DIGEST
First Union, taking steps to reverse two years of profit declines, said it will sell its credit-card business to MBNA and take a $1 billion pretax gain as a result. Charlotte-based First Union, which said it will sell more than 3 million accounts and $5.5 billion of loans to MBNA, declined to disclose how much MBNA will pay. First Union also informed the Securities and Exchange Commission last week that it may cut as many as 5,291 jobs, double the number it had mentioned in June.</br></br>The Nasdaq Stock Market said it is continuing to halt trading of Value America shares. Trading in the Charlottesville-based company's stock was halted at 4:03 p.m. Friday at a last sale price of 71 7/8 cents a share. Trading will remain halted "until Value America has fully satisfied Nasdaq's request for additional information," the Nasdaq said. At the time of Friday's halt in trading, Value America, a pioneer in Internet retailing, announced it had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection from creditors. The company also halted its electronic retailing operations, shut down its Web site and fired 185 employees.</br></br>Gasoline prices have fallen an average of 7.48 cents a gallon nationwide in the past three weeks, to $1.53, continuing their decline after record highs in some areas in June. The slide began after suppliers rushed gasoline to the Midwest to solve distribution problems in the region, analyst Trilby Lundberg said. Prices in Chicago have fallen 17 cents over the last survey period, 13 cents in Cincinnati and 31 cents in Detroit. The national average price of gas has fallen 18 cents since June 23, when it reached a high of $1.7134. Declines occurred in every region of the country.</br></br>Agilent Technologies, which warned last month that its fiscal third-quarter profit would not meet analysts' expectations, said it will fire about 650 workers at its health-care unit to cut costs. The Palo Alto, Calif.-based maker of testing and measurement instruments will cut about 450 full-time employees, equal to 9 percent of its full-time health-care work force or about 1 percent of its total staff. It also will fire about 200 of its 350 contract workers, a spokeswoman said.</br></br>Chiron, the world's largest maker of a medicine for kidney and skin cancer, said it will buy PathoGenesis for about $700 million in cash, giving Chiron a drug for cystic fibrosis. PathoGenesis's TOBI, an inhaled antibiotic that is used by cystic fibrosis patients, accounted for $60 million of the company's $60.8 million in 1999 sales.