IN BRIEF
WASHINGTON
Court stays out of fight over dangers of cigarette smoking
The Supreme Court has rejected appeals by the Obama administration and the nation's largest tobacco companies to get involved in a legal fight about the dangers of cigarette smoking that has stretched more than 10 years.
The court's action, issued without comment Monday, leaves in place court rulings that the tobacco industry illegally concealed for decades the dangers of smoking. But it also prevents the administration from trying to extract billions of dollars from the industry either in past profits or to fund a national campaign to curb smoking.
In asking the court to hear its appeal, the administration said the industry's half-century of deception "has cost the lives and damaged the health of untold millions of Americans."
The appeal was signed by Elena Kagan, the solicitor general, a couple of months before President Barack Obama nominated her to the Supreme Court.
Philip Morris USA, the nation's largest tobacco maker, its parent company Altria Group Inc., R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., British American Tobacco Investments Ltd. and Lorillard Tobacco Co. filed separate but related appeals that took issue with a federal judge's 1,600-page opinion and an appeals court ruling that found the industry engaged in racketeering and fraud over several decades.
NEW YORK
Frontier Drilling bought by Noble Corp. for $2.16 billion
Offshore drilling services company Noble Corp. is bulking up its operations while signaling that business as usual won't return to the Gulf of Mexico for some time.
The Swiss company said Monday it will buy privately held Frontier Drilling for $2.16 billion in cash and struck $4 billion worth of new contracts with Royal Dutch Shell.
Noble is also giving Shell the right to suspend any contracts the two have for rigs operating in the Gulf because of the proposed U.S. moratorium on drilling in deep water.
The agreements with Shell cover two ultra deepwater projects and are subject to closing the deal with Frontier.
NEW YORK
MSpot streams music libraries to computers, Android phones
A music service launched Monday lets you listen to your collection of tunes from any computer or Android phone over the Internet.
MSpot's service stores your music on its computers and lets users access it remotely through a Web browser. It makes use of a concept known as "cloud computing," following music subscription services such as Rhapsody and Thumbplay. But unlike those, which offer access to huge collections of songs for a monthly fee, mSpot users play music they already own.
MSpot, which until Monday was available to a closed group of "beta" testers, is free for 2 gigabytes of music, or about 1,600 songs. It charges between $3 and $14 per month for up to 100 gigabytes of extra storage.
To use mSpot, you first install an application for your PC or Mac, which lets you pick songs to upload to the company's servers. This can be music you've downloaded from online stores or ripped from compact discs.
