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Northwest Airlines Corp. plans to negotiate a labor contract with its pilots through the weekend as the Aug. 29 deadline nears for a possible strike at the fourth-largest U.S. carrier. Northwest’s Air Line Pilots Assn., which represents about 6,200 pilots, said both sides agreed to withhold details on the negotiations.

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Monsanto Co., already the leading U.S. developer of technology to protect corn from insects, said it is the first to use genetics to make corn plants resistant to root worm, which causes about $1 billion in damage to corn each year in North America. Monsanto doesn’t expect the genetically altered corn, which still requires regulatory approval, to be available to farmers until at least 2001.