. Through a series of forward-sale contracts disclosed between June and last week, Anschutz stands to reap about $1.39 billion in upfront cash while maintaining control of most of his shares until 2010. Anschutz is Qwest's second-largest shareholder, with a 13% stake, behind Fidelity Investments.

A former Qwest Communications finance chief has reached a tentative settlement in a civil fraud lawsuit stemming from an accounting scandal that forced the telephone company to restate billions of dollars in revenue. Details of Robin Szeliga's proposed settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission are subject to formal approval by SEC officials in Washington, which could take months, according to her attorney, Thomas Reichert.

Qwest Communications International Inc.'s founder and largest shareholder, Philip Anschutz, has sold 80 million shares of the company to Credit Suisse Group, his spokesman confirmed Wednesday. A sale of 66 million shares of stock for about $540 million on Tuesday had caught the attention of at least one analyst who had speculated the seller was Anschutz. J.P.

Telecommunications provider Qwest Communications International Inc. posted a profit for the second quarter as higher sales of bundled products offset a decline in phone access lines. The company's stock rose 61 cents, or 7.8%, to a 52-week high of $8.40. Qwest, the primary local phone service provider in 14 states, mostly in the West and the Midwest, earned $117 million, or 6 cents a share. That compared with a loss of $164 million, or 9 cents a share, in the second quarter of 2005.

Robin Szeliga, a former finance chief at Qwest Communications International Inc., was sentenced to two years' probation, including six months' home detention, and fined $250,000 for insider trading linked to an accounting scandal. Szeliga, 45, pleaded guilty a year earlier and agreed to cooperate in an investigation of the No. 4 U.S. local phone company. Szeliga, chief financial officer in 2001 and 2002, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Walker Miller in Denver, where Qwest is based.