Business News

Microsoft Corporation chairman Bill Gates has purchased a stake in Cox Communications Incorporated for about $500 million.

Insurance Commissioner John Oxendine said Thursday that Humana Employers Health Care of Georgia, Inc., has been fined $400,000 for violating the state's prompt pay law.

BellSouth Corporation has agreed to pay $200,000 and enhanced retirement benefits to a former employee who alleged in a federal lawsuit she was fired because of her age.

Eli Lilly and Co. on Thursday reported a 25 percent decline in earnings for the fourth quarter as the drugmaker suffered from the loss of its patent on Prozac and the emergence of a less expensive generic version of the anti-depressant pill.

Compaq Computer Corporation said Thursday it will begin marketing high-speed Internet access from EarthLink Incorporated on its Presario consumer computers.

Six former Tyson Foods Inc. managers surrendered to federal authorities Thursday and planned to plead innocent to charges of conspiring to smuggle illegal immigrants to work at 15 chicken processing plants in nine states.

Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan told Congress Thursday that he saw encouraging signs that the country's first recession in a decade could soon end.

Kenneth L. Lay stepped down as chairman and chief executive of Enron Corp. after watching the the company he built into an energy giant tumble into bankruptcy.

The Board of Directors of GB&T Bancshares Inc. declared a cash dividend of 8 cents per share for the quarter ending Dec. 31, 2001.

Judy Presley, CRB, GRI, of the Hall County
Board of REALTORS has been elected as vice president of professional development.