April 28, 1995

Negotiators from the United States and Japan reported some progress in trade talks on automobiles and auto parts today, raising the possibility that an agreement could be reached next month and avert American sanctions on Japan. Officials from both sides said, however, that wide differences still remained between the countries following talks here among technical experts on Wednesday and today.

A bomb threat, an evacuation and the arrest of a suspect lifted Take Our Daughters to Work Day into the realm of the extraordinary for state employees at the Department of Environmental Protection building. Shortly before noon a threat was phoned in, including a warning to get the children out. When the threat was repeated in a call to the police, the authorities said they were able to trace it to a public telephone, where John Yeager, 37, of Trenton was arrested. No bomb was found.

At an often combative annual meeting of the Philip Morris Companies that was a magnet for anti-tobacco activists who tried to transform the proceedings into a cigarette circus, stockholders voted overwhelmingly today to elect management's slate of 14 directors. The victory trounced a symbolic protest vote that had been spearheaded by some of the company's large institutional shareholders. In addition, voters rejected by a wide margin six shareholder proposals that had been opposed by Philip Morris management.

In a major setback for the Microsoft Corporation, the Justice Department filed an antitrust lawsuit here today to block the company's planned $2 billion acquisition of Intuit Inc., maker of Quicken, the leading personal finance software program. The Justice Department opposes the merger -- which would be the largest ever in the software industry -- on the ground that it could lead to higher prices and fewer consumer choices in the market for personal computer software used for balancing checkbooks, tracking investments and other financial housekeeping tasks. Intuit's Quicken and a similar Microsoft program called Money together control more than 90 percent of the market.

After a last-minute change of heart by a City Councilman, a plan for a 53,000-square-foot supermarket in the economically depressed community of East Harlem passed a crucial vote yesterday by the Manhattan Borough Board. The $12 million project, which has been in the planning stages for more than four years, in recent weeks had escalated into a political, ethnic and corporate struggle.