By Sarah McBride and Diane Bartz

(Reuters) – Some members of the U.S. Congress switched sides to oppose antipiracy legislation as protests blanketed the Internet on Wednesday, turning Wikipedia dark and putting black slashes on Google and other sites as if they had been censored.

Content providers who favor the anti-piracy measures, such as Hollywood and the music industry, were scrambling to win back public opinion and official support.

Wikipedia, the world’s free online encyclopedia, shut down for a day. Google and others used the black censorship bars to draw attention to what had until recently been an obscure and technical legislative proposal to curb access to overseas websites that traffic in stolen content or counterfeit goods.

Many of the sites participating in the blackout urged their users to contact their legislators on the issue, a plea that brought quick results.

Several sponsors of the legislation, including Senators Marco Rubio, Roy Blunt and John Boozman, said they were withdrawing their support, and blamed Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid for not heeding criticisms of the Senate version of the bill.

Meanwhile, friends of the bills stepped up their efforts.

By Diane Bartz

(Reuters) – CVS Caremark Corp agreed to pay $5 million to settle charges of inaccurate pricing of some drugs for the elderly and the disabled, ending a wide-ranging, multi-year probe into its business practices.

The Federal Trade Commission said RxAmerica, which CVS bought in 2008, had posted incorrect prices online for some Medicare Part D prescription drugs sold at CVS and Walgreen Co stores. In some cases, the real prices were 10 times higher than those posted, the FTC said.

The $5 million will be used to reimburse seniors who overpaid, the FTC said in a statement.

CVS said the incorrect pricing was inadvertent.

The settlement had a small impact on CVS shares, which were

up 0.3 percent to $42.15 in afternoon trading.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Deutsche Boerse (DB1Gn.DE: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) won U.S. antitrust approval to buy NYSE Euronext (NYX.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) in a $9 billion deal to create the world’s No. 1 exchange operator, but the transaction still faces serious regulatory headwinds in Europe.

The Justice Department said on Thursday that the deal, which was announced in February, won U.S. approval on condition that a Deutsche Boerse subsidiary, the International Securities Exchange, divest its 31.5 percent interest in Direct Edge.

There have been few critics of the deal in the United States, despite the NYSE’s symbolism as a bastion of American capitalism. The exchange was founded in 1792 when share trading began on a block now designated as Wall Street.

Deutsche Boerse and NYSE must also continue to provide some services, under the Justice Department approval, to Direct Edge, the fourth-largest U.S. stock exchange operator, behind NYSE Euronext, Nasdaq OMX (NDAQ.O: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) and BATS Exchange.

Direct Edge is run by a consortium that includes hedge fund Citadel and investment bank Goldman Sachs Group Inc (GS.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz).

“We are very pleased to have received the approval of the DOJ, an important milestone on our path to completing our compelling Trans-Atlantic combination,” Duncan Niederauer, chief executive of NYSE Euronext, said in an emailed statement.

NYSE Euronext shareholders have already approved the deal.

WASHINGTON, Dec 22 (Reuters) – Deutsche Boerse (DB1Gn.DE: Quote, Profile, Research) won U.S. antitrust approval to buy NYSE Euronext (NYX.N: Quote, Profile, Research) in a $9 billion deal to create the world’s No. 1 exchange operator, but the transaction still faces serious regulatory headwinds in Europe.

The Justice Department said on Thursday that the deal, which was announced in February, won U.S. approval on condition that a Deutsche Boerse subsidiary, the International Securities Exchange, divest its 31.5 percent interest in Direct Edge.

There have been few critics of the deal in the United States, despite the NYSE’s symbolism as a bastion of American capitalism. The exchange was founded in 1792 when share trading began on a block now designated as Wall Street.

Deutsche Boerse and NYSE must also continue to provide some services, under the Justice Department approval, to Direct Edge, the fourth-largest U.S. stock exchange operator, behind NYSE Euronext, Nasdaq OMX (NDAQ.O: Quote, Profile, Research) and BATS Exchange.

Direct Edge is run by a consortium that includes hedge fund Citadel and investment bank Goldman Sachs Group Inc (GS.N: Quote, Profile, Research).

“We are very pleased to have received the approval of the DOJ, an important milestone on our path to completing our compelling Trans-Atlantic combination,” Duncan Niederauer, chief executive of NYSE Euronext, said in an emailed statement.

NYSE Euronext shareholders have already approved the deal.

WASHINGTON, Dec 22 (Reuters) – Deutsche Boerse (DB1Gn.DE: Quote, Profile, Research) won U.S. antitrust approval to buy NYSE Euronext (NYX.N: Quote, Profile, Research) in a $9 billion deal to create the world’s No. 1 exchange operator, but the transaction still faces serious regulatory headwinds in Europe.

The Justice Department said on Thursday that the deal, which was announced in February, won U.S. approval on condition that a Deutsche Boerse subsidiary, the International Securities Exchange, divest its 31.5 percent interest in Direct Edge.

There have been few critics of the deal in the United States, despite the NYSE’s symbolism as a bastion of American capitalism. The exchange was founded in 1792 when share trading began on a block now designated as Wall Street.

Deutsche Boerse and NYSE must also continue to provide some services, under the Justice Department approval, to Direct Edge, the fourth-largest U.S. stock exchange operator, behind NYSE Euronext, Nasdaq OMX (NDAQ.O: Quote, Profile, Research) and BATS Exchange.

Direct Edge is run by a consortium that includes hedge fund Citadel and investment bank Goldman Sachs Group Inc (GS.N: Quote, Profile, Research).

