SCANA Energy vying for area gas customers
		Web-posted 11/12/98   Georgia's most aggressive natural gas marketer is also the first to set up an office in Augusta. Atlanta-based SCANA Energy plans to tap into the city's $26 million residential gas market by opening a sales and customer service office at Daniel Village shopping center.

	Kmart to give face-lifts to three stores in area
	Web-posted 11/12/98   Kmart is spending millions to convince customers that bigger is better. The Troy, Mich.-based company plans to renovate all three of its Augusta-area stores as part of a strategy to upgrade its discount department stores throughout the nation.

Brush costs company millions

Web-posted 11/12/98   A jury awarded Arcadian Fertilizer -- now PCS Nitrogen -- $3.78 million for damages caused by a scrub brush. The verdict was announced Wednesday in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Georgia after seven days of trial. The jury found Hebron, Ohio-based MPW Industrial Services negligent for leaving behind a finger-size piece of a wire brush in a tube it was cleaning at PCS Nitrogen's local fertilizer plant.

	FedEx says some deliveries may be curtailed
	Web-posted 11/12/98   MEMPHIS, Tenn. -- Federal Express Corp. on Thursday considered temporary cutbacks in next-day deliveries and some other services if the company's pilots strike over the busy holidays.

	IRS 'problem solvers' gain toll-free line
	Web-posted 11/12/98   WASHINGTON -- Taxpayers with hard-to-fix problems will have a new toll-free hot line giving them access to Internal Revenue Service advocates who have broader authority to intervene and tell aggressive enforcement agents to back off.

	Unemployment benefit claims rise to four-month high
	Web-posted 11/12/98   WASHINGTON -- The number of Americans filing applications for unemployment checks jumped 12,000 to a seasonally adjusted 321,000 last week, the highest level since the General Motors strikes flooded Midwestern unemployment offices with applicants this summer.

	Lockout stops league, not sales at new Fifth Avenue store
		Web-posted 11/12/98   NEW YORK -- The front entrance, a glass-and-steel edifice on posh Fifth Avenue, comes with an Addams Family twist: four muscular metal arms -- Thing on androstenedione? -- each palming a basketball on its revolving doors.

	Texaco cutting 1,000 jobs, blaming lower oil prices
	Web-posted 11/12/98   NEW YORK -- Texaco Inc. is cutting 1,000 jobs, or 5 percent of its work force, becoming the latest big oil company to announce cutbacks because of a worldwide slump in oil prices.

	Oil company settles lawsuit filed by black employees
	Web-posted 11/12/98   HOUSTON -- Pennzoil Co. has agreed to pay $6.75 million to as many as 700 black employees to settle a federal lawsuit accusing the oil company of discriminatory employment practices.

	Minorities not getting mortgages
	Web-posted 11/12/98   NEW YORK -- In these days of easy credit, Alice Scott of Houston was told her $20,000 annual earnings as a freelance hairdresser weren't enough to qualify for a $15,000 mortgage.

	U.S., Japan suggest new tactics to heal world economy
	Web-posted 11/12/98   KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia -- The United States and Japan suggested new tactics Thursday to fight the world financial crisis as they prepared for talks next week by President Clinton and the leaders of 20 other Pacific Rim countries.

	Tokyo stocks fall on disappointment over stimulus plan
	Web-posted 11/12/98   TOKYO -- Tokyo share prices fell sharply today as investors found nothing fresh in the Japanese ruling party's proposed economic stimulus package. The U.S. dollar rose against the yen on speculation the United States was planning to attack Iraq.

	Russia expects to begin receiving E.U. food aid in January
	Web-posted 11/12/98   MOSCOW -- Russia plans to seek a second restructuring of its Soviet-era foreign debt, the deputy finance minister says, a move likely to further undermine the government's sullied reputation among foreign creditors.

	Treehouse builder is no longer out on a limb
	Web-posted 11/12/98   TAKILMA, Ore. -- Treehouse hotelier Michael Garnier is finally coming in from the cold. For eight years, Garnier built whimsical and ever-more-elaborate treehouses on his property without zoning approval or building permits. Then he came up with a legal dodge that allowed him to charge guests $70 to $125 a night to sleep up among the branches.

	Business briefs
	Web-posted 11/12/98   State Farm bluring line between banking and insurance ... Privatizing Social Security faces hurdles ... Mortgage rates rise