Business in Brief

Manufacturers peition Bush administration\nWASHINGTON, D.C. -- U.S. textile and clothing manufacturers petitioned the Bush administration Tuesday to protect them against a surge of Chinese imports next year when worldwide quotas are removed, arguing that thousands of U.S. jobs are at stake.\nThe industry wants the administration to impose limits of 7.5 percent on the growth of Chinese products in 10 categories. It also asked for "safeguard" limits that were imposed last year on three other product lines to be extended for another year.\nThe petitions cover cotton and synthetic trousers, wool trousers, cotton and synthetic knit shirts, cotton sheets, cotton yarn, shirts and underwear. The administration will have to make an initial ruling on the technical merits of the petition on Nov. 1, the day before the election.\nFlorida's supply of oranges will decrease\nORLANDO, Fla. -- Florida will have the smallest orange crop in a decade after a series of hurricanes blew fruit off trees and flooded groves in the state that produces 75 percent of the nation's citrus, a federal forecast released Tuesday shows.\nFlorida's grapefruit crop will also be down by nearly two-thirds from last season, the U.S. Department of Agriculture survey said.\nThe diminished crops probably will increase prices growers earn for their fruit, but have little effect on the price of fresh oranges, since most of Florida's oranges are turned into juice.\nJury to investigate corporation's lack of flu vaccine\nSAN FRANCISCO -- A federal grand jury is investigating Chiron Corp.'s failure to supply the nation with half the needed flu vaccine this year, the company said Tuesday in a regulatory filing.\nThe Emeryville, Calif.-based company said it received a subpoena from the U.S. Attorney in New York, the same office that recently prosecuted Martha Stewart and former star investment banker Frank Quattrone in unrelated financial scandals.\nThe subpoena demanded documents and other information related to British regulators prohibiting Chiron from shipping about 48 million Fluvirin vaccine shots from its Liverpool plant because of contamination concerns, the company said in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing. Officials with Chiron and the U.S. Attorney's office declined comment.\nSupreme court refuses phone company appeals\nNEW YORK -- The Supreme Court declined Tuesday to hear three appeals seeking to reinstate federal rules forcing local phone carriers to lease their networks to rivals at discount rates set by the government -- ensuring no last-minute reprieve for AT&T Corp. and MCI Corp. in their retreat from the consumer market.\nThe court, without comment, let stand a lower ruling that the Federal Communications Commission had failed to justify the need for the rules, which had enabled AT&T and others to lure millions of local phone subscribers away from the regional Bells with attractive offers.\nFew on either side of the dispute had expected the Supreme Court to take the case once the White House decided back in June that it wouldn't challenge the ruling.