“We are very pleased to have received the approval of the DOJ, an important milestone on our path to completing our compelling Trans-Atlantic combination,” Duncan Niederauer, chief executive of NYSE Euronext, said in an emailed statement.

NYSE Euronext shareholders have already approved the deal.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – AT&T’s decision to focus on its antitrust battle with the U.S. Justice Department for its purchase of T-Mobile may have backfired, irritating the judge overseeing the case and laying the groundwork for a possible deal-killing delay.

The Justice Department said on Friday it would seek to stay or dismiss its lawsuit to stop the $39 billion deal, saying it was effectively dead without approval from telecommunications regulators.

“It’s not a real transaction until they file with the FCC,” Joseph Wayland, the Justice Department’s lead attorney in the case, told U.S. District Judge Ellen Huvelle during a status hearing on the case.

AT&T and Deutsche Telekom’s T-Mobile moved in November to withdraw their filing with the Federal Communications Commission to focus on the antitrust battle.

Both regulators have to give their blessing to the deal, and the FCC emerged recently as a second potent source of opposition by moving to refer the merger to an internal FCC judge and by issuing a staff report savaging the deal for curbing competition and destroying jobs.

Wayland said the government planned to file next week. It was unclear when Huvelle would rule on the motion.

AT&T’s attorney Mark Hansen repeatedly pressed Huvelle on the need to move on with the current trial, slated to begin in February, arguing that the FCC and the Justice Department court fight were largely parallel.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Congressional Republicans grilled Attorney General Eric Holder Thursday over a botched gun-smuggling sting in Mexico, with one lawmaker comparing Holder to Nixon-era Attorney General John Mitchell and another saying “heads should roll.”

“I have no intention of resigning,” said Holder, who has headed the Justice Department since early 2009.

“I’m the attorney general who put an end to these misguided tactics,” he said, defending his handling of an episode that has become an embarrassment for the Obama administration.

The 2009-2010 sting, dubbed “Fast and Furious,” involved selling weapons to “straw buyers” and then tracking them as they made their way south of the border to violent Mexican drug cartels, with the goal of finding top cartel leaders.

But federal agents rarely pursued the weapons as planned. An estimated 2,000 guns went missing. Several hundred have been recovered, while many have been found at crime scenes on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border.

Obama has shown no signs of moving to sack Holder or his subordinates. Republicans eager to score political points against the White House have been investigating for months.

“Some heads should roll,” Republican Representative Jim Sensenbrenner said at an occasionally combative hearing before the House of Representatives Judiciary Committee.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Congressional Republicans grilled Attorney General Eric Holder on Thursday over a botched gun-smuggling sting in Mexico and called on him to make personnel changes at the Justice Department in response.

“Some heads should roll,” Republican Representative Jim Sensenbrenner said at a hearing before the House of Representatives Judiciary Committee.

“What are you going to do to clean up this mess?” Sensenbrenner asked. “The answers that we’ve been getting so far are that ‘Well, somebody else did it,’” he said.

Sensenbrenner said that Lanny Breuer, head of the department’s criminal division and a key lieutenant to Holder, should resign. Sensenbrenner raised the possibility of impeachment, without specifying who should be impeached.

The operation, named Fast and Furious, has become an embarrassment for the Obama administration, but the president has shown no signs of moving to sack Holder or his subordinates.

The operation’s failures have led to resignations of two officials: the U.S. attorney in Arizona, and the acting head of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

The operation was meant to track guns as they moved south of the border to members of the violent Mexican drug cartels after being bought by a so-called straw buyer. However, agents rarely pursued the weapons after they were bought.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Supreme Court hears arguments on Wednesday over whether Prometheus Laboratories may patent instructions for observing changes in a patient’s body to set drug dosages in a decision that could affect the future of “personal medicine.”

The case focuses on Nestle SA unit Prometheus’ patents for using synthetic thiopurine compounds to treat gastrointestinal disorders like Crohn’s disease.

Doctors are told to monitor patients taking the medication for certain metabolites in red blood cells, with the goal of hitting certain levels to assure patients the best treatment with the fewest side effects.

The Mayo Clinic, however, argues that the observations made to determine dosage are akin to a “natural phenomenon,” which by law may not be patented.

There are hundreds of similar patents with methods for helping doctors find which treatment is best for which individual patient, said Hans Sauer of the Biotechnology Industry Organization.

“Investment in personalized medicine could be at stake here. I think it’s very important that the Supreme Court get this right,” he said.

Consumer groups, like the AARP seniors’ advocacy group, disagree vehemently.

WASHINGTON, Dec 6 (Reuters) – Major firms which oppose a proposed deal to merge Medco Health Solutions Inc and Express Scripts Inc feared retaliation and declined to publicly discuss the deal, said Senator Herb Kohl, head of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s antitrust panel.

Senator Richard Blumenthal also took aim at the estimated $26 billion deal, saying it was “problematic” and asking the companies if they would be willing to accept major divestments to win approval for the deal.

The proposed transaction, which was announced in July, would combine two of the three U.S. pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) that are large enough to manage prescription drug benefits for nationwide companies.

Kohl said that, post-merger, Express Scripts and Medco would have 60 percent of the U.S. mail order prescription drug business and 50 percent of the specialty drug market.

“It is notable that no large employer who privately expressed concerns to us wished to testify at today’s hearing, often telling our staff that they feared retaliation from the large PBMs with whom they must do business,” Kohl said.

The chief executives of the two companies, for their part, argued that they were working to push prescription drug prices down while protecting customers by guarding against negative drug interactions.

“We are going to lower prescription drug costs that are far too high,” Express Scripts CEO George Paz said in testimony prepared for the Senate Judiciary Committee’s antitrust panel.