Also. . .

* Woolworth Corp. said it will close its 82 money-losing Kinney Shoe stores in Canada and fire about 600 employees as it focuses on its profitable Foot Locker, Champs and other sporting-goods chains.

* A former Chase Manhattan Bank Corp. employee agreed to pay $25,000 to settle Securities and Exchange Commission charges that he illegally traded in the stocks of Lotus Development Corp. before the software maker was acquired by IBM Corp. in 1995. Robert Scott Jr. settled charges without admitting or denying wrongdoing. The insider-trading investigation is continuing.

* Tele-Communications Inc. agreed to pay $6.1 million in damages to settle a 4-year-old lawsuit involving 6,800 investors who claimed the company defrauded them in the sale of cable-TV system partnerships, according to a published report.

* Telewest Communications, Britain’s second-largest cable TV company, agreed to buy General Cable for $1.5 billion in stock, cash and assumed debt, turning up the heat in a race to dominate the country’s cable market.