New York - The Associated Press (AP), the New York-based news wire, on Monday debuted its Mobile News Network, a multimedia news portal targeted at wireless users, particularly those with Apple (NASD: AAPL) iPhones.

New York - News Corp.'s (NYSE: NWS) Dow Jones & Company announced that it will not renew the news partnership between its Dow Jones Newswires and the Associated Press, and instead has signed a deal to distribute editorial content from rival Agence France-Presse (AFP). The company noted that the deal does not affect agreements between AP and The Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones Factiva. Dow Jones Newswires publishes up to 12,000 items each day, reporting from nearly 90 bureaus worldwide. The company said it also plans to expand its global editorial staff, and that the changes are part of its broader strategy to invest in its global financial news operations.

New York - Viacom's (NYSE: VIA) MTV on Thursday announced that it has recruited 51 citizen journalists to cover the 2008 elections from a youth perspective, and tailor their reports for mobile devices. Members will contribute weekly, multimedia reports in the form of video clips, blogs, animation, photos and podcasts, which will be distributed via a soon-to-launch WAP site, MTV Mobile, Think.MTV.com and to the more than 1,800 sites in the Associated Press Online Video Network.

Dulles, Va. - Eight out of ten children (ages 4-17) regularly play computer or video games, as do 38% of adults, but 43% of parents said they never play games with their kids, according to a new poll from AOL Games and the Associated Press.

New York - Comcast, the nation's largest cable TV provider and operator of a broadband access service with 12.4 million subscribers, or 20% of the U.S. market, is blocking the file-sharing traffic of some of its subscribers in an effort to manage the large amounts of bandwidth they are using, the Associated Press reported.

New York - The Associated Press has filed suit against Moreover Technologies, and parent company VeriSign, alleging the companies have engaged in copyright infringement and have misappropriated the news organization's trademarks.

San Francisco - Google has begun publishing full stories from news agencies such as the Associated Press, Agence France-Presse, Canadian Press and Britain's Press Association on its Google News aggregation service, Reuters reported.

New York - The Associated Press announced on Tuesday that it has signed a deal with NBC Sports and NBC Olympics, to provide NBC-produced text content and video links related to the 2008 Olympic Games through a premium online service. News publishers that subscribe to the premium AP service will receive the news agency's own Olympics coverage along with links to footage from NBC, which owns the exclusive broadcast rights to the Olympics.

New York - The Associated Press will shutter asap, its two-year-old premium multimedia news service geared towards a younger, YouTube-friendly demographic, after it failed to attract enough interest from its newspaper partners, the AP reported. The site offers AP news videos, in addition to asap-produced videos and podcasts, and counts about 200 newspaper subscribers. "We're in the business of providing news coverage in a fiscally responsible way," AP executive editor Kathleen Carroll said in an AP interview. "If we launch a product that is intended to generate revenues, they need to generate sufficient revenue for us to continue to produce them."

Washington - The Associated Press said this week that 85 more radio and 15 new television stations have added its Online Video Network and MSN player to their websites. The AP said that its network that airs video news reports now reaches 61 million unique visitors through over 1,800 affiliates.

Redwood City, Calif. - The Associated Press announced on Thursday that it will work with a Redwood City, Calif.-based start-up called Attributor to monitor how its stories, photos and videos are used online, and detect copyright violations.

New York - The Associated Press' asap multimedia news service on Monday announced plans to launch a new blog focused on the AP wire, as well as two new video news segments. The "Far and Wide" blog, which launches on Tuesday, will include text, audio, video and photos in up to 25 posts a day on a variety of news areas. Readers will be able to respond to stories and interact with AP staffers. AP also plans to launch a biweekly video show on religion called "Everything Sacred," and a weekly video game report called "Up Down Left Right."

San Francisco - The Associated Press is set to debut an upgraded version of its online video service that will allow its newspaper and broadcast partners to upload their own local clips and ads, Beet TV reported. The system, based on technology from Microsoft, is currently in beta testing with 30 newspapers and broadcasters, including the The Miami Herald and Houston Chronicle. The AP's video service is currently used by about 1,600 U.S. newspapers and broadcasters, and will stream around 7.5 million clips this month.

Reston, Va. - Voxant, an online distributor and promoter of news content from more than 150 sources, said that it has partnered with AP Digital, a commercial division of The Associated Press (AP). Under the deal, a selection of AP news video, articles and photos will be made available to thousands of websites and blogs through Voxant's TheNewsRoom.

New York - The Associated Press said that it has signed an agreement with NowPublic.com, a Vancouver, Canada-based site that features contributions from "citizen journalists," that allows AP to use photos, videos and news from the site. AP's vice president and director of strategic planning, Jim Kennedy, said that AP editors will work with the site to ensure the accuracy of its content, which will be chosen at AP editors' discretion to supplement the work of AP journalists. NowPublic.com members will be compensated and credited for their work.

Seattle - Nintendo is slated to launch the Wii News Channel on Saturday, a free service that will deliver Associated Press news stories and photographs over the Internet directly to its next-generation Wii video game console. The AP will provide news in English, French, Spanish, Dutch, German and Swiss-German for the service, which has no immediate plans to sell ad space, Nintendo's Perrin Kaplan told AP. Japanese news agency Goo will supply Japanese-language news for the Wii News Channel.

San Jose, Calif. - A private investigator involved in the Hewlett-Packard boardroom spying scandal on Friday pleaded guilty to identity theft and conspiracy charges, the Associated Press reported.