Chicago - Tribune (NYSE: TXA), the Chicago-based newspaper publisher that owns The Baltimore Sun, Los Angeles Times and Chicago Tribune, has become the first major newspaper chain to give notice that it will drop the Associated Press wire service, Editor & Publisher reported.

New York - Newsgathering agency The Associated Press announced on Tuesday that it has selected thePlatform to power its Online Video Network, replacing previous partner Microsoft (NASD: MSFT). The network syndicates AP video content to more than 2,100 newspaper, broadcast and other media websites in the U.S., and claims 61 million monthly unique visitors. The AP told PaidContent that Microsoft will continue to serve ads for its Online Video Network.

New York - Newsgathering agency the Associated Press has settled the copyright and trademark infringement lawsuit it filed last October against news aggregation service Moreover Technologies and its parent company, VeriSign.

Encinitas, Calif. - Verve Wireless, a provider of mobile products and services for publishers, has raised $3 million in its second round of venture capital financing, led by the Associated Press with participation from Iron Capital and others, VentureWire reported.

New York - The Associated Press (AP) has released a statement saying that it has settled an issue with a blogger whom it had demanded remove several posts that quoted short excerpts from AP stories. "In response to questions about the use of Associated Press content on the Drudge Retort web site, the AP was able to provide additional information to the operator of the site, Rogers Cadenhead, on Thursday," the AP said in a statement. "That information was aimed at enabling Mr. Cadenhead to bring the contributed content on his site into conformance with the policy he earlier set for his contributors. Both parties consider the matter closed."

New York - The Associated Press (AP) newsgathering agency will attempt to define how much attributed borrowing constitutes "fair use" of its news articles and broadcasts for bloggers and other websites, The New York Times reports. The AP last week asked a blog called the Drudge Retort to remove seven posts that contained quotes from AP articles that ranged from 39 to 79 words.

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.